Saying ‘Yes’ to an open heart

Diana Winston

I’d like to propose that mindfulness true blue mindfulness-is the open heart. Sure, the purists can define mindfulness as “paying attention to the present moment with an open and curious stance,but that definition can be staid, sort of dull, and inadvertently can take the heart out of a practice, which is, in truth, all heart.

I remember in my early years of mindfulness practice, I got attached to subtle mental states of concentration. I was intensely curious and amazed by my mind, but secretly I felt the practice was a little dry - too much in the head. So I spent a few years seeking out gurus in India, hoping for a bhakti hit to make my practice juicier. I later realized I was looking for love in all the wrong places outside myself instead of inside.

That’s when I discovered that mindfulness practice itself is the open heart. And here’s how it works; First you start out on the cushion (or chair for the less pretzelly inclined) and you attend to your present moment experience, no matter what it is - good, bad, or ugly. And as you practise and get some skill - “Hey I can sit here and be okay in the midst of knee pain, in the midst of my aching back, my frayed nerves” - then you realize just this: the capacity to be mindful means having an open heart. It’s not a theory, it’s a heart/bodyfelt insight.

Breathing

Why is this so? Because as you sit there, hour after hour, you learn to say yes. Yes to your jagged breathing, yes to your itchy scalp. Yes to the leaf blower dude across the street, yes to your grief and pain and shame and grandiosity and fear. Not because you want to act on these things, but because they’re true, and fleeting, and simply part of who you are (but not the half of who you really are). Your nervous system begins to relax - at last you’re acknowledging the truth of things.

Saying yes means attending to and surrendering to your experience whatever it is. It means feeling your body when you’re in the midst of a strong reaction or emotion, and letting whatever you find be there. It means coming back to your breath, again and again. It means noticing that thoughts and feelings and sensations come and go.

You say yes to your pride, your stupidity, your murderous rage. Naturally you don’t act on your murderous rage, but you allow it to be true within you. It is a very inclusive practice. Nothing is ever left out.

Experience

You discover that if you are pushing away your experience, even ever so slightly, your mindfulness is not fully realized, not quite formed. It is tainted by aversion, even just subtly. Now sometimes you truly can’t say yes, and then you say yes to the no: I hate that I’m not feeling okay, but I’m actually okay with not being okay.

Saying yes in mindfulness practice eventually begins to spill over into your everyday experience. You start to say yes - with awareness - again and again: yes when that guy cuts you off in traffic, yes when your email box is spammed to the brim, yes when your doctor is an hour late, yes even when you lose a treasured person, place, or thing. You say yes to your experience of the present moment, whatever it is. You no longer reject and armour your heart. Not that you necessarily agree with the moment, or would wish it on anyone, or think it’s desirable, or wouldn’t try to rectify injustice, but you say yes because whatever life brings is just that, life as it is. And by saying yes, you let go deep down inside and can step forward with poise and balance and clarity to the next right thing.

My six-month-old daughter has been waking me up hourly this week to night nurse. Sometimes I say no. Oh god, not again, what’s wrong with her? Will I ever get to sleep again? In those moments, mindfulness is a vague “good idea” somewhere in my sleep deprived brain. But other nights this week when she cries I simply, without thought, say yes. Yes, darling, feast. yes, I’ll be with you. Yes, I’m awake and that’s just how things are. I listen to the stillness of the night (rare in Los Angeles), feel her warm body and attend to her snuffling slurps, and sigh that yes, this is life. A deep peace sets in over me.

By doing this practice of yes, by mindfully embracing each moment with a willingness to accept things as they are, with a willingness to be with life - inner and outer - exactly as it unfolds, you may be able to look down at your chest and realize that your heart is gigantic. It’s expansive, spacious, broken open, like a big, fat suitcase overflowing with warm, comfy, oh-so familiar clothes.

You open and open, you attend and attend you say yes, again and again, and then over time, the mindfully opened heart is more and more just who you are. Courtesy summer 2010 Buddhadarma.

Saying yes means attending to and surrendering to your experience, whatever it is. You say yes to your pride, your stupidity. It is a very inclusive practice. - Diana Winston.

Nothing can bring peace but by yourself

Ven. Mahanuwara Sasanawanse Thera
Sri Nigrodaramaya Monestery,
Metikumbura,
Polgahawela.

“A few among such men as thee,
The other shore they do reach
Other people who then remain,
They run on this shore again.

Among folk they are few,
Who go to the further shore
Most among humanity
Scurry on this hither shore”.
(Dhammapada 6:10)

“As a frontier city well-guarded,
Within and without, so guard
Yourself. Do not lose a single
Moment, for those who let the
Opportunity slip away do indeed
Grieve when they fall into
Woeful states.
Even as a border town.
Guarded within and without
So should you protect yourself
Do not let this moment pass
For when this moment’s gone they grieve
Sending themselves to hell”.
(Dhammapada 22:10)

The gift of truth excels all other gifts.

If one is capable in guarding his stream of consciousness without allowing it to go to any extraneous object that is the highest degree of knowledge one could achieve.

A perfect uninterrupted moment is the beginning and end of all eternity and deathlessness.

A change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones that we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Peace and joy comes from within.

When a fish swims he swims on an on and there is no end to the water. When a bird flies he flies on and on and there is no end to the sky. Thus it reveals that we are responsible for our misfortunes. If we go probing beneath the surface events in search of main spring of human miseries we will find that it is due to the lack of universal human sympathy in the particular individual’s mind. It is only through the peace of mind of the individual that the peace among the nations can be achieved. If any person keeps his mind far away from the dirt of thinking and looking at others he will become an invaluable flawless diamond. One can enter into the silent sanctuary of his own being is the path of leisurely contemplation.

Discipline within one’s mind is the essence of Buddha Dhamma. By renouncing a small pleasure one derives bliss: So the wise man relinquishes small pleasures in view of the greater one.
(Dhammapada 21:1)

The Buddha expounded spiritual equality of all men and women if they develop their full potentials morally and intellectually. It is only if we have experienced suffering in ample measures that we can resolve to run away from “Samsara” cycle of birth and death, and to work our way out of it. That is something about themselves as they are now, which if understood, at once creates the greatest joy and peace of liberation that man can know.

A man’s true end of destiny in Buddhist terms is harmony with ‘Nibbana’. This supreme order of blissful joy is not a result to be attained through action, but a fact to be realized through knowledge. This could be considered to a psychological aspect of Dhamma is a state of mind called ‘total acceptance” ‘yes’ to everything this moment and every moment.

This supreme bliss of Nibbana does not depend on any external events, it belongs to the nature of the individual who remains unaffected by any kind of suffering.

Each man is the architect of his own destiny. One has to find out for oneself and not through anybody else.

“The cognitive insight arose. The release of my mind cannot be disturbed by any external force. This is my last birth. There is no future becoming”. (The Buddha).

It is impossible to escape reality what is now. It is equally impossible to accept or embrace it. It is always new.

May this mind-healing wisdom of the blessed One be the sufficiency in all things to all beings.