Heart
Matters
“In
undertaking a spiritual life, what matters is simple: We must make
certain that our path is connected with our heart.”
Jack
Kornfield (A Path With Heart)
Jack
Kornfield grew up privileged. He went to an ivy league college, and
was raised in a scientific, intellectual and secular home. What he
found in the rarefied atmosphere of this upper east coast upbringing
was that even with all the comforts and encouragement, the people
around him did not seem to be very happy. So he took himself off to a
Buddhist monastery to seek enlightenment, hoping for ecstatic
experiences and eternal bliss. What he found instead was a way of
life involving work and endurance; he lived simply, possessing only a
robe and a bowl, and walked five miles a day to collect enough food
for one midday meal. He spent the better part of a decade in
intensive meditation, including one year in silent retreat. He
learned that he had to move from his head, down to where his feet
came in contact with the earth. In so doing, he reclaimed his heart,
his body and his spirit.
Whatever
we do in this lifetime, if we want it to count for something, must
connect the brain with the heart, and the heart with the hands and
feet. It must be more than an intellectual exercise and provide more
than monetary gain to be a path with heart. Nor can it be a process
of seeking, or gaining, extraordinary experiences or special powers.
It must be real; hands-on give and take and honest involvement in
life. Enlightenment lies not in ecstatic states, but in the
experience of love and loss, of service and acceptance, of brokenness
and wholeness. The very thing we'd like to avoid is where the juice
of spirit flows most freely. I hate that, but it's true.
Do
not hear this as a repudiation of monastic life, nor of the benefits
of meditation and prayer. These greatly support our
capacity and endurance for staying on the path with heart. But we
must bring ourselves and the benefits of such practice back into the
world in order to close the circle and create meaning.
Jack
Kornfield wrote a book titled, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.
That about sums it up. Whatever we adopt as a spiritual practice
should keep our feet firmly planted on terra firma, and our hearts
connected to our hands.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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