The Mystical Organ of the Heart
"If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are."
--From Clouds in Each Paper by Tich Nhat Hanh
The Heart is an extraordinary organ. In Chinese characters, all the physical organs have a flesh radical as part of the character. Except the Heart. This has profound implications.
We know, from our own experience, that the Heart is not just a pump. The Heart is where we feel a full range of emotion and connection from love to anguish. We refer to the Heart in common conversational English in a way that we do not with other organs. Heartbroken, heart sick, change of heart, follow your heart, cross your heart, heart in your mouth, lose heart, touch your heart and my heart is bleeding. We have heart emojis but none for the other organs. When we walk into a room and know that people were just laughing, we want to know what was funny, that is the Heart sensing the experience of everyone in the room. Sensing all the hearts. By the same token, sitting with a friend in grief, we get choked up and teary. Again, it is the Heart that is connected in empathy for our friend. The Heart has the mysterious ability to connect us with others like the tin can and string telephones we made as children.
The human heart is unique in this way among all other creatures on earth. Not that our animal friends are not sensitive to our emotional states, but for human beings it is different. This difference arises out of the nature of our consciousness. We are the only creatures on earth that live in a state of duality, the idea that you and I are separate. We have separate identities. We can see this being formed in the development of children between the ages of two and three when they learn the word and concept of “me” and “mine.” We call it the “terrible twos,” but that is what is happening. The ego is beginning to solidify, and they are exploring their individual personhood. There are no other beings on earth that do this. In western culture, we stress individualism and have lost the ancestral knowing that all of creation is interconnected.
As individuals, we live with a worldview that we are separate from each other and separate from the Natural world. Rarely, do we pause to wonder if that is actually a valid assumption. We take that as a given reality. If that were the case, then how can it be that I can feel your joy or grief? What if we and all of creation were inter-related, connected in a subtle way that allows me to feel your joy or your grief through the mystical organ of the Heart?
It is not something you can look at directly. We cannot see the string between the cans. Because it cannot be seen in that way, we can instead look for signs of its presence. Interconnectedness is like wind. We cannot see wind itself, but we can see its effect as it moves over the landscape. All the trees, ferns, ponds, chipmunks, birds, and humans experience a passing breeze, connecting them all by a common thread. We can learn to read it like a sailor learns to read the wind over the water, adjusting her sails, without conscious awareness that she is doing so.
The image of Indra’s Net from Mahayana Buddhism is a useful metaphor to help us see the strings and read the wind. In the Vedic tradition of Buddha’s time, Indra was the ruler of all gods. Indra’s realm is an infinite three-dimensional net, stretching in all directions like a 3-D spider’s web. It is an image of how the universe is held together. At the intersection of each thread is an infinitely faceted jewel that reflects all the other jewels. Each jewel represents a being or aspect of creation. Anything that affects one jewel is reflected in all the others, into infinity. Every jewel reflects all the others while none hinders another. The thread connecting each jewel is this mystical aspect of the Heart. While this is a heady concept, it helps us begin to grasp the concept of the interconnected, interpenetrated, interbeing, inter-are nature of reality.
As the pandemic moves like wind across the global landscape, sometimes like a gentle breeze and sometimes with a gale force, human existence is being reshaped. We are at a turning point in so many aspects of how we live, from climate change, to politics, to social reform, to wealth/resource distribution… Living the knowing of the reality that our individual livelihood and well-being depends on the livelihood and well-being of all sentient beings, including the Earth, would change the legacy we are leaving to future generations and the course of history.
How do we do that? A change of Heart. The problems of the world are so big we feel overwhelmed and powerless to do anything. If we change our point of view, that changes everything. We can start to consciously cultivate the forgotten skill of reading the winds that indicate that the connective strings are there by engaging in the simple, timeless activities that human beings have been part of since the beginning. Like, preparing and sharing seasonal meals with gratitude for the Earth and the farmer who provided them. Make a practice of walking the same route most days and observing the turning of the year in what is blooming or fading and how the light is changing. Say “hello” to the ocean, the hills and trees that catch your eye. They are calling to you, waiting for your conscious connection. Taking full moon walks and say “hello” to the moon and admire her beauty. Garden with the consciousness that the soil is alive and connecting you to the soul of the Earth herself. Say ”hello” to the soil and be grateful for the myriad beings that live there and provide the basis for all of life. And, if you are in the neighborhood, come take a stroll through my garden and say “hello” to the big apple tree. She is the Grand Dame of the garden and loves visitors.
Upcoming Class
I have heard back from a number of you expressing interest in a class starting in September and a curiosity for more details. I am starting with the idea that some of you will find it supportive and nourishing to have an organizing structure in the midst of the turbulence of the great changes that are happening and will continue to happen for quite some time. I want to help you build a way of working with the invisible threads that support Life that western culture has forgotten about in the last 350 years or so. A structure to find our way to the basic Truths of what it is to be a human citizen of the Earth at this time. All the changes that are happening in the underpinnings of our way of life feel very unsettling and I am seeing a lot of background anxiety in people (and myself), which saps us of the vitality needed to fully live into the potential we are given for this lifetime and to be help those around us. I want to share with you how I have been working to cultivate a still point as the basis from which I can grow into that potential and be of service to others.
So, using the wheel of the year, and the movement of the earth around the sun, we will start that cultivation.
This is the basic map of our journey around the sun. We will start at the Autumnal Equinox and move our way, month by month around the year. There is a blog post explaining some of the basics of how to read this diagram here: https://www.camdenacupuncture.me/resources
You can print it out from here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ea887da8538c114e5a91fca/t/5eadc634c40da37246da20bb/1588446794907/FourSeasons.pdf
With each passing month, we will endeavor to orient and align ourselves with the season by understanding and choosing lifestyle practices and activities that resonate with the cyclical sweeping movement of the Earth’s vibration through the year. There will be time for learning some new ideas and practices, time for discussion and time for healing meditation.
I am hoping to do this as an in-person group, though if we can set up Zoom for those who can’t be with us every month, a hybrid might work, too. I’m imagining a two-hour chunk of time, on a Sunday afternoon could work nicely. There will be a small fee, that I’m not sure about yet as it depends on the cost of the space I find.