The Yogabliss, Two Rivers/RiverTree Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Valentine’s Day is when we traditionally gift each other affection.  Affection springs from empathy.   Empathy makes so much possible:  acceptance, forgiveness, kindness, patience and understanding.  We start by sitting still.  Jon Kabat Zinn describes “sitting still and being quiet for a time as a radical act of love.”  When thinking about why this is loving, I was reminded of trying to meet the sometimes inexhaustible needs of a baby.  I can bring so much willingness to a baby in my arms – especially when there is another set of arms when I get tired.  One doesn’t control a baby.  One doesn’t control the mind.  Paradoxically we can become intimate with the nature of our minds.  The loving awareness of our hearts can hold distraction, strong emotion, fatigue and even pain.

Sitting still this week I connected with that part of myself that spends so much energy trying to avoid feeling vulnerable.  This is like trying to hide from the sun.  Meditation is not about trying to stop thinking.  It’s a practice that embraces our wholeness.  Gradually we develop an inner stability to recognize the many mind-states we try to hide from – vulnerability, self-judgment, anger, fear among so many others.  Slowly we learn to relax, tolerate and finally feel compassion for our difficult emotions.  You can do it.  You can be it.  It starts with sitting still, relaxing and trusting.

We drew inspiration from poet Galway Kinnell’s poem, St. Francis and the Sow.  Kinnell’s work was informed by his experience as a field worker in the Congress of Racial Equality and activist in the civil rights movement.  He was a passionate follower of Walt Whitman.

In his essay, Healing the Cracks, Buddhist monk and meditation teacher Ajahn Sucitto describes ways of expanding the field of “loving awareness.”  He teaches about empathy and “inter-subjectivity.”  When we can offer ourselves empathy we can expand to include others.  We can refrain from imprisoning ourselves and others in judgment.  We can learn to accept our feeling, thinking selves as a constellation of experiences that are ever-changing.  We are all subject to conditioning. We can learn to cultivate loving conditions, emotions and thoughts.

Finally we heard David Whyte’s poem Second Sight.  David’s poem touches on our basic human needs to be seen, heard and touched.

Relaxed Reflection

Come back to the inquiry of how you are inclining your mind . . . let whatever surfaces simple be in you heart awareness . . . See if you can start creating some space around it . . . an open-hearted . . . non-judgmental presence . . . . Can you offer yourself the experience of truly being seen? Truly being heard? Can you let there be some tenderness for this experience? Intentionally inclining mind . . . with loving kindness . . . Seeing whatever surfaces in your heart awareness and allowing it simply to be . . . to breathe . . . to change . . . lovingly listening . . . lovingly present . . . Can you cultivate loving feelings . . . acceptance . . . unconditional love? Unconditionally loved and accepted as you are . . . without having to be different, without having to be worthy . . . without having to be deserving . . .You may not feel these feelings . . . No need to struggle . . . perhaps simply remembering that you’ve been loved . . . loved just as you are . . . for who you are . . .

As you feel ready . . . tune into your heart’s awareness . . . see if you can become the source as well as the object of these same feelings . . . taking on feelings of love . . . acceptance . . . kindness . . . beyond judgment . . . . Cradling your own heart . . . like the loving embrace of a mother for her child . . . a part of you a loving mother . . . a loving child . . . In this loving embrace hearing phrases being whispered by the breath . . . May I be safe . . . May I be well . . . May I be happy . . . May I live with ease . . . Perhaps the words are different for you . . . See if you can give yourself a true blessing . . . Taking in whatever you can . . . letting it be . . . like the humble, simple self-blessing described by poet Galway Kinnell in

Saint Francis and the Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Drink in life through the breath . . . let the breath nourish you . . . feeling aliveness in this time we imagine to be passing . . . in moments . . . You can feel your body gradually relaxing those hard and soft edges of outer and inner layers . . . Slowly relating to Body as a living sentient being . . . a field of awareness pulsing with energy . . . flowering from within . . . Now sensing that part of the field – your awareness – that continues meeting the ever changing expressions of Body, Heart, Mind . . . Awareness flowering within . . .

And we can tune into the self-blessings of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. We can tune into the loveliness that exists ready to be recognized in the space we create “in open hearted, non-judgmental presence . . . “ This open-hearted, non-judgmental presence is loving kindness naturally arising. We incline our minds and open our hearts to meet whatever arises with curiosity and care. This includes our thoughts and emotions. This includes the thoughts and emotions of others.

Meditation teacher Ajahn Sucitto describes about expanding the field of loving kindness. He writes:

. . . every ‘me’ requires a ‘you’. . . . Every human being is made by other humans . . . physically born out of our mothers’ bodies . . . we are weaned and raised by other people. We are seen, held, appreciated, tempered, challenged by other people. We are constantly modeled and modeling other people.

Ajahn says that entering subjectivity is one of the biggest lessons of our lives. Subjective awareness allows us to see beyond the person we call ‘angry’ to the fluid changing energy that is anger. We recognize this person – like us – experiences anger, fear . . . yearns for comfort and needs security. Subjectivity becomes mutual. He writes:

There is beauty in true empathy, true openness . . As we put our projections aside the natural movement of empathy arises.

All of us yearn to be seen, to be heard, to be touched, to love and be loved. In this way we come to learn our loveliness. Right now we can reflect on the many ways we find the deep connection that lifts us up; the closeness in which we feel safe, the moment that inspires reverence. Perhaps in friendship, in nature, in the great mystery of the world.

Poet David Whyte describes the journey that eventually brings us to the heart of another in his poem Second Sight:

Sometimes, you need the ocean light,
and colours you’ve never seen before
painted through an evening sky.
Sometimes you need your God
to be a simple invitation
not a telling word of wisdom.
Sometimes you need only the first shyness
that comes from being shown things
far beyond your understanding,
so that you can fly and become free
by being still and by being still here.
And then there are times you want to be
brought to ground by touch
and touch alone.
To know those arms around you
and to make your home in the world
just by being wanted.
To see eyes looking back at you,
as eyes should see you at last,
seeing you, as you always wanted to be seen,
seeing you, as you yourself
had always wanted to see the world.