“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. It is the source of hope, accountability and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper or meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
- Brene Brown
To Hold the Rawness of Vulnerability is to “Not Resist What Is”
For the past four years I have been sharing the practice of Qigong and, more importantly, the teachings of unconditional presence. Like many of you, I began this journey as a method to still my own personal anxiety and to improve my wellness. Somewhere along the way, I felt a connection to a higher power and an absolute knowing that my primary purpose was to maintain an open portal to this connection - which I find easy to do when I’m practicing or teaching Qigong and which I find more difficult to do in my daily life. Knowing I am not alone in this challenge, I am continuously drawn to share teachings that nurture the shared aspects of our humanity and to draw up on the strength of one another to enhance our ability to courageously connect again and again and again.
And throughout this journey, I have had the niggling feeling that there is a sense of urgency to this “awakening business”. Like so many, I have felt that humanity is facing a critical threshold of evolution and a calling for a global awakening of the heart.
And now it seems as if this threshold has arrived! Today, we find ourselves living through an precedented time, an era that will go down in history as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amongst the many things I am noticing is the outpouring of inspiration on the internet. It seems as if permission has been granted for vulnerability to be spoken of and for the message of love over fear to (finally) be unabashedly spread. It appears that the stripping away of our world “as we know it” is also stripping away the guardedness so many of us have held around our hearts.
Below is one of such message - though I don’t know of this author, her words struck a deep chord in me…
“When we truly embrace the truth that we are all going to die, that life is a profound gift and each breath is a privilege — every moment becomes infinitely precious.”
-Azrya Cohen Bequer
Embracing What IS
“One definition of the ego that I particularly like is “that which resists what is”. Ego struggles against reality, against the open-endedness and natural movement of life. It is very uncomfortable with vulnerability and ambiguity, with not being quite sure how to pin things down. The ego wants resolution, wants to control impermanence, wants something secure and certain to hold to. It freezes what is actually fluid, it grasps at what is in motion, it tries to escape the beautiful truth of the fully alive nature of everything.
The alternative to this struggle is to train in holding the rawness of vulnerability in our heart.
When we’re resisting or trying to escape from “what is,” there is usually some kind of physical sign - a tightening or contraction somewhere in the body. When you notice this sign of resistance, see if you can stick with the raw feeling of discomfort just for a moment, just long enough for your nervous system to start getting used to it. Through this practice we can eventually accustom our nervous system to relaxing with the truth, to relaxing with the impermanent, uncontrollable nature of things. We can slowly increase our ability to expand rather than contract, to let go rather than cling.”
-Pema Chodron, “Welcoming the Unwelcome”
The essence of what Pema is saying is beautifully captured by Trungpa Rinpoche’s words:
“The wisdom teachings tell us not to reject anything about ourselves and embrace all aspects as the same. Gold is the same as dust. The lotus is part of the mud.”
- Trungpa Rinpoche
I now remind you of a powerful and practical method for embracing vulnerability and awakening the heart:
THE PRACTICE OF TONGLEN “SENDING AND TAKING”
Tonglen practice is a Tibetan Buddhist method for overcoming our fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our hearts. By having the courage to face the pain of others and breathe it in, the Tonglen practice awakens the compassion that is inherent in all of us. Tonglen is difficult to do because it reverses the usual pattern of avoiding suffering and of turning away from our pain and, especially, the pain of others. Tonglen dissolves the layers of self-protection or walls we’ve built around our hearts…it dissolves the fixation and clinging of ego. It is a deep and courageous practice of being deeply present with pain, which is the only way to dissolve it.
The practice is as follows:*
When anything is painful or undesirable, breathe it in.
In other words, don’t resist it.
You surrender to yourself, you acknowledge who you are, you honour yourself.
As unwanted feelings and emotions arise, you actually breathe them in and connect with what all humans feel.
You breathe in for yourself, in the sense that pain is a personal and real experience, but simultaneously there’s no doubt that you’re developing your kinship with all beings. If you can know it in yourself, you can know it in everyone. This practice cuts through culture, economic status, intelligence, race, religion.
Then connect with what for you is a sense of delight - connect with what for you is inspiring, opening, relieving, and relaxing. Start with your feeling of connecting, your feeling of delight, your feeling of connecting with a bigger perspective, your feeling of relief and relaxation. And breathe this out.
When you breathe it it out, you give it away, you send it out to everyone else. By doing so you awaken our connection to all beings. We awaken the collective heart.
* This particular explanation comes from pages 85-86 of Pema’s book: “Comfortable with Uncertainty, 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”
A word from Pema about her first experience with Tonglen:
“After I did Tonglen for the first time, I was amazed to see how I had been subtly using sitting meditation to try to avoid being hurt, to try to avoid depression, discouragement, or bad feelings of any kind. Unknown to myself, I had secretly hoped that if I did the practice I wouldn’t have to feel any pain anymore. When we do tonglen, we invite the pain in. Tonglen takes courage to do, and interestingly enough, it also gives us a lot of courage, because we let it penetrate our armour. It’s a practice that allows us to feel less burdened and less cramped, a practice that shows us how to live without conditions.
Negativity and resentment occur because we’re trying to cover over the soft spot of bodhichitta (the awakened heart). In fact, its because we are tender and deeply touched that we do all this shielding. It’s because we have this genuine heart of sadness to begin with that we even start shielding. In tonglen practice we become willing to begin to expose this most tender part of ourselves.”
“DOUBLE DOWN ON LOVE”
Inspired by one of Brene Brown’s blogs: https://brenebrown.com/blog/2019/10/09/doubling-down-on-love/ I have put together a small playlist on Spotify called Double Down On Love, I would LOVE for you to add to this playlist and see what we can create together!
Click here to hear the entire playlist and click below for individual songs!
Sleepless by Jann Arden
Crowded Table by The Highwomen
Let My Love Open the Door by Pete Townsend
Rainbow by Kacey Musgraves
On Grace…
“What matters, in good times as well as bad, are people and community. It has taken a terrible virus to at least remind us of this eternal truth. Surely, there is grace in that.”
- Kathleen Parker, Washington Post, March 17, 2020
Our Closing Meditation:
Prayer of the Lotus Nectar
Beloved Kuan Yin, help me realize the connection to myself and to Life that I need to be able to live my highest vibrational life, where I am well, replenished, joyful and connected to the endless flow of divine energy and life force in our Universe. Please bring me clear guidance about how to best cultivate chi now, how to be open to receive the Nectar of the Lotus, the life force and love of the Divine Mother, for my highest good, so be it. Om Mani Padme Hum.
“Om Mani Padme Hum”
This is a powerful heart opening mantra.
It means ’the opening of the jewel in the lotus,’ or ‘may the heart awaken with divine compassion and may I know myself to be an awakened being of light’.