Two Worlds

Just when I didn't think things could escalate in intensity, they have. What do I mean by "things"? Well...massive social unrest with protests on top of a 3-month pandemic that has seen much of the world quarantined. You know, those things.  Just as so many people are looking for a relief valve from being safer at home, just as people are sticking their heads back out in public, a wave of protests have seen people marching in the streets, marching for social justice against police brutality. People want their voices to be heard as well as to express their rage and immense sadness. Enough is enough and a pandemic couldn't contain the need for action. Bearing witness to the unrest has left many people feeling uneasy, vulnerable, scared, and nervous. 

The theme of this week of two worlds is the internal and external worlds in which we live. The internal world is our personal experience and what we inhabit from the moment of arriving at birth and every day thereafter until our death. The inner experience is a complete matrix of emotions, physical sensations, a plethora of thoughts, and our spiritual expression. The external world is everything that's happening "out there", beyond our own internal world.

To say the external world is in a state of chaos is hardly an exaggeration. Protests have erupted all over the country and in other parts of the world. People are feeling empowered and that by seeing the inequities brought to others and the energy can no longer be contained through passive action. It's a ripe time for noticing how the external world influences and affects our internal world and to honor that our internal world can influence the external. 

The focus of practices this week has been on bringing awareness back to where we have some form of control. Our locus of control is within our internal world as we have very little if any, control of the outer. We may have influence, but control is unlikely. It's complex and intertwined, so it's little wonder that people have felt disheartened this week. When we are losing the thread that links us to the powerful energy of our heart, turning to the heart chakra is a way of remembering its presence and strength.

The Anahata Chakra is the fourth of seven chakras (energy vortexes). It is the conduit of energy between the lower, more physically sensed chakras (elements of earth, water, and fire) to the upper, more elusive chakra energies (elements of ether, sound, and space). It all comes together in the heart with the element of air representing this energy center as something that is both necessary and difficult to see. Its predominant quality is one of love and under this umbrella, we find empathy, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness. So when we get yanked into the outer chaos, it's easy to understand why we forget that love is also present. We get pulled into the external world, a place where we have little if any control and can ruminate on the idea that the world is on its way to mass destruction. So we come back to the heart and, more firmly than ever, deepen what we need to remember its power.

Part of this practice for me is to deepen my intention and actions of compassion. In order to strengthen this, I decided that throughout the month of June that my daily meditation practice would include 108 repetitions of a mantra to Tara...the feminine energy of wisdom and compassion. As Linda Heaphy says, "Tārā is a female bodhisattva and an important goddess deity in both Buddhism and Hinduism.  More properly, she may be regarded as a set of forms or avatars that represent different aspects of the same qualities, principally those of compassion and sympathetic action.  Tārā represents the fundamental female aspect of the universe, which gives birth to warmth, compassion, and relief from bad karma as experienced by ordinary beings in cyclic existence (samsara). She engenders, nourishes, and has profound sympathy for all living beings, but also acts to relieve suffering wherever she can."  More on Tara here.

Empathy sets us in motion to undertake the action of compassion. When we begin to better understand the experience of the "other", we begin to realize there is no other...just one human family. 

As I undertake this month-long practice of chanting and meditation, my intention is to fortify my internal world so I can better face the unpredictable external world. In bringing what I don't know about inequity from my own shadow and into the light, I can begin to strengthen my empathy more deeply to those who are suffering and how I'm complicit in that suffering. And as my ignorance is brought into the light, at that moment, I become empowered to shift what I need to shift for the betterment of not only myself but all beings.

My wish for you is that as you read this, you remember that you are a powerful being with endless potential to love and be loved. My wish is that as we look after our own hearts, we can look after others. My wish is for people who have been silenced and are sitting in the darkness have their voices heard and brought into the light so change is not only possible but necessary.

Om Tare Tutare Ture Swaha.