Heart-opening

The other night we sat in a plush bar by the beach having dinner when suddenly an image flashed into my mind and my eyes filled with tears. The image was a scene we had seen a couple of days earlier when getting here by taxi: a big dump with smoke rising in places, vultures sitting in the trees and a group of people who were going through the garbage. While I didn’t feel guilty for being better off (as their suffering isn’t my fault and the guilt doesn’t help anyone), I just felt this great surge of sadness come over me and ever since I have been reflecting on the challenge of embracing it all, of being able to hold this complex and paradoxical life in all its extremes at the same time, in the same moment without being pulled to one side.

Our normal reaction is to turn away from suffering. Being a bit sensible and fragile anyway, I often fear that it might break my heart if I allow myself to fully connect with the suffering in this world but today I decided to do just that. Just before starting my meditation practice I let all the images and the connected sadness flood in and yes, it did break my heart and I cried for quite some time but at that moment I understood that this is exactly what needs to happen if I want to open my heart and embrace everything. A heart that can be broken is by definition limited. Once it breaks and opens up it is finally able to include everything.

Now I understand that I am the suffering horse, only skin and bones, pulling that heavy cart while being whipped by the driver and that at the same time I am also the driver doing the whipping. They are both not separate from me. I am the good as well as the bad, the beautiful as well as the ugly, the happiness as well as the suffering.