The courageous heart is not just the heart that only loves and nothing else;
it is the heart that loves regardless of what happens.”
–A. H. Almaas
It occurred to me the other day that the biggest challenge I (we?) face these days is how to keep our hearts open in the midst of a society and world that seems suddenly to be guided by the worst of human principles, and where that “long arc of the moral universe” spoken of by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is bending away from justice.
Because in “This American Life,” it’s another day, another mass shooting. This unfathomable Las Vegas horror is being called the deadliest in modern America after the recent next-deadliest in Orlando. And as Andrew Rosenthal points out in the New York Times, the locution “modern” is only being used to avoid referring (among other incidents) to the state-sponsored mass murders of Native Americans regularly conducted in the 19th and 20th centuries. Meanwhile, as Nicholas Kristof writes in his recent op-ed piece, “Since 1970 more Americans have died from guns (including suicides, murders, and accidents) than the sum total of all the Americans who died in all the wars in American history, back to the American Revolution. Every day 92 Americans die by guns, and American kids are 14 times as likely to die from guns as children in other developed countries.”
This is the American way of life…and death. If the gun violence seems worse than ever now, it’s perhaps because everything seems worse right now, in America and the world.
So, for my own coping, I pulled out Robert Jensen’s brief volume, We Are All Apocalyptic Now, to get some perspective [as he says, “Speaking apocalyptically need not leave us stuck in a corner with the folks predicting lakes of fire, rivers of blood, or bodies lifted up to the heavens.”]:
Thinking apocalyptically, he writes, can help us confront honestly the crises of our time and strategize constructively about possible responses. It’s simply about struggling to understand–to the best of our ability, without succumbing to magical thinking–the conditions within the human family and the state of the ecosphere, and not turning away from the difficult realities we face.
[Facing the realities does not preclude taking some “digital self-care,” particularly monitoring the viewing of violent images: These images “are not generally helpful and most of us do not need that level of detail to be aware of the event,” says Sheila Rauch of Emory University Medical School, director of the New Wounded Warrior Project. For a more complete interview with her, refer to this article from Bill Moyers.]
“Responsible apocalyptic thinking,” says Robert Jensen, “reminds us of the importance of dealing honestly with reality even when it’s frightening, and holding onto our humanity, which is even more important when we’re frightened.”
“Holding onto our humanity,” for me, is related to that larger challenge of maintaining an open heart. Because just thinking alone won’t get close to achieving the apocalyptic ends Jensen is talking about; that requires a transformation of consciousness. For instance, it’s clear the nearly 50 percent of American Christians who believe that Christ will return in their lifetimes, most with the incumbent and false idea that such an occurrence would mean the “end of the world,” are not easily going to change their position. As my teacher, A. H. Almaas says, “It’s a mental perspective. It doesn’t come from the heart. It has nothing to do with faith. They may have faith in God…but to believe other than they do is counter to their religion.”
Change, he says, “has to come from the heart, not the mind. Because to come from the mind you come from a belief system. If the heart is unbounded, there will naturally be tolerance, acceptance and equalization. Bias comes from the mind and the mind can distort the heart so the heart can have anger and rejection and hatred…and hate crimes.”
So the mind can just hate the haters (which I find very difficult to not do), which just closes down the heart further, unless our own hatred is also faced, looked at, experienced and digested. So Almaas’ recommendation:
First of all, we have to see if there is anything in us that can relate to that kind of attitude–any part of us that is hateful, narrow-minded–so we don’t do things like that ourselves, even in minor ways. Also, allowing our love and heart to spread around, expressing love and compassion to all people around us. The more we do that, and the more that more of us can do that, the more it will hopefully touch other people farther away from us. Some might be in a position to do more; they can be activists, send money, pick up a cause. But there is also the direct way, which is to be ourselves as fully as possible, as openly as possible, so that we ourselves are true model human beings and people around us can see they are meant to be that way too. We can spread the goodness through the immediacy of our experience. That is the approach of our school in general. And not just our school, but any true spiritual teaching.”
Consciousness theorist Ken Wilber wrote something similar relating to the response to Las Vegas:
What it always comes down to at some point is: what can I do? Given the situation that now exists, how can I contribute in even the smallest way, as well as some very big ways? And to the extent that I can contribute in making the future unfold in a more helpful, caring, compassionate way, that helps me get through this very difficult situation.
In this way, we may develop our “courageous heart,” as Almaas describes the open heart:
“The courageous heart is not just the heart that only loves and nothing else; it is the heart that loves regardless of what happens.”
Shalom,
David
David
