Residing in the Heart

Spirituality
#1

So I’m having this conversation about stress management with someone who is describing to me, something that sounds trivial and almost elementary, yet the stress it is creating in their body is causing their hair to fall out. Though I can see past the illusion, I realize that this person is not at a stage in their life to have the same perception as I do.

Her idea of managing stress, I realized, was to wind down at the end of the day. I was not in agreement with this and explained that as soon as she felt stress rising, it should be dealt with at that moment.

Explaining the manner in which to do this, I found to be perplexing. The way in which I explained it was that the true self resides in the heart. When we become stressed, our awareness moves away from the true self and into the affairs of the mind. When you feel your awareness moving from the heart into the modifications of the mind, simply move your awareness back down the throat into the heart. Reside there. Reside in the heart.

Now, this transcends stress and is more inline with our true nature, but I felt that it was a good segway. But I did find myself somewhat suprised at how difficult it was to explain something that I have done for years.

As teachers, how are we to navigate the obstacles of converting wisdom into descriptive language?

#2

“Her idea of managing stress, I realized, was to wind down at the end of the day.”

That is not going to be of any help, except perhaps it may provide you with some temporary relief. But if you are suffering from stress for more than eight hours, and you are simply trying to relax for one hour, then how can you expect your relaxation to be capable of dissolving your stress ? Your stress will continue, you are simply continuing to gather it it with one hand and trying to drop it with the other. Neither has one come to any direct insight as to the root causes of one’s stress. For that - you will have to observe it directly, in the moment when it arises - with neither attraction or aversion, without becoming identified, with an eye which is just like a mirror reflecting. And it is with this non-prejudiced awareness of things as they are that you can start developing insight. Insight is always alchemical, when you are struck by it, it is like a sword which cuts immediately through entanglements. Otherwise, without insight into your own inner workings, then you may try to wind down at the end of the day just as an escape from your sufferings, but at the end it is not going to be of much help.

“The way in which I explained it was that the true self resides in the heart”

You may be far too identified with the heart, which is capable of as many deceptions as the mind.

“Reside there. Reside in the heart.”

It is good that one has moved beyond the mind and into the heart. Now move beyond the heart. One’s true nature is something that is to be realized when one comes into contact with a dimension which is not of the mind nor of the heart, but is the very source of one’s being. The heart is simply the emotional dimension of the mind, and one’s emotions are just as limited as one’s thoughts. Come to know that which is simply empty of all limiting qualities, identities, and forms. To call it nothingness comes close, to call it no-thingness comes close, emptiness is yet another expression, but all of our words are just words for lack of better words. Inexpressible beyond the inexpressible, immeasurable beyond the immeasurable, the moment you think you have grasped it into your fist, you have projected it dimensions apart.