The Heart of the Matter

Warm Heart 2008

Our hearts are so strong and yet so fragile around love.

We can open or close them. We can expose or protect them. We can risk or guard them. Yet most often we forget about them until something happens that either cracks them open or slams them closed. What is it about the heart that is so significant? So magnificent?

The heart is our gateway to our essence - the part of us that is boundless, infinite and unafraid. Through opening the heart fully we find completeness - a sense of purity, wholeness and unity with something much greater than our mentally-constructed selves. Beyond the realm of our projections, beyond the realm of our minds we find... mystery.

I call it "mystery" because we can't define it with our minds. It's a spaciousness that defies what the mind can grasp. It's not based in the past or the future. It rests in the expansiveness of the present moment which is infinite. It is only our minds that define the present moment as "finite time" in a limiting way when beyond our mental projections, there is no time, only presence.

Beyond the mind we find freedom. In the Toltec tradition, they describe the antics of our mind as "dreaming," or a mental projection, a concept or interpretation of our experiences that is not the experiences themselves. Thinking about our experiences is not the same as having them; thinking about them is a reflection of the experience, not the experience itself. Yet all too often we believe that our thoughts about our experiences are the truth when actually, they are only mental reflections of the truth.

Distortion & Reflection 1: Chicago 2008

This is what leads us to an over-identification with our minds. We believe that what the mind tells us is the truth, yet we forget that it is merely a reflection of the truth, which leaves room for personal projection and distortion. When we believe our minds, our thoughts, projections and distortions stimulate all kinds of drama and suffering in our lives, especially around matters of the heart.

Consider that having an emotion is a movement of energy through the body. The mind will enter and label the energy as something specific (e.g., pain, fear, sadness, anger, rage, joy...) and then judge whether the experience is OK or not - safe or not. When we attach labels of the mind to our experiences, we are left with stories about what's happening to us and at the deepest places within our being, our mind is assessing whether or not it's a threat to our survival so it can dictate what action to take next: fight, flight or freeze. It is also signaling the body to prepare for that action: our hormones, muscles, adrenalin, breath, etc. immediately respond to the signals of the mind.

Distortion & Reflection: Chicago 2008

The tricky part is that our physical bodies are geared to respond to the mind's signals, whether or not the mind's signals are accurate, relevant or true in the present moment. Remember that the mind is never operating in the present moment. It pulls up information from the past or projects information into the future based on the past, but it is never directly engaged with our present moment experiences.

Why? Because the mind does not directly experience anything. It gets information second-hand through our sensory and energy bodies and then interprets that information based on past experiences or future projections; but it does not directly experience anything. The mind's job is to interpret or reflect to the rest of the body what it believes is happening based on input from our sensory and energy bodies - what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and perceive (energetically). The mind says "I recognize this sensation; it means blahblahblah and this is what we need to do next!"

Here's the problem: What the mind believes (based on history) may not apply in the present moment or the future, so it's signals limit our ability to act from the infinite field of possibilities that are available to us in each moment. This is important! By freeing ourselves from over-identifying with and believing in our mind's projections and stories about what it thinks is happening or going to happen, we open ourselves to the infinite and can move beyond old obstacles in our lives.

Over-identifying with the mind and turning our experiences into concepts and stories puts limitations on the vastness of what we truly are: the pure essence of mass, energy and consciousness. Many traditional spiritual practices are designed to create spaciousness between our mind and our pure essence so that we can become more of a witness to our mind's games rather than be driven by them. Meditative practices are a beautiful way to begin shifting away from over-identification with the mind and to build a trusting relationship with our pure essence.

Pathway to Mystery: Paris 2004

Connecting with and trusting in our pure essence is a pathway through the heart rather than the mind. When we build a stronger relationship with our pure essence, our hearts open and take rest into something much greater than what our minds can comprehend - something boundless, infinite and beyond the mind's reflections - the mystery of Being.

This is what makes our hearts both strong and fragile: in opening them to the mystery, we may feel vulnerable yet through this act we become stronger in our connection to our pure, infinite essence. It takes strength and courage to allow our hearts to open beyond the limitations and fears of the mind. And yet through that strength and courage - through opening ourselves to the mystery - we may experience what I can only describe as "pure love" (which is only a limited description and reflection of what is really an indescribable experience of what I feel to be pure love)...