Wholeheartedness

If you missed the two drums last weekend you missed some vibrant groveliciousness, and I hope you’ll be able to make it another time. The ceremonial/shamanic theme of the evenings was “wholeheartedness” and I’ve written some notes below including the meditation we did, in case you find it useful.

Listen to Tara Brach’s podcast entitled Wholeheartedness for a beautiful approach to this topic from a Buddhist perspective.  To the question “What allows us to be awake?” she repeats the answer of a famous Buddhist teacher: “Intention and attention.”  We pay attention to where we are half-hearted, where we approach a part of our life with hesitation and lack of vigor. We bring intention to that place.

A phrase springs from her podcast: “the antidote to depression is devotion.” That’s a powerful few words! They are true – it is devotion to your spiritual life that realigns and transforms your half-hearted energies, making you more able to negotiate the sorrows, frustrations and joys of this life. And of course that phrase is terribly frightening because it completely matters what you are devoted to.  

However, people in apocalyptic cults and greedy nuts on wall street are chock full of devotion. My generalized view is that if your devotion lacks active compassion for the suffering fellow creatures of the earth, if it inspires you somehow to believe you are separate and better than other creatures of the earth, it’s not devotion in the true sense of that word, it’s a focal point for your ego, and a place of denial of sprit. Well, that’s for you to decide of course.

In Tara Brach’s meditation she guides her students to meditate on this question:  

Where are you half hearted? Bring your attention to the place(s) you feel half hearted. Then bring intention. Ask what would make you wholehearted in this place.  Another way of approaching it is asking yourself what matters to you? What do you want to be devoted to? Bring intention to go deeper into that devotion. Intention carries the power of yearning—the power of desire and love. Locate the place where you are half-hearted, and aim the power of desire there, asking to bring this life power to that life-less place in you.

We are half-hearted for all kinds of reasons. Maybe we are trying to disprove our unworthiness. Maybe we are competing with something that may not matter that much? Or we are living someone else's vision. Or we are covered over by fear and want. Bring attention, and bring the power intention to that place in you. Sometimes we fear that if we devote ourself it will fail, it will wreck something else (and often that is true!). Wholeheartedness is a kind of death. Death is complete commitment, and so is wholeheartedness.

I like Brach’s work but I’m not Buddhist, and for a reason. It works mildly for me to meditate on the questions as she advises. But Buddhism is an atheistic path, especially western Buddhism which is a wonderful mixture of mindfulness techniques, Buddhist ethics and metaphysics, and self-help psychology. I like it, but it doesn’t take me as far as I want to go. It helps me, but it doesn’t heal me.

I like - maybe I need - a sense of a loving, embracing Spirit working with me, and working me toward a place that it sees for me. It needs me to cooperate and shed my fears, but it is with me in this struggle. So, it’s not all me working my way toward bloodless enlightenment, but it is me, with help, working toward becoming as beautiful a creature as I can be in this world. And that is why the shamanic path is so beautiful and helpful to me.

So at this last weekend’s drums, I offered drummers the opportunity to enter into Tara Brach’s meditation on the question “Where am I half hearted, or where am I whole hearted?” But I also offered them an additional, shamanic-ceremonial structure whereby they could ask the Spirit(s) to come and help them see and wrestle with the question, and learn from the spirits.

So if you want to, you can try it: daydream/visualize yourself into somewhere in nature that makes you feel safe and permeated by beauty. This is a form of what some call “the shamanic journey.”  Then you can call out a prayer to the spirits to come and offer you a vision that will show you something about your half heartedness, or about your wholeheartedness. This “showing” can be a vision, a daydream, an image, an idea, a feeling. For me, this is a different angle on that same question posed by Tara Brach, and this different angle is helpful and beautiful for me.  

Alternatively, you can ask the spirits to come and “work” your half-heart. That “working” may mean something completely different from one person to the next. Being “worked” by the spirits is different from meditating on the question, and for me, it’s very helpful.

So I offer this idea to you in case you want to use it. If it helps you can drum or rattle for yourself while doing this journey, or listen to recorded shamanic drumming while you ask the Spirits for this kind of healing help for your quest to become “wholehearted.”

Below is the lovely poem I worked with at Saturday night’s drum:

The Pathway Finally Opened

By Mahsati Ganjavi (12th Century) /English version by David and Sabrineh Fideler

When my heart came to rule

in the world of love,

it was freed

from both belief

and from disbelief.

On this journey,

I found the problem

to be myself.

When I went beyond myself,

the pathway finally opened.

Comments

[Jade P]

Thank you...