Time for another short and practical blog. So what happens if we are invited to do a loving kindness meditation and we find ourselves not wanting to do it? A kind of fuck off feeling that leaves us in a double bind. If I pretend to do it that’s false and if I don’t then I have to own up to myself that I’m a grumpy, closed hearted person - at least in that moment. I’ve been here and I hope (though this is a weird hope) that you have too or I have just outed myself as the nastiest person in the world!
The problem with this feeling is that it could signal the end of our practice session. Not feeling the love, feeling the opposite, I could very easily just give up and stop. After all, what’s the point of continuing sitting when I find myself closed down, conflicted or cut off? However there is a very good alternative. Using our wisdom we could simply acknowledge the emotion - not making it either good or bad - and ask ourselves where in my body do I feel this, and having done this, rest with the sensation of the emotion, making it our object of mindfulness. Not trying to change it or make it go away, but rather just being present, content to leave things as they are in the knowledge that everything changes in its own time. In Buddhist speak, everything is empty.
The strange thing about this alternative way of being present with those disgruntled, unhappy places in ourselves, those places that don’t want to open to the pain of other peoples experience, is that being present with the felt sense in itself is an act of kindness. Pema Chödrön has a wonderful phrase for this kind of mindful presence - I'm not going to get it exact but it’s something like holding our wounded heart in the arms of our mindful loving compassion.
NW. 18 July 2024
I find that if I can hold lightly the "everything is allowed view", then this practice shifts for me. It's almost like when I see that tight,constricted, self centred or self protecting part of me, the seeing it loosens that aspect a bit. It is a curious paradox,I see the kind, funny, warm and open hearted part of my self and the "reified I" as Rinpoche would put it, all in the same space of awareness and the reified selfish aspect definitely shifts and dissolves more quickly once spotted. It is like it doesn't get stuck in whatever pattern it's in,once the warmth of the other aspect of being has seen it. I guess this is the handshake practice in…
This is really helpful - this practice isn't usually the one I gravitate towards, precisely for the reasons mentioned here. So finding a way to engage with it without succumbing to self-blame when I can't seem to find a way to experience loving feelings towards others or certain others is a relief.