Winged Heart

I recently caught myself saying "I'm not very skilled at containing or controlling intense feelings of love, or keeping myself from communicating them," and I spent some time after that wondering what it would be like to see my effusive, expressive, enthusiastic and wild, fiery tendencies in that regard as a strength. To rephrase it as "I am very skilled at having and expressing intense and enthusiastically ardent feelings, at being vulnerable, unprotected, and honest about how much I love people." It changed things to reframe it in those ways. It's problematic when good, solid boundaries are violated by my communication, and I get that. But that's not the same as being unskilled at restraining my feelings or their expression. That's just a situation where I can practice redirecting myself and my words, and creating more of a safe space for people who have set a clear boundary. The skill isn't to shitcan how I feel, but to redirect. 

I get wrapped up in what I myself can handle or not, and forget that other people may not be exactly as they seem, so I've been reflecting on that too. I have known some people who just seem completely stainless steel, unable to be fazed, strong, tough and completely detached. But it is valuable for me to remember that my words and choices have consequences even for these people, sometimes, who may not be as tough as they work on showing. 

The defended and the undefended in myself, and in others, always fraught territory. 

I'm remembering simple tenderness, bodhichitta and compassion, respect, simplicity and good boundaries. So much practice. Mistakes are inevitable. 

The Sufi symbol of the winged heart has been appealing to me very strongly lately. 

The symbol was chosen by Hazrat Inayat Khan who introduced Sufism to the Western World: “In brief, the meaning of the symbol is that the heart responsive to the light of God is liberated.”

As an atheist, I reflect on it more as the "awakened heart" of Buddhism, that is, the heart of compassion, the heart of caring about suffering and confusion, the heart of tenderness and openness to the suffering of all sentient beings. When this sense of things is awakened in my experience, I find it easier to let go of things. My jealousy and anger and hurt feelings diminish. My openness to the true and highest happiness and well being of people I love, and sometimes even for all sentient beings, starts to be more possible. It begins in sorrow, for me. In the sorrow that one touches in the human heart, borrowing the phrasing of Pema Chödrön.