GARDENING OUR HEART
It is up to us to give ourselves the experience of the consequences of consciously gardening our heart. If we require "understanding" before we are willing to take on this responsibility, it is only because we are trying to comprehend what is being offered here from our seat within the maze of the mental plane.
The heart cannot be understood; it can only be engaged. Only when we engage our heart do we enter a marriage made in heaven.
The following simple practice, when engaged consistently, shows us, through personal experience, that it is the garden of the heart from which all the fruits of a joyful, healthy, and abundant life experience are seeded, cultivated, and harvested. It is also from within the garden of the heart that we consciously awaken to the experience of the conscious death that fruits eternal rebirth. By tending to the garden of the heart consistently each day, we experience the miraculous. It reveals to us what it really means to "love and take care of ourselves"; to stand by ourselves no matter what. To initiate this encounter with the heart it is recommended we tend to our garden for a few minutes at the beginning and the end of each day, and also in the midst of any unexpected upset. This is how simple it is:
We sit comfortably in a quiet place where we will not be interrupted. (If we truly seek to be authentic when entering this practice, we switch our cell phone to "off". Otherwise, we are just doing this because nothing else is currently stealing our attention.)
We recall an upset, whether it is something that happened recently, or something currently festering within our physical, mental, and emotional experience.
We drop the story and the details of the physical events surrounding it, and instead place our attention fully on "how we feel about it".
Where seek out where we feel this discomfort within our body? We place our attention within this location and "cradle it".
While keeping the eyes of our heart upon the uncomfortable feeling within our body, we simultaneously keep our physical eyes open, and in a relaxed manner, we observe the world before us.
We observe how the inner feeling moves, and how, as it does, the outer world simultaneously increases in presence.
When we stray off into the mental again, we gently bring our attention back into the inner feeling within our body and simultaneously upon the presence of the outer world.
We cradle this experience for as long as we feel necessary.
NOTE: If we do not have an upset to consciously work with, we enter the practice by consciously placing our attention within the center of our chest and hold it there, following the above instructions, until we feel complete. The practice of consistently placing of our attention within the center of our chest is equally powerful in initiating "the death experience" that invites the blessing of rebirth within all unintegrated aspects of our life experience.
Eventually, through this practice, we discover that the feelings of discomfort underlying our unintegrated upsets are gradually integrated and replaced by stillness, silence, and a sense of balance and peace within our heart. Over time these feelings of balance and peace organically radiate into our thoughts and are reflected back through our outer physical circumstances.
As a consequence of daily and consistently facing our shadow and grounding ourselves through it, we begin also decreasing our addiction to escaping into the mental plane as a means to initiate a change in the quality of our life experience. We discover, when consistently attending to the garden of the heart in this way, by watering, weeding, and fertilizing it with our cradled attention, that it gradually lifts unnoticed veils and reveals the depth of the immensity of the life experience available to us all in each moment. By attending to the heart in this manner, the teachings we receive internally through revelation free us of "following others", of wandering through endless conceptual spiritual mazes, and of "the seekers seemingly unscratchable itch". This practice gradually frees us of "spiritual delusion", or "the spiritual disease", as Adyashanti aptly calls it.
"It’s not about feeling better – it’s about getting better at feeling."