The heart never learns

[blossomingtree]

Yes, to say the heart never learns is just off base.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by blackraven

Is the pain one experiences deep within the heart from rejection of a loved one, when a friend walks away never to be heard from again or death just really experienced in the mind (the thinking machine)? Does not the heart and mind have a unique connection in each person whereas there is constant communication between the heart and mind instantaneously. Where does feeling come in as it appears to be housed in both the heart and the mind. I can choose to feel sorry for myself if a friend walks away. Is it the heart that's hurt in this case or the ego? My thinking mind might even tell me to not trust anyone else ever again and so then I might avoid making friends altogether in order to avoid the pain of abandonment.

The heart learns the same way one learns not to stick his or her hands into a burning fire. It's instinctual. It's that instinct that drives the heart.

Yes indeed, the pain of abandonment can be a dark shroud, and it is for near enough all people, as we learn that to love has a lot of emotional pain, empathy is difficult to bear, compassion makes us vulnerable, and sensitivity makes us prone to all this. Everyone becomes affected, and when we look into it we might see that all we learn is to inhibit the heart.

We're all familiar with the condition, like a heavy shroud which is a tangible sensation, maybe a barrier of protection in its own way, but that can become a fixture rather than something implemented only at necessary times - it becomes 'ever-necessary', so to speak.

In terms of instinct, it really does seem that there no autonomy in love. I cant be helped, and it can be repressed in its expression, but that repression only affirms its existence.

[7luminaries]

The heart does learn. For good and for bad.

"I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul...
Invictus, W.E. Hanley

It's the ship of the heart we're steering, because the heart is the seat of the soul and the spiritual seat of the conscience, according to the mystics (and not the frontal lobe). When the ship's been damaged and takes in water through the holes...or when it's dry and battered and cannot withstand the force of the ocean and the winds... It's those times when we must find a way forward lacking courage and fearing drowning. Or once past that phase, finding your way lacking the strength to be open and fearing any joyful emotion at all.

I have found equanimity provides massive strength...it is the strongest force in the universe, thus far....so much so that your emotions can continue to be crushed under your own fear of the pain and cruelty and shame that was unexpected and for which you were previously wholly unprepared. Once repeatedly shattered and lacking any protection from harm, now feeling a great heaviness and dread, shutting down your own joy almost immediately. All whilst the strong vise of equanimity carries you forward regardless with all the strength and might of creation and what is.

Lovingkindness requires the infinite strength of equanimity for sustenance. Equanimity can just carry on but sentient life equally requires lovingkindness lest we lose the fullness of our humanity. The question is all in the mix. The question is...how to ease up just a bit on the strength of equanimity whilst allowing a bit more of the expansive energy of lovingkindness in toward oneself? That's what it is, I believe. We need to allow the lovingkindness and compassion toward ourselves because we haven't received it in many or most situations where we've come open-hearted and vulnerable. And we've paid a heavy price, in that our ability to feel joy around certain people in certain repetitive social situations (for some it's cruel and abusive family, for some it's the loss of friends who cut you to the core, and for myself, it's also most of the extremely imbalanced "normative" male-female relations I and most others have experienced, where long-term friendship and authentic love between men and women are generally wholly precluded, full stop) is suffocated by a scarred heart.

What's often learnt is an instinctive, avoidant behaviour which is survival-based but which is extremely damaging, most of all to the self. Which seeks to shut down the joy and happiness because your vulnerability nearly got you killed, repeatedly. Many, many times. Often at the hand or hands of a few persons in your life you really opened up to, who then perhaps treated you with a heartless and almost mindless cruelty, who perhaps unthinkingly or uncaringly defecated on your kindness and vulnerability and treated you quite badly, whether intentionally or not. And then there's also the death by 1000 cuts which has bled you out (and sometimes it's all of a piece with the other bits, LOL)...that too can leave a deep fear and loathing of interaction with certain folks and/or certain settings.

Soldiering on, one realises there's work to do, as a result. Owning the issue is always the first step. The heart does learn, and now it's time for a proper education of the heart, beyond all the behaviour the heart has learnt in order to cope with the rubbish and abuse. Beyond all that was learnt simply to survive and get you here to this moment. Beyond the equanimity that will carry you forward regardless...we seek the balance provided by lovingkindness.

Peace & blessings
7L

[blossomingtree]

"Ajahn Chah trained his students in many ways, the majority of the learning process occurring through situational teaching. He knew that, for the heart to learn any aspect of the Teaching truly and be transformed by it, the lesson had to be absorbed by experience, not intellectually alone.

Thus he employed aspects of the monastic routine, communal living and the tudong life as ways to teach: community work projects, learning to recite the rules, helping with the daily chores, random changes in the schedule - these were all used as a forum in which to investigate the arising of dukkha and the way leading to its cessation.

He encouraged the attitude of being ready to learn from everything, as he describes in the talk `Dhamma Nature'.

As Ajahn Chah once said: `All those who seriously engage in spiritual practice should expect to experience a great deal of friction and difficulty.'

The heart is being trained to go against the current of self-centred habits, so it's quite natural for it to be buffeted around somewhat.

As a final note on this aspect of Ajahn Chah's teachings, particularly those one might term `higher' or `transcendent', it is significant that he didn't exclude the laity from any instruction of this nature. If he felt a group of people was ready for the highest levels of teaching, he would impart them freely and openly, whether it was to laypeople or to monastics, as in, for example, `Toward the Unconditioned' or `Still, Flowing Water' where he states: `People these days study away, looking for good and evil. But that which is beyond good and evil they know nothing of.'

Like the Buddha, he never employed the `teacher's closed fist', and made his choices of what to teach solely on the basis of what would be useful to his listeners, not on their number of precepts and their religious affiliation or lack of one.

--

The true Buddha, the Buddha that is clear, radiant knowing, can still be experienced and attained today. And if we do attain it, the heart is one."

The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah

[blossomingtree]

I Have Learned So Much

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

~ Hafiz

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

~ Hafiz

Blossom, hello there

This is a very poetic image of exactly what I know as the fire of equanimity, awe, and discipline. It is a very powerful force, indeed...and will obliterate all in its path if they do not find a place of alignment. The catch is, for those that wield this energy easily, it will leave you standing in its glorious presence whilst destroying your humanity through the back door if you do not heavily nurture and bring forth your lovingkindness.

Equanimity in more than moderation is harsh and forcefully clarifying and it strips us of all we are, even awareness of self or individuated consciousness, if we lack the strength to remain centred in our being. By definition this is freeing and thus also true and good and beautiful in its own right. It is necessary for greater spiritual detachment from the self and for a deeper awareness of what is, for certain.

But without lovingkindness, it too falls out of balance. It may seem counterintuitive for some, but our embodiment of equanimity (as opposed to what is forced or imposed upon us) is whole from its centre and requires lovingkindness for balance. The same is true in reverse...the intimate, personal affirmation of the unique humanity of others inherent in lovingkindness (which is fundamentally present even in the greetings of strangers) is likewise whole from its centre and requires impartial and impersonal equanimity for balance.

Humankind comprises embodied individuated consciousness...and it is this personal, individuated sentience that mandates lovingkindness at every level of sentience, most particularly that of the individuated self. And it is this simple gift of mutual lovingkindness in presence and in action (being and doing) that sustains us at every level of sentience.

It is this simplest, most intimate, and personal aspect of divine lovingkindness that is the supreme gift we give one another in simple recognition of our mutual humanity. Importantly, whenever the personal and unique aspects are de-emphasized...whenever lovingkindness is not adequately present to balance equanimity, we are a heartbeat away from oppression, commodification, and dehumanisation of one another. Even in the name of impartial love or justice.

Peace & blessings
7L

[blossomingtree]

Originally Posted by 7luminaries

It is this simplest, most intimate, and personal aspect of divine lovingkindness that is the supreme gift we give one another in simple recognition of our mutual humanity. Importantly, whenever the personal and unique aspects are de-emphasized...whenever lovingkindness is not adequately present to balance equanimity, we are a heartbeat away from oppression, commodification, and dehumanisation of one another. Even in the name of impartial love or justice.

Peace & blessings
7L

7L

That is very well said, and I thank you for that expose.

Yes, it's all a fine balance to some degree. Gem, the OP of this thread, has written elsewhere things such as "you don't exist", "Gem doesn't exist" etc. It's an example of intellectualization which emphasized unwittingly dehumanization over humanity.

It's a subtle error and one easily made for the self-taught man/woman.

In another thread, our friend WabiSabi intellectualizes an experience of insight by concluding that a murderer does no wrong. It is all so fearsome, so potent in a well meaning seeker, the many avenues of right and wrong.

I agree with you that without loving kindness, without very true and detailed humanity, it is all too inconsequential.

My opinion is however, that what Hafiz refers to is the ultimate realization of individual self, liberty and liberation. Therein, God is realized and I do not believe that there is God without Love. God is Love and God is great. Until one has reached that peak, selfishness still needs to be faced and released.

BT

[Rsandee]

The heart gives unconditionally, the heart doesn't have to learn.
People have to learn, learn to listen to their hearts.

[blossomingtree]

And what is a person?

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

7L

That is very well said, and I thank you for that expose.

Yes, it's all a fine balance to some degree. Gem, the OP of this thread, has written elsewhere things such as "you don't exist", "Gem doesn't exist" etc. It's an example of intellectualization which emphasized unwittingly dehumanization over humanity.

It's a subtle error and one easily made for the self-taught man/woman.

In another thread, our friend WabiSabi intellectualizes an experience of insight by concluding that a murderer does no wrong. It is all so fearsome, so potent in a well meaning seeker, the many avenues of right and wrong.

I agree with you that without loving kindness, without very true and detailed humanity, it is all too inconsequential.

My opinion is however, that what Hafiz refers to is the ultimate realization of individual self, liberty and liberation. Therein, God is realized and I do not believe that there is God without Love. God is Love and God is great. Until one has reached that peak, selfishness still needs to be faced and released.

BT

Blossom...well said

What I would add is that your ultimate realization is a realization of the fullness of our humanity...and that is always down to one's choice, and one's acceptance of grace.

According to other humans elsewhere, there are many non-human species that lack our emotional capacity and know lovingkindness only as compassion learnt via equanimity. This emotional capacity is an amazing gift and it's not clear how common it is across all sentience, at least in the way that we experience it.

Meaning, compassion is not necessarily known through any emotional awareness but sometimes purely through rational intellect and understanding.

We who have the capacity for a fuller realisation must still choose to recognise this higher realisation, where there is integration, unity, and especially a balance of equanimity and lovingkindness.

And in order to do this, we need to prioritise a proper balance of lovingkindness and equanimity for humanity, based most fundamentally on a larger measure of lovingkindness...to attain that fullness of which we speak. Specifically, we need to realise lovingkindness as our primary foundation or orientation, with a moderation portion of equanimity for balance. Meaning, humanity need a greater portion of lovingkindness and a smaller portion (so to speak) of equanimity, due to our particular make-up and the centrality (to our spiritual journeys) of nurturing and evolving our emotional capacity.

Peace & blessings
7L