Episode Details

Greetings Friends,

I have been reflecting on one of the simplest and perhaps most profound teachings in the Buddhist tradition— the teaching of our extra-ordinary heart.

Our extra-ordinary heart is the aspect of our being that doesn’t die, and isn’t born. That isn’t dependent on us but is a deep refuge and resource—one that we know and rely on all the time. One that we also see demonstrated and embodied in our communities, on the world stage, in the people we love and care about.

We are living in a time in this country that feels like we are going backward in many respects. Where state-enforced violence has entered our communities, and families are being separated, detained and deported at an unprecedented rate. While our human hearts break, fear, grieve, feel deeply, love and desire—which is beautiful and painful, and part of what makes this experience of being human.

We, together, have an extra-ordinary heart—that is boundless in it’s nature and is always abiding right here. This heart isn’t separate from the very experience of being human, it is intrinsic to our nature. So we too can practice recognizing and abiding in this heart. We too can embody these qualities and let them manifest in our lives and the world.

The Buddha taught that our boundless heart has Four Qualities of Boundlessness, also called the Four Divine Abodes

Boundless Love/Kindness — which is a friendliness toward existence, agape or universal love, the love of Jesus Christ or Amitabha Buddha or other such figures who love unconditionally

Boundless Compassion — is a responsiveness to suffering in self or other which can have many different qualities(protective, patient, nurturing/gentle, strategic, discerning, creative, clear, resourceful)

In the Zen tradition we have a story about boundless compassion. It involves two brothers walking down the road together, and one says to the other, “what do you think the bodhisattva of great compassion does with all of their hands and eyes?” To which the other brother replies, “it’s like reaching back in the middle of the night for a pillow.”

Compassion is responsive; and takes many forms—so we have this image of a being with ten-thousand arms and hands. In each hand there is a different expression of compassion. So sometimes compassion looks fierce, it’s saying no to violence, it’s standing up for what we care about, other times its gentle, it’s grieving together, or care-taking each other, it can be protective, immediate, systematic and strategic.

Boundless Joy — playfulness/spontaneity of being-reality

I think we have a meme in our culture, “if you are happy you aren’t paying attention.” But play and creativity have always been part of the resistance, we find the trickster archetype in myths throughout human cultures. We find it throughout spiritual traditions as well from the play/spontaneity of the zen koans to the poetry of the mystics like hafiz, cold mountain and la ded.

There is a lot of play, joy and creativity happening in the protests in Minneapolis right now.

But boundless joy also speaks to being happy for no good reason, causeless happiness. It’s wonderful to experience the joy of simply being alive. No one can take that away from us.

Boundless Peace/Equanimity — this is the wisdom of the deep equality or oneness of all things.

Perhaps the hardest to conceive of, because it’s like the peace and presence of the sky. The sky simply allows all forms of weather to move through it, clouds, heavy rains, snow, tornadoes, planes, birds, sunsets all happen in the spaciousness of the sky. The sky simply allows.

Our true nature is like the sky. Open, unhindered, allowing, at peace.

These four boundless qualities are always abiding in our Extra Ordinary Heart that we call them the divine abodes.