Heartness & how it can change your life

I just finished a one-week retreat in California. Let me share with you my reflections:

Heartness. I found that when I go into things with a degree of heartness, a shift happens. The retreats I attend are tough, the schedule punishing. They start early in the morning and end at night. Every minute counts. We usually spend hours meditating and doing various practices aimed at subtle body-building. Retreat places usually have a core feeling about them, a central essence. One can feel it in a Buddhist monastery or a Benedictine retreat place. Wherever. If the place is used exclusively for retreats, the place carries a flavor of presence.

Success at the retreat lies in allowing the forces that are there to help maneuver you into greater strength and clarity. I have found that if one goes through the routine technically and does what one is supposed to do as a sense of duty, it feels dry. But if you put your heart into it, there is something that lands in your personal space. I felt I was being helped. My inner dimensions expand and the experience is magical.

I knew from the onset that the best way for me to get somewhere is to not try to do it on my own but to surrender. I also realized that surrender is not a one-shot deal. It’s not merely inculcating the feeling of surrender in one session. We need to do it deeply and ensue a thread of consciousness that has a flow of giving.

So at regular intervals and whenever else I had the time, I would surrender. What happened was an infusion of forces during the sessions where I felt significantly stronger. And it would happen not at my calling but that it takes me by surprise.

And I’d be moved to say, “Wow! That’s cool!” I would feel a strength or intensity like I’m being prepared for my work in the world. It cannot be denied that if you’re okay “inside,” you’re more equipped to take on the world.

So now it’s over and I move to meet life with renewed vigor and strength. Amazingly, just as I was leaving, I turned on my phone and I was met with a situation that would have ordinarily deeply affected me. But I stayed calm and cool — and I must say my perception went deep beyond the superficial. I saw the person from a vantage point of understanding and proceeded to address the situation in a very cool way.

Retreats are really so good for living in this world.

As in the spiritual path, heartness is of prime value even in mundane levels. It is a quality that is a significant trait of our race. Seeing from the heart is very different from seeing with the mind. Seeing with the heart, one tends to be more forgiving, more accepting. Having heartness also enables one to “hold” the other. That’s what happens in funerals when one holds the bereaved from one’s heart. That’s what happens when psychologists or friends listen to the person needing help. It’s not just listening with the ears. It’s listening and holding from the heart.

Like everything in life, there are variations of the heart flow that can be counterproductive. Heartness with principle is the best. There are times when heart flow pushes one to give in, and be soft and result in an untenable situation. This happens when the heart connection in such that the group becomes everything and higher principles and the common good is ignored.

Heartness must be ruled by principle.

The kind of heartness that is good:

• One that is fluid, gives, never judges, never rigid. Just sees the inner core.

• One that is firm on principle. Understands the situation compassionately but stands firm on what is best for the person or the common good.

• One that is upturned towards the Divine. Receiving. Always Receiving.

When everything is tinged with a flavor of heartness, the flow of life is smoother. When I go around the islands, meet up with our communities and even meet executives, this trait of vision seems to come almost instinctively. It is part of our culture. I see it in the way parents run their families and executives deal with their corporations.

Heartness. I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to say that it is uniquely Filipino. But I would proudly say that it is a significantly Filipino trait.

Go forward in life. Feel the magic of your heart and that of others.

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I can be reached at regina_lopez@abs-cbn.com.