Four Buddhist monks walk into a temple. The first one asks, “Hey so what’s the point to all this meditating and reciting mantra?” The second one replies, “To end suffering and reach enlightenment, no?” The third one responds, “I think it’s to realize God within.” The fourth one replies, “Oh, I just like the way it makes me feel.”
I came up with this parable as a reminder to stay tuned into our heart space in our spiritual pursuits and practices. It was inspired by a message I received a while back that goes, “Those who seek the marvel of the heart via the plagiarized copy of the mind have truly missed the point.” In many ways, this message prompted me to delve deeply into exploring the relationship between our minds and our hearts, and why too often we disregard our emotions for our intellect.
The relationship between our hearts and our minds is a tricky one. Both very much influence and are influenced by the other, and as one often hears in meditation class, our thoughts affect our feelings, and our feelings affect our thoughts. Both are interconnected and reflect the state of the other, so it’s curious that such a cultural dichotomy between the two has been created.
Many of us have had moments in our lives when we wonder whether to listen to our hearts or our heads. The paradigm of whether to follow our heart’s desires or to make the practical choice is a common predicament. But perhaps framing the issue as the mind vs the heart isn’t quite accurate at all, and rather it would be more precise to state that our current culture conditions us to think in ways that disregard what our hearts innately know to be true.
I think part of the reason why has much to do with our conditional love programing. Many of us have experiences from our childhood that made “If I do this, then I can be loved” our subconscious [mis]understanding of how love operates. Once the language of love is misused to manipulate, control, or condition our behavior, it creates confusion within us that leads to feelings of unsafeness and mistrust around living with our hearts fully open.
There are times when we withdraw our love from others as a way to protect ourselves. And there are times when we withdraw ourselves from receiving love to protect ourselves. And this is okay, as it is part of our human journey. At the same time, love isn’t meant to be used as a reward system. Love is not meant to be conditional. It simply exists and can be tuned into at any moment.
What I’ve realized through my spiritual practice is that there is truly nothing more meaningful than love. It’s easy for Buddhist teachings to be misinterpreted as having a nihilist perception of the world, but meaninglessness actually has nothing to do with love. Love is beyond meaning.
When you feel Love, like truly feel it radiating in your heart space, you seek no greater meaning or purpose. You realize that Divine Love, like God, is beyond meaning and is even beyond existence itself. Your purpose is Love. Love is the answer.
This isn’t to say that we should no longer acknowledge our experiences which we perceive as being outside of love. Rather everything we experience is now interpreted through the understanding that Love is who we are. Uncomfortable emotions are felt, held, accepted, and let go when they are ready to be released. We aren’t striving for perfection or superficial positivity, but learning to foster a feeling of security that comes from knowing we are loved unconditionally, that we are here to love unconditionally, that we got each other, and that ultimately everything is going to be okay.
This past year has been particularly challenging I think for all of us because it’s super difficult for love to thrive in isolation. Love is the energetic frequency of oneness — an understanding that we are all interconnected. No matter how much separation we perceive, channeling that feeling of immense love and remembering that we are taken care of is a powerful tool. Knowing fundamentally that we are loved, forgiven, and accepted no matter what we did or do is highly auspicious because it allows us to extend that same philosophy to everyone and everything around us.
Aligning our minds with our hearts is how we walk the middle path. An overactive mind can often disengage us from tuning into our heart wisdom, and this is seen especially when painful emotions are triggered within the body. When our fight-flight-freeze responses can be activated, rather than stay in that state and let your mind run, first calming the mind and body is more conducive to expanding our heart-centered consciousness. The language of our hearts has so often been misinterpreted, and it’s time to reclaim them.
