Inner light switch

"It often happens that I awake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the pope."

- Pope John XXIII

I returned to Jack Kornfield's lovely book A Path With Heart - A guide through the perils and promises of spiritual life after referencing it in yesterday's post. He included the pope quote as evidence that when we seek our true nature through our spiritual practice, we discover that our understanding of it has been inside of us all along. Maybe so, but I'm a little afraid of what I might find!

The Buddha said we must be "a lamp unto ourselves;" Jesus said we are "the light of the world." Encouragement from guys who would know, to be sure, but I'm not always feeling very radiant, and I definitely have a hard time listening to that voice of inner wisdom. I'm with Anne Lamott who said something like, "the annoying thing about God is that she doesn't send you instructions via email." I, for one, could use a direct message, maybe just a little Tweet to tell me what to do next, but evidently, if we get to a quiet place in our hearts, we can hear what God has to say. So says Jack Kornfield. (Jack Kornfield clearly has never seen the fidgety condition of my heart, which is usually too busy biting its nails to become quiet and peaceful for any length of time.)

Kornfield offers a fascinating guided meditation to help us open ourselves to our hearts and inner wisdom. I tried it out on a supremely annoying situation that has been making me angry for several weeks. (Am I the only one who likes to feed my anger by thinking, thinking, thinking about it so it continues to flare up even though I know the process burns through more emotional fuel than I can spare?) The results were surprising and heartening.

Here's a condensed version of the meditation in Jack Kornfield's words:

Picture yourself in the middle of an instance of one of the greatest difficulties of your life. Remember it, picture it, imagine in, think about it, feel it. Let yourself re-experience the scene vividly. Let it reach its worst height. Notice how your body feels in the midst of this and how you act and what state your heart is in.

Then imagine that there is a knock on the door that you must answer. You find waiting for you someone like the Buddha, Jesus, Mother Mary, or the great Goddess of Universal Compassion. They look at you kindly and offer to trade places with you. You lend your body to your spiritual guide and watch him or her engage in your difficult situation. Let the conversation and problems continue as before, and simply notice what you are being shown. Hows does your teacher respond to the situation? With silence? With what energy? What words do they choose? What is the state of their heart? Their body? Let them show you the way.

When they return your body to you, they touch you gently in the most healing way and whisper a few words of advice in your ear. Listen to these heartfelt words of wisdom and kindness and let them be just what you need to live wisely.

So I tried it, imagining a conversation that I have been going over and over for days. My versions were hot and bitter. They made my body feel tense, which always makes me unconsciously hold my breath. My colorful mental pictures had not produced any useful results, so I figured an effort to tap my better self might be worthwhile.

The outcome was this: perhaps predictably, my body relaxed, and I was able to breathe, but I was surprised to find how quickly and naturally it happened when I released the situation to more capable spirit hands. I approached the conversation with compassion, which did not mean folding, just reserving some of that emotional timber that I had previously spent on anger. Turns out there is a way to deal truthfully with this situation that retains everyone's dignity by dealing with the primary emotions that are always the genesis of anger.

The meditation provided access to my inner light switch. I never knew I had it in me, that light and salt of the world stuff. Apparently God knew and told Jack Kornfield. I'm relieved I stopped to listen and look at the pretty glow.