On our hearts

Jack Kornfield tells of a story that comes out of the Jewish mystical tradition.  It seems a great rabbi taught his disciples to memorize and meditate on teachings, and to place the lessons, the sacred words on their hearts.  One day a follower asked the rabbi why you used the phrase "on your heart" and not "in your heart".  The rabbi responded that it is not easy for such lessons to find their way into people's hearts, and that we "recite and learn them and put them on our hearts hoping that some day when our heart breaks they will fall in."

Our hearts can be broken in many ways.

I have never really seen this as an opportunity before, and yet......

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I look upon my friend
bent and frail
breathing with difficulty
and I know his journey is ending

He knows it too
and in the midst of the pain, the uncertainty
the frailty seeks to find
somewhere
in the midst of it all
a reason to grasp living in the midst of dying

I look upon my friend and my heart breaks

I watch the news, and read the blogs
I see the faces, read the words, hear the voices
of hate and angry
intolerance

It overwhelms me
rushes over me like a physical pain
I can feel it in my body
like a dread disease that grips my inmost parts
and turns me inside out

I look around me and there is pain, and loneliness
It is everywhere

And it is in me too
I face my own heartbreaks
losses
betrayals
misunderstandings
failures

sometimes it seems as if my heart
is broken beyond repair
a tattered thing.. full of holes

and yet this broken heart is one
I need to hold, gently in my hands
with the dignity it deserves

I need to listen with this heart
what can it teach me through its brokeness?
how can it lead me to wholeness?

Can not these wounds that seem
so horrible
be that by which the sacred comes in?

I need to listen with this heart
for with it I can be aware of all the broken hearts in this world
with it I can hear the songs
of all the breaking hearts that surround me.

I need to listen with this heart

and find peace

in its vast openness