Exploring the Heart Chakra: Becoming a Bodhisattva of Compassion

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As we step into the heart chakra portion of our journey, I begin to consider balance in more ways than one. We just got out of the fires of the solar plexus and are feeling imbued with a power and strength that can be utilized to make our own significant impact on the world. The winds one step above in the air of the heart chakra can fan the flames or put them out. I like to think that they could do either or, and it’s up to us to make the decision of what that solar fire really needs. Secondly, the heart chakra sits in the exact middle of our climb. The chakras below us are more physical, represented by earth, water and fire. Above us await the three chakras dealing with more lofty experiences like sound, light and space. Below we work towards manifestation and above we work towards liberation, but for now we sit here in the middle balancing the scales.

When it’s difficult to decide how best to proceed, I find it best to look towards your teachers. I reached out to Beth for her thoughts on my upcoming month and she shared a mantra with me that she thought might be helpful:

AHAM PREMA • I Am Divine Love — [Sanskrit, and English translation]

I did mention that we were entering the more lofty principles in our journey, didn’t I?

I’ve long since given up my quest to rid myself of the initial cynical response to mantras and prayers, but through meditation practice have come to recognize that response for what it really is. I hear the initial thought, chuckle to myself for being the equal parts zen lunatic and grumpy old man, and then give myself a moment before shaking it off and stepping fully into a practice that can make me uncomfortable. Mantras make me uncomfortable. Divinity makes me uncomfortable. Love for all things makes me uncomfortable. But part of any good practice is getting comfortable in your discomfort.

We can encounter divine love in many different religions and spirituality. I remember a hymn from Catholic school that went something like “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.” We used to sing it around Thanksgiving during our food drive. I believe the quote comes from Jesus himself, basically telling his followers that whoever you should meet along your path, treat them as you would treat me.

Within Rastafarianism, there’s a concept called ‘I and I.’ You may have heard it in a Trevor Hall or Bob Marley song. In this practice, you don’t use the word ‘me’ because it separates the individual from Jah, or God. By always referring to yourself as ‘I’ you’re regularly recognizing the divinity within yourself. By saying ‘I and I’ instead of ‘you and me’ you’re recognizing divinity within yourself and divinity within another and the connection that you share because of it. This isn’t dissimilar from the yogic favorite, ‘namaste,’ meaning ‘the light within me recognizes the light within you’. Maybe the first step of being Divine Love is just treating others the way you would want to be treated.

As I stepped into my practices this month and began practicing my mantra of Aham Prema, I was repeatedly brought back to thinking of a particular Buddhist saint. In some cultures they are known as Avalokitesvara. In others, Kuan Yin. They are often depicted as having one thousand arms and eyes and they are considered the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

This seems as good a time as any to get into a little bit of Buddhist dogma.

Buddhist belief suggests that we are stuck in the cycle of Samsara. This is the sequence of birth, life, death and rebirth driven by your karma. The goal of Buddhist discipline, if it can be called such, is to break free of this cycle and enter into Nirvana, or freedom from suffering. You’ll of course remember that another quirk of Buddhism is that fundamental truth that existence is suffering. When you’ve achieved enlightenment and entered into Nirvana, you become a Buddha. Now imagine if you’ve done all the work, meditated your behind off and played by every single rule that the monks have given you. You’re at the gates, about to leave this veil of endless suffering and enter into a realm of peace that you can’t possibly imagine. You’re at the precipice about to step in, and you look back one last time.

You see all the other beings of the universe. Friends and foes, ants and elephants, they’re all there sitting in their suffering. And there you are with the answer. You know the way. You can help! You can be a guide. So you step away from the ledge and return into the cycle. You’ve become a Bodhisattva.

A Bodhisattva is someone who has attained enlightenment but chooses to delay entering into Nirvana so that they may help bring others there as well. In fact, when you become a Bodhisattva, you don’t push off your eternal Nirvana vacation to save one or two people. You push it off to save all beings. The Bodhisattva vow states that there are endless beings in the universe, and that you will save them all.

That’s got to be Divine Love. 

As I sit and meditate at my altar, saying my mantra as I move my little prayer beads from one finger to the next, I tend to look out at this one tree over our balcony. For me, it’s just a tree. I don’t know what kind it is, but I’m sure that it was a tree before somebody categorized and named it. I look at the leaves and wonder how many there might be, and again I’m struck by the idea that however many there are, there were that many before anybody started counting. Each one is significant and insignificant at the same time.

I brought this same contemplation to the bottom of the Grand Canyon this month when we traveled to Havasupai Falls. I sat in quiet meditation with my mantra and watched as water cascaded down the cliffs of the canyon. Sometimes I’d try to follow one drop as it made its way down to the splash or river below. Sometimes I would just stare openly at the water that was constant and yet always changing. Without the individual drops, there would be no waterfall, but to try to count them is futile. It’s like Divine Love.

You can’t love everyone. You don’t have the capacity. You could not possibly care for every struggling family in war torn Ukraine. You couldn’t rebuild all the homes destroyed in the earthquake in Myanmar. You couldn’t even house all the homeless right outside your window in Venice Beach. It’s a truly hopeless situation.

But you can navigate the world with compassion. One act of kindness still counts, the same way one little pebble at the top of a mountain makes that mountain that much taller.

“Even if the whole world is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is still liberation in simply not being a jerk.”

— Brad Warner

On weekend mornings, Jenna and I wake up a little later and then take a stroll down the Venice Beach boardwalk to her wellness studio. The walk always reminds me of getting up early at a festival. There are a couple of people out exercising, a few people setting up their stands and preparing for the day, and an awful lot of people struggling from the decisions of the night before. Venice can be a bit crunchy and it’s not a place that I’d like my partner to walk alone.

On this particular morning, we pass a man in the midst of a crisis. He seems homeless and I’d venture to guess that there may have been some substance abuse in the hours preceding our brief encounter. He’s yelling incomprehensibly and twitching uncontrollably. I pull Jenna a little closer to my side and veer wide left to avoid his path. Normally I’d make a sarcastic remark about getting this guy off the street and cleaning up Venice. Today all I notice is all the hurt that he is going through at this moment. Don’t give me a medal or pat me on the back, because I didn’t step towards him and I didn’t try to help. But today I looked at him and felt compassion, and that felt like a step towards becoming Divine Love.

Thanks for opening up with me this month. 

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