Is Your Heart Open? What Will It Take To Open It?

If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you'll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.

Pema Chodron

                                                    photo by Susan Murphy

Rumi's Awakened Heart

"One day Rumi asked one of his young, snotty disciples to give him an enormous amount of rich and delicious food. This young disciple was rather alarmed because he thought Rumi was living an ascetic lifestyle. Rumi used to pray all night and eat hardly anything. The disciple thought, 'Aha, now I've really got the master — what he really wants to do is to go off somewhere secretly and eat all this food!' So he decided to follow Rumi. He followed him through the streets of Konya, out into the fields, out into yet further fields. Then he saw Rumi go into a ruined tomb. 'I'm finally going to unmask his pretensions,' the young disciple thought. But what he found was a totally exhausted bitch with six puppies, and Rumi was feeding the dog with his own hands so that she could survive to feed her children. Rumi knew that the disciple was following him, of course, and turned to him smiling and said, 'See?' The disciple, extremely moved, said, 'But how on earth did you know that she was here? How did you know that she was hungry? This is miles away from where you are!' Rumi laughed and laughed, 'When you have become awake your ears are so acute that they can hear the cries of a sparrow ten thousand miles away.' 

from The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi by Andrew Harvey

The Open Heart

"When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be. When the heart opens, everything matters, and this world and the next become one and the same." 

from Ten Poems to Open Your Heart by Roger Housden

May my feet rest firmly on the ground
May my head touch the sky
May I see clearly
May I have the capacity of listen
May I be free to touch
May my words be true
May my heart and mind be open
May my hands be empty to fill the need
May my arms be open to others
May my gifts be revealed to me
So that I may return that which has been given
Completing the great circle.

Terma Collective