Call and Response Ep. 73 | Ease of Heart

Q: Two years ago, you used the phrase, “ease of heart” and I was like, “Whoa,” that’s it. That’s what I got. That’s what I need. That’s what I always needed. And so, I carry it, in my head, you know, all day, kind of. It goes in and out of my mind. Then today when I was coming, I thought, “I don’t know if I really know what you think it is.”

“You can’t cure anger with more anger. You can’t cure hate with more hate. The only transforming power in the universe is Love and real Love means… Listen to me, as if I know… Real love means accepting things as they are and including them.” – Krishna Das

Q: Hi. So, I heard you speak like two…

KD: Where you?

Q: I’m here. Two years ago, you used the phrase, “ease of heart” and I was like, “Whoa,” that’s it.

KD: I used the part… what?

Q: Ease of heart.

KD: Ease of heart, yeah yeah.

Q: And I was, “Whoa, that’s it.” That’s what I got. That’s what I need. That’s what I always needed. And so, I carry it, in my head, you know, all day, kind of. It goes in and out of my mind. Then today when I was coming, I thought, “I don’t know if I really know what you think it is.”

KD: What?

Q: I don’t know if I really understand what it really means to you, but I think it’s what you were just talking about, right?

KD: Yeah.

Q: Ok. That’s all I needed to know.

KD: It comes from the Metta, the Metta Loving Kindness Meditation practice, which was originally given by the Buddha to some monks. He had sent some monks to meditate in a forest and they went to the forest and they tried to meditate but the tree spirits were causing trouble for them and harassing them. So, they came to the Buddha and they said, you know, “Give us a weapon to defeat these angry spirits that are giving us a hard time.” And the weapon the Buddha gave them was the Loving Kindness Meditation and it transformed the whole forest, of course. That’s the only way. You can’t cure anger with more anger. You can’t cure hate with more hate. The only transforming power in the universe is Love and real Love means… listen to me, as if I know… real love means accepting things as they are, and including them. Like, once again, a heart as wide as the world. And so, this practice is really great and right near here in Barry, Massachusetts is IMS, the Instant Meditation Society. Insight Meditation Society. And they teach, they teach that practice there quite a lot along with Vipasana also. But Metta is its own practice and it comes in that phrase. So, it starts off, they teach you four phrases, four phrases, and one is, “May I be safe, may I be happy, may I have good health and may I live at ease of heart.” “At ease of heart in this world and with whatever comes to me.” And you’re asked to offer these phrases to yourself. And the first couple of days of the practice, they describe the whole thing to you and they give you these phrases and they’re doing now and the meditation practice is to sit there and not to struggle with your mind and your thoughts, but to sit there and offer these phrases to yourself, to repeat them, not automatically or mechanically, but to try to connect with them. You know, “may I be safe.” “May I be happy.” “May I have good health and may I live at ease,” and on and on. So, after two days I was ready to commit suicide. I couldn’t feel a damn thing. I was just like getting harder and harder and more destroyed. I was like flipping out. And then they say, now take the phrases and offer them to what they call the benefactor, which is somebody who’s always been on your side. Maybe your grandmother, maybe somebody or a teacher who’s just always been there. Certainly, usually not your partner. Somebody who’s really always been there for you. And then offer the phrases to that person, and you know, in like, in a half an hour you’re flying because you bring that person to mind and of course, “May you be safe, may you be happy.” Of course. “May you live at ease of heart.” You know, yeah, it’s easy, you know. And then, then they say, and now come back to yourself. And you begin to experience how hard it is to wish ourselves well. How hard. It’s really hard. And once again, they don’t try to solve that issue intellectually, analytically. They see, they know come, then they say, go back and forth, they give you a period, “Now the benefactor, now come back to yourself,” and it kind of loosens you up a little but not too much. Then they go to, there’s the enemy, you know? That person who, if you could get away with it, you know, you know, that’s the one who’s always just, always been on your case, never given you a break and now try to wish that person well. “Oh, may you be safe, you piece of shit. May you be happy, so you leave me the fuck alone. May you be healthy and live far away.” I mean, you really, it’s like you have to torture yourself to try to get the words out of your mouth. It’s like… then you come back to the benefactor, ok. And then you come to yourself, all right. So you’re back, but it’s very interesting. And then the last part of the practice, at the end of the five or six or seven days or whatever, you try to wish all beings well. Now, some of us are very, we’re really good at wishing all beings well. “May everybody be happy” and then somebody cuts you off on the Parkway, “You son of a…” It’s easy to be all… so, it’s those knee jerk reactions where the karma is. That’s… so, and it’s only through practice and every time you come back, every time you land back somewhere where you are, it’s a miracle almost, and you’ve planted a seed of coming back that keeps coming, growing and growing. So, yeah, the ease of heart is the fourth, the fourth… and like I said, this is a practice that Buddha gave to those monks and Sharon Salzberg has been really practicing this for many many many years. She’s really, she took it on as her own personal practice and she’s doing it for so many years. She’s one of the great ones. And she’s written a lot of books about this practice and believe me, it’s an incredible practice and you come out of there, even if nothing’s happened, you know, in your head, “Oh, that was ok.” Something happened. And you’ve carved out a slightly deeper place in your own heart where you’re just sitting, naturally now because you’ve gone through that process. Once again, you don’t need a stamp, the good housekeeping seal of approval on this stuff, you know? You go through the fire of doing these practices and our hearts are purified. Our kleshas are lightened, the obscurations, the dust on the mirror of the heart is thinned out just from going through this practice, you know, doing the practices. So, it’s a good idea. I love going off for a retreat, you know, a personal retreat where I don’t have to, where I can really just do the practice for awhile. I don’t have to be busy being me, too much. It’s a great thing to do. It’s a great, the fact that we can do that is really quite amazing, because as difficult as the situation is in this world at this time, we still have a lot of luxury to pursue this kind of inner growth which, in most places in the world, they don’t have that ability, they don’t have the luxury. They’re starving or they’re running or there are bombs being dropped on them or, you know, it’s brutal. Or, there’s no electricity, you know, or no food. And there’s no rain. You can’t grow crops. Can’t pay the landlords. Your kids are committing suicide because it’s so bad. This is the reality out there and look at us, we have so much here. We have so much. And we use so little of it well. That’s also karma.

Yeah.

Q: Thank you, KD. I saw you on Friday night. Everything sounded great. I was talking to David, he said the soundcheck wasn’t good but it sounded great. It was amazing. But speaking with this nice lady…

KD: Hold the mic a little closer.

Q: I’m sorry, how’s that?

KD: That’s very good.

Q: Ok. They always told me I talk too loud at home so now I can be myself.

KD: Hey, you’re talking to a deaf person here. Talk up.

Q: Right.

KD: Yell.

Q: Last year, you gave the same talk and you spoke about the Guru had been taken prisoner for a very long time and I guess He had been tortured and they asked, somebody asked Him, “What were you most afraid of?”

KD: Oh. The Lama.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Q: And I think there was a very good story that goes along with that and if you could share that again and also, the fellow with the banana, the Guru who said, “Everything’s going to be ok,” who would always tell people it was ok. I never forgot that.  If you could share a little of that, that’d be great. Thank you, KD.

KD: Well, the first story is about, it’s something that happened, a very old Tibetan Lama was released from prison in Tibet. Chinese Prison. After many years, 20, 25 years and the conditions are beyond brutal. I mean, you can’t imagine. We’re not going to go into that. But He was released and He was, His body was broken. He was in much… you know, He had been beaten and tortured and all these things and He finally gets to India and He gets an audience with the Dalai Lama, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and His Holiness asked Him, you know, how was, “Were you ever afraid?” His Holiness asked, “Were you afraid for your life?” Right? And the Lama said, “Oh, yes, I was afraid. I was afraid I would get angry at the Chinese.” We can’t even imagine, you know, if I stub my toe in the morning, I would say a week is ruined and this guy, tortured, beaten, starved, you know… and his one worry was that He would actually get angry at the Chinese, at these torturers. We can’t, you know… there’s another color. What do we see? Red, orange, yellow, green. ROYGBIV. I learned that in High School, right? Red, orange, yellow, blue