Get lost, disband your army, wake up to a broken heart

“That [transformative] thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost.  The word 'lost' comes from the Old Norse los, meaning the disbanding of an army, and this origin suggests soldiers falling out of formation  to go home, a truce with the wide world.” (Solnit, p 7)

This is how I feel, as if I have been slowly, slowly, disbanding an internal army of contraction and confusion. There is a palpable softening around my heart, when I drop my struggle and relax into loss.  But its not an easy process, nor is it a one way street, its a heaving mass of contradiction: as one thing loosens, something else seems to tighten in response, in compensation, in fear.

The idea of disbanding your army reminds me of Pema Chodron's description of the ego as "a room of your own, a room with a view, with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like... But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what's outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start to pull down the shares and locking the door. .. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever...


Now you begin to relate with those feelings. You develop some compassion, connecting with the soft spot. You relate with what begins to happen when you're not protecting yourself so much. Then gradually [...] you become more curious than afraid. To be fearless isn't really to overcome fear; it's to come to know its nature. Just open the door more and more and at some point you'll feel capable of inviting all sentient beings as your guests." (Start Where You Are)
 
She also talks about bodhicitta ('the soft spot') as analogous to “the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.” (The Places that Scare You)

 I witnessed this beautiful actuality in friends of mine recently. Friends who were thrust deep into the fires of grief when their best friend was murdered. I saw how this deep grief had burnt their hearts wide open so they were soft and present and joyful.  It was astounding, and instructive.