In this video, we look at why being opened-hearted is so important and necessary. We look at the value and purpose of going back to and living in the vulnerable and generous space of being open-hearted.

Audio text transcription

The title of today’s video is the importance and necessity of the practice of being open-hearted.

So what I’d like to look at today is why being open-hearted is so important, why it’s necessary and why I use the word “practice”, because being open-hearted sadly, right or wrong, for most of us doesn’t come as our default position.

So I’d like to kind of look at why that is and how we can try to work towards making it more of a default position rather than something that we have to kind of keep coming back to.
so the first thing is what is being open-hearted when I talk about and I say the words open-hearted what does that conjure up and on one level if we want to get an idea of what is it to be open-hearted.

a really good example is just little children, if you look at three, four five, that kind of age, kids at that age are just naturally open-hearted. you see in that open-heartedness and aliveness a joy a trust and innocence there is something that’s just in their eyes and their demeanor that feels open and vulnerable. they are open and vulnerable and I think a natural tendency to adore and protect and elevate children of that age is that because I think we see something in them that was once in ourselves and we want to kind of protect it and acknowledge it.
but what occurs for a lot of us and most of us we have that open-heartedness and as we grow older and as we start in this world, and we have dysfunctional families we live in a pretty dysfunctional culture, in society little by little bit by bit our openness our vulnerability our sensitivity our generosity our love starts to feel like a liability rather than an asset. Then little by little we shut down we defend we guard and we protect because we start feeling vulnerability is associated with pain and hurt and who wants pain and hurt.

so little by little we protect ourselves, we develop shields we develop masks and we close our hearts down. Now all of us here and there find little pockets where we can feel more open-hearted, be it with our kids, be with our spouses, friends but to society as a whole I think we’re a lot of us are very clear on the fact that it’s best not to be because you end up being taken advantage of and you end up being hurt .then what can occur, and I know this for myself you can end up feeling very cynical about the world about the life you look at the news look what’s going on and you can feel this judgmentalness, this sense of distrust of people, of society, of politicians of businesses, of just everything that’s going on and when you feel that there’s a sense of you just have to close off it’s like you know being open-hearted is just like being stabbed over and over. so you have to shut down become a little bit cynical a little bit distrustful to be able to function in this world and it feels justified. it feels like well what other way is there to be the problem with that is in our hearts give us a wellspring to a joy and an aliveness in life that we can end up feeling our distrust and cynicism is rationalized justified and understandable. but by doing that we’re cutting ourselves off from that that wellspring that openness and what ends up occurring is that we become smaller as a result you know that closed hardness, is a small heart and therefore the practice of open-heartedness is the practice of reliving and regaining a trust in life and openness to people. a non-judgmentalness, a generosity of spirit and openness of love, forgiveness, compassion, kindness, gentleness all these kind of things that come from being open-hearted. All independent of the pain that it may bring, independent of the hurt that it may attract.

so we don’t do it to feel good, we do it because we’re aiming to be bigger people, we’re aiming not to live from a smallness and cynicism and judgmentalness, rather we’re aiming to live from openness and love.

If we want to look at it, just look at it in kids and we’re trying to regain that because it is just a better way to approach this world. I saw a documentary on this woman who forgave the man who murdered her daughter and the man was her husband and I can’t remember the details of how the murder happened but he murdered her. It was really about her process of visiting him in jail and not only forgiving him but loving him and developing a relationship with him. It was so admirable and so amazing to see this woman and her open-heartedness and the courage and tenacity and bigness of someone to be able to sit across from someone who murdered your daughter and not only forgive them but actively loved them. You saw the impact that had on him and his process of redemption and his process of healing and forgiving himself and whatever may be involved that her act of mercy and compassion had this ripple effect on this person’s life and her life.

on one level you know for us it may not require something as big or as grand as you know forgiving someone who’s murdered one of our children, for most of us being open-hearted on a day-to-day basis is approaching the world from a more trusting, non-judgmental cynical position and that is hard because our cynicism and our judgments seem to be amplified and justified over and over and over we crack little groups where we feel like we’re right everyone else is wrong we look at people as terrible people or dumb people. I mean I know I do a lot of the time and therefore we create this kind of separation and being open-hearted is looking at the world and people from a position that everyone is working with where they are at everyone is doing the best within the framework of what they’ve gone through. viewing everyone in the world from a position of compassion. There is a meditation in a book I have of the Dalai lamas where he talks about imagining that through millions of lives, or billions of lives at some point you’ve been the mother to every single sentient being that’s alive on this earth. at some point, you lived a life as the mother of that person and it’s a meditation really about opening our hearts up and viewing every single being from a position of compassion the way a mother would view a child, that is not the easy path it is not the straightforward path, but in the end, it is the path that that invites us to be bigger to be more generous and the world needs anything right now it needs us to be tender heroes. Rumi in a passage he wrote about gratitude talks about the path of tender heroes, of the heroes of tenderness, and what’s interesting is that what’s interesting about that line is the pairing of the word tenderness and heroism. you know to be heroic is to be brave and courageous is to be tender is to be gentle kind and affectionate and we often do when we think of heroes and we think of battle and force, aggression and conquering, we don’t pair heroes and with tenderness, kindness, and gentleness but this is the kind of heroism that we need for ourselves and the world. is the heroism to be gentle in the face of cynicism, to be compassionate in the face of judgment, to be kind in the face of hatred and that takes courage that takes bravery and it takes awareness.

To me being open-hearted is working to practice on a day-to-day basis living from that position of love and generosity and trying to remind myself to be the bigger person, to be to have a bigger heart, and if I forget that I try to come back to that if I lose sight of that I try to remember it. the truth is living from an open heart is more of a relaxed joyful place to live it’s not a world of cynicism and judgment it’s a world of love kindness and generosity and I don’t get it right often more often than not but I it is a compass point that I can come back to it is an awareness that as I start the day as I go through the day do I want to approach this with openness or do I want to approach this with cynicism and judgment do I want to look at myself and my own failings and issues from an open-heartedness do I want to look at the world and everyone else in it from a position of open hardness and it’s not the easy position to take but it is the one that is more fruitful and allows us to live larger and greater lives

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