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In moments of desperation, no matter what we believe,
we all tend to reach out in prayer to something or
someone for help. We might call out for relief from a
migraine, beg to be selected for a job, pray for the
wisdom to guide our child through a difficult time.
Maybe we whisper, "Oh please, oh please," and feel that
we are asking "the universe" for help. When we feel
disconnected and afraid, we long for the comfort and
peace that come from belonging to something larger and
more powerful.
But who exactly are we praying to? I grew up
Unitarian, and I remember how we used to joke about
addressing our prayers "To Whom It May Concern." This
same question may come up for those of us who follow the
path of the Buddha. Students of Buddhist practice
usually think of praying as peculiar to Christianity and
other God-centered religions. Beseeching someone or
something greater than our small and frightened self
seems to reinforce the notion of a separate and wanting
self. Yet while prayer does suggest a dualism of self
and other, in my experience when we fully inhabit our
longing, it can carry us to the tender and compassionate
presence that is our own awakened nature.
Some years ago I was suffering from a broken heart. I
had fallen in love with a man who lived 2000 miles away,
on the other side of the country. Because we had very
different desires about having a family and about where
to live, we couldn’t weave our lives together and the
relationship ended. The loss was crushing—for many weeks
I was swamped in obsessing about him, sobbing,
overwhelmed with grief. I stopped listening to the radio
because classic rock songs often left me weeping. I
avoided romantic movies. I barely talked with friends
about him because even saying his name out loud would
freshly reopen the wound.
I accepted my grieving process for the first month or
so, but as it went on and on, I started feeling ashamed
of how big and dominating my sense of desolation was. On
top of that, I felt that something must be wrong with me
for being such an emotional wreck. The man was moving
on, dating other people. Why couldn’t I do the same? I
tried to wake up out of the stories, I tried mindfully
letting the pain pass through, but I remained possessed
by feelings of longing and loss. I felt more
excruciatingly lonely than I had ever felt in my
life.
In the room where I meditate, I have a Tibetan scroll
painting (called a thanka) of the bodhisattva of
compassion. Known as Tara in Tibet and Kwan Yin in
China, she is an embodiment of healing and compassion.
It is said that Kwan Yin hears the cries of this
suffering world and responds with the quivering of her
heart. One morning, about a month into my meltdown, as I
sat crying in front of the thanka, I found myself
praying to Kwan Yin. I felt crushed and worthless. I
wanted to be held in Kwan Yin’s compassionate embrace.
Off and on over my years of Buddhist practice, I had
prayed to Kwan Yin, relating to her primarily as a
symbol of compassion that could help me awaken my own
heart. But I hadn’t reached out to her as a spiritual
presence, as a Being larger than my small self. Now, in
my desperation, it was different. Kwan Yin was no longer
just a symbol of inspiration, she was the Beloved—a
boundless and loving presence who, I hoped, could help
relieve my suffering. Rilke’s words resonated
deeply:
I yearn to be held
In the great hands of your
heart—
Oh let them take me now.
Into them I place
these fragments, my life…
For a few days I did find some comfort by reaching
out to Kwan Yin. But one morning I hit a wall. What was
I doing? My ongoing ritual of aching and praying and
crying and hating my suffering was not really moving me
towards healing. Kwan Yin suddenly seemed like an idea I
had conjured up
to soothe myself. Yet without having
her as a refuge, I now had absolutely nowhere to turn,
nothing to hold on to, no way out of the empty hole of
pain. What felt most excruciating was that the suffering
seemed endless and without purpose.
Even though it seemed like just another idealistic
notion, I remembered that at times in my Buddhist
practice, I had experienced suffering as the gateway to
awakening the heart. I remembered that when I had
remained present with pain in the past, something had
indeed changed—I opened to a more spacious and kind
awareness. Suddenly I realized that maybe this situation
was about really trusting suffering as the gateway.
Maybe that was the whole point—I needed to stop fighting
my grief and loneliness, no matter how horrible I was
feeling or for how long it continued. Only by
experiencing the pain fully could I deliver “these
fragments, my life” into Kwan Yin’s boundless
compassion.
I recalled the bodhisattva’s aspiration: "May this
suffering serve to awaken compassion" and began quietly
whispering it inside. As I repeated the prayer over and
over, I could feel my inner voice grow less desperate,
more sincere. I was praying not for relief, but for the
healing and freedom that naturally unfolds as we open to
the bruised and broken places inside us. The moment I
prayerfully let go into that depth of suffering, the
change began.
Now I could scarcely bear the searing pain of
separation. I was longing, not for a particular person
but for love itself. I was longing to belong to
something larger than my lonely self. The more fully I
reached inward to the gnawing emptiness, instead of
resisting or fighting it, the more deeply I opened to my
yearning for the Beloved.
As I let go into that yearning, the sweet presence of
compassion arose. I distinctly sensed Kwan Yin as a
radiant field of compassion surrounding me, cherishing
my hurting, vulnerable being. As I surrendered, offering
my pain into her presence, my body began to fill with
light. I was vibrating with a love that embraced the
whole of this living world—it embraced my moving breath,
the singing of birds, the wetness of tears and the
endless sky. Dissolving into that warm and shining
immensity, I no longer felt any distinction between my
heart and the heart of Kwan Yin. All that was left was
an enormous tenderness tinged with sadness. The
compassionate Beloved I had been reaching for "out
there" was my own awakened being.
When we are suffering and turn to prayer, no matter
what the apparent reasons for our pain, the basic cause
is always the same: we feel separate and alone. Our
reaching out is a way of relieving ourselves of this
pain of isolation. Yet the bodhisattva's aspiration
radically deepens the meaning of prayer by guiding us to
also turn inward. We discover the full purity and power
of prayer by listening deeply to the suffering that
gives rise to it. Like a great tree, such prayer sinks
its roots into the dark depths in order to reach up
fully to the light. This is what I call mindful
prayer—opening wakefully to our suffering and allowing
ourselves to reach out in our longing for connection.
Irish poet and priest John O’Donohue writes: "Prayer is
the voice of longing; it reaches outwards and inwards to
unearth our ancient belonging." The more fully we touch
our pain and longing, the more fully we are released
into boundless, compassionate presence.
Mindful prayer awakens us from the imprisoning story
of a suffering self. Resisting pain only serves to
solidify the notion that "I" am suffering. When we
perceive pain simply as pain, rather than "my pain," and
hold it tenderly; we are no longer the beleaguered,
suffering self. The fear, shame, grief and longing no
longer feel like a mistake or an oppressive burden. We
can begin to see their universal nature: this is not my
grief, it is not my fear, it is not my longing. It is
part of the human experience and being willing to hold
it tenderly is the doorway to compassion.
A beautiful Sufi teaching shows us how our pain is
not personal, it is an intrinsic part of being
alive:
Overcome any bitterness that may have come
because you were not up to the magnitude of the
pain
that was entrusted to you.
Like the Mother of
the World,
Who carries the pain of the world in her
heart,
Each one of us is part of her heart,
And
therefore endowed
With a certain measure of cosmic
pain.
Our sadness, fear and longing are universal
expressions of suffering that are “entrusted to us,” and
they can be prayerfully dedicated to the awakening and
freedom of our hearts. May this suffering awaken
compassion . May this suffering awaken compassion. As we
meet our pain with kindness instead of bitterness or
resistance, our prayer is answered. Our hearts become an
edgeless sea of loving awareness with room not only for
our own hurts and fears, but also for the pain of
others. Like the Mother of the World, we become the
compassionate presence that can hold, with tenderness,
the rising and passing waves of suffering. |
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