Today’s photo evokes the romance of the school dance. An oft used descriptor of that moment would be “innocence” although, events later in the parking lot might not be very innocent. Yet, we wistfully remember clumsily fumbling around another person in the dark because whether it was glorious, frightening or both, opening the heart was a powerful moment for us.
I sadly never got out of my head long enough to let my heart into the equation but maybe it happened at some point. It wasn’t until years later when meditation gave me the courage to allow vulnerability. But, whether it was groping on a high school dance floor, fumbling in the back seat, or sitting on the meditation cushion, the moment of frailty when we “fall” is an important step in our spiritual journey.
Falling in love sounds lovely, but falling can be a frightening experience. As it is scary to have our defenses pulled away, it is nonetheless very powerful when we allow ourselves to open.
The Tibetan Buddhist systems speak of “transmission”, which is a nonlinear communication that happens to us, despite whatever it is we are trying to do. Transmission is a seemingly instantaneous joining of our body, mind and heart. This happens when a realized teacher performs a ceremony, when we are in a car accident, and sometimes when we fall in love. Our body is responding, our heart is opening and our mind is clear. We are not trying to do anything anymore than a diver tries to dive, or a painter tries to create a masterpiece. Michelangelo famously said that he could not take credit for sculpting his statue of David. He said he simply removed all the rock that wasn’t David. He removed the obstacles and the truth was revealed.
Of course, there is a lot of trying involved in developing a skill. But the magic happens when we let go and let the transmission take place. The actual transmission of David was Michelangelo’s connection to the universe, not a triumph of his will. Our spiritual path is like this. Most of the time, we apply ourselves to hard work. But every now and then we lift our gaze and everything opens. We can learn, but realization comes from a surrendering of learning. Itis a surrendering of will. We fall. As in love, we might strategize our courtship. But when we actually fall, the world opens up and strategies are useless. We become lost in the music of life.
I was grew up in a tenement in New Jersey. My dad worked days and went to school nights, my mom worked in the city, but we would gather around the TV when we could like our forebears gathering around the hearth, or the fire. As with them, the TV allowed us to share sadness, happiness and laughter with our world. I still remember the extraordinary moment on the Ed Sullivan show that swept us away from the tension of our life and brought joy and love through those small rooms. After that transmission, my mom would gather brooms and mops from the closet for us to use as guitars. My mother, brother, and I sister would sing along to our first two Beatle songs, “She Loves You” and “I’ll get you.”. We went to church every Sunday in those days. A banner above my grandfather’s pulpit read “God Is Love”. We were an evangelical Pentecostal community and I had witnessed the Holy Spirit entering members of the congregation in a transmission of the power of the love of God. Speaking in tongues, ecstatic dance, and shaking are moments when body, spirit and mind become one. For me, it was standing in front of the mirror with my broom guitar jumping up and down. This presupposed Lennon’s infamous declaration that the Beatles were more important to my generation than God. And to this day, I can be lost in the pure joy of a pop song in a way that short circuits my doubtful, sarcastic mind, and gives me the confidence to fall in love.
Ecstatic moments join body, spirit and mind into a moment far greater than all the concepts or ideas that lead us to it. No one could have guessed that the power of love might take hold of the world from four boys who initially were just trying to impress girls. But it was the ecstatic explosion of the audience, drowning out even their own voices, that propelled us to see the world more fully than we ever had. With all the military might and bluster of the men who ruled society, the power of teenage girls to bring the world to its knees went completely overlooked. Yet, this has been an undercurrent throughout history. Helen, as Marlowe said, had a “face that launched a thousand ships”, Shakespeare’s Juliet, Garbo, Monroe, Cleopatra, Nefertiti and the iconic images of Quan Yin, Lilith and Tara all represent the disruptive and transformative power of love. In Vajrayana Buddhism there is a deity called Vajrayogini who is depicted as a teenage woman in the full prime of her youth. For many, she is a primary Tantric goddess of the “Dakini” class. Dakinis, or “sky dancers”, are depicted as young women unbound by temporal constraints The Dakini affects great change. She represents the transformative power of Love. You can study her liturgies, but it’s only through direct contact and a willingness to surrender to her flames that our transformation occurs,
While we can analyze platonic love, study spiritual love and try our best to bring about love on Earth, we cannot try to understand the transformative power of romantic/disruptive love. We can only experience it. And that experience can only happen when we are willing to let down our defences and surrender to the darked arms of the Goddess’ death embrace. As it says in the prayer of St Francis “it is by dying that one receives eternal life.” To Buddhists this refers to “ego-death” which is an essential step to liberation. Yet death of the ego feels like death itself. Like the “little death” of an orgasm, we cannot receive this transmission by trying. As the great master Yoda said, “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”
What if humans evolve to the point of surrender? What if we stop trying to fix, change and control and allow ourselves, instead, to discover? There is a school of thought that says past, present and future are just a construct and all events have already happened. Another school of thought suggests that until we can conceive a thing we cannot see it. And yet, it is only by releasing the concept that we can touch it. If everything we think will happen has already happened, then all we need to do is be open to the possibility. And believe. And then let go and receive.
What if instead of paying endless lip service to love, we just deeply kiss the world? What if our politics and our nations were organized around faith in the power of love? I guess the process is to conceive it and then believe it and then let that go and simply be it. Thich Nhat Hanh said, “BE love.” Believe it and be it.
What if we stop over valuing destruction and might and began to organize ourselves around a politics of love?
Imagine.
If you look closely at the picture above you’ll see a band playing for 18 people. They would not have guessed that in a short time they would change the world.
They were probably just hoping to meet girls.
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