COMING HOME

Home is where the heart is . . . let’s go to your place. 

Many of us have suffered great, or glancing, wounds during our upbringing. We denizens of modern society live under tremendous pressure to succeed, compete or even keep up. This makes us less than kind sometimes. It’s a sad fact that our family members are sometimes fodder for the aggressions of an uncaring world. Because of whatever pain we’ve endured, many of us consider ourselves unworthy of care and affection. We feel at fault. We hold deep resentments. Many of us grow up searching for a safe place to call home.

Of course, there are many who have had healthy homes and many who maintain balanced relationships in their lives. Yet, they still struggle and suffer as we all do. Rather than living in gratitude, many suffer from comparing themselves to those who have it better. No matter how happy our lives have been we are all subject to pain and suffering. And although pain is a natural and necessary component in our lives, we somehow believe we are being punished whenever we are in pain. We feel gilt for the pain others ae experiencing. We mistake this very natural process as personal. We believe we are sinners who are too ashamed to face their creator and so wander the world in shame.  We are unworthy of love, unworthy of success, unworthy of happiness. By believing we are somehow at fault, we miss our opportunity to feel at home in ourselves.

Maybe home is where the hurt is.

Some of us left home as soon as we could. Others stayed on their mother’s couch for years. Yet, whether we travelled to a neighbor’s, another room, or another country, we never really leave our upbringing. We carried our attachment issues, our anxieties, and our loneliness wherever we travelled. Sometimes we kept leaving for the sunshine only to feel shadows crawling up behind us. The Buddha taught that the root of suffering lies in attachment.  Although this is interpreted as meaning attachment is the problem, perhaps we can unpack this and see that problematic attachments are the problem. Dysfunctional attachments plant seeds of social, emotional and environmental dysfunction. I had a friend who would say that when the cornerstone is cracked, the structure is always unsure. When human beings feel unsure, they cling for safety wherever they can. Clinging is attachment’s codependent partner. Our broken sense of attachment causes us to wander looking for things to make us feel secure.

Some people find a temporary sense of security in a new house. Others in a new love. Some find solace in substances and many in belief systems. The child that dons a swastika and carries a gun to school may be looking for something to complete the emptiness they feel but cannot endure. The government that invades a neighbor is looking for security in ways that bring only more fear and insecurity. White supremacy and nationalism of all colors are ways for people to try and heal the broken ways they feel inside. Some of us look for connection in ways that actually cause great violence toward those entrusted in our care. Sometimes we mistake that for love. Sometimes we take that for evidence that we are broken and in need. Sometimes that need makes us take more than we need as we crawl into the dark cycle of obsessively clinging to everything out there in an attempt to repair the broken attachments in our heart.

And while many have grown up believing in one God who peers down on them in judgement, there are some who’ve come to realize that divinity is in every living thing. If God is everywhere, or if God is the loving spirit of the universe, then perhaps we can access salvation, grace, or relief from our suffering in any moment we remember that we are not at fault because of our suffering. In fact, we are blessed.

Remembering our divinity, we remember that although our heart hurts, our pain connects us to all living things as all living things experience pain. In this way, we are connected to a web of life. When we touch our heart, we recognize that we are part of the interconnectedness of all living things. Each time we remember we are alive, we are connected to the spirit of the universe. That loving sense of the universe has always been there and, as far as anyone can guess, will continue to be there. Sadly however, the destructive forces of the universe are also always with us. Bhagavad Gita states there are three essential universal forces: the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer. Brahma is the creator. Vishnu is the preserver. Shiva the destroyer. These forces are said to be natural and self-existing. This teaching points to the ego-insulting fact that our suffering is natural and necessary and not about us. Of course, when we are hurt, broken or frightened we feel we are the only ones in the world. We feel abandoned by God, and shut off from all hope. Locking ourselves in isolation, we keep ourselves in hell of shame and retribution. Perhaps we don’t recognize this as such. Perhaps someone else is to blame for our suffering, and so lock ourselves into reliving those old scenarios. Someone else may have caused us great suffering, but it’s up to us whether we isolate in that hell or remember the love which is nonetheless all around us. Suffering is not our fault. But it is an opportunity to wake up and return home. All beings suffer. And all beings wish, as we do, to be free of suffering.

Interestingly, in order to feel connected, we must accept our separateness. The blind desperation of random clinging only keeps us isolated in cycles of dissatisfaction and suffering. The Buddhist process is to decouple the reflexive interaction between how we feel from how we perceive others are behaving.  In the AA tradition they say “live and let live.” My sponsor is fond of reminding me that it’s none of my business what anyone else thinks of me.  He is also fond of reminding me that my suppositions are rarely accurate. We tell ourselves so many stories to justify our suffering. But these stories tend to keep us from accessing our compassion and locked away from our heart. Addiction, craving, and clinging flourish in isolation.  Isolation, whether socially, or psychologically is a hall of self referential mirrors. By magnifying and distorting reality we put ourselves at the center of our universe. While sometimes we may need to do this as part of processing our pain, in time it becomes self-defeating as we are disconnected from the source of healing. If Isolation breeds the behaviour that causes suffering, connection is the antidote.

We don’t have to run in the streets hugging everyone we meet. The key is to connect to our own heart and be touching our vulnerability, relax our defenses and reconnect to the spirit of things. The fact is, despite our suffering, we have access to love by simply loving. In this way, we are returning home. Perhaps for a moment, we can stop wandering and just be here.

Home.

Sarah C. Whitehead posted a quote by in our community chat:

    “Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”– Naguib Mahfouz

 

 

 

 

______________