~ Is This Sacred Too? Exploring Sensation ~

“What areas of your life do you least hold as sacred?” ~ Jack Kornfield

I encountered this question in one of my readings this past weekend and was stunned by its potency and power. This grew into a very insightful lesson for me as I began to contemplate and put it into practice. I started using that question as a daily mantra, and I began to see that it is very easy for me to delight in the
sacredness of the sunset, the blooming spring flowers, the sweet sounds of birdsong. To see this as connected to a sense of sacredness feels effortless. I feel joyful, happy, and at peace when I interact with these sensations. 

When the sensations shift to include people shouting angrily at one another, pollution streaking the sky, and what feels like half-hearted, shut down human connection, I am very quick to judge it as wrong or resist it entirely.

This is so far from spiritual! This isn’t right! This shouldn't be happening!!

As these uncomfortable sensations arise, I have started to sit back and ask, is this sacred too? What am I trying to avoid seeing or feeling here? Could it really all be Love? In taking a step back to simply witness the sensations I create space to breathe, and my questions transform into a strangely comforting, insightful amusement.

I hear a voice inside. The anger is connected to the joy, it says. Pain and pleasure, comfortable and uncomfortable compliment one another... they are each shades of the same light.

Every sensation arises from the truth, which is Love, the indescribable in words, the Tao. Every expression of Life points to the truth.

I allow the words to relax and soften in my mind. This feels like an act of surrender... a breakthrough in the bullshit. Everything is connected, and everything is sacred. The clouds have cleared and the sun is out.

More questions arise in the still light of my mind... So, does that mean the hate is sacred? The violence? The suffering? The dark times? A fart is sacred? A moment of awkwardness? Could I really treat everything with honor and respect?? Can I really see everything as a gift?

I can see that what I am actually resisting with these mental defenses of good and bad, right and wrong is the experience of my own pain. These more uncomfortable sensations trigger deeply buried, intense feelings of anger, despair, and fear for me. I do anything I can to escape feeling these things and expressing my feelings. I see this so clearly now. In letting go of my judgements and adopting a perspective of equanimity, I begin to treat pleasure and pain the same. I begin to open and allow the full experience of being human into my heart. I begin to sense the beauty and the sacredness alive and vibrating in every moment, whether it is a moment of joy, of sorrow, of boredom, of excitement, of mindfulness, of mindlessness. Within each moment, the sacred waits for us to recognize & honor Her.

An Ocean of Love,

Grace