Being Free of Heart: Feeling and Emptying

O leaf that grows
in full sun, teach us
how to receive
what touches us,
letting the rest
spill off.

On the one hand, being free of heart depends on our ability to engage all our feelings. For living in this messy, disorderly flood of relationship that we call life is how we discover that we are subject to the same currents. And accepting that we are in the same roar of currents is the source of compassion. Without such compassion, we are always a veil away from feeling life directly.

On the other hand, being free of mind requires letting go in a way that keeps emptying us of the residue of our experience. Otherwise, when allowed to build, that residue can block the immediacy of our perception. Without such emptying, we are also a veil away from feeling life directly.

Maneuvering Around Life: Resisting Feeling and Emptying

In his 1961 film Through a Glass Darkly, the great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman offers a compelling example of how we all resist both feeling and emptying. In the film, David, a novelist too circumscribed by his art, confesses to his troubled daughter,

“One draws a magic circle around oneself to keep everything out that does not fit one’s secret games. Each time life breaks through the circle, the games become puny and ridiculous. So one draws a new circle and builds new defenses . . . [Then life breaks through again and, if fortunate, we] are forced to live in reality.”


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David, like many of us, has become skilled in the wrong art: maneuvering around life rather than living our way through. So what does your magic circle look like? What aspects of your boundaries are unnecessary? Are you aware of your secret games?

One of my early secret games was to hide within the magic circle of my poetry, watching life but seldom letting life touch me. A later secret game was the attempt to make myself invaluable to those I loved, in hopes that they would feel indebted to love me back. Eventually, I was broken and humbled to accept living in the world, outside of my magic circle. I was forced by both wonder and pain to risk life beyond my defenses, where, yes, I was often hurt, but where I was profoundly touched by life. Inexplicable as it is, leaning into life in this way makes pain bearable.

The Art of Feeling (Inhaling Our Experience) & Emptying (Exhaling Our Experience)

Being Free of Heart: Feeling and EmptyingSo let’s explore the art of feeling (inhaling our experience) and emptying (exhaling our experience), which when leaned into can help us live. I have no clear picture of how this all works, only a handful of learnings. Here are four.

1. Letting what-is lead the way.

The threshold to meaning is in accepting what-is, not looking back through should have and not looking forward through what if. The present is a fiery lover, difficult to live with but impossible to live without. But worse is the draining seduction to relive the past or defer our life into an imagined future.

Though often hypnotic, neither allows us to feel or empty. They simply preoccupy us. Reliving and deferring keep us from the task of living.

2. Expressing what remains unexpressed.

Like exercise that keeps the body flush and possible, expression allows for experience to flow directly. It allows what we encounter to actually reach inside and touch us, not just mix with the unprocessed silt that has built up around our heart.

We all know the times that there is nothing in the way and how clean that feels. And we all know the feeling of being stuck and numb when something painful lodges behind the heart or eye.

But how do we clear ourselves? How do we loosen what is stuck and keep life streaming through? I only know that when feeling stuck, I can express what it feels like to be stuck, and something loosens. And when feeling numb, I can express the last meaningful feelings I had, and something begins to flow on through.

3. Acknowledging and forgiving our unconscious participation in life.

Each of us, no matter how aware, kind, or diligent, will participate in unconscious living. This means that, at one time or another, we all act in ways that are self-centered and inconsiderate or hurtful. Inadvertently, we will act out some need to be loved or accepted, or replay some script we don’t even know we are replaying, passing on our wound. So we all hurt others, often through our unconscious acts.

It goes with the territory of being human. It’s what learning and forgiving are all about: how to transform and reform ourselves by understanding what we’ve done or not done, and how to make amends. This acknowledgment and forgiveness helps us to see and accept our humanness with accuracy and compassion.

The more we can accept and forgive our own unconscious life (past and present), the greater our compassion for the humanness of others. The more conscious and transparent our hearts and minds, the more compassionate a community we will find ourselves creating.

4. Keeping our mind-heart open.

Once unclogged of unexpressed feelings, and once at home in our humanness, we have more of a chance to experience fully whatever comes our way – lessening the degree to which we distort new experience by denying or massaging our very human flaws. The challenge is to accept the face and truth of each feeling as it comes through, neither beating it off nor holding onto it.

These dynamics of heart may appear in our lives in sequence, but they often overlap. However they appear, they keep doing so in ongoing cycles, as the life of experience doesn’t end. And just as we keep our cars running smoothly, we must keep our hearts running smoothly.

Just as we must change the oil, put air in our tires, and clean our windshield continually, we must regularly express what builds up within us, acknowledge and forgive our unconscious participation in life, and keep our cleansed heart open.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Conari Press,
an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. www.redwheelweiser.com.
©2007 by Mark Nepo. All rights reserved.

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About the Author

Mark NepoMark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over thirty years. He has published twelve books and recorded five CDs. His work has been translated into French, Portuguese, Japanese, and Danish. In leading spiritual retreats, in working with healing and medical communities, and in his teaching as a poet, Mark's work is widely accessible and used by many. He continues to offer readings, lectures, and retreats. Please visit Mark at: www.MarkNepo.com and www.threeintentions.com