Trauma & Art

Kindness

I first heard the poem Kindness being recited by Jon Kabat-Zin. It moved me and I returned to it several times. I then posted it and eventually wrote it on a black board type surface above my kitchen counter where I often write quotes and poems that have touched or inspired me. Today I realised I knew nothing about the poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. So I read a few more poems on the net and listened to her reading her poem Kindness at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_RAFdZHGoo  and an interview at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUoDqIZ3yt8. Enjoy! 

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend

‘The harder you search for happiness turning the world upside down for a legendary treasure that was never there the more you lose touch with the shining source of peace and joy inside you’ (from The Calm Center: Reflections and Meditations for Spiritual Awakening by Steve Taylor)

Go for the sense of inner joy, of inner peace, of inner vision first and then all the other things from the outside appear’ Marci Shimoff

Every so often I come across ideas that resonate with me, and books that seem interesting and valuable, and I often jot down titles (and quotes) hoping that I will eventually find the time and energy to read some of them at least. One such book that I have not yet read, but whose title left a lasting impression on me is Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff. Rick Hanson perhaps refers to the same kind of experience of happiness when he talks about an ‘unconditional, disengaged, wistful happiness’. Maybe it was a sense of wistful joy that arose within us in childhood and that we somehow lost touch with along the way. Whereas most of us feel happy when good things happen to us or when things are more or less running smoothly, which is a good thing, it seems that being happy for no reason and tapping into it is more elusive, at least in our western cultures. Through meditating I am now aware that there is unconditional love, serenity and a sense of more expansiveness deep within us and that no matter what may be happening on the rim, to use Dan Siegel’s wheel of awareness metaphor, there is always equanimity and peace deep inside where we can reside and which we can access. Another metaphor is that of the sea – the ocean bed is always relatively still and quiet no matter how choppy the surface of the sea may be. So, even during an emotional upheaval there is a peaceful sanctuary inside waiting for us, a hub of resilience and equilibrium that we can return to or abide in. All our emotional experiences of anxiety, frustration and hurt are waves that rise and fall. So, I could at a cognitive level understand that likewise there may be an uncorrupted by experience and traumas place within all of us of unconditional happiness, but I had not felt that I had tapped into this source within me in adulthood, at least not that I could remember of.

And then more recently, while meditating I felt it clearly. It felt like a seemingly out of the blue internal smile and a sense of ‘I am happy just for being here’ irrespectively of external circumstances, and I understood what others had been describing. I realised that this was something one could tap into during stillness and meditation practices, but what about when one is off the cushion or the chair. So, a few days ago I was walking along a quiet countryside road. It was dusk, but it felt like afternoon even though the sun had set. The road was in a hilly area and as I looked at the sea in the distance I saw the moon emerging from a cloud and it was like a big crimson-orange ball of fire, as if the world had turned upside down and the sun was rising at dusk. As I continued to walk the moon took on different shades of pink and orange and yellow until it eventually turned a milky white as the sky grew darker. It was within movement and nature that this experience of unconditional happiness twinkled inside me again and I realised that maybe it was an inner potential that could also occur spontaneously through presence. And then I thought maybe this unconditional sense of happiness was joy and had to do with merely existing, was part of the essence of living that we somehow lose on the way, but had access to when we were very young, and that perhaps what we refer to as happiness depended more on good things coming our way and absence of suffering, and was therefore, more fleeting or transitory. Maybe this source of wistful joy had always been there from the very beginning and we could through our tears, presence, meditation or other practices recover it. Steve Taylor writes that ‘childhood is a time of heightened spiritual sensibility, intense awareness, and natural joy. William Wordsworth certainly portrays childhood in this way in his poem “Intimations of Immortality,” describing how “heaven lies about us in our infancy!” and how, as we grow into adulthood, “Shades of the prison-house begin to close” and the world begins to “fade into the light of common day’ (from The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening, 2017)

Later when I got back home from my walk I came across something Danielle La Porte had written on joy and happiness at: http://www.daniellelaporte.com/definition-of-happiness-and-why-its-different-from-joy/

‘Happiness is like rising bubbles — delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen — ever present. Happiness is always passing through. It can claim your full attention for the ten seconds it takes to swallow a sip of incredible coffee. Or it can stream through your being for weeks on end. But happiness can’t hold the same space as sadness, or anger, or the range of so-called “negative” emotions for very long. This is why it’s transitory.

Joy is the fibre of your Soul. It’s the stuff of your essence. And since you, your Soul, can never be annihilated…… your access to joy never vanishes. Because joy is so foundational to your true being, every other state or emotion can rest on top of joy, it can accommodate everything (my underlining). This means that it’s possible to grieve with your whole heart, and still sense your joy. You can feel rage, and be aware of joy waiting patiently for you to return, and take deep comfort in that’ (extract from a larger post).