This essay,
Breakthrough Heart,
is the two hundredth essay in this
Conversations For Transformation
internet series. That doesn't mean anything. It's just
what's so.
It's ironic. When you hit the wall which thwarts your intentions, you
should be able to call for relief. You ought to be able to
get some support, some respite. You ought to even be able to get what
we would have called a long time ago some help and
understanding and therefore some compassion. At least your
goodness should be rewarded. It should earn points.
Woulda ... coulda ... shoulda
...
The breakthrough heart knows to not expect that, at least
not to expect that for too long. The skydiver knows the possible
consequences of taking on gravity. The action itself is not without
possibly terrible consequences. That doesn't imply we shouldn't ever
skydive. What it does imply is when we skydive, we get to do it in full
awareness that we're taking on not just the unforgiving physical
universe but we're also taking on causing a breakthrough in both
responsibility as well as in being with fear.
Breakthrough skydiving
is going for it with as much attention on responsibility
and on being with fear as on staying alive.
And so it is with the breakthrough heart. As the old adage says, "Faint
heart never won fair lady". Nor anything else, for that matter.
I'm not speaking about simply going through the motions. That's
insufficient in and of itself to live a transformed life.
I'm speaking about always coming from bigness of heart,
always pressing on, always going ahead, always moving
forward in the direction life is always going, stopping at
nothing, compassionate towards those who are stopped, knowing it's so
essentially human to be stopped (and to be invalidated by being
stopped), and no matter what to always be creating
breaking through to the next expression of heart.
Life is no carrot on a stick to me. I'm not in it to
get somewhere. I'm not in it to be someone. I'm not in it
to garner renown or
fame.
Or at least I'm no longer in it to get somewhere or to be
someone. And the only
fame
I'll accept as warranted is
being famousfor being Laurence.
Neither is life a race to me with a start and an end which some lose
and others win. I'm not running as hard as I can to win and to avoid
losing. I'm not running as hard as I can to be more than
and to avoid being less than. I'm running as hard as I can
because I'm running as hard as I can. My heart breaks through
because that's what it does, because that's what it is.
I eschew the mangled dichotomy of being a winner and not
being a loser. As a matter of fact, I assert the obsession with
winning and avoiding losing causes the distinction "loser" which it
presences ever more stringently in those seeking to avoid being one.
The flypaper, stuck to their foreheads, is seen by everyone except
them. Their heads are up on pikes.
I eschew the notion of making it. By being born (clearly fait
accompli) I've already made it. I'm playing this game from
win. Given that freedom, how much of my heart I actually express,
how much of what I say is listened and has an impact, how much of the
way I conduct my day to day living makes a difference on the planet for
everyone with no one and nothing left out is the one thing designed to
be managed by me and by me alone.
How much I answer the call of the breakthrough heart is what I'll be
known for. It's easy to know those who have yet to answer this call.
Just ask them the question "Who are you?". If they answer with their
name or what they do for a living, you'll know they haven't heard the
call yet. Their hearts don't yet live in breakthrough mode.
Be careful. Be very careful. You can't use that to make
them wrong and to make yourself right. A win when you win and others
don't is not a win in the new realm of what's possible for winning.
Having a conversation which brings forth a possibility for the
breakthrough heart requires ruthless compassion - ruthless
because people are skewed away from that possibility even though (if
they told you the truth about it) wishing they could master it is
what's keeping them awake at night, and compassion because
they already got it. The arrogance of assuming you
got it and they don't only gets in the way.
The Heart Of Enlightenment
Werner
Erhard,
with no vested interest in being right about what enlightenment is and
with no vested interest in being right about what enlightenment isn't,
asserts simply one of the signs of the enlightened state is you
lighten up!
It's also been said that enlightenment is giving up the notion you're
unenlightened. I like that a lot. It completely takes the mystery out
of it. Lately I've come to enjoy an even more rascally
Zen
notion of it: enlightenment is giving up the notion you're enlightened
(as James Tsutsui may have said).
Whichever notion you give up, I'm inspired by human beings being
willing to give up what they've always been for the possibility of what
they could become. You'll find this willingness incarnate in the
breakthrough heart. It's a good platform to stand on from which to turn
this conversation over to you.