we’re at the mercy of the state of the heart

This is the third and final post in my series on Pema Chödron’s foundational three-legged stool of gentleness, precision and letting go in mindfulness practice, and as it applies to our lives as artists. For the first two installments, go here (gentleness) or here (precision).

The other day I saw a guy’s t-shirt and I misread it. What it said was WE’RE AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE OF THE ART. Which makes sense. I suppose all of our medical care and technological capabilities are only as advanced as we have so far created them to be at any point.

But what I thought it said was WE’RE AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE OF THE HEART. Which, to me, makes even deeper sense. If there’s one thing a mindfulness practice shows you over time, it’s that whatever might actually be happening in any given moment, our experience of it is shaped by our own outlook, our own internal weather, the state of our heart.

And one look around the country or the world today will give a good indication of the state of our collective heart.

But one thing we know is that the heart can be strengthened. Many of us probably imagine that there are certain people who just happen to be really loving and full of goodness, but in fact the muscles of kindness and generosity can be exercised. And when we do so, we find very quickly that our acts of generosity serve us as well as the recipient, creating a possibly infinite loop of generosity and beneficence and love.

Shakespeare knew it:

My bounty is asboundless as the sea

The more I have, the more I give to thee

For both are infinite

— Romeo & Juliet; II, 2

It’s for this reason that generosity is the first of the six paramitas, translated as perfections or transcendental actions. And while here in the West, we learn mindfulness meditation first and many people focus on gaining access to altered mind states or blissful realms, Buddhist practitioners in other parts of the world begin with generosity as square one. H.H. the Dalai Lama has often said “My religion is kindness.” It is from a generous, open heart that all else can be born.

It’s why, this month at Tibet House, my lunchtime meditation sessions are devoted to practicing metta, or lovingkindness meditation. We can use our time on the cushion to directly strengthen our kindness muscles, sending well wishes to ourselves, our loved ones, those we don’t know and even those we actively dislike. We get to observe, up close and personally, the times and places where our kindness gets stuck, where we start to hoard the love.

Which leads me to why I want to talk about letting go as generosity.

We know that letting go can mean loss. I know it’s often manifested this way for me personally. Letting go as grief - closing a show; seeing opportunities pass me by; watching my daughter grow up and move through each precious phase of her life to make way for the next.

Letting go can mean dropping our ideas of how the show is supposed to go, how our voice is supposed to sound, what our career is supposed to look like.

And I think we’ve all seen plenty of letting go as letting it rip.

letting go as explosion of repressed energy

But what about Yo-Yo Ma’s metaphor for performance as hospitality? (Truly, click that link and listen; it’s a master class) That each time we step onstage, we’re inviting the audience to our home for a dinner party? That welcoming them to the theater is inherently an act not of egoism, but of generosity?

What if, instead of experiencing letting go as a loss to be borne, it becomes a joyous opening of hands and hearts, making ourselves available for the exchange of energy that is all of life?

Generosity is the direct antidote to grasping, hoarding, clinging, holding onto. In order to give anything, we have to let it go.

With almost any other framing, I don’t really know how to teach someone to let go. We can talk about it, around it, forever; but in the end the letting go often seems to happen to us. Even Pema says that in sitting practice, there is not much we do to let go. We practice the technique precisely (coming back to the breath when we wander), we practice it with gentleness for ourselves, and in so doing we find we are able to let go.

But generosity, including lovingkindness practice, gives us something to do. We can actually practice sending well-wishes, we can actually practice giving away our love, our regard, our care for other sentient beings. Perhaps we begin to be more generous with our time, our resources, our smiles. There are actions we can take, for those worker bees among us!

Onstage, we attend to our technique precisely, we keep our minds on the world of the play, we do so with gentleness and playfulness, and in so doing we find we are able to be the vessel for this character, this story, this gift that wants to be shared. We let go of any preconceived ideas of how it’s all supposed to go down, who we think our character should be; we forget last night’s audience and the rehearsal room laughs and let go of trying to recreate anything brilliant that happened before. We allow ourselves to connect with the audience now, with the music now, with the story now, with the other actors now, and again now, and now.

We open our hearts to share the work of art we are in process of creating, embodying, and sharing all at once. And we discover the loop, the secret, that our generosity fills our own hearts, that the more I have, the more I give to thee, for both are infinite.

The other day I read an article called Nobody Cares if Music is Real Anymore, about whole albums created by AI bands that are anodyne and soulless and “make people feel nothing instead of something.” Music you could hear in a Starbucks or at the deli counter or in an elevator or an airport and not know or possibly care where you were. Maybe the title is right, but I don’t think so. Nihilism isn’t what’s going to save us. And as we spend the next decade(s) grappling with AI and its massive societal shifts, I have a feeling that many of us will realize just how much we actually do care.

We’re all at the mercy of the state of the heart.