Ep. 35 | Too Little Too Much, Violence and Compassion

Call and Response Ep. 35 Too Little Too Much, Violence and Compassion

I’m searching for understanding of how someone can be on this earth and literally be so unloved that he could walk in and kill people in a yoga studio and take his life. How can we make sure people feel the love that we feel in here?  

“Don’t try to make it ok. It’s not ok. Eventually it won’t hurt so much. That doesn’t mean you’ll have figured it out. It just won’t hurt so much.” – Krishna Das

Q: This morning was very profound and I was able, I was really able to feel unconditional love.

KD: I’m sorry to hear that.

Q: I know, right? For like, every being in the universe and I just felt very expansive and then when we got ready to go to lunch, I stood up and I’m like, oh I have to use my legs? Like, all right. And then I just, I was physically shaking like, vibrating, but then I was physically shaking out of fear. So, I’ve really been letting myself be gentle and process.

KD: So, the thing you left out in all beings was yourself, right?

Q: Yeah, and I had shared with you last night so much that is coming from my family. I was raised southern Baptist evangelical and when I came out of the womb was pretty much told I was a wretched sinner. You needed the Lord and that never resonated with me, and my dad actually reminded me, in the middle of an argument, how when I was little I actually came to him and asked him if we could pray for the devil because I only felt love for whoever this being was, I was told. And I thanked him for reminding me of that, because it gave me validation that I am who I know I am and it’s been a really troubling year. This Sunday is my niece’s birthday and I don’t feel safe calling so I have mailed both her and my nephew cards and I’m just going to keep being who I am, but it’s been really challenging, at times, being in my body.

Thank you for the space you create. It’s really beautiful.

KD: Well, we all have our own, each one of us has our own storyline about why we are who we think we are and the beauty of practice is that, as time goes on, less energy is stuck in those belief systems. That’s not something rip off and just throw away and forget because, we’re made up of all that stuff, you know? And without doing some practice, there’s really, we won’t ever get a vote as to how we go through our day. Right now, most of us are on automatic, you know? We’ve been programmed by our lives and we don’t get much vote about how we meet different situations. And the only time that we’ll ever, the only time that there’s a possibility to get a vote is as things arise. But we don’t get a vote as to what arises. We only can get a vote as to how we meet those situations. And right now, usually the wave crashes over us and we don’t even realize we’ve been hit by it until we wake up on the shore and then, you know. So, that’s why they say, do practice when you can. When you remember. Because those seeds that you plant, that we plant in our quiet time, so to speak, those seeds continue to grow through the rest of our lives and most of the real change is off the radar. But we want to know now.  So, and that’s just more ego bullshit, you know? Because we want to feel the way we feel. We want to feel good. We don’t want to feel bad. And that’s already too bad. But that’s where we find ourselves. We want pleasure and we don’t want pain. We want pleasant circumstances and we don’t want unhappy circumstances, so we’re screwed.

The great, the third patriarch of Zen, Chinese patriarch of Zen, wrote a beautiful sutra called the “trust in the heart sutra,” which I stole for one of my, the name, the title, I stole for one of my CDs. He said it was ok. And the first line, “The great way is not difficult for those with no preferences.” Oh. Ok can I try the not so great way? You know? But really that’s our whole thing. Maharajji used to, many times, he would sit there and he would go,