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In moments of desperation, no matter what we believe,
we all tend to reach out in prayer to something
or someone for help. We might call out for relief
from a migraine, beg to be selected for a job, pray
for the wisdom to guide our child through a difficult
time. Maybe we whisper, "Oh please, oh please,"
and feel that we are asking "the universe"
for help. When we feel disconnected and afraid,
we long for the comfort and peace that come from
belonging to something larger and more powerful.
But who exactly are we praying to? I grew up Unitarian,
and I remember how we used to joke about addressing
our prayers "To Whom It May Concern."
This same question may come up for those of us who
follow the path of the Buddha. Students of Buddhist
practice usually think of praying as peculiar to
Christianity and other God-centered religions. Beseeching
someone or something greater than our small and
frightened self seems to reinforce the notion of
a separate and wanting self. Yet while prayer does
suggest a dualism of self and other, in my experience
when we fully inhabit our longing, it can carry
us to the tender and compassionate presence that
is our own awakened nature.
Some years ago I was suffering from a broken heart.
I had fallen in love with a man who lived 2000 miles
away, on the other side of the country. Because
we had very different desires about having a family
and about where to live, we couldn’t weave
our lives together and the relationship ended. The
loss was crushing—for many weeks I was swamped
in obsessing about him, sobbing, overwhelmed with
grief. I stopped listening to the radio because
classic rock songs often left me weeping. I avoided
romantic movies. I barely talked with friends about
him because even saying his name out loud would
freshly reopen the wound.
I accepted my grieving process for the first month
or so, but as it went on and on, I started feeling
ashamed of how big and dominating my sense of desolation
was. On top of that, I felt that something must
be wrong with me for being such an emotional wreck.
The man was moving on, dating other people. Why
couldn’t I do the same? I tried to wake up
out of the stories, I tried mindfully letting the
pain pass through, but I remained possessed by feelings
of longing and loss. I felt more excruciatingly
lonely than I had ever felt in my life.
In the room where I meditate, I have a Tibetan
scroll painting (called a thanka) of the bodhisattva
of compassion. Known as Tara in Tibet and Kwan Yin
in China, she is an embodiment of healing and compassion.
It is said that Kwan Yin hears the cries of this
suffering world and responds with the quivering
of her heart. One morning, about a month into my
meltdown, as I sat crying in front of the thanka,
I found myself praying to Kwan Yin. I felt crushed
and worthless. I wanted to be held in Kwan Yin’s
compassionate embrace.
Off and on over my years of Buddhist practice,
I had prayed to Kwan Yin, relating to her primarily
as a symbol of compassion that could help me awaken
my own heart. But I hadn’t reached out to
her as a spiritual presence, as a Being larger than
my small self. Now, in my desperation, it was different.
Kwan Yin was no longer just a symbol of inspiration,
she was the Beloved—a boundless and loving
presence who, I hoped, could help relieve my suffering.
Rilke’s words resonated deeply:
I yearn to be held
In the great hands of your heart—
Oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life…
For a few days I did find some comfort by reaching
out to Kwan Yin. But one morning I hit a wall. What
was I doing? My ongoing ritual of aching and praying
and crying and hating my suffering was not really
moving me towards healing. Kwan Yin suddenly seemed
like an idea I had conjured up
to soothe myself. Yet without having her as a refuge,
I now had absolutely nowhere to turn, nothing to
hold on to, no way out of the empty hole of pain.
What felt most excruciating was that the suffering
seemed endless and without purpose.
Even though it seemed like just another idealistic
notion, I remembered that at times in my Buddhist
practice, I had experienced suffering as the gateway
to awakening the heart. I remembered that when I
had remained present with pain in the past, something
had indeed changed—I opened to a more spacious
and kind awareness. Suddenly I realized that maybe
this situation was about really trusting suffering
as the gateway. Maybe that was the whole point—I
needed to stop fighting my grief and loneliness,
no matter how horrible I was feeling or for how
long it continued. Only by experiencing the pain
fully could I deliver “these fragments, my
life” into Kwan Yin’s boundless compassion.
I recalled the bodhisattva’s aspiration:
"May this suffering serve to awaken compassion"
and began quietly whispering it inside. As I repeated
the prayer over and over, I could feel my inner
voice grow less desperate, more sincere. I was praying
not for relief, but for the healing and freedom
that naturally unfolds as we open to the bruised
and broken places inside us. The moment I prayerfully
let go into that depth of suffering, the change
began.
Now I could scarcely bear the searing pain of separation.
I was longing, not for a particular person but for
love itself. I was longing to belong to something
larger than my lonely self. The more fully I reached
inward to the gnawing emptiness, instead of resisting
or fighting it, the more deeply I opened to my yearning
for the Beloved.
As I let go into that yearning, the sweet presence
of compassion arose. I distinctly sensed Kwan Yin
as a radiant field of compassion surrounding me,
cherishing my hurting, vulnerable being. As I surrendered,
offering my pain into her presence, my body began
to fill with light. I was vibrating with a love
that embraced the whole of this living world—it
embraced my moving breath, the singing of birds,
the wetness of tears and the endless sky. Dissolving
into that warm and shining immensity, I no longer
felt any distinction between my heart and the heart
of Kwan Yin. All that was left was an enormous tenderness
tinged with sadness. The compassionate Beloved I
had been reaching for "out there" was
my own awakened being.
When we are suffering and turn to prayer, no matter
what the apparent reasons for our pain, the basic
cause is always the same: we feel separate and alone.
Our reaching out is a way of relieving ourselves
of this pain of isolation. Yet the bodhisattva's
aspiration radically deepens the meaning of prayer
by guiding us to also turn inward. We discover the
full purity and power of prayer by listening deeply
to the suffering that gives rise to it. Like a great
tree, such prayer sinks its roots into the dark
depths in order to reach up fully to the light.
This is what I call mindful prayer—opening
wakefully to our suffering and allowing ourselves
to reach out in our longing for connection. Irish
poet and priest John O’Donohue writes: "Prayer
is the voice of longing; it reaches outwards and
inwards to unearth our ancient belonging."
The more fully we touch our pain and longing, the
more fully we are released into boundless, compassionate
presence.
Mindful prayer awakens us from the imprisoning
story of a suffering self. Resisting pain only serves
to solidify the notion that "I" am suffering.
When we perceive pain simply as pain, rather than
"my pain," and hold it tenderly; we are
no longer the beleaguered, suffering self. The fear,
shame, grief and longing no longer feel like a mistake
or an oppressive burden. We can begin to see their
universal nature: this is not my grief, it is not
my fear, it is not my longing. It is part of the
human experience and being willing to hold it tenderly
is the doorway to compassion.
A beautiful Sufi teaching shows us how our pain
is not personal, it is an intrinsic part of being
alive:
Overcome any bitterness that may have come
because you were not up to the magnitude of the
pain
that was entrusted to you.
Like the Mother of the World,
Who carries the pain of the world in her heart,
Each one of us is part of her heart,
And therefore endowed
With a certain measure of cosmic pain.
Our sadness, fear and longing are universal expressions
of suffering that are “entrusted to us,”
and they can be prayerfully dedicated to the awakening
and freedom of our hearts. May this suffering awaken
compassion . May this suffering awaken compassion.
As we meet our pain with kindness instead of bitterness
or resistance, our prayer is answered. Our hearts
become an edgeless sea of loving awareness with
room not only for our own hurts and fears, but also
for the pain of others. Like the Mother of the World,
we become the compassionate presence that can hold,
with tenderness, the rising and passing waves of
suffering.
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