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SECTION 9. Journal Notes of the Virtues
A Selection of Meditation Journal Entries
Appreciation
Humility
Valor
Compassion
Understanding
Forgiveness
JOURNAL NOTES ON THE VIRTUES
The limits of the soul you could not discover, though traversing every path.
Heraclitus.
A Selection of Meditation Journal Entries
What follows is a selection of some of my journal entries on the six heart virtues. They are a result of my daily meditation practice. These recordings are offered as examples only, but if they provide helpful insights into the six virtues, that is good. The entries are in chronological order, but I have removed the specific dates (they cover the period of the spring of 2006). You may notice that the order of the virtues here is different than the order used in this guide. This is simply because I meditated on the virtues in a clockwise direction around the diagram produced in the paper “The Art of the Genuine: A Spiritual Imperative.” Except for the elimination of personal information and the correction of grammar and spelling, these entries reflect my thoughts and feelings at the time of their recording. Each paragraph represents all or part of that day’s comments.
Appreciation
What came to mind most strongly was that appreciation is tied to awareness. And not just awareness, but a de-centered awareness. For only with this kind of awareness does it seem possible to truly appreciate one’s life and all the details that go to construct it.
Sensitivity is another factor in appreciation. How sensitive is the state of one’s awareness? Insensitivity is a big issue in today’s Western culture due to the materialistic and fragmented nature of our lives. So, sensitivity plays a role in the depth or quality of our appreciation for life. If we are physically oriented, we will appreciate the physical things of the world. If we have developed a feeling for life, our appreciation will expand to include heart-felt knowledge and memories that deepen our appreciation further.
When I feel appreciation it is due to the sense of connectivity to life and all its beauty. This must be regarded as spiritual.
Thoughts were muddled today. I became aware that I didn’t want to get stuck in the purely mental approach to contemplating “appreciation,” but wanted to feel it also. This may be important to recognize because it suggests that the “intelligence” of appreciation was impacting my consciousness.
Humility
The initial pain of being humbled is actually a liberation from the tyranny of the ego-personality and the initial humiliation is a letting go of egoism and a liberation of one’s attitudes into a new freedom of balanced relationship with others and the world.
Humility is the heart knowledge of knowing how and where one fits into the world of the soul.
Humility is a brake on egoism.
Humility feels like a relaxation into a true knowledge of one’s place in the scheme of things. It is the surrendering of a distorted, illusory image of the “form of one’s life” in relation to everything else. The surrender of a specific ego structure allows an adjustment of consciousness that is in alignment with the plan of the soul.
Today I seemed to be more with humility than thinking about it. Being with humility is a humbling experience.
Humility is not being more or less than one is. Thus, we can say that the effort to be humble is an effort to be oneself without any masks or images. Humility is to be the soul from moment-to- moment. Whether one is doing the dishes or giving a lecture, it is still the same self which is present throughout.
Just as the bodies of cosmic space are positioned in balanced relation with each other, we are in a state of humility when we are in balanced relationship with others and ourselves. Harmony of the spheres might apply to humility.
Valor
My first thought of valor was related to being brave enough to stand up for what one believes.
Today I thought about valor in the sense of fairness and justice. If valor is standing up to injustice in defense of the virtues of the heart, then justice must be reflected upon. I thought of a universal sense of fairness. It seems to me, that this sense of fairness generally transcends language and culture to some extent, except in the most restricted views of religion.
Valor is paradoxical in the sense that it is easily understood at the surface—standing up for what one believes. Thus, there are the secondary qualities of courage, bravery, heroism, etc. But, the deeper issue for me is, “How do I know that my convictions are more justified than someone else’s? Is the Christian right or the Muslim? Is science more justified than religion in defining reality? Is the state more justified in establishing the rules of reality than the individual? Is one person more valorous than another when it comes to defending one’s beliefs? Who is the most justified?
At some point valor must be turned toward one’s self as reason brings deeper understanding and lesser truths are replaced by more complete truths. If people hold to “truths” that reason and understanding prove to be incomplete (even false), then they are doing themselves an injustice.
The big question remains: How do we know that the strength of our convictions (valor) is just? It seems to me that the foundation and basis of valor must be a constant monitoring of one’s beliefs about morals and ethics, fairness and equanimity. The origin of such measures is a bit of a mystery. Do they stem from the energetic heart, which in turn generates them from the soul, which receives them directly from First Source via Source Intelligence? I believe this is true, but why do I believe it? This belief gives me valor, but how did this belief enter my mind and heart?
If I begin to form doubts about my religious beliefs, but cannot face such thoughts without tremendous guilt and fear, I am not practicing valor. But when I can face these internal changes (produced by reason and understanding) and acknowledge my transformation, then I am practicing valor.
Compassion
The first thing that struck me was that I wasn’t feeling compassion, but simply thinking about it. This alarmed me at first, but then I realized that our daily lives are flooded with scenes of human distress to the point that one becomes numb to all of it. I was thinking of compassion in terms of the mass of humanity and could not connect.
When I feel compassion, it is most often the result of recognizing that a given situation exists because of a failure to communicate, a failure to understand, a failure of strength of commitment to understand another person’s or group’s situation. The complications born from ignorance are cause for feeling compassion and sorrow over the human situation.
I associated compassion with the loss of innocence in a child. An infant comes into the world with the opportunity for a new life and a compassion born of sorrow rises up in the knowledge that this newborn soul will rapidly be overtaken by the ignorance and prejudice of its parents, society, and culture, despite everyone’s best intentions.
Compassion is the desire to relieve the suffering of others. In this sense, I noted that my life has been expressed compassionately through education. By this I mean that I have always identified strongly with the idea of bringing light to others through my writing or talks, or counsel. Thus, my sense of compassion is based on a subjective plane and not so much on the physical.
Compassion is reaching out in order to improve a condition by relieving needless suffering. Suffering here means anything that prevents the light of the soul and spirit from entering into the life of any individual. It seems to me that this can be expressed in various ways. It depends on the talents and desire of each individual.
Understanding
Understanding is interesting. For me it seems to be the most obvious of the virtues (or maybe the only one) that bridges the heart and mind. For, there are definitely at least two forms of understanding. One is understanding that 1+1=2 or understanding the meaning of a word. The second is understanding how someone “feels” about a situation or condition. This latter definition is the heart connection, while the former is the mind connection.
Understanding is also more dimensional than knowledge. I can have knowledge of something and yet not understand it, but I cannot have understanding of something without knowing (having knowledge) about it.
Understanding has depth and levels when applied to information and knowledge. In turn, the conclusions drawn from each level of understanding are relative truths. Truth is absolute relative to its own level, but ever changing as new knowledge and new understanding create truth that is more accurate relative to the previous “truth” or conclusion. The question is, “What drives the desire to seek more accurate information and knowledge?” This, I believe, is the heart or soul.
To begin to understand another person we must have knowledge about the person. As we gain more information, we can begin to understand that person better. Despite this knowledge, understanding cannot move forward without our ability to move beyond the framework of our own “position” as an individual. This is the ego-personality position. We cannot be objective if we are not able to decentralize our sense of self. Consequently, our understanding will be limited and likely distorted.
This means that our conclusions or truth about “the other” will be incomplete or even prejudiced without the heart, because it is the nature of the heart to be in contact with the “other.”
This means that our conclusions or truth about “the other” will be incomplete or even prejudiced without the heart, because it is the nature of the heart to be in contact with the “other.”
What does it mean to have knowledge as opposed to having understanding? Is “I know” the same as “I understand”?
So, we can think in the head and/or think in the heart. However, thinking is not sensing. Sensing is related to consciousness, but we don’t necessarily have to be conscious in order to sense. However, I believe sensing with full attention is a powerful mode of awareness. It is the secret of creativity and management of life experience. The question is, where should our attention be located when we are sensing? Should it be in the head or in the heart?
Forgiveness
The most obvious thing to me about forgiveness is that it is related to time—more specifically, to the past. When we are unable or unwilling to forgive, it means that we are stuck in the past, we are trapped and imprisoned by the past. Anything which prevents us from living in the present is a detriment to our experience and growth as humans.
It is obvious that we can make little progress with the other virtues if we cannot escape from our past. The ego-personality is time-bound, but the soul transcends time. Thus, the energetic heart within which the soul exists is also associated with timelessness. Therefore, forgiveness is key to accessing the other virtues, because it frees us from the slavery of time.
What is the factor that makes forgiveness possible? Part of it is the willingness to let go of the circumstances and injustices which we believe have been done to us (whether true or not).
If one is living from the heart, practicing the art of the genuine, then why would it be necessary to forgive anyone? This implies that I have blamed someone or some group for wronging or harming me. Is it, in turn, “wrong” to recognize those who have caused one harm? No, as long as we do not hold onto that sense of being harmed. It’s the attachment to hurt, the self-pity which needlessly prolongs suffering. Just as we have been harmed and caused to suffer, our attachment to this condition results in our desire to penalize, to punish, to blame whoever or whatever has caused this. We want them to suffer also.
Forgiveness neutralizes this desire for revenge. What about those who want justice done, so to speak? This involves the laws governing society and goes beyond one’s personal capacity for forgiveness. Forgiveness is more of a subjective attitude, a state of mind rather than a specific gesture. Forgiveness is ongoing. It recognizes wrongdoing, but does not dwell on it, nor seek to prolong the guilt associated with it as a “punishment” to the wrongdoer. This applies equally to one’s own feelings of wrongdoing and sense of guilt.
