your heart may break

Have you seen this image?

Six giraffes dead of dehydration, unable to reach a watering hole in the Kenyan desert [1].

When I first saw the photograph I gasped. I tried to scroll past for fear my heart would break.

But I couldn’t. I had to return and face the unspeakable suffering.

I described all this to Lama Lekshe and replied within the hour, “Try to look,” she wrote, “Let your heart break. . . . Let it all fall apart. . . . Then rest in the space left where the heartbreak was. . . . There, the giraffes are still there, only now appearing as aspens trees, dancing in the wind.”

And, “I wish I could do this practice. I try. But when my heart breaks, so very often I just sink below some imagined surface and weep.”

Later I asked for permission to quote her in this post. “In this life I have never owned one thing. Please use it all. All the time. Everywhere.”

♥

“In Tibet,” writes Jack Kornfield [2] “the monks and nuns offer prayers of gratitude for the suffering they have been given: ‘Grant that I might have enough suffering to awaken in med the deepest possible compassion and wisdom’. The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.”

♥

I’ve recorded an impromptu meditation (17 mins.) to guide you in using the giraffe image as a starting point. You could have the image in view or rely on the impression it has made in your memory. Settle into a comfortable sitting position, upright and yet relaxed. Start the recording and await the sound of the bell.

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[1] Photo by Ed Ram via Getty Images; see also CTV story  [2] Kornfield, J. (2002). The art of forgiveness, lovingkindness, and peace, p. 131