Narayan Helen Liebenson - The Magnanimous Heart

HAVING TAUGHT IN A CITY Buddhist center for over thirty years, I have been privileged to accompany countless practitioners through their lives. What this means is that Ive been able to observe what happens when people value contemplation and practice in a dedicated way over decades. And of course, all along I have been practicing as well, vitally interested in living more wisely and with a greater degree of compassion, passionately interested in the liberated heart.

To teach the Dharma is to be invited into what is most intimate in peoples lives their hopes, fears, and insights and to offer in return the Buddhas teachings, its methods and principles of practice. This takes place amid ever-changing conditions ups and downs, gains and losses, and, for all of us at some point, aging, sickness, and death. To be able to offer a path that actually brings the benefits it promises is rewarding beyond estimation.

The promise of the practice as I understand it is twofold, to aspire to a liberating understanding into the causes of suffering and the causes of happiness as well as to make room for the very human anguish that is part of the lives of most people in this world.

And what I know is this: only sitting in meditation is not enough. Only hearing and studying the words of the Buddha are not enough. Only trying to be awake and aware in ones daily life is not enough. All of these practices have to be undertaken together in an integrated way. The practice of training the mind, hearing and studying the teachings, and applying them to every arena of ones daily life whether conditions are wonderful, mundane, or horrific are all essential components of a liberated life, a life of contemplation.

Meeting life from a meditative perspective, rather than the prevailing cultural view of success and failure, lets us meet the world as a field of learning. From this perspective, the conditions we encounter in our lives invite us to learn what we need to learn, to use this human life wisely.

The invitation always is: how can I practice in the midst of adversity? That is to say, how can I practice in the midst of a life that does not feel quite right, or in the midst of a life that includes lovely conditions yet still feels incomplete, or in situations in which loss is profound, or at times of struggle with painful emotions, with anxiety and isolation, or with troubling world events. Adversity can mean many things.

The ancient teachings of the Buddha are as applicable today as they were when the Buddha was alive. The human psyche does not seem to have changed. We still long for happiness and peace, and we still mistakenly try to find it in externalities. The questions are these: Where can the hearts longing be fulfilled? How can we view lifes pain as a pathway instead of as only an obstacle? Is there a way to understand loss differently than we do? Answering these questions is the purpose of this book.

The following chapters have a natural sequence. They explore first the reality of loss, then look deeply at our reactions and responses to loss, and conclude by holding up a possibility of living a life of joy and liberation. Yet, rather than being like links in a chain, these themes are like threads in a weaving, with the truths of the Buddhas teachings interwoven throughout.