“Nau na ku’i o ka niho o ka lā
The teeth of the sun gnash
Said of a very warm day in which the heat is almost unbearable.”
Hot sun and the mist of humidity envelop me. A heat wave surrounds us. Ninety-five degrees today and current 63% humidity. Newscasters telling us that parts of the Chicago area are currently more humid than the Amazon rainforest. And we can expect more of the same here and elsewhere.
The Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii Island had its 50th episode a few days ago with fountains more than 1,000 feet in the air. The earth is alive and sometimes very uncomfortable. And we are alive too. Relationships, sometimes, can also be uncomfortable. We do the best we can in navigating through them.
I’ve been reading Larry Yang’s book, Awakening Together – The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community with our People of Color Circle that is studying his book. I am particularly interested in what Larry says about Metta or Loving Kindness.
Larry believes that metta is the primal intrinsic energy of the heart and that it is the heart that shares the experience of the present moment with mindfulness. “Meeting the moments of our lives as they arise with full and accepting loving attention – not needing the moment to be anything more or less than it is – is an act of kindness. No judgment – the moment we do not judge ourselves we apply the full force of our heart of metta and begin to dissolve the judgment itself.“
We are invited to let go of perfectionism and judging whether we are enough or not. Allowing ourselves to gently attend to ourselves wherever we are, even when our thoughts may be telling us that we are falling short of some perceived goal or vision of how we would like to act or behave in the world.
Feel the heart. Allow the heart to hold what is there with tenderness.
He continues, “We don’t learn most from what we already know; we learn most from our mistakes. Can we be open and gentle to the experience of mistake-making such that we can fully absorb the potential learning it brings?”
Maybe that's the invitation this heat wave offers us. The heat, the humidity, relationships, work, and the challenges of those who are facing that which is, as of now, beyond our experience and comprehension.
Our suffering is its own kind of heat wave: uncomfortable, sometimes almost unbearable, but temporary, and full of the same aliveness as everything else on this restless, generous earth.
The teeth of the sun gnash, the earth breathes fire through Kīlauea, and we are asked simply to meet it - not to fix the heat, not to judge our discomfort, just to be present with what is unbearable for ourselves and others and let it pass through us like weather.
May we hold ourselves - and each other - with metta this July, teeth gnashing and all...
Malama pono (take care of body, mind and heart),
June Kaililani Ryushin Tanoue
Kumu Hula, Roshi
P.S. Recently at our Zen Life & Meditation Center:
Diane Bejcek, "Have No Preferences." https://youtu.be/RBFPUBhfs1Q
Jackie Popp, "Nothing is Wrong, Life is Beautiful." https://youtu.be/RBFPUBhfs1Q
Indra's Net Celebration: https://youtu.be/p123vZ3aNXU
June Tanoue, "Escape this Crazy Life of Tears" https://youtu.be/CT1q_XDN92Q