Chanting and Feeling
Chanting brings joy because it evokes in us the carefree attitude only a child knows. There's no shame or regret about the past, no anxiety or fear of the future. It creates an openness and vulnerability to feel, to be seen, embodying a sort of courageous, oblivious attitude of innocence.
Many adults have not felt or allowed themselves to feel this way for a long time. When they come to sing with us, they just cry. They cry because they have not let themselves cry for so long. They cry because they are in touch with their hearts.
They weep because it is a place they promised their soul they would never lose touch with.
They weep because they forgot.
They weep because they have remembered.
Often I feel a bitter-sweet sadness to weep for all sorts of unknown reasons. It wells up inside me when I remember the child I was, when I think of the love a mother has for her child, when I feel the regret or unfulfilled dreams of humanity, when I see the way a leaf falls or a bird lands in the garden. Tears are such beautiful gifts.
It is like a dam when there is a crack in the wall; it puts a lot of pressure to contain the immense power within us. Why are we afraid of this power within us? Why do we try so hard to fight it and hold it back? What manifests as stuck emotion is just pure potential, a primordial movement. It is blocked up in such a way that it is terrifying to bear its weight. We feel embarrassed for even having it. We are sometimes afraid to look at it, afraid to feel it.
Historically our society has glorified the soldier who does not show emotion but puts on a brave face. This is an image whose time has come to an end. For it is not the image of bravery, but that of cowardice. It is unwise to be consumed by emotion, or let it sway you in your life. However, it is wise to be fearless in facing what is within you.
Often, individuals arriving at our ceremonies express their fear of looking within. They say it has been so long since they have looked there, and they suffer from so much devastation and trauma, that they are afraid to open Pandora's box. It’s ok to fear opening Pandora’s box. But it’s worth asking the question: are you outside of this box, or are you, in fact, confined within its walls?
When the walls come crumbling down, we are left with open fields, a vast view, we are left with spaciousness. If we are unable to rest in this spaciousness, then we often confuse it for a territory too unknown to tread, and instead of seeing the Great Space, we see only little holes that we continually try to fill with all sorts of problematic and addictive things.
If you want to sing the mantra, you must let it concentrate your mind—not into a narrow scope but into a wide, relaxed and reflexive awareness. You must abandon the ropes that tether you to the holes and submerge into the spaciousness itself. Let the walls fall and see just who you were before they were built to protect you within their confines.
The mantra and the song are living beings like this, and when we sing them or recite them, we become a living vessel to house them and allow them to live. If you want to be a home for the sacred, then no walls are necessary, and much space has to be cleared, many tears have to fall, many layers have to be shed, for it is always what was already there underneath that is the richest soil of who you are and always have been. It is not a construction job but one of deconstruction. We have already built empires, each one will eventually fall. What is important now is to recognise the ground on which they stand. That ground is the most precious. That ground is spaciousness. Feel that. Sing from there, find home there and rest in it and as it.