Lifeletter #144: Being Faithful

Since it’s the middle of the summer, I thought I would make this Lifeletter short and sweet, something you could read and then just sit with, sink into, and absorb. For a minute or two. Before you go on your way.

This Lifeletter is not being offered to the mind. It’s for a much simpler and more innocent part of you, that recognizes the truth of things, way before you think about them.

I want to speak about practice in a way that goes straight to the heart. What might that be? In my experience, this deeper way of practicing doesn’t happen when we are focused on achieving a result. It happens when our practice is about being faithful.

Being faithful to what? To whatever you really care about, what you are most deeply drawn to, what really matters. Your North Star, your beloved, what you are ready to give yourself to.

For me, what matters is the space of our connection, how deeply I can see and hear and receive you, how much I can be present to the space between us. So my practice is to be that way, with everyone, to the best of my capacity. To notice what is going on in our shared space-to listen with my whole being to that.

Sometimes my capacity to be this way is not very great. It’s a very simple practice, and I have to keep letting go of everything I know about you, and about me. I have to be willing to leave what is familiar, what is known, and sail out into unknown territory.

It’s not a particularly comfortable practice. And if my mind takes over, then I believe I’m doing it to get better. And that kind of practice gets very tedious, after a while. It’s not very sustainable. It’s too ego-driven. The ego had a very limited supply of energy and attention available to it. Sooner or later it gets exhausted.

I’m really doing this because it’s the direction in which I am being pulled. It’s irresistible. I can’t pretend to myself that I care more about something else. So my practice, which is an expression both of how I am and how I want to be, comes directly from that love, that abiding interest. I am simply being faithful to that.

I know that you, reader, you, friend, have something like this in your heart. Something you care about, not because you should, not because it’s good to be that way. All the reasons you make up about why it matters to you aren’t really true. They come after the simple fact that this is what you are drawn to.

You could lean into that, practice that, not for the sake of becoming someone better, or more skillful, but just because you want to be faithful to the truth of this, whatever it is for you.

When we practice like this, we do improve, we do grow more skillful, but there is something much bigger that is happening. Something that makes our level of skill seem relatively unimportant. Our heart, our consciousness, is getting polished, becoming more and more open, alive and transparent.

Then we can finally understand what Rumi meant when he said this:

‘The more skill you have, the further you are from what your deepest love wants.’ 

 

with love,

Shayla