noble awakened heart - Comfortable with Uncertainty (erin jean warde)
While everything is not good, goodness has not abandoned us. In being called Good, we are named Beloved. Belovedness is woven into our spirits and we are inseparable from it.
noble awakened heart
A confession to begin: I cannot help but read this through the lens of my Christianity. For me, one of the reasons I found myself highlighting ENTIRE PAGES of these short chapters is because I keep receiving them as new ways of framing the truths of my Christian faith and life. This is mostly happening because there’s a ton of overlap, which I love! That said, I don’t intend to appropriate Buddhism, or try to “make it Christian,” because Buddhism is beautiful in and of itself. So, I can tell some of these reflections will inevitably connect the wisdom of these pages with the wisdom I receive from the pages of Christian Scripture, and the wisdom taught to me through the life of Jesus, but I share it not out of a spirit of proselytizing, but out of a spirit of affection for these words, and wonder at the beautiful connections between the two. <3
No matter how committed we are to unkindness, selfishness, or greed, the genuine heart of bodhichitta [“noble or awakened heart”] cannot be lost… This tenderness for life, bodhichitta, awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence.
I can’t think of a better place for us to start than here, because we start inside belovedness. I believe that, when we were created, we were called Good. We have always existed inside goodness. This is not to say everything around us is good, because one look at the news would debunk this quickly, but to say that we have always existed inside goodness. While everything is not good, goodness has not abandoned us. In being called Good, we are named Beloved. Belovedness is woven into our spirits and we are inseparable from it, because I believe we are made in the image of the fullness of love, which is God.
I love thinking of the genuine heart of bodhichitta — our noble or awakened heart — as one way of understanding this belovedness that is inseparable from us. Because I believe no matter how committed we are to unkindness, selfishness, or greed, that belovedness cannot be lost.
Now I’m left to think about how this belovedness, this noble awakened heart, is awakened when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence.
How have I numbed my heart, numbed myself, from remembering my belovedness? And how am I being called to turn to a tenderness for life, to acknowledge the fragility of my life, so that my heart might awaken to know my belovedness and, in turn, see belovedness in others?