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“The Master is afraid, perhaps as afraid as you are, but the master is not afraid of being afraid, because the master knows it is just fear. Why be afraid of it? Why are we afraid of being afraid? Because we believe that our fear has the power to name who we are, and it fills us with shame, and we feel that we are going around as a fearful person so we try to pretend we are not afraid, we try to find some way to not be afraid anymore. This is our dilemma, our stuck place that the master has been liberated from in realizing that it is just fear, why be afraid of it?[…] somehow it is to recognize the divinity of fear, it is somehow to recognize it is woven into the fabric of things[…] The master is not one who has risen above human frailty, but rather to the contrary, is one who has listened so deeply to human frailty, as to discover it to be overflowing with an inexhaustible compassion. Discovering directly the inexhaustible compassion that flows through human frailty, the master has learned to be at home in frailty and has learned to find a paradoxical power in it.”
—James Finley, from the book ‘Path to the Palace of Nowhere.’
I feel more at home in my humanness now than I ever have. I attribute it to decades of deep listening to what I think James Finlay called our 'human frailty' —the long, seemingly endless lineup of confusions, fears, anger, and resentment. Once these things didn't belong to me, they were left in corridors crying, pushed into cracks and puttied over, stuffed in old shoes, but now they do. They are mine, and I am theirs, and a certain breathtaking peace accompanies this—I belong. I belong in my life, to my life. The contents of my life belong to me. Everything is brought into my heart. Nothing is siloed off or rejected, although I sometimes forget to open the door, and I am still afraid of many things that never stop me from deeply listening to what hurts. This is my home, and I am learning to be home inside this place called life.
How does one listen deeply to human frailty?
How do we find the divinity of our fear and confusion?
What is the source of inexhaustible compassion?
And how can we invite our life to belong to us?
*Listen to the audio version of this post to learn how through a gentle and loving meditation.
love,
Sarah
