The Heart of Abiding Love

These are trying times.

Every day seems to bring a new shock to the heart. Violence and division, cruelty framed as policy, dishonesty celebrated, truth dismissed. Such threats lead to outrage, anxiety, and great weariness.

What to do?

Stress makes us sick, and these are stressful times. As a psychotherapist, I see people carrying the weight of this collective turbulence in their bodies and minds. Often the worst injury is the aftermath from being hurt or treated badly. We obsess, have flashbacks, or become distracted and bitter—all of which cause us to reinforce the very neural circuits we want to extinguish. There are dozens of evidence-based ways to find balance and healing—but one of the most powerful practices I’ve learned didn’t come from psychology at all.

Spiritual parasites

In 2002, I sat in ceremony with a Shaman named Jade Wahoo along with my 17-year-old son Ethan and a circle of fathers and sons on the Green River in Arizona. Jade taught us that when we’re attacked, alarmed, or horrified, a spiritual parasite can take root inside us, feeding on our outrage and despair.
This is not as weird as it seems! Think about it. How many of us have been colonized by someone’s cruelty? We carry the insult, the injustice, the betrayal—obsessing over details—until the offender and the injury seem to live inside us.

Jade had an intense ceremony to remove spiritual parasites which my family had gone through twice. A small group led by Jade offers devotion and tobacco to the spirits of the east, south, west and north. He teaches us about restoring harmony, and then we drum, chant, and connect with the other world.

We choose a trait we want to welcome into our spirit as we resolve to give up our spiritual parasite. The first time I chose joy—for all the selfish and selfless reasons. The second time I chose wisdom, feeling Jade resonate with my choice.

Finally Jade sucks the parasite from our torsos through a small copper tube and spits it into a cup which we empty into the earth. Both times we did this I felt deeply connected with the other world and transformed by the experience.

Jade and our group of fathers and sons drummed, chanted, communed with nature, and hung out for three days. The second morning we hiked to a hot spring by the river and I asked him:

“Is there another way to get rid of spiritual parasites?”
Jade paused and dropped into Shaman mode, with that look someone gets connecting with the Other World.
“Yes, there is another way. Stay in the heart of abiding love. Spiritual parasites cannot survive there.”

The Heart of Abiding Love

The tantras teach us that Big Love is love everywhere. When we can bring someone who wounds us inside that love, we are no longer colonized by them. We are free.

Let’s try it!
Think of someone who infuriates or frightens you—someone you have unwanted distress or obsessions about. It can be from a personal encounter with a family member, neighbor, or workmate, or hurtful actions by a cultural figure or political leader—anyone you feel has established angry/hurt/anxious residence in your consciousness.

Now shift towards compassionate understanding of this person and his or her cohorts not as demons but as fellow humans striving (however clumsily, destructively, or blindly by your standards) for what they believe is good, true, or necessary. When I feel compassionate understanding of someone who has injured me, my contempt loosens. My heart opens. I am free again.

A Practice: Loving Kindness Meditation

How do we connect with the heart of abiding love when outrage has us in its grip? One simple and profound way is through Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM):

1. When you feel outrage or alarm, pause. Let yourself feel the pain and fully observe the dark thoughts and moral condemnations.
2. Notice the story running in your mind and the sensations in your body.
3. Call to mind someone you love deeply. Feel your love for them in your heart.
4. From your heart to your beloved’s heart, silently offer:
   May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have an easeful life.
5. Let this love expand as you repeat the mantra to his or her heart as much as you’d like.
6. When you’re ready, bring into your awareness the person or group you’re struggling with.
7. From your heart of love offer the blessing to their hearts:
   May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have an easeful life.

If your mind returns to anger or fear, keep doing LKM.

Freedom in Love

Each time we practice LKM, something softens. Compassion begins to flow where once there was harshness. The parasite dissolves.
And in that moment, we remember:
We are not prisoners of outrage.
We are not colonized by cruelty.
We are free—in the heart of abiding love.