When we reflect on what happened on September 11th we can even now feel a sense of groundlessness, and we can see how much of the time we try to avoid this anxious quiver in our being, mostly by trying to manipulate our world to make it feel safe, secure, and comfortable. Although we know that it’s not worthwhile to indulge in anger or blame, or in wringing our hands over the horrible state of the cruelty in the world, nonetheless, dense and intense emotional reactions can leave us feeling lost and overwhelmed. The question is: can we open to the experience of a world that no longer fits our expectations — where safety, security, and certainty are no longer givens?
Can we stay with the discomfort, allowing the fear, the sadness, the grief, to be breathed directly into the center of the chest? In the darkest circumstances, breathing into the heart is the one thing that seems like a genuine response to the moment. The practice is to bring awareness to the center of the chest, breathing the fear, the sadness, the grief, directly into the heart. Using the breath as a conduit, it’s as if we’re breathing the swirling physical sensations right into our center. Then, on the outbreath, we simply exhale. We’re not trying to do or change anything; we’re simply allowing the heart to become a wider container of awareness within which to experience distress.
Staying with the physical reality of the present moment, can we go deeper with each inbreath, entering the silence of reality-as-it-is? Letting it all be breathed into the heart is ultimately an act of compassion, as we are opening to the shared pain of being human. Whatever actions we eventually chose to take must come from this experiential understanding of our connectedness with all beings, without which we will perpetuate the cycles of fear, violence, and suffering.
— Ezra Bayda