The Doorway Within
My favorite poem is Guest House by Rumi:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
It illicits you to think: what am I actually allowing myself to feel?
Who knocks at your house? Is it sorrow, guilt, happiness, shame, worry, delight, fear, love, or stress? How openly, do you invite your guests in? How long do you allow them to stay? Do you struggle and fight to keep the door closed? Do you pull the chairs in the living room out for each guest, or do you beckon towards the door? Learning to allow our guests from beyond takes a lot of practice. We must first create a safe place for them to sit, and then learn to sit in then same room as them, without the need to leave. Like a child who’s tantrum must pass, so must our emotions. Hard to do.
I for one, feel deeply. Even single one of my emotions takes me by a loud pounding at my door. Impossible to ignore overwhelm, stress, and fear alike run ramped in my living room, knocking oner all the furniture. It has been a great practice for me, to understand how to just it and watch as the storm around and peng. Its the after math of their mess that is hardest for me to endure.
Picking the furniture back up is no easy task. However, I have started to find that the less I engage with them, but let them be, the quicker they are to show themselves out. What is meant by that? The most tempting thing to do when my rage comes knocking, is to play with it, or rather, fight with it, or let it consume me. I allow it to take over as I try to slam the door in it’s face. But oh baby, does it love to slam doors back in mine.
So what can I do instead? I can bow to it. Become aware of it. Breathe. And then let it have it’s fun, while I patiently wait and observe. Like a kid realizing he’s gaining no attention from his storm, it stops.
I want to emphasize, this is hard. These feelings at these moments, free like the only thing in the world that exists. However, with practice, they becomes steadier and steadier. A fight with a loved one, is the hardest time to pratice this. Because rather than just between me, it's a practice between two. Each moment these guests arrive, it is a chance to practice. Learn to bow. Learn to heed the fight. Learn to be steady even in a storm.
So, what quests arrive at your door? How can you make your house more inviting for them to come and go?
