Imagine there is a room with two doors. Door A is always open door B is normally closed. Imagine also there is a queue of people at door A entering into the room. The people never stop entering, the queue is moving constantly, so as you can see at some point it starts to get over crowded. At some point it gets very claustrophobic and sooner or later even the walls come under strain. I wonder what happens next in your scenario?
As you may have guessed the room represents ourselves. The open door A represents life and life never stops happening that is why the people never cease entering the room. The closed door B is our unwillingness to experience life as it is. I am talking here mainly of the more painful emotions such as, fear, anger, sadness grief etc. We close door B because we feel life is too much or that there is something is with feeling like this.
Mindfulness Meditation is not about trying to close the first door so we don’t feel anything unpleasant, it is opening the second door. All experience wants simply to be experienced for a duration then allowed to pass away. This is healthy and brings an ease of being and a joy to life. However, we tend to make a problem out of emotions that seem threatening. We don’t like to feel sad for example because we may appear weak, or it seems to point to something being wrong and life not going our way. So what we do when they show their little heads is to try and shove them back down again, we close the door on them. If we keep closing the door on our emotions at some point the “walls” will come under strain and – well we know what may happen next.
We open the door by turning toward our emotions and allowing them space and keeping the door open so they can pass on. Sadness for example is a natural response to some events in life and actually “season our soul.” Sadness opens our hearts to allow others to enter. Through experiencing sadness it connects us to others because the wisdom of experience shows us that we all suffer sadness. Sadness and pain are not some sort of mistake, they are essential - if they was no pain and sorrow they would be no connection and compassion.
They reveal our common humanity. If we close the door on sadness we remain locked away in our own little experience of life and experience emotional claustrophobia as a result.
When we shut out sadness and other experiences we also shut out something else, and that something else is joy and happiness. Most people think that if they keep hurtful or sad feelings out of awareness that they will be well, but this is not the case. To experience the joy of being we need to be able to experience the sadness of being to. The beautiful words of poet Kahlil Gibran, say this much better than I ever could, "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. "
So as the poet says, we cannot have joy without sorrow - they are inseparable. Our work with mindfulness is firstly to observe how we turn away from painful emotions and allow the thoughts to run rampant. We can then take our attention away from the thoughts and into the felt experience of the emotions in the body. Opening the door means to experience life moment by moment whether it be joy or sorrow - because they are the same.
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