(Excerpt of Narayan’s book, The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation.)
“Magnanimous Heart is like a mountain, stable and impartial. Exemplifying the ocean, it is tolerant and views everything from the broadest perspective. Having a magnanimous heart means being without prejudice and refusing to take sides. When carrying something that weighs an ounce, do not think of it as light, and likewise, when you have to carry fifty pounds, do not think of it as heavy. Do not get carried away by the sounds of spring, nor become heavy-hearted upon seeing the colors of fall. View the changes of the seasons as a whole, and weigh the relativeness of light and heavy from a broad perspective.”
—Dogen
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The Buddha’s teachings point to the biggest perspective possible: a hear of magnanimity. Magnanimous heart is a heart of balance and buoyancy. It allows us to approach each moment exactly as it is, in a fresh and alive way and free from agendas about how it should be. Magnanimous heart is a generous heart, a benevolent heart, a heart of inclusivity in which there is room for all that arises and we receive all that we encounter.
Magnanimous heart has the capacity to hold anything and everything with openheartedness. It embraces all conditions with equanimity, helping us to be with what is instead of getting lost in our opinions of good and bad. We can also call this awareness.
Magnanimous heart operates like a swinging door. Experiences come in and experiences go out, without clinging or interpretation. We digest and release experiences, instead of getting caught in ideas about the way thigs are and how they “should” be or finding fault with ourselves or others.
This way of being allows us to encounter what is present with spaciousness. Buoyancy allows us to be not stuck to the content of each moment, to each sense perception. Whatever is here is here; held in magnanimous heart it flows through is with kindness and compassion, gentleness and tenderness. When we take this spacious approach, vulnerability becomes an asset instead of a problem because all is allowed and released. Vulnerability allows us to receive experiences without resistance. Relaxing into spaciousness, we allow each experience, whether pleasant or painful, to be received and released. We are open to the next moment’s experience.
The practice of insight meditation is a process of opening—to this moment, to our heartfelt aspirations, to one another. To completely open our heart and mind in this way is, in a certain sense, to be like the Buddha. As the practice opens us to what has been closed away and unconscious, we become willing to learn how to shift our views and try to understand loss from different points of view.
Etty Hillesum, who died in Auschwitz at the age of twenty-nine, wrote this: “If you don’t understand while you’re here that all outer experiences are like a passing show, as nothing beside the great splendor inside us—then things can look very bleak here indeed.” This great splendor is magnanimous heart.