The Zikr – to Love, Serve and Remember

I attended a Sufi dance retreat this weekend – while I danced the dance I sensed the dance, dancing me.
From the first dance/song: “Why have you come to earth? Do you remember? Why have you taken birth? Do you remember? --- To love, serve and remember.” ---- to the next moment on, I wept tears of joy, tears of sadness, and tears for the sake of tears. Other teachers have said to me “get that longing in your heart --- and remember.” The dance leader spoke of this same Love.

I wondered and listened about this Love and its longing. Its essence came to me when I heard the poem/words: “Where your feet have touched this earth – it is there I lay down my cheek. Knock and be opened.” When I came home I found words from Pema Chodrin that seemed to capture the weekend for me. I share these now and then I head off to soak in the ease, the rest, the peace.

From “Places that Scare You” – Pema Chodrin:

Chitta means “mind” and also “heart” or “attitude”. Bodhi means “awake”, “enlighted”, or “completely open.” Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhicitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound. It is equated, in part, with our ability to love. Even the cruelest people have this soft spot. Even the most vicious animals love their offspring. As Trungpa Rinpoche put it, “Everybody loves something, even if it’s only tortillas.”


An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.

Even ordinary people like us with hang-ups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhichitta. The openness and warmth of bodhichitta is in fact our true nature and condition. Even when our neurosis feels far more basic than our wisdom, even when we’re feeling most confused and hopeless bodhichitta – like the open sky --- is always here, undimished by the clouds that temporarily cover it.
I found the following link on YouTube ---- it also seemed to capture this weekends “moment”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I60ZHdx5Og