On this, the day before our departure, I am contemplating a shocking reminder I received yesterday about the underlying premises of taking this trip. It has to do with living fully in the present moment, whatever that may entail. Which leads to connecting with what in Buddhism is called bodhichitta, our natural state of basic goodness that links us to every other living being. It has other names: openness, ultimate truth, our true nature, soft spot, tender heart, or simply what is (Pema Chodron). This awareness is often covered up but there are times when the veil is parted and we have the opportunity to meet our vulnerability and to uncover our connectedness and compassion.

Sunday morning after ordering breakfast at the local small town diner to kick off a family gathering, an explosive BOOM sent us running to the scene of a gas explosion. Neighbors and strangers put out a few fires and seeing a person’s foot protruding from the rubble began to quickly uncover a woman trapped underneath the debris that had moments before been her house. Prior to the professional’s arrival, a broken gas line wasn’t able to be addressed. That didn’t stop dozens of people from pitching in to try to save this woman’s life. An hour or so later she was being air-lifted to a burn center for treatment.

We’ve all either heard of or directly experienced the phenomena of uncommon kindness and bravery in the face of disasters and tragedies. This got me thinking about what it is that goes on under “normal circumstances” that prevents us from being this way with one another on a regular basis. When I look into my own heart and at my own life, what I see is a more or less continuous effort to create and then maintain a sense of security. A sense that I’m holding it together, that I’m basically on top of things. This sense of security that I devote a majority of my time, energy and resources to is an illusion. It does not exist. And when I am confronted with that, my normal response is to fight against that reality, to try to run away from it or dress it up in any way that I can. I don’t want to experience my fear of death – mine, that of other people and sentient beings, deaths that are both literal and figurative.

But when something happens to gently or rudely jolt me out of my state of emotional and spiritual slumber, like standing on a pile of lumber that used to be someone’s home, next to a broken gas line, trying to uncover a wounded person I’ve never met who may or may not live; I experience my fear of death. When I stop struggling and look directly at what is threatening me I experience something else beneath that fear — bodhichitta. It is my heart’s desire to spend more and more of the moments of my life in this state of awareness, regardless of what is going on, in experiences ranging from the mundane to the sublime to the horrific.

My wise mother says “To risk is to win.” I am interested in investing my life in ways that risk shattering the illusions of security that block connecting with my tender heart and yours.