The Union of Wisdom and Compassion - Jon Eden Khan

There is a naked place in the heart where the perfection and the passion of reality are one.

Where the ultimate nature of reality as infinite emptiness, consciousness, radiance, and life force, arising as all things through all times,

And the utter heartbreak, grief, and sorrow we feel for the suffering, tragedy, and trauma of every being in our world,

Come together as one to crack us open to the core.

This the union of wisdom and compassion.

And their union is the true nature of what awakening really means.

This is not an 5D awakening that finally liberates one from the inconvenience of suffering into a disconnected astral realm.

It is not a long awaited escape from intimacy with the rawness of this world.

Rather, it is one that reveals the beautiful, terrifying, and yet ultimately all-good nature of reality, as when Krishna reveals his true form to Arjuna in the Bhagavat Gita and Arjuna reels back horrified, unable to hold its wildness, fierceness, divinity, perfection, mercy, power, and love.

The union of wisdom and compassion asks our consent to have our heart stripped down to its most naked core.

To be willing to be so sensitive and open that we allow ourselves to be crucified at the centre of this vajra cross whose arms are,

The perfection and passion of all reality.

Every moment an expression of the infinity of the ultimate ground expressing itself to itself in eternal perfection.

Every moment a gift of the most heartbreakingly sacred and intimate nature, never given before and never again.

The smile of a child.

The tears of a grandmother.

The buzz of an insect’s wings.

The sound of birdsong.

The roar of chainsaws in the Amazon.

The swell of rage in our belly.

The taste of tea.

When we have allowed ourselves to become truly intimate with reality, each moment is revealed as a shimmer of the grace and greatness of the ultimate ground.

When that ground is not known, what remains for those who look is the ever-present sense of the impermanent and temporary nature of everything we love.

This is what the Buddha pointed us toward in his teaching on dukkha.

When the wisdom of the ground has been recognised though and has settled in our heart, then our recognition of impermanence is transformed into the most naked compassion.

A compassion that burns in its willingness simply to feel the truth of what is.