The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that emotional burdens can cloud our self-perception, and self-reflection can help clear these distractions.
Krishna Das uses the metaphor of the heart as a mirror to illustrate how our emotional struggles, such as guilt and anger, can obscure our true selves. By practicing self-awareness and emotional healing, we can clear away these negative feelings and achieve a clearer, more honest understanding of ourselves.
In practice
In a meditation workshop, one might share this quote to emphasize the importance of self-awareness.
If we know anything about a path at all, it's only because of the Great ones that have gone before us. Out of their love and kindness, they have left some footprints for us to follow. So, in the same way that they wish for us, we wish that all beings everywhere, including ourselves, be safe, be happy, have good health, and enough to eat. And may we all live at ease of heart with whatever comes to us in life.
Grace surrounds us and holds us like the sky holds everything in it … and as soon as I find a way to let go of my story, I keep seeing over and over again that grace is always here and it includes the forgetting and the remembering. The practice is the opening of the hand to catch the raindrops, which are always falling. If you don't open your hand, you get wet, but you don't get much to drink.
Chanting just hits you and you want to be a part of it. That’s the point of this whole thing. That’s what cuts through all the ‘stuff’. You get lit up. You don’t have to know what it means.
Love is what we are; we don't get it from somebody, we can't give it to anybody, we can't fall in it or fall out of it. Love is our true Being.
A lot of times, especially when it comes to political debates, people get caught up in esoteric statistics. So the realest thing I can do that has nothing to do with numbers is tell you my personal experience.
No one can be great, or good, or happy except through the inward efforts of themselves.
Don't always try to be popular. It isn't possible for everyone to like you. It's far more important for you to like yourself. And when you respect yourself, strangely, you get more respect than when you court it from others.
You will not be satisfied unless you are contributing something to or for the benefit of others.
Little strokes fell great oaks.
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.
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