The perennial Broadway musical Damn Yankees had a signature song,”You Gotta Have Heart,” which was sung by a group of underdog ball players trying to summon the courage to beat the fearsome Yankees in the big game. It was a beautiful, heartfelt moment in an uplifting musical. The key theme was the connection between heart and courage, the spirit to face and rise above challenges.
In those days, particularly in New York City, baseball inspired a sense of loyalty, camaraderie and courage. In a memory burnished into the hearts of sports lovers forever, Babe Ruth famously pointed to where he intended to hit a home run in a 1932 World Series —and then did just that. This kind of magic requires immense courage, but not aggressive courage. It’s a courage that comes from the heart. The root of the word “courage” is cor, which means “heart” in Latin and has similar meanings in French and Old English. So, to have courage is to have heart. It’s a joyful bravery that arises from deep within us, overcoming doubt and confusion. If Babe Ruth had been uncertain, he wouldn’t have been able to point to that spot with such confidence. Confidence, courage, heart—these are the topics of today’s post.
There’s a beautiful moment in Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary Get Back where John Lennon, recording the song “Don’t Let Me Down,” turns to Ringo and asks him to crash the cymbal on the downbeat to give him “the courage to come screaming in.” Here is a man who was part of the greatest songwriting team in history, arguably the most famous rock star of his time, a millionaire, a published author—yet he still felt insecure enough to ask for that symbolic gesture. This moment reveals that courage from the heart encompasses our insecurities, acknowledges our frailties, and allows us to move forward despite doubt.
When faced with overwhelming challenges, we can either brace ourselves and charge forward or, more mindfully, open our hearts, relax, and smile at our fears, stepping forward nonetheless.
“You Gotta Have Heart” was the standout moment in the musical because it inspired the audience. It was uplifting and exhilarating, but more importantly, it encouraged a sense of collective spirit. Conversely, when poorly conceived, aggressively executed acts of bravery occur, they often create division. Some people build communities around what they hate, using those objects as sacrifices to summon dark intentions. When politicians demonize aspects of society to rally support, they act from aggression, not heart. Acting from aggression means denying our own vulnerabilities and leaving little room for others to open their hearts in return. For many, the idea of opening their hearts feels threatening and exhilaratingly dangerous, leading them to avoid vulnerability altogether.
On a personal level, many of us close down our hearts under a false sense of bravery to focus on issues. We seek approval from others, rallying friends who will uncritically support our views, reinforcing our grievances against those we believe have wronged us. While this may create a temporary swell of approval, it is ultimately hollow and fleeting, leaving us feeling manipulated. This might not feel like aggression; it could feel like passion for a cause. Yet, in such moments, we often fall into the trap of preaching rather than sharing something personal.
When we fail to take ownership of our fears, doubts, and insecurities—often because we are unaware of them—we prevent others from connecting with us. Instead of inviting a dialogue, we simply inform others of our views, using our intellect as a shield to guard our hearts. Genuine communication depends on allowing space for everyone to process their own feelings. Otherwise, it risks becoming coercive. When we are passionate about something, we might push our views forcefully, trying to impose our “truth.” However, there is no absolute truth; what matters is acknowledging our feelings and understanding.
Having the courage to sit with our feelings and embrace our doubts, insecurities, aspirations, and desires is incredibly powerful. From a Buddhist perspective, we strive to embody the middle way, recognizing that falling into either extreme—over-expressing the heart or retreating into the intellect—can hinder communication. When we are deeply in our hearts but lack awareness, it can become overwhelming for others to engage. The middle way allows us to hold both extremes in a state of resolution, enabling clear expression and deep feeling.
In ideal discourse, it is important for others to pause and fully process the points expressed. Coming from the heart requires time for the body and mind to register the experience. Conversely, when we engage solely from our intellect, conversations can become cold and rapid, leading to confusion and emotional hurt. By incorporating the heart, we slow the process down and allow feelings to surface.
In the Dharma Junkies weekly group, we encourage people to speak from an “I” position, expressing how they feel. This approach makes their expressions inviolable, as no one can argue with one’s feelings. We take ownership of our emotions without expecting others to validate them. Equally, we create space for each person to share their own truth, free from argumentation, allowing their truths to resonate with others. This space is a show of respect.
Another practice we maintain in our community shares is to avoid commenting directly on another person’s perspective. When someone’s viewpoint provokes personal feelings in us, we acknowledge their position and then share our own feelings without comparing or contesting.
To communicate with courage means to speak from the heart, grounded in clarity, while allowing our words to be heard—and accepting whether they are received or not. This path can be lonely, as the warrior knows only their own feelings and heart, taking responsibility for them and offering them to others.
In group dynamics, addressing an audience or community can become cold when we rely too heavily on intellect. Conversely, when we come from the heart, the communication becomes warmer and more resonant. However, if we delve too deeply into our emotions, it can become overly personal, hindering effective communication. Balancing intellectual exploration and emotional depth is crucial, as both extremes primarily serve our own needs. To truly connect with a group, we must be willing to step beyond our insecurities into clarity.
Or, “Ya Gotta Have Heart. Miles and Miles and Miles of heart.”
While life seeks a safe place to rest, it also repeatedly ventures beyond its comfort zone to explore and evolve. Life has always been challenging, yet resilience is less about brute force and more about channeling energy into a sustainable flow. The idea of overcoming life’s obstacles through sheer grit and determination may sound heroic, but in reality, our journey through life is much more nuanced.
As we open our hearts to others, we risk re-experiencing past pain. The process of pulling inward for self-care and then extending outward to connect with others is essential for growth. Reaching out is vital because it allows us to learn about the world around us. However, those who experienced significant trauma in childhood may struggle to form connections and attachments.
Although masculine and feminine are inseparable, we can separate them to examine the distinct qualities each energy entails. The Tao Te Ching posits that the receptive complements and completes the creative. By considering this provisional binary, we can recognize that each of us has both assertive and receptive qualities. As we become more aware of these energies, we can learn to balance them.
Feminine energy cannot be owned; it is the very nature of the universe. Recent explorations of “dark matter” may be investigating this ancient energy, which existed before light. As all things—past, present, and future—exist in space and the universe, that ancient energy still holds and drives the expansion of the universe. The suggestion is that feminine energy is dark energy, predating creation and birth. Light, as a masculine energy, illuminates the dark, allowing us to perceive it, but the preceding, self-existing condition is feminine. Therefore, light is crucial to the creation of our universe and consciousness, but the darkness of the womb is the primordial state.
The mother cares for and protects the child on the most intimate level. We can extend this concept to include the creation of any kind—such as art, spirituality, or poetry. Personally, I write my creative work with a feminine voice, as it connects me to the sensitive, delicate part of myself essential for writing. The mother upholds our creative being, giving birth to the creator and nurturing the maturation of that creation. Regardless of societal or personal dynamics, every aspect of reality is connected to the feminine. The mother holds, nurtures, and creates us.
The maiden is symbolized by the dakini, often depicted in her late teens or early maturity. The dakini’s energy is linked to sexual awakening and discovery, which can sometimes lack compassion. While the dakini entices and softens the creative energy to approach her, she follows a deeper wisdom. Though often depicted as naked, in flames, and dancing in the sky, her connection is to the sacred feminine space of the universe, an energy predating all things. Her energy might seem capricious because she is linked to a higher order or her own feminine clan or community, making her actions incomprehensible to a more rigid, linear, masculine perspective. Thus, the maiden is always one step ahead of comprehension, dancing in flames in space. Though youthful and sexually appealing, the maiden exists within all of us. You can see her in the eyes of an older person in love or feel her in the embrace of someone who pushes you away for no discernible reason. In our male-dominated society, there has been an attempt to dominate and control this capricious energy, but the dakini cannot be controlled or possessed. She can be held, calmed, or tamed, but only provisionally. Like fire, with which she is associated, she warms, enlightens, reveals darker truths, but can also burn and move from one source of fuel to the next.
At that point, the dakini may leave us, her purpose fulfilled. Alternatively, this energy may transform into a more sustainable form, like the nurturing energy of the sister, akin to ducks that mate for life, swimming together in balanced harmony. Or it may evolve into the protective energy of the mother, who guides and shelters her brood.
So, let’s break down the components of this elephant. The elephant stands on the notion of a “self“. At some point in human evolution we became conscious. That localized sense of perceiving began to organize itself into an entity that is aware of itself. This allowed us a vantage from which to navigate an otherwise unmanageable sea of possibility. Yet, that navigation comes at the cost of limiting those possibilities. This notion of self is a necessary limitation in order for consciousness to have a reference point. Ego is a further limitation of those possibilities. Ego happens as self-awareness becomes a self-consciousness that assumes itself to be self-existing. This assumption of “me” can become a self-referential closed loop that reduces awareness to specifically localized points of view. The ego works as a set of patterned functions that reduce what we see of the world. We conflate reality down to serviceable quanta which, in turn, are seen as a means to serve our perceived compensatory needs. These perceived needs are generated to compensate for feelings of lack or vulnerability. In other words, we see what we are conditioned to see and generate feelings that prompt reactions. We generally do this all without much investigation.
The antidote is to stop. Allow a gap. Breathe out. Drop into ourselves and feel ourselves in our body. That is much closer to reality than circular, ego world building. Just drop it. Come home, and be here. This act of self love will allow the elephant to rest. When the elephant rests we can look around and see the world as it is.
I once wrote an unlove song that went “people suck, and you’re one of them.” Yet life with the irritations of other humans may be worthwhile simply because we have no choice. It is an existential situation that we can either choose to see or turn away from. Sartre’s play was an existential glimpse of a human condition that left us with no alternative, hence the idea of hell. The Buddhists say the cycle of suffering, referred to as l samsara, is endless. And, yet the Buddha predicted that suffering can nonetheless cease if we understand its cause. Our experience of that endless sea of suffering is enacted by the clinging attachment to the straws of life we feel will save us from drowning. Instead of flowing though life with an open sense of discovery, we grasp to the things we love and struggle to get away from things we hate. And in the turbulence of yes and no, wanting and not wanting, we become blind to the rest of our life.
So, why do we suffer? We become comfortable with the familiar. Seeing what we see, knowing what we know, doing what we do supports our sense of security. As we are social creatures, we search out our clan and dance with the partners we enjoy. However, we can unknowingly become attached to what we know, and experience antipathy toward that de don’t. We assume our point of view is self-existing and inviolable. Humans nestle into comfort without looking into that or beyond themselves. Chogyam Trungpa likened this process to creating a cocoon. Cocoon, in this case, is a womb of repetitive patterns, societal norms and bounded thinking in which we find protection but entirely take for granted. We separate ourselves from the dangers of disparity by surrounding ourselves with the familiar. Each of us has our specific style of protective cocoon that makes us feel safe. Ironically, those who flaunt danger sometimes find solace in the familiarity of repetition of their unsafe behavior. A daredevil approach feels brave, but once we’ve learned how to navigate the danger, it becomes a pattern.
It is essential for the butterfly to struggle through its cocoon in order to develop the strength to fly. Likewise, it is essential for those on a wisdom journey, to work with the discomfort of waking up. The Tibetans refer to “lakthong” or clear seeing. Lakthong is seeing beyond our reference points and likened to “waking up. When faced with the discomfort of seeing more clearly, a common tactic is to find fault and assign blame. We can deflect the pain of our burgeoning awareness onto a projection of another object. However, this freezes us in place. Once we pinpoint a problem, then it becomes a scapegoat. We are no longer looking, because we are seeing what we believe. Smart people are very susceptible to irritation and blame. People of high intellect can often become impatient with those moving on slower cycles. It’s natural to value our world from the vantage of our own values. Sometimes this conflates into a rigid false binary. Some people are good and some are evil. Assigning a value of evil may be more about pushing away something you find uncomfortable than an absolute value scale.
At this writing we are heading toward a pivotal, some say existential, national election. The two primary presidential candidates have come under fire. One fending attacks against their age and mental acuity. The other, quite literally, in a narrowly missed assassination attempt. Both of these situations have caused us to stop and reconsider solid paradigmatic points of view.
Binaries are fictions we create to better understand chaos. There is a good, and there is a bad. We have right and we have wrong. We feel comfort in fending off chaos with these solid beliefs. All of us have something we feel is real. But clinging to those beliefs create suffering as readily as clinging to material things or other people. This is called materialism of view. We believe our ideas are real. Well, good luck with that. I’ve actually come to see that binaries are by their nature never real. They are crude designations, the first step in the mental triage in trying to address the unsettling unknowing of chaos. The remedy? Hahaha. Relax. We are struggling through a natural process of rebirth. There is no reason to struggle. Our disquiet is urging us to discomfort. Our discomfort tells the part of ourselves charged with being in control that we are under siege. And so we prove our mettle by digging in. We turn false binaries in rhetoric and rhetoric into violence. At this point, the chaos in our mind becomes chaos in our life.
