Essence of Type Two – Loving Kindness
Imagine that we each come from one of nine lands, the land where the essential quality to which we are sensitive reigns supreme. For Twos, this land is one of loving kindness.
Type Two is called the “Helper” or the “Giver.” In their souls, Twos are sensitive to love, kindness, generosity and caring. Above all they want to live in a land where loving kindness flows freely, where people care for each other.
To enter Two Land, imagine a Garden of Eden where every being is naturally generous and caring, where everyone looks after each other and love reigns. Your soul knows that you too are part of this warm abiding love.
To understand the experience of Twos in the world, imagine the “fall” from this Garden of loving kindness, the impact of encountering hurtful, mean, and selfish behaviors, of being born into a world where people hate and hurt each other. For type Two, expulsion from Paradise feels like being cast into a world of broken, painful relationships.
“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.”
Understanding The Essence of Loving Kindness
The essence of Two is the universal, unconditional quality of love that we know directly as an aspect of our consciousness, the love we feel when we are present and conscious. It is Being felt in the heart. At this level, love is not human love, personal or based on relationships. It is more the fabric of reality, the loving nature of Being, which includes ourselves. We all have a connection to this essential quality - we all are this love.
If the essence of loving kindness is difficult for us to understand, it’s not because it’s a hard concept to grasp. It’s more that we completely understand human love and it’s so important to us, love means so much to all of us, that it is difficult to contemplate love separate from our human experience and personal history. We tend to think of love as loving someone or something, a relationship outside of ourselves, so understanding the essence of love is a matter of recognizing love that is not conditional or attached to anything outside of us.
To connect to the essence of Two, the essential quality of love, it is best to go directly into sensing our open, stable hearts.
In our huge, spacious, open hearts we can sense the quality of love that is not conditional on a relationship, that has no object, that is the nature of Being.
Most of us encounter a lot when we sense into our Heart Center, so we approach this practice gently. Often, our hearts are full of emotion and may feel tender or painful when we sense into them. Tears or grief may come up. Or we may find it hard to sense into our hearts because they are defended. Many people sense a wall or shell protecting their hearts. There is nothing wrong with this, it is very natural, our hearts are sensitive organs that store many memories and feelings. If you stay present to your heart in a grounded way, over time you may go through the emotions and walls you encounter to sense a deeper heart opening.
It can be helpful to find a heart-centered meditation online. Tara Brach is a beautiful source. Also, Jon Kabat Zinn, Kristen Neff, Jack Kornfield and others. A particular heart-centered practice is loving kindness meditation, a Buddhist practice available to all of us. Again, there are many resources online for this specific practice.
You may also enjoy exploring heart opening through sound, music or chanting. There is a sound vibration that resonates in the Heart Center. For example, online or on your meditation app you can find a heart-centered chant.
When we land in our stable open Heart as a Center of Intelligence, we feel the essence of unconditional love and kindness. You could also say this is presence in the Heart.
For Keeps
Sun makes the day new.
Tiny green plants emerge from earth.
Birds are singing the sky into place.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here.
I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us.
We gallop into a warm, southern wind.
I link my legs to yours and we ride together,
Toward the ancient encampment of our relatives.
Where have you been? they ask.
And what has taken you so long?
That night after eating, singing, and dancing
We lay together under the stars.
We know ourselves to be part of mystery.
It is unspeakable.
It is everlasting.
It is for keeps.
Joy Haro
Visit other dimensions of the Two
