Through mindfulness practice, we are able to create a compassionate space around our experiences, and this is really the key.
This is an ongoing challenge, but fortunately mindfulness also enables us to better manage the challenge. Mindfulness asks us to see ourselves truthfully, to accept the full range of our thoughts, emotions, and personality quirks. Or we may project these feelings out, and someone else might become our scapegoat, forced to carry the burden of our shame. If we’re not able to deal with them skilfully, they can lead to depression, cause us to argue with those we love, or make us aggressive/paranoid/socially withdrawn and so on. The instinct to protect ourselves against threats is very powerful, and our dark thoughts can pose a real to our lives. Why would we welcome dark thoughts, shame, malice? Surely it makes more sense to bolt the door against them and threaten to call the police if they don’t go away? This poem seems to resonate with a lot of people, although on the face of it, what he is asking us to do appears rather strange. Every morning, new guests arrive – ‘a joy, a depression, a meanness’ and he asks us to treat all of these unexpected visitors honourably, even if they ‘violently sweep your house empty of its furniture’.
In his poem ‘The guest house’, the Sufi poet Rumi invites us to metaphorically open ourselves up to all visitors, just like a guest house which doesn’t get to choose who stays the night.
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