I Sing The Song That Knows I'm Home, and I Know It By Heart
When small children sing songs and know the words with perfection and conviction, we usually laud them for their adorable tenacity.
âI know it by heart!â is what they say.
A song comes on the radio that you havenât heard in 15 years, yet you are belting out every single word without skipping a beat, and you are suddenly taken on a journey to where you were when you fell into emotion with the song. It is so engrained into the fiber of your being that you feel like time has stopped while the song plays.
You know it by heart, is what you feel.
Yet knowing by heart what is the path to take and actually listening to what the heart says to connect to the truth is a perplexity that I have yet to figure out.
My heart always wants to go home. But where is home? Is home the place where I grew up? Is home the place I lived for most of my adult life? Is home in the world that Iâve been exploring? Is home a place that doesnât exist on Earth but only in imagination and spirit?
Where in this journey of life does home live?
And yesterday, as Iâm riding through the highways of Bangkok, I turned to my dear friend, Phil Collins. I intentionally play the song, Take Me Home.
The intentional play was a stark contrast to a moment moment 3 years ago when I was on another highway, in my hometown. A place I've always struggled to connect to. A place I was forced to be at the time, and I didn't understand how to get out. The same song blasted through the airwaves, as if a magical angelic force from the universe intervened and made me listen to the song, stopping me dead in my tracks. She knew I needed to hear it.
As soon as I heard it, as soon as my heart recognized the words - my soul became unglued.
That day 3 years ago, my soul was set on fire, and the confusion of the unanswered questions soaked into my brain like a wet rag sopping up a spill of wine on the floor. The wine that I couldnât drink, because I was in my car, listening to Phil sing the words and striking my heart with such fervor and strength that I felt the panic setting in.
âŚThereâs a fire thatâs been burning, right outside my door
I canât see but I feel it, and it helps to keep me warm
(But I need to see it! I canât feel it! Why canât I see it?! Where is it???)
(Oh, but I DO MIND. I NEED TO SEE IT.)
Since so long Iâve been waiting, Still don't know what for
There's no point escaping
(Iâm literally worried 100% of the time!)
I can't come out to find you
I don't like to go outside
They can't turn off my feelings
Like they're turning off a light
(But I DO MIND, PHIL. IâM NOT LIKE YOU. I NEED TO GO OUTSIDE AND FIND IT.)
âcause I don't remember
(WHY ARE YOU SINGING THIS TO ME?! I hear your messageâŚbut I canât see or believe it right now!)
In that moment, I fell to the imaginary floor because the literal floor was in my car and I had to keep driving on.
In that moment, through the ungluing process, I knew then that I hadnât found this place of home yet.
In that moment, I was afraid.
I was a small child all over again. In my efforts of non-attachment, I attached my being to this thing that I no longer was. Iâve attached to this non-entity. I was trying to fit into something that I felt never existed.
The search continued with stronger conviction and perseverance. I went around the world to find a home. I looked in every nook and cranny from the far east of Asia to the west coast of America, from north Africa to Southern Europe.
But the more I looked, the louder my heart spoke. It kept repeating,
âBaby, youâre already home.â
So this time, yesterday, in this moment, Phil Collins and I are in sync. We are on the same page of music, singing the same song.
I still know the lyrics by heart. They ring in my soul and bring tears to my eyes, just the way I felt when I walked into my teacherâs class again in December, after being away for almost a year, I sat down for our prayers.
I sat on my knees, brought my hands together, closed my eyes, and began to say the words:
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sama sambuddhasaâŚ
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sama sambuddhasaâŚ
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sama sambuddhasaâŚ
As the prayers continued and became more complicated and deeper over the 15 minutes following, I did not have to look at the chant sheet. Not once. I had not said these prayers out loud for 11 months. Yet the words flowed, from my heart.
Suddenly I was flooded with clarity and reassurance. I now know, from my heart. Knowing by heart is the truest essence of non-attachment I have found. I am no longer a slave to my search of whatâs true to my heart, because it exists. It has existed all along.
ââŚnon-attachment does not mean running away from things to some peaceful hermitage, for we can never escape from our own illusions about life; we carry them with us, and if we are afraid of them and wish to escape it means that we are doubly enslavedâŚ.
The non-attachment of Buddhism and Taoism means not running a way from life but running with it, for freedom comes through complete acceptance of reality. those who wish to keep their illusions do no not move at all; those who fear them run backwards into greater illusions. While those who conquer them âwalk on.ââ Â - Alan Watts
Take me home, because Iâm already home, because I know by heart thatâs where to go, and where I have always been.
