Heart

What Is the Heart?

The heart, as I talk about it, is a Buddhist concept that is easier to understand for some cultures than others. In English it can be understood as a mixture of three ideas: the physical organ of the heart, your feelings and emotions, and the unconscious.

In East Asian languages it is easier to understand:

• 마음 in Korean
• こころ (心) in Japanese / Chinese
• Citta / Chitta in Sanskrit

The heart is a critical concept for us to learn because while we have rational abilities as human beings, most of our decisions are made from the heart; and perhaps more importantly, our happiness is experienced and felt by the heart.

The Heart as a Repository

Have you ever made a perfectly rational decision, only to regret it over time? Perhaps you experienced the other way around, where you do something you know you're going to regret but feel satisfied about it. Time after time I see people experience this rift between the head and the heart, where they think one way but find themselves doing something completely different. All of this is a symptom of not understanding where your behaviors are driven from.

With our brain we need to spend conscious time and effort memorizing things and committing things into memory. You probably don't recall everything you learned at school. But you probably remember with great detail what happened at school, how you felt at school.

The neat thing about this repository: you don't have to spend time consciously trying to commit emotional memories into your heart. It's automatic. The not so neat part: all the emotional experiences you have had about certain things are retained and carry over to future instances.

Head vs. Heart

Most of us live in our heads. We think about our feelings instead of feeling our feelings. This distinction is the foundation of everything in Launch Pad.

Here is an example. I am talking to my wife about what we should have for lunch:

• "I don't want Chinese because I had a big dinner and don't want to be full again." (thought)
• "I don't want Thai because if I skip spicy food, what's the point?" (thought)
• "I don't want Japanese because it's too sweet." (thought)
• "I don't want Vietnamese because I had it yesterday." (thought)
• "I don't want Korean because I'm not in the mood." (thought)

Five observations, five different thoughts. But one heart runs underneath all of them: "I'm not feeling like food, I want to have this back and forth with you." One feeling dictates five different thoughts.

The Checkpoint Practice

When we share in this program, we are doing something specific:

This checkpointing, noticing shifts in your emotional state, is something we practice constantly. It is not about getting the "right" answer. It is about looking.

How many fingers am I, Billy, holding up right now? You can't, because you are not looking at my hand. That is what most of us do with our hearts. We try to describe feelings we are not even observing.

Why This Matters for Your Business

If we don't recognize our unconscious emotional patterns, we can't run a mindful business. Without this awareness:

• You will unconsciously rely on clients to validate you
• Your self-authority becomes dependent on other people's responses
• Your business is at the mercy of external approval

When I can count on me, that is when I can do anything. I got my back. I know how to do it. That is the confidence I want you to walk away with.

Heart Alignment

Feelings dictate the general direction of where our life goes. This means we are headed towards wherever the heart wants to go. Suppose in our head we want to rest because we had a long day, and inside of your heart you really like resting. You'll have no problem resting in this case. But suppose in our head we want to rest, but in our heart we judge ourselves for resting. In this case it will be very difficult to truly relax.

As much as possible we want to understand our heart so that we can align with it. And from here we make a conscious choice:

• Do we want to respect our heart's wishes?
• Do we want to learn how to work against our heart without suffering?
• Do we want to change our heart?

There is no correct answer here; every choice just comes with a different set of consequences.

Further Reading

These writings explore the heart concept in more depth:

• But How, Billy?
• Life Is Suffering
• What To Do With The Feels

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