An Open Heart Needs An Open Mind

An open heart is caring. 
An open mind is the ability to carry out caring.

Unfortunately, just caring is sentimentality, while just having an open mind without caring is coldness.

Heart and mind need to work together. This is not just a saying – it’s a practicality of life, and it’s how we should deal with one another.

So many ‘spiritual’ people want to feel good, but don’t have the ability to actually care, as their minds are full of doctrine – do’s and don’ts. This used to be called ‘the Hinayana approach’ of self-discipline, self-salvation.

It is imperative that our conduct matches our understanding. Just saying whatever we think doesn’t help anyone. We first have to practise listening with an open mind which has no desires or competitiveness. It’s easy to say, “I have an open mind”, but actually having an open mind is staying silent so that there is no I involved.

The answer to all our problems is in our mind.