Category: Spirit – Soul, Courage

While sharing the first five “transcendent actions” with Renee she asked which I found most difficult.  Seeing my face scrunch with indecision she said “okay top two!”  Hahaha!  They’re all a work in progress, but today “generosity” and “patience” are my booger-bears.

Being generous with my real self invites the potential for rejection – who wants that?  Okay … I want acceptance and to be known for who I am; nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Patience is quite the challenge as I’m a take action freak.  Sitting still when I could “be doing something about whatever” gives me the heebie-jeebies – like I’m some kind of human Mexican jumping-bean. Yes, I remain a work in progress.

Pema Chodron shares a story about Naropa, an 11^th century Indian yogi and his quest to find a teacher.  Naropa kept getting squeezed … reality got in the way of his aspiration.  While he knew about compassion intellectually, his practice fell short.  He was like the professed animal lover who backs away from the stinking, flea-infested, mangy dog.

“We continually find ourselves in that squeeze.  It’s a place where we look for alternatives to just being there.”   – That uncomfortable or embarrassing place.  “We’re so used to running from discomfort, and we’re so predictable.  If we don’t like it, we strike out at someone or beat up on ourselves.  We want security and certainty…” 

The squeeze: that place between our aspiration and sitting still with the consequent heebie-jeebies.  Next time the feeling hits, says Pema, “consider it a remarkable stroke of luck.”  Bwahahaha……!!!

Pema Chodron; When Things Fall Apart – the first five transcendent actions:

1. Generosity:  “the journey of learning to give” because “holding on causes us to suffer” 
   • Stop “cultivating our own scheme.”
   • Give away “our dark glasses . . . our disguises” – “open ourselves and let ourselves be touched.”
   • “Give away what we think we can’t.”
2. Discipline: “gentle yet precise”
   • “Not being swayed by moods” or “any form of potential escape from reality.”
   • It “allows us to be right here and connect with the richness of the moment.”
   • “It’s a sort of undoing process that supports us in going against the grain of our painful habitual patterns.”
3. Patience: “antidote to anger”
   • “Love and care for whatever we meet on the path” . . . “we do not mean enduring – to grin and bear it.”
   • “The opposite of patience is aggression” –  “the desire to jump and move, and to push against our lives, to try to fill up space.”
4. Exertion: “has a journey quality, a process quality” 
   • When “the brightness of the day … is bigger than staying in bed.”
5. Meditation: “allows us to continue the journey”
   • “We connect with something unconditional.”

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“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” ― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die

During a Team Building exercise back in the 90’s, I pre-tested and scored dismally on the “Empathy” assessment.  Well, I had just read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and I knew John Galt!  That’s what I told myself anyway.  No way were my empathy muscles puny because I’m totally selfish!

Flash forward; absorbing this concept of being a “warrior-bodhisattvas” is unsettling.  Makes me stop and consider – am I empathy challenged because I have no empathy – just your basic self-centered egomaniac?  Or did I bury those powers to protect myself?  Am I a scared little girl in a woman’s body?  Neither is appealing … but there I go again judging.

As I continue to probe in my meditations, and consider the teachings that Pema Chodron so gently presents . . . I inch toward willingness to “enter challenging situations in order to alleviate suffering” – to be that warrior-bodhisattvas. 

On the plane home from a business trip this week, I read more about the practice of tonglon in Pema’s When Things Fall Apart.   This practice – a method to connect with the suffering of others, is also used to overcome fear, release the tightness of our hearts; wake up the compassion she says is in us all.  She explains we can do this by:

“.. breathing in others’ pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open—breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever we feel would bring them relief and happiness.” 

Pema warns that this practice often brings up our own fears, resistance and anger.  She reminds us that “in order to feel compassion for other people, we have to feel compassion for ourselves.”  If our internal struggle shows up when we’re breathing for others we simply:

“.. change the focus and begin to do tonglen for what we are feeling and for millions of other people just like us who at that very moment are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery.”

At that moment, my butt freaking ached!  I was sore from sitting – in a car, in a chair, in an airplane seat; my own mini misery.  So, I breathed in the pain of my sore ass for the whole airplane – and breathed out comfort and relaxation.   And I felt better.  Again, starting where I am.

Am I more empathetic today than yesterday?  Ha!  Maybe.  Baby steps.  Today I’ll do what I can; tomorrow will work itself out.

Breathe in, breath out.  Hello empathy.

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“In separateness lies the world’s great misery, in compassion lies the world’s true strength.” – Buddha

The committee in my head seized, and held me hostage last weekend.  Great, I said to myself!  Here’s an opportunity to practice the techniques I’m learning.  I breathed in, breathed out.  I noticed my reactions; leaned into the pain; leaned HARD into the pain.  Felt the poison; asked the crazies to sit on my lap; gave them a psychic hug.  Breathed in, breathed out again!  BAM – Not happening.  The flippin’ storyline would not be dropped.

It was frustrating and I was totally annoyed at myself; finally made it through the day.

In her book When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron says our reactions are “usually habitual” – and we should “see the next impulse come up, and how we spin off from there.”  Whichever way we spin isn’t good or bad – we just need to “simply see . . . without judgment or the intention to clean up our act.”

After running away and judging myself, vowing to clean up my act could possibly be my next favorite pastime.  A crew of folk taught me to keep my side of the street clean; promptly admitting when I’m wrong.  Do I admit to “wrong” to push my discomfort away?  Or am I really wrong?  Do I impose a “wrongness” penance because of my harsh self-judgments?

Can I allow myself to simply sit in my discomfort?  Just sit in it and feel it?  No blame; no self-justification.  Ugh.  Pema says it will pass.  Breathe in, breathe out-repeat.  How long will this shit take?  Oh!  Till I get it – GOT IT!

Breathe in, breath out.  Repeat.

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“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

After reading multiple books on the intersection of quantum physics and philosophy, Candace Pert’s Molecules of Emotion and Bruce Lipton’s Biology of Belief, I realized I’m trying to validate what I believe with science – for myself … AND to convince other people that what I’m learning is too important to ignore.  Some people don’t want to get on my train.  They believe what they believe.  They think what they think – they see what they see.   Period.

Still I want to shout from the rooftops!  Think of the possibilities, the consequences!  Look at what we’re creating!  Wake up with me!

I want my most precious people to embrace a journey of growth.  Some will; some won’t.  Some will walk with me side-by-side; for a while.  Some will walk a different path.

I can still shout from the rooftops – because this stuff is too important to ignore.  Who joins me in conversation isn’t up to me.   It’s time to unclench and release the illusion of control.  It’s time to trust the process of perception.

“If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you; I came to live out loud.” – Emile Zola