We had the last meeting of our Living Beautifully Meditation Book Group at Yoga Bliss yesterday. We came together for gentle yoga practice, meditation and discussion of the third section in Living Beautifully about taking the 3rd Commitment, To Embrace the World Just As It Is. This commitment challenges us to embrace all dimensions of being in and as part of our world.
This commitment challenges us to drop all preconceptions about our experience as we step into groundlessness – the uneasy, sometimes scary place of don’t know, of discomfort, of dis-ease. Every one of our experiences can be viewed as a doorway to sacred world. The world becomes sacred when we see it as if for the first time – without our preconceptions or interpretations. We can use our senses as doorways to wonder – if we can experience them directly.
Not surprisingly she introduces this challenge in a chapter called Nowhere to Hide. She describes our life as a mandala of awakening. Everything we encounter is an opportunity to enter the sacred world – in it’s most fundamental terms. This includes our fears, comforts, joys and sorrows. She says “the pain of our confusion and the brilliance of awakened mind make up the mandala of our lives. . . Birth and death, depression and joy coexist. . . ” Those of us that tried embracing everything in our path this week agreed that it was quite exhausting. Perhaps this is precisely the opportunity to build inner strength that Pema is describing.
The actual practice involves:
Overcoming the laziness that keeps us biting the same hooks over and over again as if it didn’t matter
Listening to our wisdom instead of following robotic patterns
Inviting scary feelings to stay longer so we can get to know them to their depth
Entertaining the thought that we’re basically good and we have the potential to be fully awake
Pema says what is happening on the earth today is the result of the collective minds of everyone on the planet. Yet we all have to take responsibility for our own state of mind. In observing my self and my constellation of personal relationships, I’m struck by how so much suffering comes from to clinging to views about people and the world that have never been questioned. I drank some of these views in with my mother’s milk. The views that cause me pain are usually those that predispose me to close down or shut someone out.
I experimented with gazing at a picture of my estranged father this week. I looked at him and wished that he be safe, well and happy. Gradually I came to sense that we shared the same pain. Arrogantly I presumed that he was likely to be ignorant of the suffering he’s caused. Humility started to glimmer as I continued to practice. Now I wonder how much suffering I have caused because I haven’t been able to look more deeply at the consequences of my own tendency to withdraw from people and the world.
I had several occasions to look at the world’s confusion and compassion this week. I watched Nicolas Kristof’s documentary Half the Sky and learned about the work that Edna Nadan is doing in Somaliland. She is training women to serve as midwives for each other in the furthest reaches of the poorest villages. She is trying to end the practice of female genital cutting. Tragically this is a practice that women do to young girls. The film explored some of the reasons this practice persists. Interviewers spoke with a woman who does this professionally. She performs this procedure about 10 to 12 times a day. She doesn’t question its necessity for the girls or for her own economic well being.
Yes suffering springs from cultural conditioning, from views that haven’t been questioned and from economic necessity. This situation so vividly exemplifies what Pema is encouraging us to examine and engage: to look suffering squarely in the face and to feel the difficult feelings it arouses. Then we’re to entertain the notion that we’re all basically good and have the potential to be fully awake. I support Edna and her team of caregivers. I believe their medical care and educational outreach will have a chance to heal the bodies and minds of the girls and women who have become trapped in this cycle of suffering.
Pema confronts us with the harsh reality of old age, suffering and death in encouraging us to enter the charnel ground. In this ground we meet wretchedness and splendidness, the totality of life. She says that if we can stay present even in the most challenging circumstances the intensity of the situation will transform us. It’s up to us to decide what we are ready to handle. Sooner or later we all encounter intense emotions that we can’t outrun. If we don’t start building the resilience to cope with the inevitable pain and loss of sickness, old age and death it will come as a great shock. Indeed, as many of us know – these experiences don’t make an appointment.
We do have the potential to engage these experiences in ways that enable us to open and touch others even while we struggle with our own pain and suffering. I don’t think this is about trying to be a saint. I think we predispose ourselves to this kind of engagement with an open mind. This point is beautifully illustrated by the life experience and work of Ram Dass. Ram Dass is a contemporary American spiritual teacher and founding member of charitable organizations Seva Foundation & Hanuman Foundation. In his book Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying he discusses his experience of and recovery from stroke. He vividly describes his loss of function and fixed identity while having to depend on others to help him with the most basic activities of daily life. He went from jaunting around in his convertible to a wheelchair in a few heartbeats. Yet in the biographical film, Ram Dass Fierce Grace, he is shown reaching out and helping others coping with tragedy and loss.
In her final chapter, We Are Needed, Pema asks us to consider whether we are ready for these commitments. She reminds us that we are all so interconnected that we can’t awaken without each other. While we can use these commitments as helpful tools – they can’t tell us how to feel. We have to do that for ourselves and then transformation occurs.
I so appreciate the opportunity of coming together with this circle of caring friends – willing to explore and practice together. This group has enabled me to go deeper. Hearing your different experiences of taking these teachings into your lives has enriched me. I will miss our Saturdays and I will imagine us moving together always in the direction of more clarity and kindness.
You can find this week’s homework and other resources at:
Living Beautifully Meditation Book Group Meeting 4 Homework
I hope to continue the journey with you in person and in spirit.
Namaste!