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Authors: Pema Chödrön
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couldn’t ever be labeled definitively. At that moment, I genuinely felt the relief that Dzigar Kongtrül had asked me about.
The eight worldly concerns are, at bottom, just an outdated mechanism for survival. In that sense, we’re still functioning at a very primitive level, completely at the mercy of hope and fear. The mechanism of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure kept us from being eaten, kept us from freezing to death in winter, kept us figuring out how to get food and how to clothe ourselves. This worked well for our ancestors, but it isn’t working very well for us now. In fact, we continually overreact when it’s hardly a life-or-death matter. We behave as if our very existence were threatened, when all that’s at stake is maybe a late charge. We’re like Ping-Pong balls being bounced back and forth by our aversions and desires, and we’re way overdue for trying a fresh alternative.
In the year 2000 the elders of the Hopi Nation made a prediction about the future and offered advice on how to live in the upcoming millennium. The Hopi elders are considered the earth protectors, the ones who are responsible for the survival (or not) of our planet. They said that we were now in a fast-flowing river and that many of us would be afraid and try to cling to the shore. But those who cling to the shore, they said, “will suffer greatly.” The advice of the elders was to let go of the shore and push off into the middle of the river, see who was there with us—“and celebrate.”
Refraining but not repressing, contemplating our personal experience of being caught, acknowledging our triggers, the nonviolent practice of simmering—all of these are ways of letting go of the shore and pushing off into the middleof the river. All of these are ways of allowing ourselves to live free of story lines, free of crippling attachments to what we want and don’t want, free of fixed mind and self-centeredness. If we don’t act on our craving for pleasure or our fear of pain, we’re left in the wide-open, unpredictable middle. The instruction is to rest in that vulnerable place, to rest in that in-between state, to not hunker down and stay fixed in our belief systems but to take a fresh look with a wider perspective.
The truth is that we’re always in some kind of in-between state, always in process. We never fully arrive. When we’re present with the dynamic quality of our lives, we’re also present with impermanence, uncertainty, and change. If we can stay present, then we might finally get that there’s no security or certainty in the objects of our pleasure or the objects of our pain, no security or certainty in winning or losing, in compliments or criticism, in good reputation or bad—no security or certainty ever in anything that’s fleeting, that’s subject to change.
The commitment to not cause harm is very clear-cut. The only way to break it is to speak or act out of a confused mind. The simplicity and clarity of this commitment helps us build an unshakable foundation of inner strength. This manifests as the courage to take a chance, the courage not to act in the same old ways. It builds confidence in our ability to cultivate renunciation at the deepest level and in our ability to see shenpa when it arises and realize when we’re once again caught in the eight worldly concerns. It builds confidence in our ability to live without a game plan, to live unfettered by hope and fear. When people make this commitment, they begin to change. You might run into them after a year or two and find that something in them hassoftened. They seem more at home with themselves and the world, more flexible and easier to get along with.
At some point, if you’re fortunate, you’ll hit a wall of truth and wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. At that point you’ll feel highly motivated to find out what frees you and helps you to be kinder and more loving, less klesha driven and confused. At that point you’ll
The eight worldly concerns are, at bottom, just an outdated mechanism for survival. In that sense, we’re still functioning at a very primitive level, completely at the mercy of hope and fear. The mechanism of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure kept us from being eaten, kept us from freezing to death in winter, kept us figuring out how to get food and how to clothe ourselves. This worked well for our ancestors, but it isn’t working very well for us now. In fact, we continually overreact when it’s hardly a life-or-death matter. We behave as if our very existence were threatened, when all that’s at stake is maybe a late charge. We’re like Ping-Pong balls being bounced back and forth by our aversions and desires, and we’re way overdue for trying a fresh alternative.
In the year 2000 the elders of the Hopi Nation made a prediction about the future and offered advice on how to live in the upcoming millennium. The Hopi elders are considered the earth protectors, the ones who are responsible for the survival (or not) of our planet. They said that we were now in a fast-flowing river and that many of us would be afraid and try to cling to the shore. But those who cling to the shore, they said, “will suffer greatly.” The advice of the elders was to let go of the shore and push off into the middle of the river, see who was there with us—“and celebrate.”
Refraining but not repressing, contemplating our personal experience of being caught, acknowledging our triggers, the nonviolent practice of simmering—all of these are ways of letting go of the shore and pushing off into the middleof the river. All of these are ways of allowing ourselves to live free of story lines, free of crippling attachments to what we want and don’t want, free of fixed mind and self-centeredness. If we don’t act on our craving for pleasure or our fear of pain, we’re left in the wide-open, unpredictable middle. The instruction is to rest in that vulnerable place, to rest in that in-between state, to not hunker down and stay fixed in our belief systems but to take a fresh look with a wider perspective.
The truth is that we’re always in some kind of in-between state, always in process. We never fully arrive. When we’re present with the dynamic quality of our lives, we’re also present with impermanence, uncertainty, and change. If we can stay present, then we might finally get that there’s no security or certainty in the objects of our pleasure or the objects of our pain, no security or certainty in winning or losing, in compliments or criticism, in good reputation or bad—no security or certainty ever in anything that’s fleeting, that’s subject to change.
The commitment to not cause harm is very clear-cut. The only way to break it is to speak or act out of a confused mind. The simplicity and clarity of this commitment helps us build an unshakable foundation of inner strength. This manifests as the courage to take a chance, the courage not to act in the same old ways. It builds confidence in our ability to cultivate renunciation at the deepest level and in our ability to see shenpa when it arises and realize when we’re once again caught in the eight worldly concerns. It builds confidence in our ability to live without a game plan, to live unfettered by hope and fear. When people make this commitment, they begin to change. You might run into them after a year or two and find that something in them hassoftened. They seem more at home with themselves and the world, more flexible and easier to get along with.
At some point, if you’re fortunate, you’ll hit a wall of truth and wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. At that point you’ll feel highly motivated to find out what frees you and helps you to be kinder and more loving, less klesha driven and confused. At that point you’ll
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