Pearls from the Pema Chodrum Retreat: Living Beautifully with Uncertainty & Change

I attended a Pema Chodrum retreat this weekend entitled "Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change". Ane Pema, if you don't know, is a celebrity Buddhist nun and inspirational speaker who has written many popular books about adapting to and handling the troubles life brings. During the weekend retreat she offered many pearls to help one adapt to the curve balls life throws at us.

Ane Pema began the weekend Friday night with a metaphor about the river of life. She explained that our tendency is to seek the safety of the shoreline. However our mistake is in our grasping to hang on to the perceived security there. Life, she continued, takes place in the flow of the river, and we can't be afraid to jump in. She could not guarantee that in the river we wouldn't get banged up a bit, repelling on boulders and trying to keep our heads up in the rapids. but the river is where life happens, and where growth occurs. Clinging to the shoreline inevitably causes suffering and pain. We most certainly will get bruised and our hands and arms will get weak in our attempts to hang on to the branches to keep from becoming swallowed up by the flow of the river. On the shoreline we are stagnant. In the river, we move forward wherever life takes us.

I found this metaphor liberating, contemplating that we need to let go of the fear that keeps us clinging to the shoreline of familiarity and a false sense of security and that we must allow ourselves to jump in and flow down the river of life. That we cannot escape the suffering of the river by clinging to the shore. That the clinging to the shoreline is painful and though riding the river will also involve suffering, we must accept that and embrace the flow of the river.

Saturday morning Ane Pema opened with an exercise. She asked us to to remember an interaction that involved difficult feelings and pain. Not an incident that was a 10, but something smaller, a 2-3 (on a 1-10 scale). And to think about the incident and to feel the negative emotions that arose during the uncomfortable situation. Next to ask oneself who is in control here? Are the emotions in control of oneself, or am I in control of the emotions? And to remember this when difficult situations arise triggering negative emotions: who is in control? not to allow the emotions to control us, especially not to allow the negative emotions that often rapidly arise to cause us to do or say something unskillful that would cause pain for ourselves or others.

As we got in touch with the negative emotions and the pain the situation caused us, we ask the emotion to stay while we feel the intensity of the pain and ask ourselves "do i want others to experience this pain?" "do i want to do or say something that would cause this type of pain to arise in others?". its a compassion practice. in answering the questions, we remember in the future to pull back when triggered by negative emotions. "who is in control here"? so that we don't react and unwisely do or say something that will escalate the situation and bring more pain and suffering to oneself and others.

Its a high spiritual task, that requires putting the matter in which we deal with a situation ahead of the principal or substance at stake during times of conflict.

Hearty food for spiritual contemplation.

After lunch Ane Pema began by talking about charnal ground meditation. Tibetan Buddhists have something called a sky burial practice. Because of the permafrost in the Tibetan mountains, the ground is too hard to bury bodies, and there is not enough fuel to cremate the bodies of all of the dead. So the Tibetan Buddhists began a rite of sky burial. Apologies in advance for the graphic description of the practice here. The Tibetans put the bodies on a high mountain peak for the vultures to take away. But because you wouldn't want the vultures to drop grandmas leg bone in farmer Jone's field, the monks first cut up the bodies into small pieces. The sky burial site is called the charnal ground.

As you can imagine, the charnal ground is not a pleasant place to hang out and during warmer weather is rather unappealing to the nose.

The monks developed a meditation practice called Chu practice, where they go to the charnal grounds to meditate on the strong emotions that arise while being there: aversion, fear and so forth. They watch the emotions arise to examine the emotions: where and how do they arise? how do they feel? are they solid? and do they dissipate? they do this Chu practice to learn how to deal with arisal of negative emotions.

Ane Pema emphasized that you have to go to the charnal grounds and sit amongst the cut up bodies to do this practice. you can't do it by imagining the charnal ground, or going to a serene cemetery with the neatly mowed grass and tombstones with bouquets of flowers lined up in orderly rows. you must do it in the gruesome surroundings on the charnal grounds to fully feel the emotions that arise in that place.

So Ane Pema suggest to let life and the fear that arises during uncertainty be a charnal ground practice. When the fear arises, sit with it, examine it, and watch it as it grows and subsides. Ane Pema pointed out that the emotions cannot exist without a story to feed them. Take away the story and the emotions dissolve. We feed anger with our story of righteous indignation and morality plays of right and wrong. We feed hurt with stories of victimhood or neglect, rejection and so on. We feed anxiety with stories of loss, lack (of security), and helplessness. Take away the story and the emotion dissipates. To take away the story, one must discipline one's mind through meditation not to keep thinking the repetitive thoughts, to stop obsessive thinking.

And one must let go of the shoreline and not be afraid to jump into the river. To do this, one must accept that in the river suffering is inevitable and we do get hurt. But grasping and clinging to the shoreline is not an effective method to avoid life's suffering. Grasping, clinging and attachment to the security of the shore only produces more suffering. Living in the river is a charnal ground practice. the pay off is liberation. KB


Photo by kevin 1040 Flickr Creative Commons 2.0

Developing a Loving Kindness Practice

A few months ago I finished a book I had been reading by His Holiness the Dalai Lama: How to Expand Love.  Since reading the book a year ago, I have been working on developing a personal or loving-kindness practice. My goal is to being to feel loving-kindness towards all living beings. A lofty goal to achieve, I have taken the first step at the beginning.

A loving-kindness meditation I was recently taught begins with thinking of a loved one and feeling the loving-kindness one feels towards that being: wishing this being love, peace, happiness, security and freedom from suffering, pain, and harm. The idea is to experience the depth and feeling of loving-kindness. Next one moves to a teacher or master, someone one respects, and again feeling the loving-kindness one feels for this person, wishing this person love, peace, happiness, security and that s/he will be free from suffering, pain, and harm. Again experiencing the depth and feeling of loving-kindness one feels for this respected person.


Next one moves to oneself, wishing this feeling of loving-kindness for oneself. That I will enjoy love, peace, happiness, security and be free from suffering, pain, and harm. Experience the feelings of loving-kindness, the wish of peace, happiness and security and desire to be free of pain, suffering and harm.


Lastly, one expands these feelings outward. If one is meditating in a group, wishing that everyone in the room will enjoy happiness and and the causes of happiness, be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Alternatively one can work outward in the four directions, wishing peace and happiness for everyone in front of oneself, then in back, then to the sides: to the right, to the left.


Then one continues to cycle through the four phases, noticing what comes up during the practice. Initially I noticed a deep desire for peace and happiness, and freedom from pain and suffering. I saw that all living beings share this same longing, and that I wish all other beings freedom from pain and suffering, out of the same desire that I wished it for myself.

After one practices the meditation for some time, one will be ready to begin expanding it ever outward, first to neutrals: the supermarket cashier, the call center person, the bank teller and so on. People you interact with but don't have feelings for: either of love or anger.

Then one begins the harder work: wishing those towards whom one harbors feelings of anger or resentment peace, happiness and freedom of pain and suffering. Next one works with those one has deeper feelings of anger and mistrust, those one might consider enemies. This group is difficult, but worthwhile to master. 


His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains the steps of this practice in his book, How to Expand Love. It is an interesting practice of self-exploration, to be sure. Of course the ultimate goal is to take the practice off the cushion and into one's daily life. One could practice emanating feelings of loving-kindness outward in the four directions while sitting in traffic or at the grocery store line.


Recently while practicing I realized that all beings suffer, just like I, many suffer 1,000 times more. I try to remember this especially when interacting with those with whom there is a history of anger, resentment and mistrust. Just like me these people suffer. Remembering that those who have been a source of hurt or harm are also suffering helps one develop compassion towards those with whom relationships are difficult. I believe this is one of the steps towards forgiveness. I have found remembering this takes some of the edge off the sharpness of the negative emotions one feels.


I recently noticed myself harboring and fueling negative thoughts towards a party who has hurt me deeply. I saw that this destructive path was only causing further suffering for myself. The solution I found is to not allow the mind to go down this rabbit hole of misery. When I caught my mind going down the path of negativity, I stopped it and reminded myself that this path does not lead to enlightenment. It only leads to the hell realm, and I was only causing myself pain by traveling down it. To provide a healthier alternative for my active mind, I did the loving-kindness meditation. When found my mind wandering down the familiar path, I again reminded myself that this path only leads to more suffering. 


One morning when practicing the loving-kindness meditation I realized that the warm, peace of loving-kindness is where I would like to reside. That this oasis from the misery of the negative emotions: anger, resentment and ill will is where I wish to dwell. This desire increases my motivation to continue the loving-kindness practice. It is simply a more pleasant place to be. The payoff of harboring negative emotions is misery for oneself. Though fueling these emotions can sometimes be seductive, the place that path leads is pain and suffering. Practicing loving-kindness is the way to peace and happiness, for all sentient beings.                                        KB


Photo: acaben, flickr Creative Commons 2.0

Impermanance. Or Change You Can Believe In

I woke up this morning with a moment of clarity about impermanence. Impermanence is a Buddhist concept that many westerner's have difficulty grasping. But this morning I saw clearly how our refusal to accept impermanence maintains the bondage of our suffering.

We try to achieve materialist goals we set for ourselves: home ownership, a new car, steady, rewarding employment and so on. I'm not saying its wrong to strive for these achievements, but our mistaken belief that once achieved these things will last leads to our suffering when we lose them.

I suppose the recent tsunami in Japan, tornado's in Alabama and other southeastern states, and flooding along the Mississippi has made me realize how quickly we can lose everything we've worked for.

Home ownership is an American dream, and once in our grasp we spend much time investing our energy to customizing our homes to meet our desires. We work under the false assumption that the home will always be standing. Even if we do not live in a flood zone, we can lose our home to fire or our valuables to burglary. Yet we labor under the false assumption that we will always have our home and its contents until we decide to sell. When disaster strikes, we are mentally unprepared to lose all that we have labored to achieve, and thus suffer from our loss.

I am suggesting that our materialist approach to life, working to accumulate things, causes our pain when we inevitably lose them: a fine china platter breaks, a new car gets hit in the parking lot. We falsely assume that our cherished ones will stay in optimal condition, and consequently suffer when they inevitably degrade. This idea also applies to the people and pets we love.

I'm not saying it's wrong to fixed up a home, or buy a piece of artwork. What i am saying is that we should do so knowing that tomorrow the house could be lost, rather than working under the presumption that our treasured ones will be with us always, and in the same condition as they are in today.

This recession has shown that jobs are fleeting. We may even have to leave our painstakingly constructed cocoon to find employment in another city or state. It is our blindness to the impermanence of our situation that causes the pain from our loss of what we held dear.

Rather, I propose, if we operated under the premise that nothing lasts, we might live a more nomadic existence. Our priorities would shift so that we wouldn't focus on accumulation and we be more prepared to shift with life's winds. Consequently, change would be expected. We would be ready for it and would suffer less pain from loss.

Try it on and see what shifts for you. KB

Stress & Anxiety is Caused by the Drive to Avoid Suffering

The first of the Four Noble Truths given by Sakyamuni Buddha is that life involves suffering. it is our wish, our strong desire, our struggle to avoid suffering that is the root cause of stress and anxiety. Buddhism fundamentally teaches to accept suffering as part of the condition of living. if we can accept the truth of suffering as part of living, then the struggle to prevent suffering diminishes.

of course we have goals in life and we do what we can to achieve them. the struggle against obstructions in our path to achieve our goals causes stress and anxiety due to fear of the suffering involved in not achieving our goals. if we can accept that suffering is part of life, then the stress and anxiety involved in the struggle to prevent this suffering from occurring diminishes.

Sakyamuni Buddha taught that the acceptance of suffering as a noble truth of the condition of living is fundamental to the path of enlightenment. if we can accept that life involves suffering, then when we are confronted with suffering in our lives our inner struggle against it diminishes. we still do what we can to achieve peace and happiness and freedom from suffering for all living beings (which includes ourselves) but we are able to accept the suffering that arises in our lives as a natural course of life. this acceptance of suffering as a natural condition of living decreases stress and anxiety.

the Dalai Lama emphasizes in the book "The Art of Happiness" that adversity is necessary for spiritual development. Mark Howard, MD, elaborates (p181) that if we continually stay in the cocoon of infancy: being coddled, fed soft food and so on, there is no impetus for spiritual growth. the Dalia Lama asserts that the adversity, negative emotions such as anger, hatred, resentment and so on provides the shenpa or the hook. in recognizing shenpa while it is occurring, we are thankful for the opportunity presented for emotional and spiritual growth. (pp178-9) the struggle with avoiding suffering provides the motivation for spiritual growth to occur. emotional and spiritual growth is essential in order to transcend suffering.
so, the Dalai Lama says, we should thank our enemies and the suffering that arises in our lives for the opportunity that comes with it for emotional and spiritual growth. without the shenpa, we will stay wrapped up in our cozy cocoon. while that seems warm, pleasurable and inviting, there we are in a place of emotional and spiritual stagnation. no transformation can occur in that place.

so by accepting that suffering is part of the condition of living, when we are confronted with situations having the potential to cause suffering, we acknowledge that we are going to face suffering in our lives, and this may be one of those instances. that acceptance diminishes the inherent struggle against suffering, thereby decreasing stress and anxiety in our mind. we still try to chart a different course, but with the necessity of avoidance of suffering negated, we preform our actions with the peace of mind that we are getting by as best we can. that suffering may occur. we cannot prevent all suffering from occurring in our lives, and that suffering is necessary for emotional and spiritual growth. thereby we accept our situation with grace, dignity and peace. KB