Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change (15 page)

But it’s in just such a place, surrounded by vivid reminders of death and impermanence, that brave meditators can practice staying awake and present under the most difficult circumstances. It’s right there in the midst of such intensity that we can train most deeply in keeping the commitment to embrace the world.

The charnel ground has become a metaphor for life exactly as it is rather than how we would like it to be. In this basic ground, many kinds of experiences coexist simultaneously. Uncertainty and unpredictability, impermanence and change, good times and hard times, sorrow and joy, loss and gain—all of this constitutes our home ground, the mandala of our life, our base for practicing fearlessness and compassion. This is our potential richness, our power. So we work with it rather than struggle against it. If we aspire to find freedom exactly where we are, there could be no more fertile ground for our awakening.

Charnel-ground practice tests our commitment to embrace the world. It expands the range of “just as it is” far beyond what we find comfortable. This is a practice for facing the fullness of our life, not hiding the unacceptable, embarrassing, disagreeable parts; not favoring one kind of experience over another; not rejecting our experience when it hurts or clinging to it when it’s going our way. In the charnel ground, we meet both wretchedness and splendidness—the totality of our experience as human beings—and discover that we need both to be a genuine warrior. The splendidness of life lifts our spirits, and we go forward with enthusiasm. When we hear pleasant news or meet with inspiring teachers, when we enjoy the company of good friends or find ourselves in beautiful places, when we feel that everything is ideal and hunky-dory, then naturally we feel joyful and at ease. But should all of this good fortune make us arrogant or complacent or indifferent to the suffering of others, wretchedness humbles us. It cuts through any sense of superiority or entitlement, through any delusions that comfort is somehow our birthright. On the other hand, if there is too much wretchedness—too much misery and despair—it makes us want to collapse and never get out of bed. So the sweetness of life and the harshness of life complement each other. Splendidness provides vision, and wretchedness grounds us. Just when we’re ready to give up, a kind word or the sight of the ocean or the sound of beautiful music can save the day. Just when we’re riding high and becoming arrogant, a sudden misfortune or bad news from the doctor or the unexpected death of a loved one can abruptly bring us down to earth and reconnect us with our tender heart.

When life is uncomfortable, when we’re highly agitated
and don’t know where to turn, that’s the most difficult time to stay present. But that’s also the time when doing so can be the most rewarding. It’s a challenge to practice staying present when we’re despondent or distressed or overwhelmed, when our backs are against the wall. But right then, when we’re in a tight spot, we have the ideal situation for practice. We can do something radical: accept suffering as part of our home ground, part of our enlightened mandala, and relate to it straightforwardly. We don’t awaken in some paradise where the circumstances are made to order. We awaken in the charnel ground.

So when you find yourself in a situation that is bound to trigger your propensities—spending extended time with your relatives would be an excellent example—you can practice holding your seat and relating fully to exactly where you are. If you can stay present in even the most challenging circumstances, the intensity of the situation will transform you. When you can see even the worst of hells as a place where you can awaken, your world will change dramatically.

This isn’t how we usually relate to difficulties and discomfort, of course. There are those fortunate few who seem to consider everything an adventure, no matter how challenging or painful it is, but most of us don’t view life that way. And if someone suggests that our suffering is a great opportunity for practice, we’re not likely to take it kindly. It’s built into our DNA that when things are unpleasant and fearful, we look for the nearest exit. If we find ourselves in a burning building, we instinctively head for the door. Wanting to escape pain is the reason that many people start on a spiritual path. It can be a good motivator, because it drives us to look for answers. The problem is, most of us spend
our entire life going from one promise of relief to another, never staying with the pain long enough to learn anything from it.

But sooner or later, we all encounter intense emotion that we can’t outrun. It may be fear that arises in a truly disturbing situation or the feeling of being very hooked and about to be swept away. One sign that you’ve already started charnel-ground practice, whether you realize it or not, is if you perk up when strong feelings come along and then, instead of trying to get rid of them, you move toward them and get curious. When you’re open to inviting difficult emotions to stick around long enough to teach you something, then you’re already in the frame of mind to do this practice.

Whatever we’ve understood and internalized from dedicating ourselves to the first two commitments serves as the foundation for charnel-ground practice. Without that base, working with such intense feelings would be overwhelming. With the commitment to not cause harm, we learn to acknowledge shenpa when it arises and to refrain from acting and speaking out of our confusion. We begin to train in staying present and increasing our tolerance for groundlessness. With the second commitment, we go a step further and train in being fully aware of our feelings, and with that as our base, extend ourselves to others. We begin to sense deeply our sameness with all beings, animals and people alike, and to feel their struggles as our own. As we start to untangle ourselves from confusion and pain, we long to help others untangle themselves as well. This is a far more daring, less cozy way to live, and it puts us squarely in touch with the groundlessness of our condition.

Having begun to establish a more compassionate and
honest relationship with the world, we can go further still and overcome any remaining hesitation about dealing with the ugliness of life. With the third commitment, we don’t reject anything that turns up in our mandala of awakening. In fact, we feel quite sympathetic toward the unkempt quality of life. Right in the middle of this fertile ground, with the jackals and vultures looming over us, we take our seat and begin to practice. We begin with the understanding that we can’t experience profound well-being without working with, not against, the gritty reality of life.

A soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder told me that this radically different approach to pain had saved his life. He had finally found a way to work with his recurring flashbacks of seeing a comrade he was very close to being blown to pieces right beside him. Instead of trying to get rid of the horrific memories and the emotions they triggered, he had been encouraged by a therapist to turn toward them, to lean into his emotions and feel them as bravely as he could. Doing this in short sessions had allowed him to relax with his vulnerability and helplessness and with the feeling that his friend’s death had been his fault, that he could have prevented it, and that he didn’t deserve to be the one who survived. Little by little, as he let the feelings arise, build in intensity, and pass away, his overwhelming sense of guilt and failure began to lighten up, and for the first time in three years, he was able to sleep through the night.

When I first started to approach life with a more warrior-like spirit, I was dying for something to go wrong so I would have something really juicy to work with. But I soon discovered that as keen as I was for my propensities to arise so that I could free myself from them, when it happened—when the dog got its teeth in my arm—it was very
humbling. I felt deep compassion for what we’re up against as human beings. If we’re doing this practice in earnest, the emotions and habitual patterns we’re working with can hit us with such force that it takes everything in us not to run.

Sometimes I felt like Odysseus, lashed to the mast so I wouldn’t follow the Sirens’ song. It was as if a giant magnet were trying to drag me away from staying present. I would just begin to sit with an intense feeling when a little voice in my head would start saying things like “You’d better check to see if you turned off the stove” and “Maybe this is bad for your heart.” Our old habits are worthy opponents. Even if we’re eager to have everything fall apart so we can do charnel-ground practice, when we actually do it, it puts us through a lot. We need strong motivation to stick with it because the desire to escape is so compelling.

From the perspective of charnel-ground practice, the chaos in our lives isn’t terrible. It’s simply the material we work with. Viscerally, however, it
feels
terrible, and we don’t like it a bit. So it takes courage and gentle, compassionate discipline just to hold our seat. What keeps us moving forward is that the practice puts us in touch with the living energy of our emotions—an energy that has tremendous power, the power to wake us up. Because of its intensity, it can pop us out of our neurosis, pop us out of our fearful cocoon, pop us into sacred world.

When I talk about awakening in the charnel ground, I’m not referring to any traditional form of practice but, rather, to the essence of the practice. To me this is epitomized by one of Dzigar Kongtrül’s teachings:

Feel your emotions directly and selflessly, and let their power open you up.

For some time now, I’ve been working with that as a basic practice instruction, exploring those words as a support for relating to unwanted feelings and a way to move beyond small-mindedness, complacency, and the self-serving bubble of ego, a way to step further into groundlessness.

Ordinarily, uncomfortable emotions don’t open us, they close us down. We become more fearful. The mind goes crazy, concocting elaborate scenarios and trying to figure out how to get rid of those unsettling, disagreeable feelings. Our main strategy is usually to blame others for how we feel. Because we tend to project so much onto the outer situation, Dzigar Kongtrül’s instruction is to cut through our habitual reactions and feel the emotions
directly
.
Directly
means without commentary, without interpretation, without having a conversation in your head about what’s happening. It means not regarding the emotions as adversaries but joining with them, embracing them, becoming intimate with them. If thoughts arise, the instruction is to interrupt their momentum by letting them go, then to touch in again with the rawness of the energy. Experiencing the rawness of emotion directly is like accidentally putting your hand on a hot burner and feeling the pain as pure sensation, without embellishment.

When you touch a hot stove, as soon as you become aware of the pain, you immediately pull your hand away. You don’t let it rest on the burner in order to explore the pain. In the same way, in charnel-ground practice, we stay present with strong emotion only very briefly at first. The instruction is:
short moments again and again.
Rather than trying to endure prolonged exposure to intense feeling, we touch in for only two or three seconds, then pause and breathe gently before touching in again. Or we might
simply stay with the troubling feeling for five or six minutes and then go on with our day, more in touch with our emotions and, therefore, less likely to be dragged around by them.

Practicing in the charnel ground is like taking small sips of a bitter medicine over time rather than drinking the entire bottle at once. Gradually, sip by sip, bit by bit, we create the conditions for staying present with whatever is happening in our body and mind. We cultivate new ways of viewing our experience, new ways of dealing with discomfort, new ways of embracing groundlessness. The soldier with PTSD told me that the instruction to do the practice in small bites was crucial in enabling him to stay present.

Charnel-ground practice as I’m describing it is usually done on the spot wherever you are, with whatever is going on in the moment.
Let their power open you up,
the instructions say. Let the power of your emotions open you up. Take your seat in the middle of your home ground and rouse your confidence—your innate capacity to open to your experience. Just as in the three-step practice, you come fully into the present moment and become aware of what you’re feeling physically, aware of what you’re feeling mentally. You have a sense of being completely here. Then you extend warmth to your internal situation—your feelings, your state of mind—as well as to your outer situation. You meet whatever is going on with curiosity and compassion, not distancing yourself from what’s happening, not having a bias about what’s happening, not doing anything to escalate or exaggerate the situation. Just opening to it as fully and genuinely as you can.

But how, exactly, do we open fully? That’s a question I’m often asked.
Open
means something different to everyone,
so each of us has to find his or her own way of going about it. One way to experience the feeling of opening is to pay attention to your sense perceptions. Just pause and listen. Listen attentively for a few moments to sounds nearby. Listen attentively for a few moments to sounds in the distance. Listen without describing the experience to yourself or trying to figure out what you’re hearing. Another way you can open to sound is to go for a walk and let hearing be the primary sensation.

You can try this same exercise with taste. Close your eyes and have someone put something to eat in your mouth without telling you what it is. See if you can experience the first taste without any preconceptions. If only for a moment, see if you can have a fresh, unconditioned experience of taste as taste, nothing extra.

You can do this practice with any sense perception. With your eyes closed, have someone take you for a short walk and then position you directly in front of an object. Open your eyes and look at the object. Look at it as if for the first time. Or the last time. If you knew you were going to die in a few minutes, you would automatically be very open, very receptive, to everything that happened in those minutes—the sights, the sounds, the feelings of your final moments.