Comfortable With Uncertainty (2 page)

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EDITOR’S PREFACE

T
HIS BOOK CONTAINS
108 practical teachings gathered from the works of Pema Chödrön. They are 108 pith instructions on leading our lives in the spirit of mahayana Buddhism.
Mahayana
means the “greater vehicle,” the path that gradually leads us out of our cramped world of self-preoccupation into the greater world of fellowship with all human beings. The teachings selected here give a glimpse of the mahayana vision, a taste of the meditation practices it offers, and hints on carrying the vision and meditation into everyday life.

Pema draws from a long lineage of teachers and teachings. Her style is unique, but nothing she teaches is uniquely hers. Her teaching is particularly influenced by her own root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche was one of the first Tibetans to present Buddhism to Westerners in English, combining the wisdom of the Kagyü and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism with that of the kingdom of Shambhala. Shambhala is a legendary enlightened society rooted in the view of basic goodness, the practice of meditation, and the activity of cultivating bodhichitta, the awakened heart of loving-kindness and compassion. The story goes that the first king of Shambhala received teachings from the Buddha, practiced them, and passed them on to his subjects. Rinpoche called this secular meditative tradition
“
the sacred path of the warrior,
”
emphasizing the inherently awake quality (“basic goodness”) of ourselves and our surroundings. Meditation practice is how we discover basic goodness and learn to cultivate bodhichitta. With this view, practice, and activity, even the most mundane situation becomes a vehicle for awakening.

Because they are rooted in universal principles and everyday practicalities, these teachings have survived a long time—at least twenty-five hundred years. They are not dogmatic. Students are continually encouraged to test them and to experience their truth (dharma) for themselves. For this reason, these teachings are highly adaptable. They are able to speak in any language and to any culture. Pema Chödrön continues the Shambhala Buddhist tradition of Trungpa Rinpoche by bringing the ancient discipline of Buddhism and the warrior tradition of Shambhala into the modern-day culture and psyche.

In essence, these teachings tell us that by cultivating mindfulness and awareness, we can realize our inherent wealth and share it with others. This inner treasure is called bodhichitta. It is like a jewel buried deep within us—ours to unearth as soon as the conditions are ripe. Bodhichitta is often presented in two aspects: absolute and relative. Absolute bodhichitta is our natural state, experienced as the basic goodness that links us to every other living being on the planet. It has many names: openness, ultimate truth, our true nature, soft spot, tender heart, or simply what
is
. It combines the qualities of compassion, unconditional openness, and keen intelligence. It is free from concepts, opinions, and dualistic notions of “self” and “other.”

Although absolute bodhichitta is our natural state, we are intimidated by its unconditional openness. Our heart feels so vulnerable and tender that we fabricate walls to protect it. It takes determined inner work even to see the walls, and a gentle approach to dismantling them. We don’t have to tear them down all at once or “go at them with a sledgehammer,” as Pema puts it. Learning to rest in openhearted basic goodness is a lifelong process. These teachings offer gentle and precise techniques to help us along the way.

Relative bodhichitta is the courage and compassion to investigate our tender heart, to stay with it as much as we can, and gradually to expand it. The key point of cultivating relative bodhichitta is to keep opening our hearts to suffering without shutting down. Slowly we learn to uncover the limitless qualities of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, and to extend them with others. To train in making our hearts this big takes bravery and kindness.

There are several practices that help us open our hearts to ourselves and to others. The most basic of these is sitting meditation, which allows us to become familiar with the groundlessness and spaciousness of our nature. Another key practice is mind training (
lojong
in Tibetan), our inheritance from the eleventh-century Buddhist master Atisha Dipankara. Mind training includes two elements: sending-and-taking practice (
tonglen
in Tibetan), in which we take in pain and send out pleasure, and slogan practice, in which we use pithy slogans to reverse our habitual attitude of self-absorption. These methods instruct us in using what might seem like our greatest obstacles—anger, resentment, fear, jealousy—as fuel for awakening.

In this book Pema teaches sitting meditation, tonglen, working with slogans, and the aspiration practices of the four limitless qualities as gateways to the awakened heart of bodhichitta. With a daily practice of sitting meditation, we become familiar with our natural openheartedness. We begin to stabilize and strengthen ourselves in it. Off the meditation cushion, in everyday life, we then begin to experiment with keeping our hearts open even in the face of unpleasant circumstances. With tonglen and slogan practice we start to taste the flavor of what we fear and move toward what we habitually avoid. To further stretch our limits and open our hearts, we practice expanding the four limitless qualities—loving-kindness (
maitri
in Sanskrit), compassion, joy, and equanimity—by aspiring to extend them to others.

In addition, we can engage in particular activities (
paramitas
in Sanskrit) that take us beyond our strange human tendency to protect ourselves from the joy of our awakened heart. Pema calls these activities “the six ways of compassionate living”: generosity, patience, discipline, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or wisdom. The basis for all these practices is the cultivation of maitri, an unconditional loving-kindness with ourselves that says, “Start where you are.”

In Buddhist terms, this path is known as bodhisattva activity. Simply put, a bodhisattva is one who aspires to act from an awakened heart. In terms of the Shambhala teachings, it is the path of warriorship. To join these two streams, Pema likes to use the term warrior-bodhisattva, which implies a fresh and forward-moving energy that is willing to enter into suffering for others’ benefit. Such action relates to overcoming the self-deception, self-protection, and other habitual reactions that we use to keep ourselves secure—in a prison of concepts. By gently and precisely cutting through these barriers of ego, we develop a direct experience of bodhichitta.

What everyone on this path shares is the inspiration to rest in uncertainty—cheerfully. The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have. Pema’s teachings encourage us to experiment with becoming comfortable with uncertainty, then see what happens. What we call uncertainty is actually the open quality of any given moment. When we can be present for this openness—as it is always present for us—we discover that our capacity to love and care for others is limitless.

For readers who have already received meditation instruction, the teachings in this book can serve as daily, weekly, or monthly reminders of key points on the path. For those who have not yet begun meditating, the book is intended as news you can use—not as a substitute for personal meditation instruction. The list of resources at the end of the book will help interested readers find a meditation instructor.

Thanks to Tingdzin Ötro, Tessa Pybus, Julia Sagebien, John and David Sell, Pema’s transcribers, and the staff of Shambhala Publications—especially Eden Steinberg—for encouragement and support in this project. We are all grateful to Pema for embodying the path of a warrior-bodhisattva and for transmitting it in such an appropriate and timely way.

These 108 teachings are excerpted from longer discussions in Pema’s previous books. In arranging them, I visualized them as a crystal bead with 108 facets, to be contemplated as you wish. May they be of measureless benefit.

E
MILY
H
ILBURN
S
ELL

1

The Love That Will Not Die

S
PIRITUAL AWAKENING
is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all others behind. Their suffering continues, unrelieved by our personal escape.

On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is our heart—our wounded, softened heart. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. This love is bodhichitta. It is gentle and warm; it is clear and sharp; it is open and spacious. The awakened heart of bodhichitta is the basic goodness of all beings.

2

The Healing Power of Bodhichitta

B
odhichitta
is a Sanskrit word that means “noble or awakened heart.” Just as butter is inherent in milk and oil is inherent in a sesame seed, the soft spot of bodhichitta is inherent in you and me. It is equated, in part, with our ability to love. No matter how committed we are to unkindness, selfishness, or greed, the genuine heart of bodhichitta cannot be lost. It is here in all that lives, never marred and completely whole.

It is said that in difficult times, it is only bodhichitta that heals. When inspiration has become hidden, when we feel ready to give up, this is the time when healing can be found in the tenderness of pain itself. Bodhichitta is also equated, in part, with compassion—our ability to feel the pain that we share with others. Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. Based on a deep fear of being hurt, we erect protective walls made out of strategies, opinions, prejudices, and emotions. Yet just as a jewel that has been buried in the earth for a million years is not discolored or harmed, in the same way this noble heart is not affected by all of the ways we try to protect ourselves from it. The jewel can be brought out into the light at any time, and it will glow as brilliantly as if nothing had ever happened.

This tenderness for life, bodhichitta, awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. It awakens through kinship with the suffering of others. We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in, let it touch our hearts, and turn it into compassion.

3

Comfortable with Uncertainty

T
HOSE WHO TRAIN
wholeheartedly in awakening bodhichitta are called bodhisattvas or warriors—not warriors who kill but warriors of nonaggression who hear the cries of the world. Warrior-bodhisattvas enter challenging situations in order to alleviate suffering. They are willing to cut through personal reactivity and self-deception. They are dedicated to uncovering the basic, undistorted energy of bodhichitta.

A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part of the adventure. It’s also what makes us afraid.

Wherever we are, we can train as a warrior. Our tools are sitting meditation, tonglen, slogan practice, and cultivating the four limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. With the help of these practices, we will find the tenderness of bodhichitta in sorrow and in gratitude, behind the hardness of rage and in the shakiness of fear. In loneliness as well as in kindness, we can uncover the soft spot of basic goodness. But bodhichitta training offers no promise of happy endings. Rather, this “I” who wants to find security—who wants something to hold on to—will finally learn to grow up.

If we find ourselves in doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training, we can contemplate this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”

4

The Wisdom of No Escape

T
HE CENTRAL QUESTION
of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort. How do we practice with difficulty, with our emotions, with the unpredictable encounters of an ordinary day? For those of us with a hunger to know the truth, painful emotions are like flags going up to say, “You’re stuck!” We regard disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, jealousy, and fear as moments that show us where we’re holding back, how we’re shutting down. Such uncomfortable feelings are messages that tell us to perk up and lean into a situation when we’d rather cave in and back away.

When the flag goes up, we have an opportunity: we can stay with our painful emotion instead of spinning out. Staying is how we get the hang of gently catching ourselves when we’re about to let resentment harden into blame, righteousness, or alienation. It’s also how we keep from smoothing things over by talking ourselves into a sense of relief or inspiration. This is easier said than done.