Words to Rest With
Lately I’ve encountered a few readings and podcasts by teachers (I use that term broadly) that beautifully honor the complexity of the human experience, offering nourishment or perspective that makes the challenges of daily life feel possible—without attempting to provide tidy solutions or bypass the reality of suffering. I wanted to pass these along, especially in light of the anxiety and heaviness so many are feeling right now:
First, I recently re-read these words from Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön’s compassionate exploration of life’s difficulties, When Things Fall Apart.
She reminds us:
The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth. Suffering is part of life, and we don’t have to feel it's happening because we personally made the wrong move.
These simple words hold such a profound reminder that suffering happens; that life happens.
Speaking to the title, Pema shares:
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
(Side note: perhaps staying soft is about leaving space for all of this to happen…)
Writer Maria Popova runs a website called The Marginalian, where she compiles her musings about life and meaning—often melding together philosophy, art, and science. She blends words from other thinkers and artists to shape ideas around what it means to be a human. Last week she shared 18 Life Learnings from 18 Years of the Marginalian.
The lessons reflect the ways that Popova has made sense of life’s difficulties and learning moments, and offers so much to chew on. But what first stuck me is Popova’s opening, acknowledging the lack of easy answers or prescription for living life. Acknowledging that we learn to live our lives by doing just that:
Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any of that guidance, how pertinent any of that wisdom, in the end you discover that you make the path of life only by walking it with your own two feet under the overstory of your own consciousness — that singular miracle never repeated in all the history and future of the universe, never fully articulable to another.
I am a fan of Dan Harris’ podcast 10% Happier—absolutely self-help, but from such a gentle, affirming, curious, nuanced perspective. His episode from last winter, How to Stay Calm No Matter What’s Happening strikes me as a good one for election week. In it, Sebane Selassi and Jeff Warren talk about navigating difficult things in their lives and, essentially, about embodying acceptance—but not in a helpless sort of way. Active acceptance? Something like that.
Jeff has a mantra “this is the curriculum” he talks about, which is essentially a way of accepting that life is offering him the lessons it’s offering him. Here it is! This is different than “everything happens for a reason” and it’s not anything like “I’m stuck experiencing difficulties without options.” I suggest you listen to get a sense of it. What opens up when we accept that we are exactly where we are, moving through exactly this? It reminds me a bit of Carl Rogers quote, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.” Except it’s more like “as I accept my life and difficulties as they are, I find more spaciousness.”
In a similar vein, the podcast Search Engine featured a conversation with Rev. angel Kyodo williams called How do you sit quietly in the middle of a storm?, which discusses meditation (in an approachable way) and metabolizing trauma, and features lots of heart-expanding laughter. If you’re trying to sit quietly in the storm of election week, or at least breathe more than flail, I recommend it.
Wishing you moments of softness,
Laura