CHARIOTS OF DISAPPOINTMENT
Pema Chodron tells the story of a wedding that was officiated by Chogyam Trungpa. Trungpa often used a Japanese hand fan during his talks. And in this instance, as the couple were kneeled before him he hit the would be groom on the head with the fan and said, “pain is not a punishment”. The startled couple sat there. Then he tapped to the bride-to-be on the forehead saying, “pleasure is not a reward.” There was a pause and then Rinpoche tapped them on the heads again. “Pain is not a punishment.” “Pleasure is not a reward.” Then again. He continued alternating and, as Pema told it, the intensity of the tapping increased each time.
Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward.
And in fact, either can be an opportunity.
When things go wrong in. our life we tend to believe it’s a reprisal for some mistake we’ve made, or some lack of character we have. When things go right, we feel rewarded as though the universe was confirming our innate awesomeness. In this way, we develop a bipolar codependency with life. When we allow feelings to become dependent upon external circumstance, we lose our agency and let things beyond our control dictate how we feel. Rather than pausing to check in with ourselves in order to see how we can address our feelings, we often try and manipulate the environment to get what we want. Sometimes we don’t even know what we want, but that doesn’t stop us fixing, fixing, fixing. This is ultimately fruitless. We employ so much effort to address childhood fears that we not only exhaust our spirit but lose the confidence to stand in our own truth. Over time, this confidence atrophies and we become more and more dependent on what everyone else wants.
But how do we actually feel?
And how do others feel? Or are we just pawns in each other’s game?
Mindfulness practice allows us to stop the momentum of our racing minds so we can include ourselves in the process of our life. Therefore gaps in our mental momentum afford the possibility of synchronizing with ourselves and our life. Synchronization is not manipulation. It is cooperative, rather than coercive. In order to gain a symbiotic relationship with our lives, we have to interrupt the momentum of the manipulation dance. In order to do that, our mindfulness practice allows us to see gaps and honor them. We come to see the value of having our momentum interrupted long enough for us to become present. And while these gaps are always present, we generally buy into the momentum of habit patterns so fiercely we fail to see opportunities to include ourselves in our life.
Since we live in a material world, our minds are programmed to cling from thing to thing. The momentum of moving from thing to thing keeps us from ever feeling how we feel, and this keeps us from developing confidence in who we are. Everything in material life becomes dependent upon what we get. And this addictive cycle keeps us from ever seeing what is actually there. The more we cling to what we want, the less we see what is there, and so the less we have and then more we cling. Buddhists call this addictive process samsara. The good news is that this addictive momentum is not solid. In fact, there are natural gaps that interrupt this process of occlusion all the time. Mindfulness happens in the gaps. So, from the point of view of developing awareness, anything that interrupts samsara can be seen as a blessing.
Then why is it so hard to let go?
We become so addicted to the blind momentum of samsara that interruptions actually hurt. Out of fear, we cling so tightly to our projections, we lose any awareness of who we are as we become engulfed in what we think we want. In this way, we begin to forge a false identity for ourselves based on that clinging. Therefore, gaps in our clinging feel like little deaths. But, as you know, little deaths can be a beautiful thing. Those little deaths may be the gateways to our life. And so, anything that interrupts the momentum of our mental constructs offers an opportunity to connect to our life. This is why Buddhists say, “disappointment is the chariot of liberation”. Whenever we are disabused of the me-fusing, ignorance-producing, based momentum, we have an opportunity to step back and see ourselves. Once released from the bi-polar codependency of samsara we can make a genuine relationship to our world.
In this way, we may find that interruptions – while they are anathematic to the aforementioned self-identity – give us a way out of ourselves and into our world. So not only do disappointments to our ego-plans open up the space for new opportunities, but it is in the very discouragements and disappointments that we find common ground with others. Samsara wants us to believe that we can find perfection. This just develops isolation, as no one is perfect. On the other hand, we all make mistakes, so connecting to imperfections is a more efficient way to connect to others. And connection is the remedy to addiction. And samsara is based on addiction. Every time we allow the gap of disappointment to interrupt samsara, we have a way back to our life.
Rather than changing the environment, mindfulness practice encourages us to see what is actually here and to honor how we feel so we can actually become part of our life.