The practice never ends, until it does
In Start Where You Are, American Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön tells a story of a friend in the final stages of cancer.
“The other night Dzongzar Khyentse Rinpoche telephoned her, and the very first words he said were, ‘Don’t even think for a moment that you’re not going to die.’ That’s good advice for all of us; it will help us to live and train wholeheartedly.”
“Don’t even think for a moment that you’re not going to die.” Another way to say that is, “There’s no escape” — from the present moment, which will one day, for each of us, be our last.
This might seem doom and gloom but there’s wisdom in not being able to escape. When we stay with whatever comes up, or at least give it our best try, we often learn something about ourselves.
Forget about death for a moment — just simply feeling the feels when your boss micromanages you, rather than escaping into a story line about how he’s a horrible manager, can help. That sort of courage might support you in finally voicing your needs to him or talking with your coworkers about how you can help each other, rather than taking another smoke break.
We leave this present moment not only because that’s how we learned to protect ourselves early in life, but also because we’re dissatisfied with this broken, backwards society.
We get lost in fantasies about one day finally getting it, about finally being rich enough, about finally ending capitalism or racism, about finally being able to relax. They help us forget the cold, hard truth of our powerlessness in a society that pretends that power is scarce in order to keep a small group at the top, corporate executives, hedge fund managers, those that own real estate, and so on.
Back to death, though. When my grandmother was living her last moments, my parents and I visited her in hospice care. I was meditating daily at that point and started the day with tons of pride about my practice. I thought I’d be able to handle whatever condition she was in — I really wanted to show up fully. I even thought I’d be more present then my parents, who seemed more worried about logistics for the eventual funeral than about her condition.
But, besides a fresh scar on the side of her head from surgery, my grandmother was pretty much as she always had been, smiling and gossipy. I quickly collapsed back into a familiar role, being the quiet kid — my parents made sure she was comfortable and brought her a hamburger for lunch. They were the one’s showing up!
That day I learned how powerful my habitual patterns are when I’m with my parents. Now I’m learning how to see those patterns not as a problem but as a chance to practice.
There’s no light bulb moment in which you’ll wake up and say, “I realize I can’t escape. I’m enlightened!” The practice never ends.
