Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change (17 page)

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Authors: Pema Chödrön

Chögyam Trungpa demonstrated the co-emergent nature of feelings in a teaching on boredom—on how we feel when nothing’s happening. Hot boredom, he said, is a restless, impatient, I-want-to-get-out-of-here feeling. But we can also experience nothing happening as cool boredom, as a carefree, spacious feeling of being fully present without entertainment—and being right at home with that.

Similarly, the feeling of nothing to hold on to that we label groundlessness can switch from hot, queasy, disagreeable groundlessness, which we avoid, to cool groundlessness, which we find simultaneously invigorating and deeply relaxing. I call this positive groundlessness.

It’s natural to want relief from the stress we feel when we encounter fundamental uncertainty—the uneasiness, the tension, the stiffness in the back or neck. There’s no reason to reproach ourselves because we don’t experience groundlessness as positive. In fact, while we’re weaning ourselves off certainty, it’s not a bad idea to have a degree of certainty for support. But how much of a security blanket do you need? Only you can answer that. Whatever you reach for—
the practices I’ve presented, a community of friends who are also on this path, a teacher you respect—you hold on to that security blanket only temporarily, with the aspiration to realize that ultimately there is no security blanket and with the intention to experience that realization as freeing rather than terrifying.

It’s like the Zen Buddhist teaching that says you need a raft to get across the river, but when you arrive at the other shore, you leave the raft behind. You don’t lug it around with you forever.

The difference in our story is that the raft never gets beyond the middle of the river. It floats along safely as we work with the first commitment but starts to fall apart with the second commitment and disintegrates altogether with the third commitment. By that time, however, having nothing to hold on to is no problem at all.

Chögyam Trungpa used to lead three-month retreats, and one year I served as the head of practice. My job was to make sure that the meditation hall was running smoothly, that everything was on schedule. I would be so pleased when everything was working like clockwork—and then Chögyam Trungpa would throw us off completely. If the regular afternoon talk was scheduled for 3:00
P.M
., he would arrive at 3:00 on the first day, he would arrive at 4:00 the next day, and then on the third day, he would keep us waiting until 5:00. By the fourth talk, we were waiting until 10:00
P.M
. Talk about groundlessness! The practice department didn’t know how to set up a schedule. The cooks didn’t know when to serve meals. After a while, we almost weren’t sure if it was day or night.

This turned out to be the best sort of training possible for embracing the fundamental ambiguity of the human
condition, the fundamental groundlessness of life. We can rant and rail all we want when our carefully laid plans are upset, when our schedules go out the window, when people don’t show up when they say they will and show up when we least expect them. But at some point, we just have to give up and surrender to life, staying open to the unlimited possibilities of what—and who—might appear in our mandala.

The Three Commitments are exceedingly helpful props that support us in stepping into groundlessness. They offer guidance on what to do and what not to do and what to expect along the way. What they can’t tell us is how it actually
feels
to progress along this path, what it feels like to shift from resisting groundlessness to embracing it. I thought of an apt analogy for this ineffable transformation: the experience of having dense cataracts removed from one’s eyes. About a week after I had this procedure, I looked around, and seeing the world with my new, clear vision took my breath away. Visually, everything was stunning. I could use words like
vivid
and
vibrant
to describe the colors. I could use phrases like
sky larger
and
vistas huge
to describe the scenery. But none of those words, or any others I can think of, could adequately convey the sense of expansiveness I felt when I saw the brilliantly colored, multidimensional panorama. Until then, I hadn’t realized how limited my vision had been.

That experience reminds me of a traditional Tibetan story called the Frog in the Well. One day a frog who had lived his whole life in a well received a visit from a frog who lived by the ocean. When the well frog asked how big the ocean was, the visitor said, “It’s gigantic.” “You mean about one-fourth the size of my well?” the well frog asked.
“Much bigger” was the answer. “You mean it’s as big as my well?” asked the well frog incredulously. “Far bigger. There’s no comparison,” said the frog from the sea. “That’s impossible. I don’t believe you,” said the well frog. So they set off together to see. And when the well frog saw the vastness of the ocean, it was such a shock that his mind couldn’t comprehend it, and he died on the spot.

The journey through the Three Commitments won’t be the cause of your death, but it will almost certainly leave you speechless. It can’t be adequately put into words—my words or anyone else’s. You simply have to experience it personally. You have to make this journey for yourself.

When we train in the Three Commitments, we find out what’s possible for us as human beings. Taking each vow in turn and integrating what it has to teach us is something like going from being a toddler—eager, bursting with life, but not having much sense yet of what’s ahead—to being a fully mature, complete human being living in a vividly unreal yet ever-present world.

In their prophecy of 2000, the Hopi elders said that in order not to be torn apart by these turbulent times, we have to let go of the shore and stay in the middle of the river, in the unceasing flow of life. But they didn’t say we have to do this alone. “See who is there with you and celebrate,” they said. “The time of the lone wolf is over.”

Through the years, I’ve come to understand that even if I wanted to be a lone wolf, I couldn’t be one. We’re all in this together, all so interconnected that we can’t awaken without one another. We need to help each other let go of the shore and stay in the middle of the river with no life jackets, no inner tubes, and no intention of ever clinging to anything again. The Three Commitments launch us on an exhilarating
journey, a life-giving journey, a journey of appreciating one another and our unlimited potential for goodness.

The warrior’s cry is: “We are needed.” We make this journey for the sake of ourselves, our loved ones, our enemies, and everybody else. Since we all share the same planet, it’s crazy to continue acting in ways that will destroy it.

May we all learn that pain is not the end of the journey, and neither is delight. We can hold them both—indeed hold it all—at the same time, remembering that everything in these quixotic, unpredictable, unsettled and unsettling, exhilarating and heart-stirring times is a doorway to awakening in sacred world.

Acknowledgments

To my primary teachers, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche, and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, I offer my heartfelt gratitude for all that they have taught me and for their patience with me.

To my loyal and dedicated secretary, Glenna Olmsted, and to Greg Moloney, I send my deep appreciation for helping me with the typing of this manuscript and for their ongoing kindness and support.

To my editor, Joan Oliver, I extend my profound thanks for taking the original transcripts of these talks and transforming them so skillfully into this book. It was indeed a pleasure to be able to work with Joan.

I also wish to express my gratitude to Dave O’Neal, my editor at Shambhala Publications, for his help and encouragement.

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