Start Where You Are

“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.”
― Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

“I’d like to encourage us all to lighten up, to practice with a lot of gentleness.”
― Pema Chödrön

I certainly was no "newbie" to meditation and spiritual practice back in 2006.

I was sixty years old, I had practiced daily meditation for large swathes of time over the course of 35 years.  I had also taken formal training vows, lived in several spiritual communities, and attended a number of intensive retreats with well known teachers.  

 

And yet...

 

Although I had had a number of peak experiences over the years -- on and off the zafu -- little did I know that my mind was about to be blown once again.  

I had never heard of Pema Chodron when a friend handed me a paperback copy of Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living that day.  This septuagenarian American female monk of the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition had me hooked with the very first sentence of the Preface:

"THIS BOOK IS ABOUT AWAKENING THE HEART."

The Heart!!??

 

As a inveterate bookworm, my introduction to Zen had been through Alan Watts, D.T Suzuki, and Shunryu Suzuki, back in the early 1970's.  It was pretty heady stuff.  Like many, I'd come to see the spiritual path as a matter of mind over matter.  It was all about Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, right?  

 

OMG! Awakening the Heart!? 

 

Duh.  

 

Something deep within me stirred.

Although I had read her teacher Chogyam Trungpa's classic works as a young man, and had spent a bit of time with Tibetan Buddhist communities in Madison WI and Woodstock NY over the years, my primary focus had never turned to Tibetan teachings and practices.  To be honest, after being drawn to the simple aesthetic of Zen, I was pretty turned off by the somewhat cluttered and gaudy opulence of Tibetan Buddhist Temples -- and by the notion of "guru-worship." The relative simplicity of the American incarnations of both Zen and Theravada seemed much more in tune with my own, working-class, moderately Marxist, sensibilities.

Yet, as I poured through Start Where You Are that day, I was transfixed.   Pema Chodron offered a fresh, accessible, down to earth presentation of the traditional Lojong Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.  Chapter by chapter, her teachings helped me to establish a new and deeper relationships to the Dharma, to Practice -- and to my life.   

 

Although many of the concepts were familiar, something deep inside me shifted. 

Starting Where I Was

I had always considered myself a pretty compassionate dude.   I was dedicated to service.  I had taught school, worked with troubled youth, been a peace and social justice activist, a union activist, a mediator.  The four Bodhisattva Vows had been the foundation of my personal practice for decades.  I thought I was one of the "good guys."

 

Yet, I had also struggled through a series of severe burnouts all through my life.  Although the reality of our Essential Oneness was part of my own experience, it wasn't enough.  I really didn't have a clue about navigating my way through life in a grounded, balanced, and sustainable way.  

 

Sure. I could "be there" for others to a certain extent.  But, I was blind to the various deep-set patterns that prevented me from truly being there for myself. Again and again, this unexplored conditioning dictated the trajectory of my life and sent me into descending spirals of anxiety and depression.  This prevented me from being there for anybody in a consistent and sustainable way.
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Although I had experienced a number of compelling "heart openings," some during intensive retreats with Stephen and Ondrea Levine and with Joanna Macy, they were fleeting experiences.  As powerful as they were, they faded.  It became clear that it would take more to uncover and dislodge the conditioned patterns that my chaotic and traumatic childhood had created.

 

In Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, I was presented with a new reality.  Pema Chodron's gentle but clear insistence that we turn toward the darker emotional energies of our life was a game-changer.  Opening my heart to my own pain, fear, anger, shame and confusion as part of an on-going practice was life-changing.  I learned that I could begin to deal with -- and heal -- the layers of conditioning that had "hardened my heart," as a daily Practice.  

 

Page by page,  Pema offered a fresh and coherent "view"of life and practice.  The point that touched me the most deeply was the wisdom of cultivating a gentle, consistent, compassion for myself.  As a diminuative (5'2'), wannabe type A, Aries, white, cis male, I was a veteran of academic prowess, collegiate wrestling and the rigor of Zen sesshins.  I knew how to drive myself mercilessly.  

Her advice? Lighten up!

 

Chapter by chapter, Pema Chodron's down-to- earth, often humorous, guidance offered a useful language, and a systematic means of cultivating the clarity, kindness and compassion of an open heart and a clear mind --  both on and off the meditation cushion.  Passing along her teacher's take on basic sitting meditation (shamatha–vipashyana) was quite helpful.  Her introduction of Tonglen meditation was transformational.  I finally had a tool to work with the emotional energies of my life in a constructive and healing manner.  

 

Although it would take a few more years before a thorough exploration of the 59 slogans of Lojong led to their becoming part of my daily practice as well, the past two decades of my life have been quite unlike the previous fifty.   Life being life, there have been some rough patches, of course.  Yet, I now had the tools to learn from them, heal, and grow.

Pema Chodron

Thanks to this wise woman,  I've learned to more readily recognize and let go of the incessant story lines that run through my head and the release the emotional energies underneath them.  Now, I can more readily see the ego's fear-laden attempt to create a solid, secure reality where none exists -- and relax into the wonder of each new moment. 

With the support of a daily practice that includes casting a Lojong Slogan, silent sitting meditation, and the group practice of the Morning Mindfulness Meditation Circles,  I've learned to 'lighten up"more readily, to not take myself so seriously. 

 

Of course, I still stumble across my own deep conditioning at times and make a momentary mess of things.  Yet, I'm able to recover my composure and compassion with relative ease.

 

Thanks to Pema Chodron -- and all the Teachers and Teachings that value kindness and compassion -- I find myself actually able to "love my neighbor as myself" more consistently.  Nowadays, I even find myself loving my enemies -- my own demons included. 

If more of us would try this out, I think we might even survive as a species.

It just takes Practice.

 

PS.  Let me know if you may be interested in a Lojong Practice and Book Study group beginning with Start Where You Are at thishazymoon@gmail.com