An Eastern complement to the transcendentalist perspective expressed by both Thoreau and Emerson.

The Wisdom of No Escape: Pema Chödrön on Gentleness, the Art of Letting Go, and How to Befriend Your Inner Life

Pema Chödrön (b. July 14, 1936) – a generous senior teacher in the Buddhist contemplative tradition of Shambhala, ordained Buddhist nun, and prolific author– is one of our era's most tireless champions of a mindful wholeheartedness as the essential life-force of the human experience. For the generations since Alan Watts – who began introducing Eastern philosophy in the West in the 1950s and sparked a counterculture to consumerism seeking to transcend the illusions of the separate self – Chödrön has become the most widely beloved translator of Eastern ideas into Western life.

In the spring of 1989, she led a monthlong dathun meditation session at Gampo Abbey – the renowned Buddhist monastery of which Chödrön is founding director, founded in 1983 by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, her root guru. She began each day by giving a short talk aimed at emboldening participants "to remain wholeheartedly awake to everything that occurred and to use the abundant material of daily life as their primary teacher and guide." On the monastery grounds, meditators kept five vows: "not to lie, not to steal, not to engage in sexual activity, not to take life, and not to use alcohol or drugs." The rather singular combination of solitude, nature, meditation, and the vows made for what Chödrön calls "an alternatingly painful and delightful 'no exit' situation." Thus, the collection of her morning talks from the dathun is aptly titled The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness (public library) – short, beautifully simple yet powerful reflections on various aspects of how "to be with oneself without embarrassment or harshness."

In the fourth talk, Chödrön explores the related graces of precision, gentleness, and letting go:

If we see our so-called limitations with clarity, precision, gentleness, goodheartedness, and kindness and, having seen them fully, then let go, open further, we begin to find that our world is more vast and more refreshing and fascinating than we had realized before. In other words, the key to feeling more whole and less shut off and shut down is to be able to see clearly who we are and what we’re doing.

Pointing to the "innocent, naive misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy" – the same well-intentioned but misguided impulse with which we keep ourselves small by people-pleasing – Chödrön writes:

The innocent mistake that keeps us caught in our own particular style of ignorance, unkindness, and shut-downness is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead, there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy.

That gentleness of presence, Chödrön argues, is at the heart of meditation:

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.

[...]

The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. The other problem is that our hangups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.

Chödrön, however, is careful to point out that holding one's imperfection with gentleness is not the same as resignation or condoning harmful behavior – rather, it's a matter of befriending imperfection rather than banishing it, in order to then gently let it go rather than forcefully expel it. Whatever your folly – anger or fear or jealousy or melancholy – Chödrön teaches that freedom from it lies in "getting to know it completely, with some kind of softness, and learning how, once you’ve experienced it fully, to let go."

And yet, in a sentiment that calls to mind the Chinese concept of wu-wei, "trying not to try," she gently admonishes against seeing this practice itself as a source of compulsive striving:

Precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go ... are not something that we have to gain, but something that we could bring out, cultivate, rediscover in ourselves.

Today's Pigeon

Madison, Bushwick. (Photo: Bucky Turco/ANIMALNewYork)

The Problem With Meaning--A journalist's point of view.

The Opinion Pages | David Brooks

JAN. 5, 2015


Not long ago, a friend sent me a speech that the great civic leader John Gardner gave to the Stanford Alumni Association 61 years after he graduated from that college. The speech is chock-full of practical wisdom. I especially liked this passage:

“The things you learn in maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character.

“You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you; they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.”