I am scared about so many things. I’m scared of abandonment and of being alone. I’m scared of small gatherings of strangers (thank goodness, I’ve been released from those for a while). I’m scared that I might choke on my lunch. I’m scared of panic attacks at 3 a.m. I’m scared right now, as I write this, thinking of who might read it and judge me. I’m scared that no one will read it and judge me, and then what’s the point of even trying?
Some days are just hard. I don’t want to get out of bed and if I do, I feel like I’m walking through a thick molasses of the soul. I feel like Ishmael in Moby Dick “deliberately pausing before coffin warehouses.” Then I think about Moby Dick (the book, itself), and how I’ve miserably failed at finishing that novel every time I start reading it. On these kinds of days, I can neither sit still with myself nor bring myself to walk to the beach. I try gratitude. But, a vague pall covers the day.
We all have days like this. Pema Chödrön tells Oprah about one of them. One day, Pema Chödrön was sitting on her front porch drinking tea when her husband of eight years came up to her and told her the marriage was over, that he was having an affair, and wanted a divorce. This revelation, which Chödrön described as “traumatizing” sent her on a journey that brought her to Buddhism and to the spiritual life. Along the way she discovered that her spiritual practice was not to be centered on escaping pain, but on embracing it wholeheartedly. This is the theme of her luminous book, The Wisdom of No Escape. Chödrön calls her second husband one of her best teachers and the book has served as a kind of reminder to me that our greatest source of suffering can often be our greatest teachers.
I carried the book with me in the days before and after my final divorce hearing. I held the book close to me when I was homeless, living in a tent in Kentucky. I took the book with me on the long subway ride out to Far Rockaway on lonely Sunday summer afternoons when I went surfing. When I felt I had no friends in the city, I opened the book and found wisdom and hope. When another relationship fell apart, I opened the dog-eared pages and found solace.
Loving Kindness and Pain
The Wisdom of No Escape is the book Chödrön developed from lectures she gave during a month-long dathun in Gampo Abbey. For those of us who can’t afford to go on a monastic retreat, and for those of us who don’t know when monastic retreats will be permitted during this era of pandemic, Chödrön’s book is a beautiful literary retreat, a book that can be read in the morning before a long meditation session or a long walk.
“There’s a common misunderstanding among all the human beings who have ever been born on the earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable,” explains Chödrön in the opening line of her book.
Chödrön believes that if we stop trying to get everything to turn out “on our own terms” and approach the changing tides of life with curiosity and bravery, that we can see that the point of meditation is not “to change ourselves” but that it is “about befriending who we are already.”
The problem is that some days I just don’t like who I am. Maybe these are the days when I just need to look closer and sit longer with the asshole in the mirror. Or maybe those are the days when the asshole needs compassion, or a good talking to, or a good cry. The essence of the book is about finding balance. Chödrön urges her readers to loosen up when they feel tight, and to choose discipline when they feel loose.
Precision, Gentleness, and Openness
Chödrön explains that “the basic point of it all is just to learn to be extremely honest and also wholehearted about what exists in your mind.” We do this through meditation that is precise, gentle, and open.
This practice of ruthless self-honesty is important because Chödrön notes “No one else can really sort out for you what to accept—what opens up your world—and what to reject—what seems to keep you going round and round in some kind of repetitive misery.” Individual uniqueness means that what might be “poison” for one person might be “medicine” for others. No one but me can say what heals me and what hurts me. “My middle way and your middle way are not the same middle way.” For someone who has spent a good portion of her life people pleasing, this sentence is not just a stab in the chest, it is a call to action.
Chödrön believes that we have been given exactly what we need to wake up. The poison can be the medicine. Like Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet, no herb of the earth is so “vile” that it is absent any “special good” and none is “so good but strained from that fair use/ revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.” Good things in excess can kill, and poison, when used as medicine, can heal.
Why Am I So Scared?
Life has this habit of constantly pushing us to our limits. But the practice, according to Chödrön is to always say a resounding “yes to whatever is put on your plate, whatever knocks on your door, whatever calls you up on your telephone.” The whole point of life is meeting your fears. “Life is a whole journey of meeting your edge again and again.” The moments when we are most scared bring our most profound lessons. When pain comes, the whole point is to say yes, to let it in, to embrace it and see what sits on the other side. The book’s refrain is to make use of what life gives you: both the pain and the joy.
It’s also a book about hard work, about the hard work of being a human in the world, and the hard work of living an authentic life. The thing about living a full life where you embrace your dreams is that it’s incredibly inconvenient. Chödrön explains: “When you really start to take the warrior’s journey—which is to say, when you start to want to live your life fully… when discovery and exploration and curiosity become your path—then basically, if you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it’s often extremely inconvenient.”
Perhaps fear is the bardo, the in-between place, the place that is neither here nor there. Life is precious and short. Fear is part of its unfolding. Sometimes you can learn more lying in bed than you can getting out of it. But eventually, you’ll still need to get out of bed.
About the Writer
Janice Greenwood is a writer, surfer, and poet. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University.