When Things Fall Apart

Melissa led DPX last Sunday with a body scan meditation that took us through all the sense doors. She then kicked off the discussion with a reading from Pema Chodron’s book, “When Things Fall Apart.” Telling it straight, but always with compassion, Pema says…. Things don’t get resolved, they come together and fall apart. Let there be room for this to happen. We don’t know and we must leave room for not knowing. Disappointments can be a beginning. The spiritual journey is not about getting lasting pleasure with no pain. That is Samsara, grasping and ignorance. Nothing can be counted on for security. We need to learn to stay with the difficult states of mind, the broken heart, the anger, the uncertainty. Staying relaxed in the mists of these difficult states is the spiritual journey, not expecting them to go away.

 In our group discussion we talked about, how we bring our judgements and expectations to a situation, then attach significance, and label it as if it matters. When in truth, nothing is permanent. The suffering comes from clinging our ideas. People in our group talked about their responses to life with Covid. Many felt comforted by knowing we are all in this together struggling with similar situations. Stating that seeing comradery in people all over the world has helped. We are all bottomed out and experiencing something painful at the same time. Similar to life with Covid, members of our group talked about recovery groups that have helped them along their journey by gaining strength and emotional support from shared experience.  Healing through finding commonality with how people begin to overcome enormous grief and loss, and rebuild their lives together.

 Pema Chodron wrote about her need to try to put her life back together after it had fallen apart, as a human instinct and natural desire. But she realized, while putting it back together may seem easier, it’s often is not possible and one needs to move forward not backward. The same configuration doesn’t always work. Each decade we enter brings another challenge for us. Our progression has good and bad cycles. There is a natural aging process marked by life’s stages, so going back is often impossible. Mary reminded us that “With our Buddhist practice, every decade gets better based on the wisdom gained from within.” Brendan aptly stated “Falling apart stems from the misguided assumption that we had it together in the first place. If we don’t have any expectations for our lives to be a certain way, it won’t fall apart.”

Melissa closed our session with an appropriate poem by Emily Dickinson:

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye —

A Moment — We uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darkness —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.

Accepting Not Knowing

Thanks to Mike for leading DPX this past Sunday with a meditation using the words , calm, soothe, settle to focus on. It was simple and powerful for our group. Then he presented a reading from Pema Chodron. Members of our group talked about other helpful Zoom groups they are attending such as Bill and Susan’s daily meditation through Barre Center for Contemplative Studies https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/online-programs/  and Kathy Cherry’s DPX-NYC morning meditation group https://www.dharmapunxnyc.com/#home-section.

I our group discussion some people talked about injustice in light of the killing by police of George Flyod. Saying “things in the world are so unsettling and it’s important to take action. The pandemic may be impacting people becoming more aware and their ability to act. We struggle with the part we cannot change.”  We recognize that there are a lot of micro movements we can join within the bigger movement to change our broken society. As white people, we acknowledge that we, we have bias. Reading and listening can help. With meditation and mindfulness we realize, “here is where I am, and here is where I can make a difference. This is not a sprint. It’s an ongoing struggle and you need to take care of yourself so you can effectively do the work.” 

Others talked on a more personal level about their recovery and feeling an unformed sense of self. Commenting that “what people call recovery, I call life”, and that “things are always getting better and worse at the same time. That’s why it’s important to remember impermanence.”  Thanks to Mike for sharing with us Pema Chodron’s quote in her book When Things Fall Apart, which sums it up beautifully:

 "Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know. We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure”.