I am slowly learning to be comfortable with my own imperfection. It’s not easy. I want to do things well, do them right. I put a lot of effort towards quality. I pay attention to every detail. I try so hard.
And it’s not working for me. I don’t mean that I’m falling short of perfection. What I mean is that it’s not workable, not sustainable, not healthy to try so hard all the time. It’s incredibly confusing and overwhelming when every single thing matters so much.
For example, for yoga teacher training next weekend, I have to create three vinyasas, a series of yoga poses that would take about 10-13 minutes to teach. Then next weekend, I’ll need to be ready to teach one of them to a small group. This is on top of our regular homework. I have been trying to get them finished for the past few weeks, but I’m struggling. I have the vinyasas created, but I think they are too long, and I haven’t had a chance to practice teach them or even practice them myself as much as I’d like.
I’ve done less yoga since I started yoga teacher training than I have at any other time in the past six years. I’ve also been struggling to keep up with a regular meditation practice. Yesterday when I was working, I started to feel that familiar panic — the tightness in my chest and throat, the floaty feeling in my head, the tension throughout my body, the tears that are always just on the verge of spilling over.
Then I remembered the Buddhist approach to renunciation. In other traditions, renunciation is about giving everything up, living a life of lack and restriction, but in Buddhism, it’s not that at all. Instead it’s about no longer rejecting or resisting. Renunciation is about saying “yes” to our life, exactly as it is. Pema Chödrön explains it this way,
The journey of awakening—the classical journey of the mythical hero or heroine—is one of continually coming up against big challenges and then learning how to soften and open. In other words, the paralyzed quality seems to be hardening and and refusing, and the letting go or the renunciation of that attitude is simply feeling the whole thing in your heart, letting it touch your heart. You soften and feel compassion for your predicament and for the whole human condition. You soften so that you can actually sit there with those troubling feelings and let them soften you more.
The whole journey of renunciation, or starting to say yes to life, is first of all realizing that you’ve come up against your edge, that everything in you is saying no, and then at that point, softening.
I’ve certainly been up against my edge these past few months, (years?). As I contemplate renunciation, I look for the places where I can soften, be more gentle with myself. The first thing that comes to mind is my yoga teacher training homework, and how tightening up around that, pushing myself, being critical and mean, beating myself up in relation to it isn’t at all what yoga is about. It isn’t what practice is about.
I let go. I take a breath and come back. I start again. I soften.
A feeling has arisen in the mind, like a cloud. Like a cloud, it appears and then it disappears, and that’s all there is to it. This time it is sadness arising, the next time it may be happiness, the next time it may be anger, and later it may be kindness. All sorts of things arise, like wildflowers in a spring meadow. All sorts of flowers grow; all sorts of thoughts and emotions arise. They are all okay; they’re nothing special. When we understand what our thoughts and feelings are, and we experience them in this way, we are able to let them come and let them go.
The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and planets spinning
through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?
You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless or ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.
Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again. Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?
Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?
And
Self-Portrait
by David Whyte
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned,
if you can know despair or see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eye,
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living,
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
We do not become healers. We came as healers. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become storytellers. We came as carriers of the stories we and our ancestors actually lived. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become artists. We came as artists. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become writers, dancers, musicians, helpers, peacemakers. We came as such. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not learn to love in this sense. We came as Love. We are Love. Some of us are still catching up to who we truly are.
17. Happy – Pentatonix (Pharrell Cover). I have a soft spot for acapella groups.
18. How I earned my white belt in desire on Superhero Life. I love how Andrea sees everything in her life as an opportunity to learn, to practice, to transform.
20. Wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert, “If you are looking for your home in the world, here is a clue: It’s whatever you love more than you love yourself. (Addiction and infatuation don’t count! Unsafe neighborhoods in which to build a home!) Identify that worthy thing to love, and abide there.”
21. Wisdom from Richard Bach, “There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.”
22. Wisdom from David Whyte, “You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in.”
With the commitment to not cause harm, we move away from reacting in ways that cause us to suffer, but we haven’t yet arrived at a place that feels entirely relaxed and free. We first have to go through a growing-up process, a getting-used-to process. That process, that transition, is one of becoming comfortable with exactly what we’re feeling as we feel it. The key practice to support us in this is mindfulness—being fully present right here, right now. Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness—fully present wakefulness. Chögyam Trungpa called it paying attention to all the details of your life.
27. Wisdom from Joseph Campbell,
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
The escape is temporary. The comfort in going numb is fleeting and often followed by a pain more unbearable than breathing through my fear – it is the pain of living a life that is disconnected from my spirit, my soul, my God, my truth (choose the word that suits you.)
As challenging as it may ever seem to move forward through challenge, I dare say that it’s more challenging to give up. When we give up, our body contracts, our shoulders slouch which closes our hearts, and our energy fades.
I am slowly learning to be comfortable with my own imperfection. It’s not easy. I want to do things well, do them right. I put a lot of effort towards quality. I pay attention to every detail. I try so hard.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 