When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön [Book Summary & PDF]

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön is a book that was purposely written as a catalyst to spark awareness and heart advice for difficult times. 

About the Author:

Pema Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun and one of the foremost students of Chögyam Trungpa, a renowned meditation teacher. Chödrön has written several dozen books. She’s a principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada—The first Tibetan monastery in North America was established for Westerners.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön Book Summary]

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Intimacy With Fear

Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it, which is to say that it’s not a terrible thing we feel when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. 

Anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown has experienced some groundlessness.

It’s what we do naturally.

And it’s good to know that we do that—not as a way to beat ourselves up, but as a way to develop unconditional compassion.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

The most profound spiritual truths seem pretty straightforward and ordinary.

There’s nowhere to hide. We see it as well as anyone else—if not better than anyone else.

Sooner or later, we understand that although we can’t make fear look pretty, it will never use us to all the teaching we’ve heard or read.

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we discover it is not what we thought. Nothing is what we thought. Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear.

Life is what is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves nailed to the present moment.

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When Things Fall Apart

When things are shaky, and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something.

We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place.

And that tenderness can go either way.

We can shut down and feel resentful.

Or we can touch on that throbbing quality.

Sometimes we find ourselves in this place because of illness or death…

We experience a sense of loss—loss of our loved ones, loss of our youth, loss of our life. But Chodron reminds us; 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, explains Chodron, 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 into play when you let there be room for all of this to happen:

• Room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

When we think that something will bring us pleasure, we’re just assuming. Chodron realized, Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.

We don’t know what’s really going to happen.

We don’t know When we think something will give us misery.

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. Writes Chodron.

Life is like that.

We don’t know anything.

We call something bad; we call it good. But really, we-just-don’t-know.

As Pema Chodron puts it, “When we are nailed with the truth, we suffer.”

Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara.

Which is a form of a hopeless cycle that goes round and round—endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly.

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Explains Chodron, Things are always in transition if we could only realize it.

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This Very Moment is the Perfect Teacher

The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to a place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening.

We use all kinds of ways to escape.

She writes, “All addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge, and we can’t stand it. We feel we must soften it, pad it with something, and become addicted to whatever seems to ease the pain.“

Those events and people in our lives who trigger our unresolved issues could be regarded as good news. Explains Chodron.

That is why it’s so good to meditate every day and continue to make friends with our hopes and fears repeatedly.

This very moment is the perfect teacher and lucky for us it’s with us wherever we are. —Pema Chodron

Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and not get carried away by hope and fear. Through meditation, we can clearly see what’s going on with our thoughts and emotions and choose to let them go.

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Relax As it is

It’s never a good idea to struggle in meditation.

Most meditation techniques use an object of meditation—something you return to again and again no matter what’s going on in your mind.

The point is not to achieve some special state or transcend ordinary life’s sounds and movements.

When you breathe in, it’s like a pause or a gap. There is nothing particular to do except wait for the next out-breath. As a result, maintaining the proper posture makes it possible to be far more relaxed.

The six points of good posture as a way to really settle down:

1. Seat
2. Legs
3. torso
4. hands
5. eyes
6. mouth

and the instruction is as follows…

1. Whether sitting on a cushion on the floor or in a chair, the seat should be flat, not tilting to the right or left or to the back or front.
2. The legs are crossed comfortably in front of you—or, if you’re sitting in a chair, the feet are flat on the floor, and the knees are a few inches apart.
3. The torso (from the head to the seat) is upright, with a strong back and an open front. If sitting in a chair, it’s best not to lean back. If you start to slouch, sit upright again.
4. The hands are open, with palms down, resting on the thighs.
5. The eyes are open, indicating the attitude of remaining awake and relaxed with all that occurs. The eye gaze is slightly downward and directed about four to six feet in front.
6. The mouth is slightly open so that the jaw is relaxed and air can move easily through both mouth and nose. Place your tongue on the roof of the mouth.

Each time you sit down to meditate, you can run through these six points, and anytime you feel distracted during your meditation, you can bring your attention back to your body and run through the six points.

If you find that thoughts have carried you away, don’t worry about it.

Say “thinking” to yourself and return to the out-breath openness and relaxation. Again and again, just come back to being right where you are.

In any case, the point is not to try to get rid of thoughts but rather to see their true nature.

Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but they are like dream images. They are like an illusion—not really all that solid. They are, as we say,—just thinking.

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It’s Never Too Late

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves. Yet, practicing loving-kindness is never too late or too early.

What makes Maitri (a Sanskrit word which can be translated as “friendship,” “friendliness,” or “benevolence.) such a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not striving to make the pain disappear or become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart.

The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we practice disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness. The more we do it, the stronger these qualities become.

Over and over, we regard them with the precision and kindness that allows them to calm down gradually.

Discursive thoughts are rather like wild dogs that need taming. Rather than beating them or throwing stones, we tame them with compassion.

Once we’ve even had a glimpse of spaciousness, it will continue to expand if we practice with Maitri (aka-friendliness” or benevolence.). It expands into our resentment. It expands into our fear.

It expands our concepts and opinions about things and who we think we are.

Our personal demons come in many forms.

We experience them as shame, jealousy, abandonment, and as rage.

They are anything that makes us so uncomfortable that we continually run away.

But as you see, the way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face.

Practicing loving-kindness toward ourselves seems as good a way as any to start illuminating the darkness of difficult times.

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Not Causing Harm

The ground of not causing harm is mindfulness, a sense of clear seeing with respect and compassion for what we see.

It’s a lifetime’s journey to relate honestly to our experience’s immediacy and respect ourselves enough not to judge it.

Mindfulness helps us see our desires, aggression, jealousy, and ignorance. As a result, we don’t act on them; rather, we’re aware of them instead of mindlessly showing up for our life.

Refraining is a way of making friends with ourselves at the most profound level possible.

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice.

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Hopelessness and Death

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. Suffering is part of life, and we don’t have to feel it’s happening because we personally made the wrong move.

Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are. That is why it’s best to begin the journey without the hope of getting ground under your feet.

When We hold on to hope, hope robs us of the present moment. In a nontheistic state of mind, abandoning hope is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning.

Taking refuge in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha is about giving up hope of getting ground under our feet.

Hopelessness is the basic ground. Otherwise, we will make the journey hoping to get security, which is missing the point of it all. This will only lead to disappointment and pain.

Giving hope is an encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, not to run away from yourself, and to return to the bare bones, no matter what’s going on.

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Eight Worldly Dharmas

One of the classic Buddhist teachings on hope and fear concerns what are known as the eight worldly dharmas.

These are four pairs of opposites—four things we like and become attached to and four things we don’t like and try to avoid.

The basic message is that we suffer when we are caught up in the eight worldly dharma.

• First, we’ve got pleasure and pain. We like pleasure. Therefore we’re very attached to it. Conversely, we don’t like pain.
• Second, we like and are attached to praise. And we try to avoid criticism and blame.

• Third, we like and are attached to fame. We dislike and try to avoid disgrace.
• Finally, we are attached to gaining, to getting what we want. We don’t like losing what we have.

Becoming immersed in these four pairs of opposites—pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and disgrace, and praise and blame—is what keeps us stuck in the pain of samsara. And the irony is that we make up the eight worldly dharmas.

We make them up in reaction to what happens to us in this world. They are nothing concrete in themselves. Even more strange is that we are not all that solid, either.

We might feel that somehow, we should try to erase these feelings of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace. But a more practical approach would be to get to know them, see how they hook us, see how they color our perception of reality, and see how they aren’t all that solid. Then the eight worldly dharmas become the means for growing wiser, kinder, and more content.

To begin with, in meditation, we can notice how emotions and moods are connected with having lost or gained something, being praised or blamed, and so forth.

When we begin living our lives this way, we can explore these familiar pairs of opposites in everything we do. Instead of automatically falling into habitual patterns, we can begin to notice how we react when someone praises us. When someone blames us, how do we react?

This letting thing goes sometimes called nonattachment, but not with the cool, remote quality often associated with that word. This nonattachment has more kindness and more intimacy than that. It’s actually a desire to know, like the questions of a three-year-old.

When we become more insightful and compassionate about how we ourselves get hooked, we spontaneously feel more tenderness for the human race. Knowing our own confusion, we’re more willing and able to get our hands dirty and try to alleviate the confusion of others.

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Six Kinds of Loneliness

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution.

To have no reference point would be to change a deep-seated habitual response to the world where it is ok not to want to make it work out one way or the other.

We don’t deserve a resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.

In the middle way, there is no reference point. The mind with no reference point does not resolve itself, fixate, or grasp.

When we can rest in the middle, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness.

There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness. They are:

1. Less desire
2. Contentment
3. Avoiding unnecessary activity
4. Complete discipline
5. Not wandering in the world of desire
6. Not seeking security from one’s discursive thoughts.

The experience of certain feelings can seem particularly pregnant with a desire for resolution: loneliness, boredom, and anxiety.

Unless we can relax with these feelings, staying in the middle is very hard when we experience them.

#1.Less desire

As Pema mentioned, less desire is the willingness to be lonely without resolution when everything in us yearns for something to cheer us up and change our mood.

The less we spin off and go crazy, the more we taste the satisfaction of cool loneliness. As the Zen master, Katagiri Roshi, often said, “One can be lonely and not be tossed away by it.” Practicing this kind of loneliness is a way of sowing seeds so that fundamental restlessness decreases.

#2. Contentment

Contentment is a synonym for loneliness, cool loneliness, and settling down with cool loneliness.

We can be lonely with no alternatives, content to be right here with the mood and texture of what’s happening.

When we have nothing, we have nothing to lose. We don’t have anything to lose but are programmed in our guts to feel we have much to lose. Our feeling that we have a lot to lose is rooted in fear—of loneliness, of change, of anything that can’t be resolved, of nonexistence.

#3. Avoiding unnecessary activities.

When we’re lonely in a “hot” way, we look for something to save us.

We look for a way out. We get this queasy feeling that we call loneliness, and our minds go wild trying to come up with companions to save us from despair. That’s called unnecessary activity.

The point is that in all these activities, we seek companionship in our usual, habitual way, using our same old repetitive ways of distancing ourselves from the demon loneliness.

Relaxing with loneliness is a worthy occupation. As the Japanese poet Ryokan says, “If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.”

#4. Complete Discipline

Complete discipline means that we’re willing to return at every opportunity, just gently coming back to the present moment.

Our habitual assumptions—all our ideas about how things are—keep us from seeing anything in a fresh, open way.

This basic truth hurts, and we want to run away from it. But coming back and relaxing with something as familiar as loneliness is a good discipline for realizing the profundity of the unresolved moments of our lives. we are cheating ourselves every time we run away from the ambiguity of loneliness.

#5 Not wandering in the world of desire

• Not wandering in the world of desire is about relating directly to how things are.

• Wandering in the world of desire involves looking for alternatives, seeking something to comfort us—food, drink, people.

Loneliness is not a problem. Loneliness is nothing to be solved. The same is true for any other experience we might have.

#6. Not Seeking Security from One’s Discursive Thoughts

With cool loneliness, we do not expect security from our own internal chatter. That’s why we are instructed to label it “thinking.” It has no objective reality. It is transparent and ungraspable. We’re encouraged to touch that chatter and let it go, not make much ado about anything.

Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggression at our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be or who we think we want to be. We give it up and look directly with compassion and humor at who we are.

Cool loneliness doesn’t provide any resolution or give us ground under our feet. It challenges us to step into a world of no reference point without polarizing or solidifying. This is called the middle way, or the sacred path of the warrior.

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Curious about Existence

There are three truths–traditionally called three marks—of our existence: Impermanence, suffering, and egolessness. These three words are often described as the rock-bottom qualities of our existence.

It’s easy to get the idea that there is something wrong with impermanence, suffering, and egolessness, but there’s nothing wrong with our fundamental situation. In fact, they can be celebrated.

Impermanence: Is the goodness of reality. Just as the four seasons are in continual flux, the same way everything is constantly evolving. Impermanence is the essence of everything. It is babies becoming children, teenagers, adults, older adults, and somewhere along the way, dropping dead. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life.

It’s the well-being that comes when we can see the infinite pairs of opposites as complementary.

We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. Impermanence is a principle of harmony. We are in harmony with reality when we don’t struggle against it.

Suffering: Our suffering is based so much on our fear of impermanence. Whoever got the idea that we could have pleasure without pain is in delusion. Pain and pleasure so together because there are inseparable. Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else.

Pain is not a punishment; Pleasure is not a reward. The point isn’t to cultivate one thing instead of another but to relate properly to where we are. With only inspiration, we become arrogant. With only wretchedness, we lose our vision.

The gloriousness of our inspiration connects us with the sacredness of the world. But when the tables are turned, and we feel wretched, that softens us up.

It ripens our hearts.

It becomes the ground for understanding others.

Egolessness: Often, we think of agelessness as a great loss, but it’s actually again if you think of it as regaining eyesight after having been blind or regaining hearing after having been deaf. Egolessness is the same as basic goodness or Buddha nature; it’s our unconditional being. In other words, whatever covers up basic goodness.

It’s a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well-being, an unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience.

If there is beauty, there must be ugliness. If it is right, there is a wrong. When we take a fresh, clear unedited look at reality, we can recognize it as egolessness.

So how do we celebrate impermanence, suffering, and ego lessness in our everyday lives?

When impermanence presents itself in our lives, we can recognize it as impermanence. It’s part of the whole cycle of life.

When someone’s born, recognize it as impermanence, and vice-versa–death can be recognized as impermanence. Falling in and out of love can be viewed as impermanence and let that intensify the preciousness. Whether it’s anxiety, fluctuation, insecurity, and uncertainty—Recognize impermanence as impermanence.

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Nonaggression and the Four Maras

Whether we experience what happens to us as an obstacle and enemy or as a teacher and friend depend entirely on our perception of reality.

As for the inner level of the obstacle, perhaps nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast.

But nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

What we habitually regard as obstacles are not really our enemies but rather our friends. What may appear to be an arrow or a sword we can actually experience as a flower.

Traditional teachings on the forces of Mara describe the nature of obstacles and the nature of how human beings habitually become confused and lose confidence in our basic wisdom mind.

The maras provide descriptions of some very familiar ways in which we try to avoid what is happening. We’re referring to these four Maras: Devi Putra, Skandha, Kesha, and Yama Mara.

• DevaPutra is a Sanskrit word that means seeking pleasure.
• Skandha refers to the way we always try to re-create ourselves.
• Klesha is a Sanskrit word signify how we use our emotions to keep ourselves dumb or asleep.
• Yama is another Sanskrit word that means the fear of death.

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it isn’t enjoyable. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens.

Trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death because it involves rejecting a lot of basic experience. We can let ourselves feel our emotions as hot or cold, vibrating or smooth, instead of using our emotions to keep ourselves ignorant and dumb. We can give up on being perfect and experience each moment to its fullest.

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Growing Up

Listening to talks about the dharma, or the teachings of Buddha, or practicing meditation is nothing other than studying ourselves. In fact, it has been said that studying ourselves provides all the books we need.

We can find out what is true simply by studying ourselves in every nook and cranny in every black hole and a bright spot in all situations.

How we regard what arises in meditation is training for how we regard whatever arises in the rest of our lives. So, the challenge is how to develop compassion along with clear seeing and train in lightening up and cheering up rather than becoming more guilt-ridden and miserable.

From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is true isn’t just a matter of honesty but also compassion and respect for what we see.

Learning how to be kind to ourselves and learning how to respect ourselves is important.

Fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confusing and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that we’re discovering—we’re also discovering the universe.

That’s the beginning of growing up. As long as we don’t want to be honest and kind with ourselves, then we are always going to be infants.

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Widening the Circle of Compassion

To relate with others compassionately is a challenge. To do this requires openness, which in Buddhism is sometimes called emptiness—not fixating or holding on to anything.

Only in an open space where we’re not all caught up in our own reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, allowing us to be with them and communicate with them properly.

There’s a slogan in the Mahayana teaching that says, “Drive all blames into oneself.” when it hurts so bad, it’s because I am hanging on so tight.” It’s not saying that we should beat ourselves up.

What this implies is that pain comes from holding so tightly to having it our own way. And that one of the main exits we take when we find ourselves uncomfortable when we find ourselves in an unwanted situation or an unwanted place is to blame.

Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, to protect what is soft, open, and tender in ourselves. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.

Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves.

Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don’t mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to try to get ground under our feet instantly.

Wanting situations and relationships to be solid, permanent, and graspable is nonsense. For the most part, things are fundamentally groundless.

Instead of making others right or wrong or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there’s a very powerful middle way. This middle way involves not hanging on to our version so tightly.

As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how–becomes wider.

It involves keeping our hearts and minds open long enough to entertain the idea that we do it out of a desire to obtain some ground or security when we make things wrong.

Equally, when we make things right, we still try to obtain some ground or security.

If we begin to live like this, we’ll find that we actually can’t make things completely right or completely wrong anymore because things are a lot more slippery and playful than that.

If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we’ll find that more areas of our lives are workable.

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The Love That Will Not Die

Just as a jewel that has been buried in the earth for a million years is not discolored or harmed, in the same way, this noble heart is not affected by all of our kicking and screaming.

When we don’t close off and let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.

Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel, not be ashamed of the love and grief it arouses in us, and not be afraid of pain.

When strategies are not yet formed, and we feel uncertain about how to turn, in those moments of vulnerability, bodhichitta is always there. In other words, a noble or awakened heart is always there. It manifests as basic tenderness, basic compassionate warmth.

Compassion and Shunyata are the qualities of a love that will not die.

Bodhichitta is available in moments of caring for things when we clean our glasses or brush our hair. It’s available in moments of appreciating when we notice the blue sky or pause and listen to the rain.

Whenever we let go of holding on to ourselves and look at the world around us, whenever we connect with sorrow or joy, in those moments, bodhichitta is here.

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Going against the grain

Having compassion and caring for others, including those that may have done us wrong, means not running from the pain of finding these things in ourselves.

Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, we could open our hearts and allow ourselves to feel that pain. Feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kinder.

For instance, if we know of a child who is being hurt, we breathe in with the wish to take away all of that child’s pain and fear. Then, as we breathe out, we send happiness, joy, or whatever would relieve the child.

People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we usually hold ourselves together.

Truthfully, this practice goes against the grain of wanting things on our own terms, wanting everything to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to others.

The practice dissolves the walls we’ve built around our hearts. It dissolves the layers of self-protection we’ve tried so hard to create.

This is the core of the practice: breathing in others’ pain so they can feel well and have more space to relax and open. In the same vein, breathing out, sending them relaxation, or whatever we feel, would bring them relief and happiness.

Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.

By doing this process, we become liberated from very ancient patterns of selfishness.

We begin to feel love for ourselves and others and take care of ourselves and others.

Tonglen can be done for those who are ill, those who are dying or have died, and those who are in pain of any kind.

It can be done as a formal meditation practice or right on the spot at any time.

For instance, if we are out walking and we see someone in pain—right on the spot, we can begin to breathe in that person’s pain and send out relief.

As you do this practice, gradually at your own pace, you will be surprised to find yourself more and more able to be there for others, even in what used to seem like impossible situations.

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Servants of peace

Instead of spending hours and hours disciplining ourselves to defeat the enemy, we could spend hours and hours dissolving the causes of war.

Such a place might be called bodhisattva training—or training for servants of peace. The word bodhisattva refers to those who have committed themselves to the path of compassion.

Meditation and tonglen are well-tested methods for training in adaptability and letting go of a rigid mind.

When we are training in peace, we are not promised that everything will be okay because of our noble intentions. In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all. Instead, we are encouraged to look deeply at joy and sorrow, laugh and cry, hope and fear, and all that lives and dies. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.

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Opinions

When we’re not in meditation, we could begin to notice our opinions just as we notice what we’re thinking when we’re meditating. This is a beneficial practice because we have many opinions, and we tend to take them as truth. But actually, they aren’t the truth. They are just opinions.

We can begin to notice them, and we can begin to label them as opinions, just as we label thoughts as thoughts. All ego really is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are.

When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we add more aggression to the planet, increasing violence and pain. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace.

Opinions are opinions, nothing more or less.

The way to stop the war is to stop hating the enemy. It starts with seeing our opinions of ourselves and others as simply our take on reality and not making them a reason to increase the negativity on the planet.

We all need support and encouragement to be aware of what we think, say, and do. Given these points, notice your opinions. If you find yourself becoming aggressive about your opinions, notice that. On the other hand, if you find yourself being nonaggression, notice that as well.

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Secret Oral Instructions

We can kid ourselves for a while that we understand meditation and its teachings, but we have to face it at some point.

None of what we’ve learned seems very relevant when our lover leaves us, when our child has a tantrum in the supermarket when we’re insulted by our colleague.

How do we work with our resentment when our boss walks into the room and yells at us?

How do we reconcile that frustration and humiliation with our longing to be open and compassionate and not harm ourselves or others?

Instead of calm, wakefulness, and egoless, we find ourselves getting more edgy, irritable, and solid.

Hence, we continually find ourselves in that squeeze. It’s a place where we look for alternatives to just being there. It’s an uncomfortable—embarrassing place, and it’s often the place where people like ourselves give up.

Under those circumstances, when we feel squeezed, there’s a tendency for the mind to become small. We feel miserable, like a victim, like a pathetic hopeless cases.

However, it’s important to realize at that moment of hassle, bewilderment, or embarrassment; our minds could become bigger.

The next time there’s no ground to stand on, don’t consider it an obstacle; instead, view it as a remarkable stroke of luck.

We are given changes all the time. We can either cling to security or let ourselves feel exposed as if we had just been born and we’re completely naked.

The state of nowness is available in that moment of a squeeze. In that awkward, ambiguous moment is our own wisdom mind. Right there in the uncertainty of everyday chaos is our own wisdom mind.

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Three Methods for Working with Chaos

How do we work with a sense of burden? How do we learn to relate to what seems to stand between us and the happiness we deserve? How do we learn to relax and connect with fundamental joy?

Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical that we learn how to relate sanely to difficult times.

Three traditional methods exist for relating directly with difficult circumstances as a path of awakening and joy.

• The first method we’ll call: no more struggle.
• The Second: Using poison as medicine.
• Third: Seeing whatever arises as enlightened wisdom.

These are three techniques for working with chaos, difficulties, and unwanted events in our daily lives.

1. No More Struggle

When we sit down to meditate, whatever arises in our minds, we look at it directly, call it “thinking,” and return to the breath’s simplicity and immediacy.

Meditation practice is how we stop fighting with ourselves, moreover, how we stop struggling with circumstances, emotions, or moods.

Whatever arises, we can look at it with a nonjudgmental attitude.

Train repeatedly in looking at it and seeing it for what it is without calling it names or throwing tantrums here and there.

Let all those stories go. The innermost essence of mind is without bias.

We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy.

Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.

This begins when we sit down to meditate and practice not struggling with our own minds.

2. Using Poison as Medicine

When anything difficult arises—any conflict, any notion of unworthiness, anything that feels distasteful, embarrassing, or painful—we breathe it in instead of trying to get rid of it.

We breathe it in for everybody.

This poison is not just our personal misfortune, fault, blemish, or shame—it’s part of the human condition.

It’s our kinship with all living things, the material we need to understand what it’s like to stand in another person’s shoes.

Instead of pushing it away or running from it, we breathe in and connect with it fully. Then we breathe out, sending out a sense of big space, a sense of ventilation, or freshness.

The main point of these methods is to dissolve the dualistic struggle, our habitual tendency to struggle against what’s happening to us or in us. These methods instruct us to move toward difficulties rather than backing away.

Everything that occurs is not only usable and workable but is actually the path itself.

Use difficult situations to awaken your genuine caring for others who, just like you, often find themselves in pain.

#3 Seeing Whatever Arises as Enlightened Wisdom

Eckhart Tolle, the author of ‘The Power of Now, emphasizes the notion of being in the moment, accepting whatever arises completely without judgment. And as Chodron said, ‘It’s a great way we can dissolve the sense of dualism between here and there, by moving toward what we find difficult and wish to push away.’

In terms of everyday experience, these methods encourage us not to feel embarrassed about ourselves. There’s a lot of juicy stuff we could be proud of. Chaos is part of our home ground. Instead of looking for something higher or purer, work with it just as is.

We would usually think of these poisons as something bad to avoid. But that isn’t the attitude here; they become seeds of compassion and openness.

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The Trick of Choicelessness

The teachings of Buddhism are directed at people who don’t have much time to waste.

That includes all of us, whether we know it or not.

Looking for alternatives is the only thing that keeps us from realizing that we’re already in a sacred world.

Looking for alternatives—better sighs than we see, better sounds than we hear, a better mind than we have—keeps us from realizing that we could stand with pride in the middle of our life and realize it’s a sacred mandala.

We must stop thinking that we can get away and settle down elsewhere.

Instead, we could mind—relax with exhaustion, indigestion, insomnia, irritation, delight, whatever.

Unfortunately, that’s not our usual experience. Our usual experience is that we get jumpy just when our perception is getting vivid.

The world is always displaying itself, always waving and winking, but we are so self-involved that we miss it.

The experience of sticking with it, of not giving up, is one in which the whole world, everything that we see, becomes extremely vivid and more solid, and at the same time, less substantial and more transparent.

The idea of Samaya is that if we don’t avoid our personal experience—if we don’t think there’s a better, more inspiring, less irritating, or less disturbing sound—sounds become vivid and transparent.

Our teacher is not separate from our experience.

In the case of Samaya, when we talk about commitment, it’s total commitment: total commitment to sanity, total commitment to our experience, and an unconditional relationship with reality.

The challenges are giving in, surrendering our way of doing things, and not splitting when we feel threatened. Basically, the challenge is to be genuine—to feel our pounding heart or shaking knees or whatever it is and stick with it.

Finding that the sky and the sun are always there and that the storms and clouds come and go. Somehow, the feeling that we are ready to have no existence occurs by itself.

We don’t experience the world fully unless we are willing to give everything away. Samaya means not holding anything back, not preparing our escape route, not looking for alternatives, and not thinking that there is ample time to do things later.

It softens us up so that we can’t deceive ourselves and be deaf, dumb, and blind. It’s meant to introduce us to the fact that we could have an unconditional relationship with the world.

We don’t really have a choice. The choice that we think we have is called ego. This choice that we think we have is what’s keeping us from realizing that we’re in a sacred world; this choice that we think we have is like blinders, earplugs, and nose plugs.

We are thoroughly conditioned so that the minute the seat gets hot or even thinks it’s going to get hot, we jump off. The trick is to sit on the hot seat and commit to our hot seat experience.

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Reversing the Wheel of Samsara

Many people say meditation is not enough and we need therapy and support groups to deal with our most stuck patterns.

This can be extremely helpful for some of us, considering working with a nonjudgmental therapist will allow us to overcome our fears and finally develop loving-kindness for ourselves.

At the same time, I know that the dharma is more revolutionary and that for many of us, the dharma itself supplies the tools and support we need to find our own beauty, insight, and ability to work with neurosis and pain.

The key is changing our habits and, in particular, the habits of our mind.

That’s what the dharma is about; turning all our habits around, reversing the process of how we make everything so solid, reversing the wheel of samsara. It starts with catching ourselves when we spin-off in the same old ways. Usually, we feel that there’s a large problem and we have to fix it. The instruction is to stop. Do something unfamiliar. Do anything besides rushing off in the same old direction, up to the same old tricks.

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The Path Is the Goal

This path has one very distinct characteristic: it is not prefabricated. It doesn’t already exist.

The path that we’re talking about is the moment-by-moment evolution of our experience, the moment-by-moment evolution of our thoughts and emotions.

The path is uncharted.

It comes into existence moment by moment and, at the same time, drops away behind us.

It’s like riding on a train sitting backward.

We can’t see where we’re headed, only where we’ve been.

The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant.

When something hurts in life, we don’t usually think of it as our path or wisdom source.

In fact, we think that the reason we’re on the path is to get rid of this painful feeling. (“When I get to L.A., I won’t feel this way anymore.”) At that level of wanting to get rid of our feeling, we naively cultivate subtle aggression against ourselves. However, the fact is that anyone who has used the moments and days, and years of his or her life to become wiser, kinder, and more at home in the world has learned from what has happened right now.

We can aspire to be kind right at the moment, relax, and open our hearts and minds to what is in front of us right now.

Now is the time. If there’s any possibility for enlightenment, it’s right now, not at some future time. Now is the time. When we realize that the path is the goal, there’s a sense of workability.

Trungpa Rinpoche once said, “Whatever occurs in the confused mind is regarded as the path. Everything is workable. It is a fearless proclamation, the lion’s roar.

If we find ourselves in what seems like a rotten or painful situation and we think, well, how is this enlightenment?” we can remember this notion of the path, that what seems undesirable in our lives doesn’t have to put us to sleep. What seems undesirable in our lives doesn’t have to trigger habitual reactions. We can let it show us where we’re at and let it remind us that the teachings encourage precision and gentleness, with loving-kindness toward every moment. -Pema Chödrön

Further reading…

• The Universe has your back by Gabrielle Bernstein
• The power of Now of Eckhart Tolle

This summary is not intended as a replacement for the original book, and all quotes are credited to the above-mentioned author and publisher. Thank You

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