Not Obstacles, That's the Path

"We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." - Rainer Maria Rilke

As we move through life, attempting to move in peace, planned precision, or along whatever pleasant, care-free path, we often encounter things which disrupt our flow. I cannot think of an unbroken month in my life when some incident has not occurred: my car being broken into, my work load doubled, my computer crashed, my thumb sliced open, my trip canceled, etc. How frustrating this can be. We've all been there, which is why we connect so well with Robert Burn's apology To a Mouse for destroying its nest while ploughing:

...
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy.
...

You probably recognize the oft quoted "best laid schemes o' mice an' men" part. The conclusion drawn here is that try as we might, there's no way to prepare with "foresight" for a complete path of "promised joy." There's always a potential accident or obstacle around the corner. Though, the "grief an' pain" is just the story that we tell ourselves, and Stories Define Reality. Rather than allow ourselves to rely on a happiness defined only be the path that we had planned, we can learn to walk that path that is presented to us.

Learning to be mindful and avoid obstacles is a wise and worthy pursuit. However, it is likely impossible to prepare enough to avoid every obstacle. Even in a secure garage, someone can still break into your car if you have one, and sometimes having one is the best option. "Being able to remain centered and awake even when we feel uncomfortable is much more impressive than doing so in an environment where everything is to our liking. No matter how good we are at controlling our circumstances, there will always be factors and people that we cannot control." (Daily Om's The Upside of Irritation) Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche believes that "We might even begin to welcome obstacles as an opportunity to engage in virtuous activity: patience, generosity, discipline, meditation, exertion, and their binding factor, prajna—wisdom rooted in seeing things as they are. With practice and a change in attitude, whatever comes our way—good or bad—has less power to obstruct our journey." (The Path Through Obstacles in Shambhala Sun)

In Growing Together, Thich Nhat Hahn shares a beautiful metaphor for dealing with suffering from obstacles: "You can use the goodness in yourself to transform your suffering and the tendency to be angry, cruel, and afraid. But you don’t want to throw your suffering away because you can use it. Your suffering is compost that gives you the understanding to nourish your happiness and the happiness of your loved one."

This is not only an Eastern concept, it is a central precept of the Greek Stoics. Here's an excerpt from Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs by Ryan Holiday c/o Tim Ferriss:

The Stoics had an exercise called Turning the Obstacle Upside Down. What they meant to do was make it impossible to not practice the art of philosophy. Because if you can properly turn a problem upside down, every “bad” becomes a new source of good.

Suppose for a second that you are trying to help someone and they respond by being surly or unwilling to cooperate. Instead of making your life more difficult, the exercise says, they’re actually directing you towards new virtues; for example, patience or understanding. Or, the death of someone close to you; a chance to show fortitude. Marcus Aurelius described it like this: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

...

Stoicism, as Marcus reminds himself, is not some grand Instructor but a balm, a soothing ointment to an injury wherever we might have one. Epictetus was right when he said that “life is hard, brutal, punishing, narrow, and confining, a deadly business.

We should take whatever help we can get, and it just happens that that help can come from ourselves.

When you see the obstacles in this light, you can realize that it is not a path cluttered with obstacles. The path and the obstacles are not separate, they are the path, the whole path. "Like cars in amusement parks, our direction is often determined through collisions." (Yahia Lababidi) As children, many of us enjoyed running obstacle courses, jumping hurdles, running through tires, crawling under ropes, walking across balance beams. This was not tedious to us, it was a fun part that we chose. Let's learn from our own childhoods and find the joy of running the obstacle course. It can be so much more fun and satisfying than walking the easy route alongside the course. Relish in the whole path. In this way, we can learn to be Comfortable with What Is .

Comments, Please - Please share your thoughts. What are your experiences in recognizing life's obstacles as life's path?

When the Going Gets Awkward

When we're new to a path, we often find it pretty difficult to relate with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. This is certainly true when we embark on a spiritual path.

Fortunately, we also form strong bonds of friendships as we meet people along our paths. Erica Knight has been an important friend for me discussing mindfulness, happiness, and how to have a meaningful life. These conversations often illuminate me because she challenges everything on her path, which is similar to mine, yet still uniquely hers. This constantly pushes me to rethink and re-contemplate. Much of the content on this blog comes from my discussions with Erica.

We both experiment with the mindfulness practices espoused in Buddhism, in Taoism, by Tolle, etc. and report back on how they work for us. We both comment about the awkwardness of the path, especially when they contradict societal maxims. Having lived in this society, attachment, judgment, desire, and suffering-in-the-face-of-hardship seem to be so naturally human. On the other hand, spirituality teaches us to favor non-attachment, non-judgment, renunciation, and avoidance of suffering. Is this dehumanizing or transcendent? Pondering this is a valuable mindfulness practice, especially as practicing the spiritual teachings puts us at odds with others.

Goodness knows I have gone through some pretty embarrassing moments when I first began living by new ideals, and still sometimes now and again. I have come to interpret these times as challenges to grow my practice stronger through perseverance and contemplation. I have to learn how to fit new realizations with my nature, rather than just adopt them from a book or example. There are a few lessons learned along the way that make it easier.

First of all, it helps to have a definition of spirituality -- or whatever word you choose -- that fits your style, something that you can say comfortably. I define spirituality as "meaningful living," and I view it as orthogonal to religiosity. It is connecting at a deep level with my own spirit or soul or Being or me-ness or I am; this transfers to connecting with the spirits of others. When you communicate about it, you will be more comfortable with the words that fit you, though I encourage you not to place too much into the words themselves. It is sort of like clothing. If you're from Texas you may be comfortable in a cowboy hat and boots, if you're from Luzon you may be comfortable in a barong, and if you're from Oahu you may be comfortable in a grass skirt. Try wearing these things out of your element, and you will both feel and look funny to others. Spirituality is the same way. So you see, the clothing is a metaphor, and actually the choice of words is an even subtler metaphor. It's not the choice of words, it is the comfort with them.

Another important thing to note is that spiritual or mindful living (whatever you want to call it) is a skill just like any other. When you're first starting out, you don't really know how to incorporate it into your life yet. You copy from books or other examples and it seems unnatural to others because it is unnatural to you. It is like learning to play the piano; nobody wants to hear your playing at first (except for your teachers, maybe) because you're still on the very basics, you still make mistakes, and you have not developed your own style, yet. Can you really expect that your Chopsticks-level spiritual practice is going to be super-inspiring? Bear with it until you know how to live this way. Its actually quite rewarding to work through this phase.

There are a number of other issues that you might bump up against. Here are a few of the common ones.

1. People you have known for a while may feel your change as a form of judgment. Even though you may have honestly made a complete change to non-judgment (hard, hard, hard), a spiritual practice often comes across as self-righteous and obnoxious. By changing your view of the world and refusing to interact in the same way as previously, this can be upsetting to people we love who see our changes as challenging their ways of life. This concept is explored in the New York Times opinion piece Being and Mindfulness.
2. If you're like many people, you may often err on the side of proselytizing. After learning something new and very useful, it is natural to want to share this with friends, family, and others who might think that you sound like an obnoxious lecturer. The lessons of Consoling Wisely need to be taken into account here, especially: "When you communicate your views, do so casually and in a nondogmatic manner. Allow the people you speak with to ask questions. Offer only as much information as they are ready to hear." From the Daily Om's Expanding Their Vision.
3. You may find difficulty relating to people with whom you previously spent a lot of time ranting and complaining. When you engage in the practices of positivity and non-judgment, complaint-based relationships are no longer as interesting to you. So it seems that you would no longer be able to relate to these friends. But perhaps, this is a challenge to learn to be compassionate along with them, acknowledge their suffering, and connect with them based on who they are rather than an mutual grudges. This is much easier said than done, I know. I often catch myself in the complaining side of things and can commiserate with others.

All in all, where it may feel that spiritual practices are isolating and solitary, even dehumanizing, they are really the contrary. By following a practice of compassion and loving-kindness, you begin to notice the interconnectedness of everything, even the amount of people that it takes to bring A Pistachio to your table. Matthieu Ricard addresses this eloquently in Happiness:

But how, you might ask, can I avoid being shattered when my child is sick and I know he's going to die? How can I not be torn up at the sight of thousands of civilian war victims being deported or mutilated? Am I supposed to stop feeling? What could ever make me accept something like that? Who wouldn't be affected by it, including the most serene of wise men? The difference between the sage and the ordinary person is that the former can feel unconditional love for those who suffer and do everything in his power to attenuate their pain without allowing his lucid vision of existence to be shaken. The essential thing is to be available to others without giving in to despair when the natural episodes of life and death follow their course.

This post is dedicated to my close friend and mindfulness companion Erica Knight. A lot of the concepts in this blog come from realizations made during conversations with her where she challanges my practices, holding me accountable to live the most meaningful life that I can live. She helps maintain humanity and grounding into spiritual practices, keeping me away from purely intellectual and theoretical understandings.