when things fall apart - pema chdrn

[...]... Compassion—not what we thought Love Buddha nature Courage These are code words for things we don’t know in our minds, but any of us could experience them These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment 2 When Things Fall Apart When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to... death Something that was horrifying and scary had turned into a gift 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... out-breath is the object of meditation—the elusive, fluid, everchanging out-breath, ungraspable and yet continuously arising 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 I once explained this technique to a friend who had spent years doing a very focused concentration on both the in- and out-breaths as well as another object When. .. 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? When we’ve lost something, how do we react? When we feel we’ve gained something, how do we react? When we feel pleasure or pain, is it as simple as that? Do we just feel pleasure or pain? Or is there a whole libretto that goes along with it? When we become... the time We experience it in the form of disappointment, in the form of things not working out We experience it in the form of things always being in a process of change When the day ends, when the second ends, when we breathe out, that’s death in everyday life Death in everyday life could also be defined as experiencing all the things that we don’t want Our marriage isn’t working; our job isn’t coming... is the nature of things Being able to appreciate, being able to look closely, being able to open our minds—this is the core of maitri When the rivers and air are polluted, when families and nations are at war, when homeless wanderers fill the highways, these are traditional signs of a dark age Another is that people become poisoned by self-doubt and become cowards Practicing loving-kindness toward... questions get bigger and our inquisitiveness more vast We want to know about loss so we might understand other people when their lives are falling apart We want to know about gain so we might understand other people when they are delighted or when they get arrogant and puffed up and carried away When we become more insightful and compassionate about how we ourselves get hooked, we spontaneously feel more... anything We call something bad; we call it good But really we just don’t know When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell In fact, that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable Thinking that we can find some lasting... mindfulness and refraining We were told just to notice what our physical movements were when we felt uncomfortable I began to notice that when I felt uncomfortable, I did things like pull my ear, scratch my nose or head when it didn’t itch, or straighten my collar I made all kinds of little jumpy, jittery movements when I felt like I was losing ground Our instruction was not to try to change anything,... That’s when I pinned that sign up on my wall Life is a good teacher and a good friend Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended . follows: Chödrön, Pema. When things fall apart: heart advice for difficult times/ Pema Chödrön. p. cm. eISBN 97 8-0 -8 34 8-2 10 0-2 ISBN 1-5 706 2-1 6 0-8 ISBN 1-5 706 2-3 4 4-9 ISBN 1-5 706 2-9 6 9-2 1. Religious. let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment. 2 When Things Fall Apart When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is. Title. BQ5410.C434 1997 9 6-9 509 39 4-3 ′ 444—dc20 CIP To Sakyong Mipham, with devotion, love, and gratitude CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Intimacy with Fear 2. When Things Fall Apart 3. This Very