Going Slowly

  Today the driveways are covered in snow, and naturally, everything starts to slow down. People have to shovel to get their cars out on the road, which means more delays, while people on the move have to keep themselves from slipping. There are so rarely times to slow down our brains and be at the same pace as our bodies. Meanwhile, it is even harder to slow down the racing thoughts in our heads. So we need constant reminders to take our time and really appreciate something.

   I would like to describe the idea of slowing down to see how thoughts become "things". I wonder if you have noticed times when one makes a "thing" out of something in their mind. A criticism becomes "I am like this", and we even see ourselves as the object of the criticism, or the person within the thought. But in that gap between hearing a harsh word and solidifying it into something solid, we can slow down and observe the rawness and sense of fragility. 

     When discussing such an experience, the American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron uses words like "tender" or "vulnerability", but I have a hard time relating to these words, so I prefer to think of it as "being at the mercy of...". Somehow, we are held by things, both visible and invisible, and it's only in moments when we feel like we are about to be dropped that we become aware of the ways in which we are held in a support by the people and arrangements around us.  We can probably afford to stay in this state of "Being held" to the point where we feel more humble. I am not the one solely supporting myself, and what happens to me is often (inter)dependent on the forces around me. Yet, indeed, anything can change in any given moment, and loss is just a breath away.

    There really isn't anything to do with this sense of "feeling supported yet fragile". But somehow we make it into a "thing", such as pride (wanting to retreat into defenses or ego), and self-immolation (another ego, only calling oneself the "worst" instead of the best). Sometimes we even attempt to beg for mercy from some higher being. What we are most afraid of is, in that moment, the feeling that there is nothing really fixed or secure about the self. The self is not like an armored tortoise; it is always prone to some new thing that challenges its sense of enduring permanence.

   The important point is that when this kind of fragility strikes us, we should try to stay there and not go any place. Look into the sense of nothingness/everythingness that is this present totality, that cannot be grasped or even grappled with. And then we might find ourselves more comfortable with uncertainty, although we continue to strive to keep afloat. This isn't to say that we stop striving to achieve, but again, we do it with the full knowledge that there is no one who gains or loses from it. It is just working with conditions to create the best harmony within and without.