230625 - On Renunciation
Metta. Loving-kindness. Friendliness. Gentleness.
This is what I’ve been cultivating. Trying to open up. Open my heart, literally. A deep sense of compassion for the situation I find myself in. I think we have to start by loving ourselves. Do not mistake this for selfishness. It’s very far off. We do not allow our own bullshit. But we see it with gentleness. We allow ourselves to be, to exist. We find ourselves where we are, and that’s what we allow. It’s so freeing. It’s finding the edges, those places where we hurt, where we start clinging, those places that makes us scared to go further. Right at that edge, that’s where we leap. That’s where we explore. And we do it with joy. Because it’s a joyful process, really. We can just laugh at our own stiffness, at where we’re hung up. We acknowledge it, we laugh at it, and we allow it. We don’t try to push it away, to “destroy” it, or to tuck it away. We just see it and we open up to it. We soften into it. Those neuroses(?) that used to be a huge problem, we stop taking them so seriously.
I’ve been away from home for almost 3 months now. It’s of course scary. Sometimes lonely, sometimes uncomfortable. But we can’t take that too seriously. Home is where our heart is. And mine keeps pounding away in my chest. For me, the process has been to learn how to be a beginner. To leave all I know and am good at and dive out, being okay with failing, okay with being new, unexperienced, and bad. That’s the only place you can truly start from. The one threshold you have to learn how to surmount, over and over again. Because that’s how you can truly learn. By accepting, by really letting yourself see, where you are at. And then you start walking from there.
For so long I was afraid of my body. I had given up. It’s too weird, to messed up, too far gone. It took years just to learn how to begin to accept it, where it is. To really look at it. Then the work can begin. So now I’m here, in India, starting Yoga, really looking at the path that I have in front of me. What else can you do but laugh? Rejoice, actually. I look back at where I was, and I feel proud just for the fact that I dare to try. It’s the only thing that we can do. Accomplishments on the path are nothing compared to the will, the courage, of the newcomer, of the beginner, who looks at himself and all his shortcomings, looks at the long and treacherous road, and starts walking.
I want to write some things from this book I’ve been reading, “The Wisdom of No Escape” by Pema Chödrön. It might be a handful.
Renunciation is seeing clearly how we hold back, how we pull away, how we shut down, how we close off, and then learning how to open. It’s about saying yes to whatever is put on your plate, whatever knocks on your door, whatever calls you up on your telephone. How we actually do that has to do with coming up against our edge, which is the moment when we learn what renunciation means. … How do we renounce? How do we work with this tendency to block and to freeze and to refuse to take another step towards the unknown? If our edge is like a huge stone wall with a door in it, how do we learn to open that door and step through it, again and again, so that life becomes a process of growing up, becoming more and more fearless and flexible, more and more able to play like a raven in the wind? … If we understand renunciation properly, we also will serve as an inspiration for other people because of our hero quality, or warrior quality, the fact that each of us meets our challenges all the time. When somebody works with hardship in an openhearted humorous way like a warrior, when somebody cultivates his or her bravery, everyone responds, because we know we can do that too. We know that this person wasn’t born perfect but was inspired to cultivate warriorship and a gentle heart and clarity. … 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 refusin, 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. This is yet another opportunity to develop loving-kindness for yourself, which results in playfulness - learning to play like a raven in the wind.
That’s it. What more is there to say? The entire path. It’s about exploring our edges, exploring those places where we tense up, and learning to let them go. To soften into them, to open up. “Let it touch your heart.”