Broken Open Part 8 of 8: Guarding the Eggs
September 22, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Man: Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.
Psychiatrist: Well, why don’t you turn him in?
Man: I would, but I need the eggs.
-Woody Allen
Sometimes we are like the man who does not want to turn his brother in because we need the eggs. What eggs? Our own illusion of our self-fabricated lives. We rather hold onto a worn-out illusion because it is easier than force ourselves to change or to see ourselves differently. As Lesser says, “We don’t want to consider that perhaps we’re wrong about a couple of things: perhaps our victim stance is a cover-up; maybe our ex or our boss or our parent is not the monster we’ve made them out to be. Maybe we need to ask ourselves, What’s in it for us to keep seeing the world in a certain light? What eggs do we think we need?”
Lesser warns that we also should not be trying to court catastrophe in hopes that we can have an incredible divine rod hit us from above. We are not more or less special because of a certain circumstance that has befallen us. Instead, we can glean from the myriad large and small “encumbrances” that affect our daily lives and that can provide grist for the mill. We should be alert for life’s messages to help guide us in our journey. If we are broken open, then we can learn from not being broken down. If we have not been broken open, we can still be our own catalyst for change so that we do not continue to guard our own precious illusory eggs.
Broken Open Part 7 of 8: Comfortable with Uncertainty
September 18, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Another Tibetan Buddhist monk, Pema Chödrön, wrote a book, Comfortable with Uncertainty, that helped Elizabeth Lesser shed her own fears and anxiety. Chödrön learned her lessons from Chögyam Trungpa (mentioned in last friday’s blog) who lost his family, teachers and country after the Chinese invasion of Tibet broke him open radically to being present in an unsettling experience.
Trungpa teaches that many people pray for life to turn out in a certain way. Instead, he encourages us all to learn from what life already has decreed, i.e., for us to look at life’s messages in the events that we have already lived. As Lesser says, “I try to apply Trungpa’s wisdom especially when I am at work and nothing seems to flow easily. The meeting that is turning acrimonious, the project that is failing, or the assistant who is moving: Each of these situations is a reservoir of meaning, a bank of rich information. The answer to every problem is wrapped in the problem itself. I need only stop resisting, open wide to reality, and decode the message.”
Well put. Sometimes, we try to force our own destiny and only accept a destiny that is framed by our narrow construct of it. If things are not going our way, we become alarmed rather than look at what message that a certain event may actually hold for us. For example, I was involved in a minor fender-bender that was my fault. I thought I was in the left lane in a narrow street but there was another lane to my left, as I tried to turn into an empanada restaurant, scraping the unsuspecting car to the left of me. I remained at peace during the incident, was thankful that no one was hurt, and offered a prayer of gratitude that I could learn to be a more careful driver in the future. That was my message that I decoded.
Life may not throw at you a perfect recipe every time. You have to make a great meal from whatever recipe is given to you. Find that hidden message in your daily life and look with appreciation at the message that may help you move forward in life along your journey. Remain comfortable with the uncertainty of your future life. You can do that when you start to see only messages rather than obstacles in your life’s journey.
Broken Open Part 6 of 8: No Birth, No Death
September 17, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
One of the world’s most revered meditation teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches the concept of “no birth, no death” and has quoted Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier to support his beliefs: “Rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd.” (“Nothing is born, nothing can die.”) Thich Nhat Hanh, known affectionately as Thay, has been a longstanding advocate for peace in previously wartorn Vietnam, his native country, which he was compelled to flee during the era of the Vietnam War. He continued to teach the message of peace from abroad and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr.
His concept of “no birth, no death” is distinctly Buddhist, as he is a Buddhist monk. To illustrate he holds up a single sheet of paper and exclaims that this is not just a piece of paper in his hand but he is also holding a tree since the paper emerged from a tree along with the clouds that caused rain to facilitate the tree’s growth that led to the paper. Further, we touch sunshine when we touch the paper because the sunshine nourished the growth of the tree just as much as the clouds did.
What Thay is getting at beyond a metaphysical explanation of a sheet of paper is that continuity of life rather than the abrupt starting and end points that we typically consider are what matter. Without needing to be a Buddhist, we can see each of us as continuity of one another and a continuity of a larger life force. By doing so, we relinquish our ego more fervently like Ram Dass has done. Hopefully, we can do that without the need to be as broken open as hard as the great guru. We need to see ourselves as a part of the whole. Today, hold a sheet of paper and touch the sunshine. See everyone around you as just an extension of who you are and where you have come. Divorce your own egoistic mind and share in our commonality and continuity.
Broken Open Part 5 of 8: Fierce Grace
September 16, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
There was no other story in Broken Open more affecting to my soul and that has left an indelible imprint on it than the story of Ram Dass, which I have alluded to in a previous blog. After reading this story, I have oft repeated its significance to my patients, staff, friends, and family, as it has become part of the fabric of my mind and heart.
Richard Alpert was a young psychology professor at Harvard in the 1960s on a meteoric rise in his career until his experimentation with the counter culture and drug expanding experiments alongside his colleague Timothy Leary forced him out of the conservative academic bastion that did not accept his liberal leanings. After a trip to India in the 1970s, he donned the name Ram Dass, meaning “Servant of God”, by his mentor there. He became a great teacher and writer, most famously for his book, Be Here Now.
In 1997, Ram Dass suffered a catastrophic, hemorrhagic stroke that left him wheelchair bound and literally speechless. His book, Still Here, recounts his emergence from that incident that had only a 10% chance of survival, a fact that did not escape the appreciative guru. Lesser had worked with Ram Dass at her Omega Institute on many occasions but had not seen him due to a personal disagreement and subsequently happened to be out of town upon his next visit to Omega. When the stroke occurred, she was simultaneously grieving the loss of her 85-year-old father and so had not seen Ram Dass until about a year after his stroke.
When she encountered him for the first time in a long while, she felt her heart settled and his as well. They embraced as old friends, colleagues, and heart warriors. When Lesser asked Ram Dass what the stroke had done to him, he replied, “Before…before stroke, before–happy grace…love grace…good things kept happening to me. Then, stroke…lose things…also grace…fierce grace.”
Lesser returned, “I understand. What did you lose? What did fierce grace take away?”
“Ego”, Ram Dass said, “Ego, gone. Nothing more to lose. Ego breaks open–then you see who you really are. The ego. The ego. It’s like this wheelchair. It’s a…It’s a beautiful wheelchair. Use it. Enjoy it! Just don’t think it is you…Don’t take yourself so, so…personally.”
I think that is a beautiful exchange and helps us to remember that we are just “bozos on the bus” of life. We are not our ego. We are not our own prideful self. We are merely reflections of our divine origins and must be humble in the face of that knowledge.
Broken Open Part 4 of 8: The Phoenix Process
September 15, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
There are many names for a rebirth, not physical one of course, but a spiritual one. The one that Lesser uses is of the Egyptian tale of the Phoenix, the legendary bird that returns every 500 years, sits himself down in a bed of cinnamon and myrrh, lights himself on fire, and burns himself, only to rise anew from his own ashes.
This vivid imagery is to have one look within to see what is the fire that needs to be lit to burn an old self and to bring oneself forward into a new life, a better life, and a richer one as well. She says that many of the women she works with live lives to please others around them without owning up to the fear of letting that way of life go. The fire they need to burn is to let go of their need to live a surrogate life.
She has observed that men on the other hand oftentimes live a half-lived life because of their inability to feel or to offer compassion. When they go through the phoenix process, they awaken with joy, empathy, and with an open heart.
What is your fire? What will you burn so that you can rise again as a phoenix into a new and more vivid existence? What are the vestiges of your old self that are lingering before the fire: lack of faith, hatred, fear, ego? What will it take for you to be reborn through the fire?