The Return of the Spiritual Warrior

I think I have some explaining to do. But that'll come later. First, I wanted to share something...

Years ago, I bought the book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron. I've carried it around in my bag, brought it on long weekends out of town, and kept it by my bedside at home, but I've never read it.

I picked it up again today. I read a chapter entitled, "This Very Moment is the Perfect Teacher". Chodron writes,

Each day, we're given many opportunities to open up or shut down. The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can't handle whatever is happening. It's too much. It's gone too far. We feel bad about ourselves... Basically, life has nailed us.

These opportunities, or 'moments', as she also refers to them, can stir up feelings of anger, resentment, embarrassment, disappointment and fear. We do not feel in control of what is happening to us. We reach our limit, and fall apart.

But wait- this is Buddhism after all, so there must be something wonderfully valuable about feeling like crap.

These moments are when the spiritual warriors within us emerge. We look at the things that are challenging us as messengers "telling us we're about to go into unknown territory." Just don't freeze. Don't stop moving forward. Step beyond fear and hope and see this place as a "doorway to sanity." (I love the way this Buddhist nun writes!)

The egolessness of Buddhism aside, I know I'm a spiritual warrior. Years ago I learned that confronting difficult moments head on comes pretty easily to me. I somehow knew that it was the fastest and easiest route to happiness and to learning something from an otherwise icky situation. But a person doesn't build up a tolerance for confronting difficult situations. You cannot get numb to it, like slaughtering chickens, (just finished reading that part in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma). That's not being a Spiritual Warrior. That's being a fraud. Besides, as Chodron writes,

We might think, as we become more open, that it's going to take bigger catastrophes for us to reach or limit. The interesting thing is that, as we open more and more, it's the big ones that immediately wake us up and the little things that catch us off our guard. However, no matter what the size, color or shape is, the point is still to lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it.

And just because I know I can get through something, and that there are spiritual and emotional gains to the experience, there have been several times when I have chosen to run. Or avoid. Or refuse to accept when I have reached my limit.

When I started this blog and wrote the e-mail to my friends and family, it was the first time that I referred to Charlie as autistic. Doesn't matter if he's 'mildly autistic' or 'high functioning' or 'non-verbal'- as recipients of the news, we all have different limits. Mild can hit just as hard as... not so mild. And what I was saying in the e-mail wasn't just that Charlie is autistic, but that I have an autistic son.

So if the news raised feelings of anger, embarrassment, fear, failure, loss of control, think of these feelings as gifts. Sit with these feelings for a while. Examine them. Settle in with them. And see where they lead you.

Start a blog.