These are frightening times.
It would be reasonable to want to run and hide. But, there is an alternative. That alternative is not our usual strategies. It’s not stand and fight. It’s not medicate our way past it. It’s not checking out till someone else handles it.
The way out is the way in. It is the completely outrageous alternative of facing the present with openness, dignity and grace.
Surrender to now.
It is an outrageous idea. Instead of taking refuge in our anger, addictions, or delusions, we can take refuge FROM checking out in ignorance by turning instead TO the present moment. Perhaps we cannot singularly change the dire circumstances of our world, but we can change ourselves into instruments of sanity. In this way, we help the world by being a moment of peace in all the crazy. There will be times when that will be enough.
Many wisdom traditions begin with the premise that we are powerless to control our lives. The immediacy of this condition begs the question why go forward at all? What is the point? With no payoff?, no reward, no purpose? What if there is no point, at all, but to simply be here in the thick?
Backed against this existential wall, with nowhere to turn, where do we go, but here?
Choice defines us. Perhaps whatever we choose, thus we create, and so we become. If we turn toward anger in an attempt to find strength, maybe we only create hatred. If we escape into the passions of our spirit and flesh, perhaps we create further addictions? If we fold ourselves in the fabric of time and space sucking the teats of our depression are we not just biding time until death? What kind of world are we creating when we are choosing to create ourselves by not choosing?
The outrageous alternative is the proposition that if we turn toward waking up, regardless of outcome, payoff or relief we are taking the first step of deciding to BE in our life, as it is. And, if nothing else, maybe this will help us to be a little more awake.
Faith in a non-theistic tradition is faith that present moment affords every opportunity to awaken. It is the faith that as long as we are awake then we are living OUR life. And living our life awake, is living the best life we can. Perhaps that makes it the best life possible for all concerned.
The Buddhist path begins with the assertion that, although powerless over the outcome of our life, we nonetheless have a choice as to how we live that life. When we are triggered by fear we can so easily succumb to the habit patterns of generations blinded by fear. Or, we can choose to wake up and re-establish agency in our life by accepting that fear. It is about abandoning all the escape hatches that lead only to death. It is about smiling in the face of fear, and cheering up in the face of unknowing. It is about bravery on an existential level.
The method for waking up in difficult times is to continually to take refuge in awakening and the avatars of wakefulness. For instance, Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha. While there are many interpretations of that, most traditions take the term “Buddha”, which means awake, to be quite literal. In the Vajrayana tradition we take refuge with our complete being (body, spirit and mind) in the full realization of the present moment (life). It is a kind of super-actualized version of the four foundations of mindfulness. So, rather than change the world, we first turn to training ourselves so we can contact that world more completely.
The first step is admitting powerlessness. Admitting that suffering is real and very much a part of our present experience. Once we accept that, we can look beyond and see what is actually there. Seeing things as they are, we can respond to our world, rather than react to shadowed projections. Then instead of dishing out aggression born of fear simply because it’s what we do out of reflex, we can pivot and turn directly into our fear and find an honest and true expression of ourselves in every moment. Fluid body, open heart and clear mind resting in the present moment.
The faith here is that if we can work on ourselves to the point that we can be a true help to those around us, then we are living our best life and sometimes that will be enough.
The practice of meditation is actually training in how to take refuge in the present. It’s not a belief in the spirit. It’s not an idea of the mind. It’s not a law set down by courts of man. It is a practical and tangible connection to our world in real time. Its being here now – not as a book title, or an idea to chew gum over. It’s about being here now, despite the danger, in spite of the fear, and because we care more for this world than we do for our own comfort.
And, really – how comfortable is it to simply mark time until we die?
The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is simply the world as it is. And, the more bruised that world is, the more it needs us. We have simply got to train ourselves away from becoming discouraged because the world is not the one we intended and begin instead in to participate in the world there is. This is not easy. It takes a lot of encouragement and support. But, you might find as we offer that support to each other, we begin to feel that support for ourselves.