Getting to Know the Nature of Restlessness and Fear

Yesterday I wrote about Refraining. I went back again this morning to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart, yet again, to read what she has to say about it. It's probably the 20th time I've read it. But it's not like reading a novel where you know how things will turn out and get bored with the story. It's more like reading a book about biking through America while you're actually biking through America. How do you find the scenic routes, the best out-of-the-way restaurants, the B&B's? How do you repair a flat, replace a tire, true-up a handle bar? What do you need to know and what do you need to do to make the trip safe and memorable?

Anyway, if you've caught a glimpse of how Refraining can be a very tasty practice, you're bound to learn more and enjoy it by reading these paragraphs from When Things Fall Apart.

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Through refraining, we see that there's something between the arising of craving--or aggression or loneliness or whatever it might be--and whatever action we take as a result. There's something there in us that we don't want to experience, and we never do experience because we're so quick to act.

Refraining is the method for getting to know the nature of this restlessness and fear. It's a method for settling into groundlessness. If we immediately entertain ourselves by talking, by acting, by thinking--if there's never any pause--we will never be able to relax. We will always be speeding through our lives. We'll always be stuck with what my grandfather called a good case of the jitters. Refraining is a way of making friends with ourselves at the most profound level possible. We can begin to relate with what's underneath all the bubbles and burps and farts, all the stuff that comes out and expresses itself as uptight, controlling, manipulative behavior, or whatever it is. Underneath all that  there's something very soft, very tender, that we experience as fear or edginess.

There has to be some kind of respect for the jitters, some understanding of how our emotions have the power to run us around in circles.  That understanding helps us discover how we increase our pain, how we increase our confusion, how we cause harm to ourselves. Because we have basic goodness, basic wisdom, basic intelligence, we can stop harming ourselves and harming others. Because of mindfulness, we see things when they arise. Because of our understanding we don't buy into the chain reaction that makes things grow from minute to expansive. We leave things minute. They stay tiny.

It all comes through learning to pause for a moment, learning not to just impulsively do the same thing again and again. It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space.

Anything can come up, anything can walk into our house; we can find anything sitting on our living-room couch, and we don't freak out. We have been thoroughly processed by coming to know ourselves, thoroughly processed by this honest, gentle mindfulness..