As I continue this year by year spiritual journey (the same journey Rumi calls 'this being human') I'm bumping into joy over and over again discovering that Wisdom is around us everywhere.
Every religion has profound strands of human and divine insights stored, treasured, and proclaimed. (Every religion also has lots of ways of distorting wisdom, too, smothering it under layers of fear, self-righteousness, nationalism, and lethargy.)
The natural world, science, poetry, literature--all areas of life also have profound lessons and classes in Wisdom. What a wonderful convergence is going on in the world for those who begin to trust that when we know the truth it sets us free.
Consider the convergence between the wisdom Jesus brought to life by dying--both in metaphor and in his own life story--and this Buddhist insight, simply stated in these two paragraphs of Pema's:
"Basically, disappointment, embarrassment, and all these places where we just cannot feel good are a sort of death. We've just lost our ground completely; we are unable to hold it together and feel that we're on top of things. Rather than realizing that it takes death for there to be birth, we just fight against the fear of death.
Reaching our limit is not some kind of punishment. It's actually a sign of health that, when we meet the place where we are about to die, we feel fear and trembling. A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us. Things like disappointment and anxiety are messengers telling us that we're about to go into unknown territory."
It's taken awhile, but now it's hitting me full in the face: 'Going into unknown territory' is exactly what it's like to follow Jesus.
He trained those who followed him by taking them into unknown territory every week or maybe even every day. Those followers either quit or grew. They died a little bit every week or day or hour, or they dropped out. There are no alternatives.
This stuff Pema's talking about, this practice is about getting with the program, going ahead and accepting once and for all that if growth takes death then, by God, we're gonna learn to die gracefully, bravely, lovingly and regularly!
Wisdom is always giving us little glimpses of how to do this, how to grow. Familiar habits and patterns are always giving us little excuses not to grow--giving us 'reasons' to stay put, fearful, and unchanged.
This 'little practice' Pema gives us of using disappointment and anxiety, etc., as reminders that we're stuck (for us Christians, that Jesus has left the building!) is wonderfully helpful on the spiritual path. The very things that have always slowed us down become the very things that start moving us along. This kind of practice strengthens our spiritual muscles and re-tunes our wisdom receptors.
Try it. Notice when you feel lousy. Lean into it.
Notice how you feel lousy, where you feel lousy; notice what feeling lousy does to you.
Be kind to yourself in each moment of noticing.
Notice that you have a choice about how to respond, how to choose what comes next.
Notice what it's like and how you change going into unknown territory.
Notice if these little deaths really do lead to bigger Life.
By noticing and choosing, in small yet potent ways, we learn what's true and regularly experience for ourselves what sets us free.
