Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen, this is Wake Up Call 444, and here we are, at the very last chapter of Pema Chodron’s book, The Places That Scare You. The chapter is called, “The In-Between State,” and the way she describes that state is as a scary place, maybe the scariest. Maybe hence the book title?
Pema says, “it’s important to hear about this in-between state. Otherwise we think the warrior’s journey is one way or the other, either we’re all caught up or we’re free. The fact is, we spend a long time in the middle.”
What does Pema mean by “one way or the other?” And what is this “middle” where we spend a long time?
This past week there’s been a lot on my mind. I’ve had worry and fear and uncertainty. I’ve had aversion. I’ve had all three poisons, really: aversion, greed, and delusion. A lot of samsara, sorrow. It’s just one of those weeks, one of those moments.
And this is how life is. Those Eight Worldly Winds, pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute? They blow through our lives, all day, every day, and when we pay attention, we can see them. We can lick a finger and hold it up and see which way the wind is blowing, in any moment. When I remember to do that, or more granularly, remember to use the portable mindfulness practice of STOP – stop, take a breath, observe (in this case, which wind is blowing), proceed – it’s often fairly easy to see which wind it is, in any given moment, or, which winds, plural. Because for me, anyway, it’s often more than one.
This week, each time up put up my finger, or STOPPED, there was fear, sorrow, shame (much of this goes into the aversion bucket, and some in the greed, or grasping, bucket). These were the winds of pain, loss, blame, disrepute. And, my finger would also catch plenty of love, ease, mindfulness (meaning, none of the three poisons was present). These were the winds of pleasure, gain, praise, fame. These Eight Worldly Winds, they’re just the way life is. They’re how it feels to be human.
The mindfulness question then becomes, do we see them (do we STOP, or do we put up a finger, into the wind?), and do we see our reactions to them (are we paying attention moment to moment, with courage, with grace), and can we stay with what we see? For me this goes to what Pema says when she observes that we tend to think everything is one way or the other (“we’re either all caught up or we’re free”). Meaning, we take our practice to be something it isn’t. We mistakenly believe that we’re either not present, in which case we’re operating at the mercy of our conditioning and as she says, we’re caught; or, we’ve let go completely, we’re blissfully surfing the waves of life, and we’re completely free.
When she says, no, that’s not right, we spend a long time in the middle, my understanding is that she’s saying, once we are really dedicated to our practice, dedicated to mindfulness, then, as we make our way down that Path, we can begin to see how in fact, we spend most of our time in that middle ground of being mindful, and also being deeply uncomfortable with what we observe. Or another way of saying that is, we spend most of our time in not knowing.
For me, “not knowing” has a few dimensions. On a very practical level, not knowing can be as simple (but not always easy) as realizing I’m not sure about who said what or who’s right. I feel like this can be problematic in the context of practicing law, in one way of thinking, but it can also be very good way of stepping into a case. My most embarrassing moments as a lawyer were invariably caused by me thinking I knew something and discovering I didn’t – whether it was a point of fact, a point of law, a strategic point, a prediction, or really anything. So this level of not knowing can be useful.
It’s also super useful at home. The minute I’m sure I’m right, I’m in trouble. When my husband and I were married a friend told us, you can be right, or you can be married. I try to remember that when I think I’m right, at home, with varying degrees of success.
On the next level, I don’t know what’s going to happen this summer. I want to know. I want to concretize: there’s nothing more I want to do. But it’s impossible. I can’t know. Not only can I not know that everyone will be alright, but it’s the opposite: I know no one will always be alright, because all of us are being buffeted by those eight winds, all the time.
On the next level, I don’t know how long I’ll live in my pretty house, in my sweet life, or how long anyone I know and love will be around either. And on the deepest level of all, I don’t know what will happen to the world, politically, in terms of the planet, what will happen to our species and the other species as well. Most of the time I put all of that “not knowing” away, because it’s so big and scary. But Pema says, “anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark [this] in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. … By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like we know what’s happening, we begin to access our inner strength.”
It's that shifting ground, that anxiety and heartbreak of not knowing what will happen and yet also knowing that not knowing is the only reality. Or as the Zen folks say, “not knowing is most intimate.” I’m trying to stay there, in that middle, with the anxiety and heartbreak, on that shifting ground of not knowing and not hoping to know.
The funny thing is, it’s also an incredibly joyful place to be. When I can really be there, it’s not just anxiety and heartbreak, because it turns out to be true that life is neither this nor that. It’s everything. It’s also joyful and peaceful. And I think - you’ll have to verify for yourself, but I think, that if we pay attention and stay in that middle, we realize that’s how it is for everyone: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. If we hold up our fingers, all of the winds are always blowing. And then we can see, right here and now, how this being human is not easy, and yet how seeing that, and realizing it’s true for everyone, breaks open the heart. Or at least it breaks mine open.
It’s like Pema says: “staying with [not knowing] is what heals. It allows us to let go of our self-importance. It’s how the warrior learns to love.” And that’s what we’re really trying to learn, isn’t it?
Let’s sit.
