What a difference a week can make! I am feeling very hopeful and strong today. I am content with my life and its course. What made this change? Many things, but I must say that perhaps the most important was for me to recall an aphorism I coined a few years ago: "The way out is down".
Whether we like it or not, the way out is down. When we are in despair or darkness, when we have to struggle just to make it through another day, we can strive to go up (cheer ourselves, turn to external pleasures to lift us up, try alcohol, drugs, sex, being with others, blame the circumstances or other people) but it doesn't work that way, as far as I can tell. We must have the courage to go down into the depths of that darkness to emerge on the other side victorious, to emerge into the light.
This is not an original concept, by any means. Perhaps its most famous proponent is the poet Robert Bly, who writes and speaks about it quite a bit. His inspiration, in turn, is the world of myth and fairy tale, wherein the the hero or heroine goes down into the pit in order to find the light. This is one of the universals of storytelling. We know that Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and their coevals had to go into the darkness (of the forest, of the hearth, of the long sleep, etc.) before they could be redeemed. Hansel and Gretel could not be adults until they came through the woody exile imposed upon them by their stepmother (and what is that stepmother but an avatar of capricious fate, ever and again throwing us into the quagmire of our daily lives?). It may seem sick to cook the witch up in the oven intended for them, but mythopoetically, nothing else makes sense. The witch (which I suppose is a stand-in for our own insecurity) must be entirely destroyed before we can emerge to claim our birthright.
And we will never be the same people we were when we went into the shadow realm. Frodo Baggins was just never the same hobbit, though he was a wiser and kinder one, following his harrowing journey through darkness in many forms. Nor will I be, though that is perhaps what frightens me most. I don't relish the idea that I can and will change so thoroughly and that such a change is not within my power to choose. Yet resistance to that change is precisely what keeps us caught up in the circle of samsara, in the round of suffering that simply never ends if we don't learn the lessons available to us during such times of sorrow. Life IS change and to ride this rollercoaster is to be forever in the midst of it.
The first noble truth of the Buddha's path is that there is suffering (or, as modern translators seem to prefer, "there is dissatisfaction"). Our lives are such that the things which cause us to feel that something is amiss will happen over and over again. It's not a plot against us, it is just the way things are. Our car wears out or gets hit. We fall and break an arm. We lose a job. We divorce. A loved one dies. A cherished friendship does not last. We age. We grow ill. We face our own death. It happens. This is the stuff of life and the stuff that can lead to suffering, if we allow it to be.
But it doesn't have to be that way. We need to recall that the third noble truth is that there is an end to suffering. The fourth noble truth details the path out of suffering, but can be summarized in the simple word, "acceptance". If we can come to accept what comes our way as the reality of what is, our suffering will come to an end. This is not, I should emphasize, passivity. Often we should and even must take action to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and others, but acceptance must come first. Take a cancer diagnosis, for instance (though, to be clear, I do not now nor ever have had such a diagnosis). Though we may be angry, afraid, dejected and depressed by this, when we come to accept the diagnosis, we can find joy not only in the other aspects of our lives, but in the cancer itself. Hundreds of books (and even a few good ones) have been written about the wonderful teacher such a diagnosis can be. But it would be foolish to stop there. For most of us, in most situations, we will also want to use our newfound acceptance to guide us to study the disease and treatments for it, to realistically weigh our abilities and to do all we can to eradicate it. If we proceed in anger or fear, though, we do not give ourselves the benefit of the great wisdom that can arise with acceptance. And when the time comes when we must lay down our weapons and determine that the cancer will eventually take our lives, we can lie back in the arms of that acceptance to help us take the next step in our journey with love and calm. If we go through an experience such as that while railing bitterly against the unfairness of it all, we will not be able to harness the great peace of surrender.
Whether we like it or not, the way out is down. When we are in despair or darkness, when we have to struggle just to make it through another day, we can strive to go up (cheer ourselves, turn to external pleasures to lift us up, try alcohol, drugs, sex, being with others, blame the circumstances or other people) but it doesn't work that way, as far as I can tell. We must have the courage to go down into the depths of that darkness to emerge on the other side victorious, to emerge into the light.
This is not an original concept, by any means. Perhaps its most famous proponent is the poet Robert Bly, who writes and speaks about it quite a bit. His inspiration, in turn, is the world of myth and fairy tale, wherein the the hero or heroine goes down into the pit in order to find the light. This is one of the universals of storytelling. We know that Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and their coevals had to go into the darkness (of the forest, of the hearth, of the long sleep, etc.) before they could be redeemed. Hansel and Gretel could not be adults until they came through the woody exile imposed upon them by their stepmother (and what is that stepmother but an avatar of capricious fate, ever and again throwing us into the quagmire of our daily lives?). It may seem sick to cook the witch up in the oven intended for them, but mythopoetically, nothing else makes sense. The witch (which I suppose is a stand-in for our own insecurity) must be entirely destroyed before we can emerge to claim our birthright.
And we will never be the same people we were when we went into the shadow realm. Frodo Baggins was just never the same hobbit, though he was a wiser and kinder one, following his harrowing journey through darkness in many forms. Nor will I be, though that is perhaps what frightens me most. I don't relish the idea that I can and will change so thoroughly and that such a change is not within my power to choose. Yet resistance to that change is precisely what keeps us caught up in the circle of samsara, in the round of suffering that simply never ends if we don't learn the lessons available to us during such times of sorrow. Life IS change and to ride this rollercoaster is to be forever in the midst of it.
The first noble truth of the Buddha's path is that there is suffering (or, as modern translators seem to prefer, "there is dissatisfaction"). Our lives are such that the things which cause us to feel that something is amiss will happen over and over again. It's not a plot against us, it is just the way things are. Our car wears out or gets hit. We fall and break an arm. We lose a job. We divorce. A loved one dies. A cherished friendship does not last. We age. We grow ill. We face our own death. It happens. This is the stuff of life and the stuff that can lead to suffering, if we allow it to be.
But it doesn't have to be that way. We need to recall that the third noble truth is that there is an end to suffering. The fourth noble truth details the path out of suffering, but can be summarized in the simple word, "acceptance". If we can come to accept what comes our way as the reality of what is, our suffering will come to an end. This is not, I should emphasize, passivity. Often we should and even must take action to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and others, but acceptance must come first. Take a cancer diagnosis, for instance (though, to be clear, I do not now nor ever have had such a diagnosis). Though we may be angry, afraid, dejected and depressed by this, when we come to accept the diagnosis, we can find joy not only in the other aspects of our lives, but in the cancer itself. Hundreds of books (and even a few good ones) have been written about the wonderful teacher such a diagnosis can be. But it would be foolish to stop there. For most of us, in most situations, we will also want to use our newfound acceptance to guide us to study the disease and treatments for it, to realistically weigh our abilities and to do all we can to eradicate it. If we proceed in anger or fear, though, we do not give ourselves the benefit of the great wisdom that can arise with acceptance. And when the time comes when we must lay down our weapons and determine that the cancer will eventually take our lives, we can lie back in the arms of that acceptance to help us take the next step in our journey with love and calm. If we go through an experience such as that while railing bitterly against the unfairness of it all, we will not be able to harness the great peace of surrender.
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