The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness
by Pema Chodron
I chose this to be my first book because I've been wanting to read something by Pema Chodron for a while now, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to do that. I decided to go with this book specifically because it sounded like a book that wasn't going to be an instructional on Buddhism, but more of a commentary on it, I guess. In hindsight I probably should have done a bit more research on her books and went from there, but it seems to have worked out okay anyway.
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So far (March 4) I'm 56 pages in (Chapter 10), and I'm really enjoying it. I started it on February 28th, and I've been keeping jot-notes as I go. I'll try to make some sense of them and start putting them here:
- My first impressions were that it was easy to read - not very wordy, and written in accessible language that isn't too dry.
- These chapters are actually transcriptions of talks that she gave during a month-long intensive at Gampo Abby to help the students stay focused and motivated.
- I noticed an over-all theme of her talks to this point (probably somewhere around page 14), and it seemed to me as if she's "preaching" (not really preaching, but I'm not sure of a word that would fit better) that you shouldn't change who you are as a person or the way you are, but that you need to recognize your faults and strengths and work with them so that you are truly able to know who you are, and you have to be okay with that no matter what. "Making friends with yourself"
- I've been finding that what she's been saying has really resonated with me, not in that it's something I think want to work at more in-depth, but in the sense that what she's saying is stuff that I already believe, so that I've been shaking my head "yes" a lot. (this is a comment from what I've read up till now, at page 56)
- Her thoughts on the dualistic nature of energy, on being "nonthestic", on joy, on hell (hell is resistance to life), and on what "life force" is, have all been very insightful for me. She's talked about these things in ways I've never thought about them before, but that seem very natural to me, if that makes any sense.
- She also mentioned about the sacredness of the circle at one point, and being pagan, I found this particularly interesting. She said that in drawing a circle around yourself, you are essentially putting yourself in the centre of the universe - the circle around you shows you that you are always in the sacred space. I thought this was a really neat way to look at it, and gave another layer of meaning to casting a circle during a ritual.
Update on March 7
I find reading this book is making me look at things in a different way, in that, when I get angry or upset about something someone has done, or at a customer at work, I try not to hang on to those feelings and just let them go. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Buddhist, and I'm not about to start a Buddhist sitting meditation practice, but I'm finding that I'm able to apply a lot of Pema's teachings or advice to my daily life, despite how different my spirituality is from hers.
There was a story she told about climbers going up a mountain, each group of them "meeting their edge" at a certain point and not being able to continue on. In the same chapter she also told about a mountain stream that got blocked with large boulders as it wound down the mountain. These stories are essentially talking about how you are the only obstacle in your life, despite trying to blame outside sources. If you can only move one boulder the stream will start flowing again, or if you're willing to challenge "that edge", then you might be able to continue on. She said that "life is a whole journey of meeting your edge again and again", and I really think there's truth to that. I think there are definitely exceptions to the rule, but by and large, I really enjoyed that whole chapter (11, I think).
She has a chapter on tonglen practice, which is essentially, breathing in the pain and suffering so that you can know what it means to be in pain and suffer, and then breathing out the happiness and peace so that you can share that with the rest of the world. I think it's an interesting concept.
She also said that "fear has to do with protecting your heart". That also resonated with me.
All in all, I've just been enjoying this book. It's not very big or long, so it would be easy to read it all in one go, but honestly, I think you would miss so much if you did that, which is why I'm reading it in small bits, every few days. That way I can digest what I've read, and really think about it. As I say that though, I'm thinking the next time I come back and update I'll have finished the book. Until then I guess!
Update on March 9
The last few sections of the book I found particularly good. There was a section where she was talking about rituals (in Chapter 14) and pretty much everything she said resonated with me in some way. She said that ritual keeps insight alive, and that it can also be like a time capsule, when its heartfelt. I could pretty much copy the entire passage in the book here because so much of it rang true to me, but for obvious reasons, I'm not going to do that.
In the next section, she talked about "allowing yourself and encouraging yourself not to always believe what you're taught, but to wonder about it". I think this is true for anything you encounter in life from things you learn in school to things you read or see on the news, and that we would all do well to follow this advice (something I've always thought more people should do on a daily basis). She also mentions that her teacher held the belief that "one should find the true meaning and not just accept another person's view without questioning it". I wholeheartedly believe this. What good is it if you're told to do something because it represents this or that, and you just do it without thinking about it? We need to ask "why?" a lot more than we do, and I also think that in order to form our own beliefs and views we have to question the views of others to see how they can apply to us.
I didn't fundamentally disagree with what she was saying in Chapter 16 about "sticking to one path", but I didn't exactly agree with everything either. She tended to refer to "spiritual materialism" as shopping, and said that when someone "shops" they are always trying to find security, and always trying to feel good about themselves. Spiritual materialism, is essentially, what I practice, and she says that "continual dabbling around in spiritual things is another form of materialism - always trying to get comfortable and secure, whereas if you stick with one specific path you would "meet all your dragons and be pushed out of the nest". Maybe this is the case for some people, but for me it's not the case at all. I think that to stick with the familiar is to find safety and security because it's what you know, and what you've become accustomed to. I get that she's saying you have to challenge yourself in order to stick with something, and that in sticking with something you will eventually come to know that thing fully, inside and out, but I also wholeheartedly believe that you can also do this without devoting your life to this one thing, and becoming so absorbed in it that you grow to have blinders on to the other things around you.
I have always shared the view that she voices near the end of the book when she says "just because you're feeling depressed doesn't mean that you have to forget how precious the whole situation is". She's talking about one of the four reminders, precious birth, and is essentially saying that no matter what we're faced with, we are still lucky to be here, right now. We are lucky to be living where we live and to have access to the resources we have, we are lucky to be alive.
So overall, I thought this book was so great that I will actually go out and pick up a copy at the end of the week (I ended up borrowing this book from the library). Sure it's from a Buddhist perspective, and the teachings are very much Buddhist, but you don't have to be a Buddhist to realize that the things she talks about are universal. Sure there's some stuff on meditating and its specifics that aren't so much applicable to my practice (or pagan practice in general), but what she says really gets you thinking about things on the whole. There are really a lot of truths in what she says throughout the book, so in that way I think just about anyone would get something from reading it, and I highly recommend it for any spiritually inclined person.
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Update on March 7
I find reading this book is making me look at things in a different way, in that, when I get angry or upset about something someone has done, or at a customer at work, I try not to hang on to those feelings and just let them go. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Buddhist, and I'm not about to start a Buddhist sitting meditation practice, but I'm finding that I'm able to apply a lot of Pema's teachings or advice to my daily life, despite how different my spirituality is from hers.
There was a story she told about climbers going up a mountain, each group of them "meeting their edge" at a certain point and not being able to continue on. In the same chapter she also told about a mountain stream that got blocked with large boulders as it wound down the mountain. These stories are essentially talking about how you are the only obstacle in your life, despite trying to blame outside sources. If you can only move one boulder the stream will start flowing again, or if you're willing to challenge "that edge", then you might be able to continue on. She said that "life is a whole journey of meeting your edge again and again", and I really think there's truth to that. I think there are definitely exceptions to the rule, but by and large, I really enjoyed that whole chapter (11, I think).
She has a chapter on tonglen practice, which is essentially, breathing in the pain and suffering so that you can know what it means to be in pain and suffer, and then breathing out the happiness and peace so that you can share that with the rest of the world. I think it's an interesting concept.
She also said that "fear has to do with protecting your heart". That also resonated with me.
All in all, I've just been enjoying this book. It's not very big or long, so it would be easy to read it all in one go, but honestly, I think you would miss so much if you did that, which is why I'm reading it in small bits, every few days. That way I can digest what I've read, and really think about it. As I say that though, I'm thinking the next time I come back and update I'll have finished the book. Until then I guess!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update on March 9
The last few sections of the book I found particularly good. There was a section where she was talking about rituals (in Chapter 14) and pretty much everything she said resonated with me in some way. She said that ritual keeps insight alive, and that it can also be like a time capsule, when its heartfelt. I could pretty much copy the entire passage in the book here because so much of it rang true to me, but for obvious reasons, I'm not going to do that.
In the next section, she talked about "allowing yourself and encouraging yourself not to always believe what you're taught, but to wonder about it". I think this is true for anything you encounter in life from things you learn in school to things you read or see on the news, and that we would all do well to follow this advice (something I've always thought more people should do on a daily basis). She also mentions that her teacher held the belief that "one should find the true meaning and not just accept another person's view without questioning it". I wholeheartedly believe this. What good is it if you're told to do something because it represents this or that, and you just do it without thinking about it? We need to ask "why?" a lot more than we do, and I also think that in order to form our own beliefs and views we have to question the views of others to see how they can apply to us.
I didn't fundamentally disagree with what she was saying in Chapter 16 about "sticking to one path", but I didn't exactly agree with everything either. She tended to refer to "spiritual materialism" as shopping, and said that when someone "shops" they are always trying to find security, and always trying to feel good about themselves. Spiritual materialism, is essentially, what I practice, and she says that "continual dabbling around in spiritual things is another form of materialism - always trying to get comfortable and secure, whereas if you stick with one specific path you would "meet all your dragons and be pushed out of the nest". Maybe this is the case for some people, but for me it's not the case at all. I think that to stick with the familiar is to find safety and security because it's what you know, and what you've become accustomed to. I get that she's saying you have to challenge yourself in order to stick with something, and that in sticking with something you will eventually come to know that thing fully, inside and out, but I also wholeheartedly believe that you can also do this without devoting your life to this one thing, and becoming so absorbed in it that you grow to have blinders on to the other things around you.
I have always shared the view that she voices near the end of the book when she says "just because you're feeling depressed doesn't mean that you have to forget how precious the whole situation is". She's talking about one of the four reminders, precious birth, and is essentially saying that no matter what we're faced with, we are still lucky to be here, right now. We are lucky to be living where we live and to have access to the resources we have, we are lucky to be alive.
So overall, I thought this book was so great that I will actually go out and pick up a copy at the end of the week (I ended up borrowing this book from the library). Sure it's from a Buddhist perspective, and the teachings are very much Buddhist, but you don't have to be a Buddhist to realize that the things she talks about are universal. Sure there's some stuff on meditating and its specifics that aren't so much applicable to my practice (or pagan practice in general), but what she says really gets you thinking about things on the whole. There are really a lot of truths in what she says throughout the book, so in that way I think just about anyone would get something from reading it, and I highly recommend it for any spiritually inclined person.
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