Live Session Summary, Sunday, July 14, 2024: It was good to be with you for our Live session on Sunday. The theme of the talk was “Making difficulties into the place of practice and waking up.'
Here are some of the main themes, quotes, and poems:
I talked about the challenges of working with sickness over the past week and how the mind’s tendency is to want unpleasant feelings to go away. But when we resist difficulties they tend to persist. In Buddhism, it’s spoken of as the ‘second arrow’—when we add resistance to difficult feelings or experiences. As the saying goes, ‘pain is inevitable; suffering—which comes from adding resistance—is optional.’
There is a wisdom in turning towards difficulties and making them the place of practice and of freedom. Rather than treating difficulties as barriers or obstacles to practice and to freedom, when we turn towards them and open to them, they cease to be something alien, a ‘problem’ to be dealt with, and become something to be accepted and met with kindness: in Eckhart Tolle’s words, ‘what you accept fully, you go beyond.’
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke spoke of always ‘trusting in the difficult’: “If we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” (Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)
In Zen Buddhism, it’s said that ‘the obstacle is the path.’ A difficulty that is typically treated as a barrier or hindrance to our practice and to our growth, is the very condition that allows letting go, surrender, and spiritual growth to happen when we are willing to be present for our experience. When you bring awareness to a difficult experience—without resistance or judgment—the feelings, thoughts, and sensations can come and go and cease to be a ‘problem.’
I also spoke about the importance of incorporating loving-kindness and compassion into working with difficulties. In Buddhism it’s said that just as a bird needs two wings to fly, our spiritual practice also requires two wings: the wing of wisdom and the wing of compassion.
When we are working with difficult experiences, it is important to meet our experience within kindness and care. Through cultivating the heart practices—loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity—we can learn to open to even the most difficult emotions and mind states. We can, with practice, learn to cultivate an ’attitudinal commitment of kindness and friendliness to all beings and all experiences’, in meditation teacher Christina Feldman’s words.
I shared these quotes and poems:
• Sri Nisargadatta, 20th century Indian spiritual teacher: “Wisdom tells me I’m nothing. Love tells my I’m everything. Between these two, my life flows.”
• Poem by Muhyiddin Ibn al Arabi, “There was a time I would reject those…”; ‘Clearing’ by Martha Postlethwaite; ‘The Guest House’ by Jellaludin Rumi.
I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, July 21 at 9am eastern for our next live session. Have a good week. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
