Yesterday on my way to the station from work, I hurt my wrist. I was leaving a store and it was late and I was tired and my hand got caught in a funny way as I closed the door, and there was a little sprain. It hurt a bit today, and now the pain is fading. My very minor injury put me in mind—happily, actually—of something Sister Chan Khong said a few years ago.
Sister Chan is a disciple of the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, and she has directed his humanitarian projects since the 60s. She has one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen; she’s in her seventies now, but she looks like a baby, too, in all her wisdom. I went to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Blue Cliff monastery in upstate New York for a retreat, and Sister Chan was leading the group through a guided relaxation.
Sister Chan said, very gently and very lightly, that there’s always something going on with our bodies—always some kind of ailment or pain, or just something a bit wonky. And she said it in such a way that made me feel very relieved—that this is okay and to be expected. It’s alright. We are, in fact, incredibly lucky if we’re just moving from one little or medium-sized pain to the next. So when I have something going on, I tend to remember Sister Chan saying this, and I think, “Oh, there it is. There’s the thing right now.”
It puts me in mind of one of my favorite passages in Pema Chodron’s book, When Things Fall Apart. She talks about the notion that so many of us have, that if we just do this or say that or meditate enough or get the right job or meet the right person or find the right haircut, then everything will be perfect, and from that delightful point, life will be plain sailing.
But doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, she says, “because sooner or later we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house will burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head, somebody’s going to spill tomato juice all over our white suit.”
I’ve always loved the line about the tomato juice. It’s like, even if for one millisecond you do have all the boxes checked, some completely ridiculous thing is going to happen. And that is life. There’s always something.
And so, too, there are always the tiny miracle somethings. The afternoon sunlight on daffodils and the surprise of spring. A hot shower at the end of the day. The fact that we are alive at all, to feel the aches and pains. To be aware of pain is also to be aware of not-pain. With each hurt is a chance to heal. And what revelation and a true kiss of love that is.
Sister Chan is a disciple of the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, and she has directed his humanitarian projects since the 60s. She has one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen; she’s in her seventies now, but she looks like a baby, too, in all her wisdom. I went to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Blue Cliff monastery in upstate New York for a retreat, and Sister Chan was leading the group through a guided relaxation.
Sister Chan said, very gently and very lightly, that there’s always something going on with our bodies—always some kind of ailment or pain, or just something a bit wonky. And she said it in such a way that made me feel very relieved—that this is okay and to be expected. It’s alright. We are, in fact, incredibly lucky if we’re just moving from one little or medium-sized pain to the next. So when I have something going on, I tend to remember Sister Chan saying this, and I think, “Oh, there it is. There’s the thing right now.”
It puts me in mind of one of my favorite passages in Pema Chodron’s book, When Things Fall Apart. She talks about the notion that so many of us have, that if we just do this or say that or meditate enough or get the right job or meet the right person or find the right haircut, then everything will be perfect, and from that delightful point, life will be plain sailing.
But doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, she says, “because sooner or later we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house will burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head, somebody’s going to spill tomato juice all over our white suit.”
I’ve always loved the line about the tomato juice. It’s like, even if for one millisecond you do have all the boxes checked, some completely ridiculous thing is going to happen. And that is life. There’s always something.
And so, too, there are always the tiny miracle somethings. The afternoon sunlight on daffodils and the surprise of spring. A hot shower at the end of the day. The fact that we are alive at all, to feel the aches and pains. To be aware of pain is also to be aware of not-pain. With each hurt is a chance to heal. And what revelation and a true kiss of love that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment