Triptych for Hard Times
I.
"This is very bad, this is not what I wanted, this brings many attendant problems. But what am I going to do with it? What can I learn from it? How can I make use of it for the path? These are the questions to ask, and answering them is entirely up to you. Furthermore, you can answer them; you do have the strength and the capacity. Drive all blames into one is a tremendous practice of cutting through the long human habit of complaining and whining, and finding on the other side of it the strength to turn every situation into the path. Here you are. This is it. There is no place else to go but forward into the next moment. Repeat the slogan as many times as you have to."
If it’s easy for you to forget that you have the strength and capacity to deal with hard times, welcome to being human. Every spiritual tradition I’ve ever encountered has some way of acknowledging this inevitability. You will forget your own strength. You will question your capacity. You will bemoan life when it’s not going how you had wished, no matter the reason. Some of us will go towards blaming others while others will err on the side of self-recrimination, or perhaps you’ll stew for a while in the sour juices that blend the two. But at some point, many points more likely, you will have to choose: Do you accept that this is where you are? Do you see that this is it? Do you recognize that there is literally nowhere to go but forward? And most importantly, do you recall that you can make use of whatever difficulties you’re experiencing? The current of “can’t” can be mighty, especially if you’re fighting with what’s happening. Acceptance does not mean resignation; on the contrary, it’s where we return to ourselves. And only then can we begin to move beyond blame into something more productive.
II.
"What is actually going on when we are upset or angry? If we could unhook ourselves for a moment from the blaming and the wishing and the self-pitying and look instead at the actual basis of what is in fact going on, what would we see? We would see time passing. We would see things changing. We would see life arising and passing away, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. Moment by moment, time slips away and things transform. The present becomes the past—or does it become the future? And yet right now there is no past or future. As soon as we examine 'now,' it is gone. And we cannot know how or where it goes."
Time will pass and things will change with or without us. So we can keep whirling around in a blinding dust cloud of emotions, or we can stay still for long enough for the proverbial dust to settle – especially internally. It’s only then that this slippage of time becomes apparent, and in becoming so, something else does, too: Our own part in it. Some part of us is gone with every passing moment, whether it passes into the past or flows into the future. There is something freeing about this. Just when we think the anger, sadness, grief, self-pity, or worry will never leave us, just when we see that the moment is gone, and the next and the next, and in fact we have no idea where it went or what comes next, we can be free, or at least freer. In this space, can I become curious about how things could go from here? What is available right now? And now? Is the terrible situation still happening, or have I already begun reliving it, compounding it, revisiting it, driving over and over the same moments that led up to it, creating ever-deeper neural pathways? Unhooking for a moment may not be easy, but the good news is that another moment always comes, so we get to keep practicing.
III.
"And when your mind is confused and entangled, you can take a breath and try to slip below the level of your desire and confusion. You can notice that in this very moment time is passing, things are transforming, and this impossible fact is profound, beautiful, and joyful, even as you continue with your misery."
Sometimes you don’t want to let go of your misery. It might even be one of your oldest companions, as worn and familiar as a tattered stuffed animal. You could throw it away, sure, but your inner small person might throw a fit. So why not let her hold onto it, without making it yours? That misery has served you, after all. It has been a place where you can camp out when the shit hits the fan, when everyone’s mad and upset, when no one is talking, when you feel alone and scared. You can retreat into your misery like a cozy blanket fort. It’s all yours. No one is taking that away from you. The difference is that you don’t have to be confused about it or entangled by it. It’s just misery. It’s as old as the dust you kick up when your mind protests reality. It’s as reliable as moon cycles and ocean waves. But it isn’t your home, and it isn’t the whole picture. Look up and you’ll see: The stars are there, even when you are in your misery fort. Someone may call to say hello, just because they were thinking of you. A bird is chirping, right in this moment of your misery. For a moment, something unlatches in your heart. You realize you’ve been cowering there, afraid to step out, afraid to speak, afraid of your own confusion. But when you do, when you do step out, you see that something profound and beautiful has been happening all along. You are still here. You are breathing. You are alive. You have the strength, and you have the capacity. So tell me: Do you have the will? What will you do? Who will you be?
Italicized passages by Norman Fischer, Life is Tough: Here are Six Ways to Deal With It, Lion’s Roar, February 12, 2021.