Pema Chödrön: You're Not Falling Apart, You're Becoming More Alive

Now, I want to ask you a question on ephemera cuz I've noticed this in my own experience and I hear this a lot from people. >> Yeah. Come closer to that queasy feeling. Okay, I'm doing it more and more. Yeah. I'm tender more and more of the time. I don't have all the same uh defenses that I used to have, all the same armoring and quite honestly, I'm I'm tender and on the verge of tears a lot. I feel a lot more. I feel uncomfortable a lot of the time. It almost feels like something's not quite going in the right direction and I wonder if you can speak to that. >> You mean as like um uh vulnerable to the point of of uh Well, say more. >> Intense, frequent uh situation of raw tender vulnerability. >> It's like uh it it it seems like it's that way a lot and it's very intense. Like, oh, wow, you you're feeling a lot. You're taking in a lot. You've become so porous. I'm just talking to myself here, you know, and you feel so much of the of this uh pain and exquisite beauty and everything and in a way it was uh seemed more quote-unquote functional in a certain way before doing all of this meditation. Well, you see, I'm not hearing that there's anything wrong there. >> [laughter] >> What you're describing sounds like um the the only uh say if you were a meditation student or something, the only thing I would say is um um extend tenderness towards whatever resistance there is to feeling those things, you know, that one can live from that place. Definitely, one can live from that place and uh with a feeling of joy and uh uh like let Let's Let's Maybe I'm digressing a little, but let's just talk about the word compassion. So, compassion hurts. I've always thought that compassion is actually sounds kind of uh sweet and so forth, but actually it's very very painful because it means being so empathetic with with others that you that you can stand in their shoes to the degree that you're you're willing to do anything to to help them, you know. And um but as I've often said, it's not a relationship up-down relationship, but a relationship with equals. So, my feeling about compassion is even though it hurts, which it definitely does, and this goes along with your question, nevertheless, it's what brings life meaning. It's what brings life a sense the feeling of interconnectedness. Love comes along with it, you know. It's like saying it hurts that my heart is getting bigger. You know? So, it's worth hurting, you know, for your heart to get bigger, I would say. You could say it hurts that my that I have a more open mind. It It was more comfortable to have fixed opinions and be you know, some kind of um fundamentalist, you know, that was a lot more comfortable, really. But uh but actually the anxiety increases, the uh this is underlying sense of something being wrong, of being unhappy, to being um isolated and separate and feeling all those very miserable feelings that we as human beings feel a lot, you know. I don't think that compassion or this rawness or anything is like that. I think it's like in that place you you become more in love with the world or love in love with people, but it isn't that it's I don't know. It's not that it's comfortable. It's that it's interconnected and that that has a lot of love in your heart and your mind are expanding. So, for me personally, and I think I this must be a popular idea because it seems that people like to hear it from, you know, hear about it. Um I feel like that's I will die with no regrets because I'm so much my heart and mind are so much have expanded so much from the time that I was a young person, you I wanted to ask you about that, this notion of dying without regrets because you know, I'm sure in your life, like in all of our lives, there are things that we wished we had done differently in XYZ situation. And you know, I'm curious how you've made peace with those experiences personally. Oh, yeah, that's that's a very good question. So, I do have some real regrets, you know. I mean, in terms of as you say, wishing I had done things differently. But um so it's a very much like the 12 steps, you know. It I mean, really the the the the similarity is is very strong that you make a fearless inventory of all the things that you regret or wish you hadn't done, and you they're right out in the open. They're not hidden. And then it And then the next step is that you share that with somebody so that it's First, it's not hidden from you, and then you're not embarrassed or ashamed to have somebody else hear about it. So, you know, that's really the approach. In the monastic tradition, we have this um twice a month ceremony where you do a fearless inventory of of the last 2 weeks or you could go back and back and back. And what is said is if if if you share, if you bring it out, if it's in the light, uh you can dwell at peace, but if it's hidden and it's a secret and from yourself first, and then you know about it, but if you keep it secret from others, uh you you do not so dwell, you know. If acknowledged, you can lay it aside and dwell at peace, and if not acknowledged, I cannot so dwell. So, that's certainly how I've worked with it. But getting back to the other question, it doesn't mean that when the memory comes up, there isn't this little feeling. It means that it doesn't Well, here's another thing. It doesn't have any spin-off. So, I I I've been talking about this quite a lot lately that and it goes along with all the questions you've been asking. You can feel what you feel as a direct uh and just as if uh you put your hand, I used this image just the other day, if you put your finger on the burner and it hurt, so that's that's the uh analogy for any kind of pain. So, that's it. It It hurts, but it doesn't have any spin-off. It doesn't have a storyline. It doesn't just uh the ripples don't go out and out and out and out. It just you stay with the tenderness and receptivity to to the to the kind of like origin of it all, you know? It's very helpful. This word spin-off is very helpful cuz you know, the judgment and all of that is all spin-off. >> I call it add-ons, too, which comes from Sharon Salzberg. But um so so that that of course is a practice and something that we get better at through meditation, also. But uh I think it's really helpful that it's it Pain is pain and pleasure is pleasure, you know, neutral is neutral and stuff, but but it can be just that simple. The The expression just as it is, you know, without the spin-off. Without the spin-off. So, what happens in actual fact is you do start spinning off. You know, when something's really intense, like uh betrayal, say, you know, it's very hard to not The mind just will keep coming back, keep coming back. But then in some as gently and every and non-gently as you can, you just keep coming back to the the the the what? The origin or something like