Love Letter #6, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön
Dear When Things Fall Apart,
Shit you are hard. You are one of the hardest things that I love. You pushed me and helped me see clear, even when I wanted nothing more than to resist your message.
The first time I read you, I was pissed. I swam laps and laps that summer, fighting with your logic in the water. You won. And, I have come back to the messages in this book over and over again.
So much of what you call for is the acceptance of space. Letting the space in ourselves and others just be. Not something to be filled or some action to be taken, but something to be lived. That means living with the pain, not pleasure seeking through it or numbing it. But making room for the space that pain and separation create. Live in the space where death exists, not to fill that up. No wonder I was so pissed. Your message is literally the opposite of everything that we have been sold in this society: consume your way to fulfillment.
It took me longer to read you than it does most books. I think because the message was actually soaking in, not just rolling off. Plenty does just roll off. Your message though, worked its way right to my guts. You invited me to reckon with magical thinking that has always been a favorite escape of mine and to live here and now in this body in this moment. To love what is now, not wait for what will be.
When the world gets hard, and boy is the world hard right now, I flip through your pages and catch the underlined stand outs and the wisdom holds. Today I flipped to page 34 and this was waiting for me:
“It’s a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with the fundamental restlessness as well as a fundamental spaciousness.”
See, I have always been cool with my restlessness. I can move through anything. That is something I have embraced my whole life. The spaciousness was hard, I still buck against it. I have to be still to bear witness to it and it does get easier with practice. I know now that the truth that I have access to now, lives in the spaciousness.
The world is hard right now. The pain is right up on the surface and for the first time so many people are able to feel it and to see it. I think part of that is because of the stillness a pandemic requires. Is it possible that we have slowed down enough, found enough stillness even, to bear witness to the pain in this world? I believe we have been on the collective run from this heartbreak and the truth underneath it, we have done our best to numb it with consumption of all forms. And yet, and yet, we have to be still. We watch the videos, we watch the numbers rise in communities whose work is deemed essential, but whose lives are not. The pain is at the surface and we are more still than we have ever been and the things are most certainly falling apart. If we can keep giving everything to this moment, healing is ours.
Thank you for the gift and the challenge. You have shaped me. I’ll keep coming back for the messages. You’ve got a permanent spot on my bedside table.
Much love,
Martha
“awakening is no longer a luxury or a ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essensce. This is the best way that we can benefit others.”
