We Were Made for These Times

10 lessons for moving through change, loss and disruption, by Kaira Jewel Lingo (a summary by Pat Evert) 

Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. In those periods we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed. ~ Alice Walker, Living by the Word

• Preface

I warmly welcome you on this journey of learning how we can move through times of transition and challenge with clarity and compassion. Whether the challenges or transitions we’re facing are desired or not, they can be stressful or destabilizing. We are beginning a new chapter of our life and the future is uncertain. In this book, we’ll learn ways of finding freedom and stability right in the midst of all of this, so that we can meet whatever life brings us with an open heart, a balanced mind, and committed action.

• Coming Home

When we bring our mind back to our body we come home. We could consider this state as our true home. No matter what happens around us, if we can find this home inside of us, we are always safe. My teacher Thay sums up his whole lifetime of teachings with one sentence: “I have arrived, I am home.” Things like stress and tension accumulate in our bodies and minds, and over time, if we don’t tend to them, they can lead to physical or psychological illness. The future is made of this moment. If we take good care of this moment, even if it is very difficult, we are taking good care of the future. The past and future are not the place where we can come home to ourselves and resource ourselves with the elements we need to move through our difficulties. We can only come home to ourselves in the present moment, in the here and now. We will find we have all that we need to meet the present. 

Meditation: Set the intention to come home to yourself, to be present for yourself. You deserve this care, you are precious and unique, in all the world there is no one else who brings the precise combination of gifts that you bring.… A sense of coming home will develop over time. If it’s helpful, you can repeat inwardly: I have arrived. I am home.  Arrived in the present moment, home in myself, just as I am. 
In daily life: As you drink your tea, sit in traffic, or wait in line, you can practice coming home to connect with your experience in the moment and arrive in your true home. This home is always available to us.

• Resting Back and Trusting the Unknown 

When facing big life decisions, Thay would often say, “Don’t try to figure out the answer by thinking about it.” In thinking over a question again and again, we do not generally arrive at real wisdom, but we easily tire ourselves out and get even more confused or anxious. Thay suggests we consider this big question as a seed, plant it in the soil of our mind, and let it rest there. Our mindfulness practice in our daily lives is the sunshine and water that the seed needs to sprout so that one day it will rise up on its own, in its own time. And then we’ll know the answer to our question without a doubt. We ask our deeper consciousness to take care of it, and let go of our thinking and worrying about it. You let the question go, and suddenly when you least expect it, inspiration or helpful ideas come to you in a time of rest, and you just know what to do. That is store consciousness operating. 

I was in the midst of a process, like the caterpillar that must dissolve itself completely in the chrysalis to become a butterfly. When we are clear and sure about what we are doing, we are less open to the many other possibilities available. But when we let ourselves hang out in the space of not-knowing, there is enormous potential and life could unfold in innumerable ways. I learned to let go of fear and resistance right in the midst of dissolving and losing my identity. This practice of pausing, or stopping, helps the seed of our question to mature and ripen into the guidance and direction we need. Learning to surrender to the unknown in our own lives is essential to our collective learning to move through this time of faster and faster change, disruption, and breakdown. In meditation let yourself reconnect with the feeling of being held by the Earth… you can rest on the Earth, just as this question can rest in the depths of your being… and give the seed permission to take the time it needs to ripen into an answer… trust your own consciousness to show you the way when the time is right. Trust that when it is ready it will sprout on its own and we will know what to do to resolve our question or difficulty.

• Accepting What Is

I could not understand why, if the world is filled with suffering, the Buddha has such a beautiful smile. He is able to smile to suffering because he knows how to take care of it and to help transform it. The ocean of tears cannot drown us if karuna [compassion] is there. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh. We may believe that life is not supposed to be this way. But transition and challenge are a part of life. If we can accept where we are, and not judge the disruption in our life as wrong or bad, we can touch great freedom. Touch your suffering and embrace it. Make peace with it. We could say that the measure of our accomplishment or success is not that our life has no ups and downs, but that we can surf the waves! It was a moment of cultivating acceptance and inclusiveness, opening myself to hold everything, all the paradoxes. The reality is that there is great terror and pain, and there is great love and wisdom. They’re all here, coexisting in this moment. Shantideva, the eighth-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar, says it this way: “Why worry if you can do something about it? And why worry if you cannot do anything about it?” I spent years struggling with chronic pain, overpowering weakness, digestive disorders, internal bleeding, and so on. I felt like a failure. That unyielding illness, which refused to follow my orders, brought me to a place where I lost everything I’d thought I was. Then I found what remains, which no one can take away. Acceptance is a profound practice of surrendering, letting go. 

Meditation: Inhale and open up to the awareness that this moment is enough, that what we need, it’s already here. 

Breathing in enoughness, breathing out acceptance….
Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment. Breathing out, I see that it is a wonderful moment. Present moment, wonderful moment.

Let your body physically soften the resistance, tension, blame, or judgment of this situation.

In Daily Life: You can bring this practice of acceptance by distinguishing the first arrow, or the pain of an original difficult experience, from the second arrow, or the suffering that follows when we resist it. When challenges like disappointment, loneliness, illness, or loss arise, see if you can open to the original pain of that experience with acceptance, not pushing it away, so that you might avoid striking yourself with the second arrow of judgment, blame, and complaining.

• Weathering the Storm

I was in touch with how beautiful it is to be part of a large body of people practicing mindfulness and realized I had the capacity to persevere and find my center in the very midst of crisis and confusion. I wouldn’t have learned that about myself if I had run away. In this moment, right here, there is the ability to recognize fear, to be with fear, and to not be swallowed by it. If we can stop, we have the chance to touch into something deeper than the overwhelm. Imagine a large tree in a storm. The top of the tree is waving about violently in the wind, but if you look down at the trunk of the tree, it’s firm, very solid. We bring all of our awareness to our belly and don’t let our attention get caught up in the thrashing of the upper branches of our thinking mind.

MEDITATION: Belly Breathing
MEDITATION: Walking or Moving Mindfully

• Caring for Strong Emotions

We have the seed of mindfulness in our store consciousness, down in the basement. We can call up this seed whenever we want. It is always there, always available. One mindful breath, in and out, one step made in full awareness, is enough to bring up the seed of mindfulness and it becomes present in our living room as the energy of mindfulness. It has a soothing, refreshing effect on our body and mind, bringing attentiveness, friendliness, and curiosity to our experience. We can care for any of our strong emotions like anger, jealousy, sadness, confusion, or fear, by calling mindfulness up into the living room as soon as we notice that an unwholesome seed has arisen. We say to ourselves, “Breathing in, I know I am angry; breathing out, I am here for my anger.” When we do this, immediately our painful emotion begins to settle down somewhat, because we’re not pushing it away. There’s no war within us. Once mindfulness recognizes anger, it begins to accept it and give it space. We open to our experience of anger and allow it to be here. We generate compassion for ourselves, recognizing anger is a part of us so we don’t want to reject or judge it. We acknowledge that this part of us is suffering and we move closer, opening our arms to take good care of it. You are a part of me and I’m here to embrace you with my kindness and concern.” As we do this, our anger calms down. After a while, it will begin to reveal itself to us, and we will see below the surface, into its depths. In this way, anger, or any strong emotion, begins to have an ever-weaker hold on us, and we become more and more free. 

Meditation – Allow mindfulness to also come up now and be with your emotion. Mindful awareness offers acceptance to this painful emotion. It is helping you to give it space, to offer it friendship. Release any judgment toward your emotion and see if you can bring in the energy of tenderness. Thank you for this chance for transformation, I’m so happy that you’re here. With mindfulness, anger can turn into compassion, greed into generosity, and ignorance into wisdom. 
In Daily Life – Notice what sensations it has. Practice saying hello to your strong emotion and calling it by name, saying, “I see you, worry/sadness/irritation, I know you are here,” as soon as possible once you are aware it has arisen in your mind. This way you have a choice about how to respond to the strong emotion, rather than being taken over by it. 

• Impermanence and the Five Remembrances

Our whole lives are a process of transition. We are constantly changing—from one breath to another. About one hundred million new red blood cells are being formed in our bodies every minute! Impermanence influences everything. Many of us may get lulled into believing what we have now will always be here. Impermanence is an insight that can be enormously empowering because we’re opening to the truth of how life is. The Buddha offered a meditation called the Five Remembrances, this contemplation asks us to remember five things every day. As James Baldwin says, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

The Five Remembrances:
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true possessions, I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. 

Bring gentleness and curiosity to what you are feeling. 

In Daily Life – You can practice remembering impermanence when you finish things. Whether it is a beverage, a meal, a conversation, sending an email, or some other activity, try pausing briefly to notice it has ended, recognizing its impermanence.

• Calmly Facing the Eight Worldly Winds

The teachings of the Buddha, which are like a wheel being set in motion, and the eight spokes represent the Noble Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha. While living in Sri Lanka, I was offered an additional meaning of this symbol: the eight spokes represent the eight worldly winds. They are four pairs of opposites—pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute. We can’t get comfortable with the joys of pleasure and gain, nor should we identify with the misfortunes that come our way and think they define our whole life. These winds do not blow in response to our actions. When we accept that this is life, we are able to touch that we are more than our life’s ups and downs. We take neither the praise nor the blame as the complete description of who we are. So they are partly right. Not-self means we are empty of a separate self, but full of everything else. We are made up of all those who have influenced us and helped shape us in some way: our parents, teachers, friends, the food we’ve eaten, the books we’ve read, sunlight, water, air. We cannot exist by ourselves alone. We know we are larger than these forces and they can’t define us. When we touch our deeper reality as water, the insight of not-self, we navigate transitions much more easily. We do not take things as personally and we’re less afraid.  As Thay wrote, “To see one in all and all in one is to break through the great barrier which narrows one’s perception of reality.”

Meditation – a wave in the ocean
In Daily Life – you may like to try practicing the sixth mantra: “You are partly right.” 

• Equanimity and Letting Go

Equanimity is a fundamental practice that can help us to center and balance ourselves. It can also mean to see with patience, to see with understanding and spaciousness. It is sometimes translated as nondiscrimination, impartiality, tolerance, letting go, and non-attachment. Inclusiveness or equanimity is not dogmatic; it allows us to keep an open mind. Clinging prevents us from growing and moving forward. What might it be like to relax our grip and be willing to move to the next rung? I see myself as the one who loves and the other as the one who is loved, if I somehow see myself as superior or separate from the other, that’s not true equanimity. But we touch great freedom when we can accept suffering as part of the path and not a mistake. We can choose not to add to the pain by resisting, suppressing, or judging it. When we see ourselves as beloved, we are in opposition to no one. If we see ourselves as beloved, not as victims, we can encounter others without malice, even when we disagree. 

• Nurturing the Good

In my experience, even though I may be struggling in a time of transition or adversity, I can still be in touch with what is wholesome and good in me and around me. When we nurture the wholesome seeds, the unwholesome ones shrink all by themselves, without us having to do anything directly to weaken them, because we are giving more airtime to the seeds we want to manifest. Gratitude is a very powerful way to nurture the good. But it’s even more important to practice gratitude when things are not going well, when they aren’t going according to our expectations. Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century Dominican friar and mystic, writes, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you’ it will be enough.” There are research articles documenting the effects of gratitude on our health—it lowers blood pressure, improves sleep, strengthens immunity, and also supports us to have less conflict and more satisfaction in our relationships at home and at work. This makes us much stronger in trying times. The Buddha said happiness is available right in the present moment. 

Meditation – Gently see if you can open to be aware of what is not going wrong. Feel into how both these things can coexist, the difficulty and the awareness of what is OK, what is good. Now I invite you to appreciate yourself for your practice and the many ways that you are open to learn and grow. A kind of faith in yourself and your own inherent goodness. Open to it, let it grow in you. Let yourself bring to mind other things you feel grateful for. How your body is still functioning right now, your heart still beating, your lungs, expanding and retracting, your skin protecting your flesh. Let yourself connect with gratitude for the presence of beloved people or pets in your life, or someone who has been supportive of you in the past. Connect with the ways they were present for you and how they made a difference in your life. Reflect also on ways you have been supportive of others and let yourself feel gratitude for that, your own kindness, compassion, friendship to others. 

• We Were Made for These Times

The fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The tremendous challenges humanity is now faced with are unlike any confronted by previous generations. Interwoven with the koan of being good stewards of the only planet we have are the challenges of unraveling white supremacy and racial capitalism, toxic patriarchy, poverty on a global scale, homophobia, xenophobia, and the greed, hatred, and delusion at their roots. It is clear to me now that there is no other time I should have been born into. I believe we are each called to continue their work in new ways to bring about even deeper freedom and greater awakening so that we can truly live harmoniously and altruistically with each other. When I was in the process of deciding to leave monastic life, I was terrified. I had no idea what would come next, and I was giving up security, love, and belonging for a totally unknown future. It was the first time in my life I was making a decision that was not supported by most of the people I loved and respected. But as I listened to my own intuition, my inner voice, I learned that I could trust it. For nearly twenty years I had been singing a song our community sang often, “Here Is the Pure Land.” It includes this line: “The Sangha body is everywhere; my true home is right here.” The “Sangha body” means the community of those practicing the path of awareness and compassion. As I traveled and led retreats and events on my own for the first time, I experienced more and more clearly lay communities that were extremely dedicated and put incredible energy into nourishing their local groups with mindfulness. The barrier between monastics and laypeople began to come down, and I experienced how held and supported I was by the Sangha body that was truly everywhere. If we shift our perspective right in the midst of this falling and losing control, we can maintain our balance inside of us and touch the many resources we already have to meet the unexpected. The elders of the Hopi Nation in Oraibi, Arizona, offered this timely wisdom: 

…There is a river flowing now very fast. See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. 

Meditation – Finding yourself in a place where you are more often than not at home in yourself. Imagine yourself resting back and trusting the unknown, as you let the big questions or problems you face rest like a seed in the soil of your mind, maturing in their own time. And you are growing this big heart capable of accepting what is, namely suffering, so that you don’t make it worse by resisting it. And see yourself with a calm smile on your face as you master that grandmotherly love, of equanimity and inclusiveness that doesn’t attach or cling. To know you can trust yourself. You are moving through your life, skillfully calling up gratitude. You were made for these times, to meet this moment as it is, whatever it brings. As we are facing not only individual challenges and transitions, but also collective ones, take a moment now to connect with one aspect of our current collective crises that is particularly important or resonant for you. You bring profound healing for all humans, all species, and the Earth herself. And now imagine that you could contribute to this. We were made for these times…in every way. Remember that you are not alone in what you are going through. Bring to mind people you know who are also encountering times of challenge and transition.