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You know, when we get a book for someone we hope will help them come to terms with something it sometimes turns out that the giver needs it just as much as the receiver but just didn’t know it. That’s sort of what happened with Pema Chödrön’s book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. I borrowed the book from the library for my Bookman who is/was having an MS relapse and I started reading it too because I have been interested in reading Chödrön since I saw her on Bill Moyer’s Faith and Reason program a couple years ago and because, as the many little Buddhas intermingled with the turtles in my study room point out, I have an ongoing fascination with Buddhism. So I happily settled in to read When Things Fall Apart thinking I should know what I gave my Bookman to read but that this isn’t the Chödrön book that is for me.
Within the first few pages I was captured as it became clear that the book was for me too even if things weren’t currently falling apart for me personally. I think the title is deceiving, maybe one of those famous Buddhist jokes or something, because the book is for everyone.
Now, I am not a Buddhist expert so please forgive me if I get things wrong or only half right. In Buddhism everything is transitory and just because as I was reading I thought I had my shit together, it turns out it is not as great a thing as I thought. Because eventually, all the work I put into making things OK falls apart. That’s when we get pain, suffering, unhappiness. And what do we do? We work hard to put everything back together again. Then what we’ve put back together to make us feel better, safe, happy, is just going to fall apart again because nothing is permanent and it never will be.
We can continue to go through these horrible cycles, deluding ourselves into thinking that when I am this way or have this house or work at this job or have so much money in the bank all will be fine when it really won’t be. Or, we can work to give that up and try to live in the now and be comfortable with chaos and the transitory nature of all things. If we don’t have a desire to hold on to things, the pain and suffering that comes along with trying to get them in the first place and then losing them, will no longer exist:
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that’s life. Death is wanting to hold on to what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together.
Being willing to live in the unknown of the now is hard and terrifying and we fail at it over and over. But that doesn’t matter because Buddhism is not about reaching enlightenment, it’s about the journey, the process of becoming a more compassionate and wise person. We are all already enlightened, we just distract ourselves from that fact. If we pay attention to what life has to teach us, and life is the best teacher, and if we meditate regularly (meditation is not performed in order to relax), we will find that we have moments of awareness and being awake more often.
What I like about Buddhism and Chödrön’s approach is that it is about working on yourself and learning to be kind and compassionate to yourself. Only when you can show compassion towards your own imperfections can you be truly compassionate toward others. Being compassionate towards oneself is actually harder than it is to be compassionate toward others. We seldom feel as if we deserve to direct such kindness at ourselves but if we don’t then what we offer others is often a stunted compassion or compassion with strings attached.
There is much for thought in When Things Fall Apart. I am very glad I read it. My Bookman is still working his way through it (it didn’t help that every time I had a few minutes to read I’d ask him if I could read the book) but finding it useful too in a different way than I did I suspect. I highly recommend this book especially for anyone interested in Buddhism but also for anyone who spends a lot of time worrying or who is going through a hard time or knows someone who is.
Thanks for this book recommendation. I, too, gravitate to books with a Buddhist perspective like Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace is Every Step or Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. Hanh said, “Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.”
I generally have an aversion to Buddhism and it’s concepts, but you do an excellent job of making the contents of this book seem interesting to read and contemplate. Thank you for the challenge.
Not feeling justified in being compassionate to me, and having strings attached to my compassion caught my attention. I have recently noticed that I often try to aid others, but I strongly expect that they will treat me kindly and respectfully in return. While that may seem reasonable to many, it means my compassion is not free in those cases.
I hope the book gives you two something more to discuss and deepen your bonds.
I had forgotten about Bookman’s MS. I hope the relapse is short and shallow. All the best to you both.
On the humor side this brought some pointed old jokes to mind: “Do we call them possessions because we possess them, or because they possess us.”; and, “Life would be a good teacher if it didn’t kill all it’s students.”
I have a copy of her book, The Places That Scare You, sitting on my coffee table now. I am working up the nerve to read it! I remember seeing the Shambhala Center when I lived in Halifax … little did I know what a resource was available to me right in my own backyard.
Ha! Talk about great minds thinking alike! I’m currently reading that book, too. I find it interesting, and I think it’s a coherent theory, but being in the middle of transition, working with a therapist and actively engaged in trying to change my attitude to my life, I can promise that what Chodron urges us to do is very, very difficult. I think Buddhism works, if you know what I mean; it is an answer to the caprice and the cruelty of life. But I wonder whether it’s an answer that is easier for some personality types to adopt than others, and that for those who couldn’t do it, it might provide another reason for self-excoriation. Anyway, I’ll review it myself eventually, and as ever, I do so love reading your eloquent thoughts.
We have this book too — I’ve read (and re-read) the first part, but Terri is into it now so I have to wait for her to get through it. I love how challenging it is — how it asks us to look at our lives and our current situations as opportunities to be truly alive, and not to live in denial and despair and always trying to ‘fix’ things. I know for my own self that our current rough situation has brought me back to myself in a way that I don’t know I would have had the courage to do in another, easier situation.
As I was reading your post I was struck by this: “Being willing to live in the unknown of the now is hard and terrifying” – but it’s pretty much our only choice! I’ll have to pick up this book.
I hope your Bookman’s relapse is short.
Lol at ““Life would be a good teacher if it didn’t kill all its students.”!
Paul, thanks for reminding me of Hanh. I read one of his books ages ago but don’t remember much. Time to look him up again!
Bikkuri, and thank you! Compassion is trickier and much more difficult than we think, isn’t it? My Bookman’s relapse seems to be coming to an end for which we are grateful. Thank you for the good wishes. And thanks for the jokes too
Lesley, ah yes, I plan to read that one sometime it seems like it will reinforce some of the things in When Things Fall Apart. I hope you get your nerve up soon and find it worthwhile!
Litlove, really? That’s too funny! You know when I was reading it I thought about you and thought you’d probably like it. What Chodron suggests we do is very hard. I tried meditating for just ten minutes and I basically sat there saying “thinking” over and over again. I will keep trying though! You comment about personality type has me thinking. I wonder if it is less personality and more of being at a point where one can be open to the ideas? Hmmm.
Daphne, I know you have this book. I picked it up because you mentioned it on your blog when you first got it
It is very challenging but it seems like it can be very liberating too.
Carrie, to live in the now is our only choice but we are so good at playing games to avoid it. Thanks for the good wishes. My Bookman seems to be getting better.
Sounds like a good book. Today I stumbled across Montel Williams on Oprah talking about his last 10 years with MS. I gotta say it’s so refreshing to hear someone talk honestly about how much chronic illness sucks, but also about how to be OK with it in a real way. I’ve got his new book on hold at the library. It might not be anything I haven’t already heard, but it’s always good to be reminded. When you feel like crap, and the brain is involved, it’s so easy to forget what to do.
Sylvia, Montel is great. He is very matter of fact and you are right, it is refreshing. I’ve heard about some of the things he has done around the set of his show so he can continue working. Plus he just seems like a really good person. I hope his book is good.
I finished Montel’s book and alas it’s not about dealing with MS but just a summary of garden variety self-help for depression, which is a particular problem for him. It’s great if his name helps to get that information out there, but it’s no different than what you can find in a zillion other books. A bit of a let down after he was so real and personal on Oprah. Still, more power to him!
That’s too bad it wasn’t about his MS and was all too garden-variety. Oh well. Hopefully, as you said, it might make a difference to someone.
Thanks for this review — the book sounds excellent, and I got a copy while I was on vacation. I am very drawn to Buddhism as well, and love coming across good books about it. I think this is exactly the book I need right now! (Not that I’m going through a hard time at the moment, but it fits with what I’ve been thinking about lately.)
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