Letting Go,
Hearing the bell,
I am able to let go of all afflictions.
My heart is calm,
my sorrows ended.
I am no longer bound to anything.
I learn to listen to my suffering,
and the suffering of the other person.
When understanding is born in me,
compassion is also born.
Thich Nhat Hanh, page 126
I was led to this Gatha today, in around about but very synchronistic way. Somehow the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh was meant to touch me (and I use "me" loosely). His teaching came up in an indirect way through an Eckhart Tolle video and directly through an audio book that ended up on my screen. It came to my awareness upon the reading of post entries read by others yesterday that I was reviewing this morning. And it came to me through his book that I have not seen for months but that is now, serendipitously, beside me at this table.
Upon hearing and seeing his words, like some bell opening my senses, I was automatically soothed of the inflictions and sorrows that were agitating this body and mind I call "me" since the early hours of the morning, keeping me awake. I awoke with this incredible sense of helplessness in my ability to ease or stop the suffering of others and myself. I was questioning if I should continue to find ways to "escape" these inflictions or if I should just let go and fall completely into them. I was telling myself, "Just get up and do whatever is placed in front of you to do, regardless of the suffering in you and around you, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, as a person, feel."
It was sound and wise advice but I doubted if I was evolved enough to do that. My mind was still looking for ways to escape and I was following it.
These words from Hanh came to me in the arms of grace, you might say. I needed to hear how this journey is not about escaping suffering but about using compassion and understanding to transmute it. We create compost with our emotions ...all emotions...even the difficult ones...and this compost grows flowers. Without suffering, we would not have the compost of understanding, and without understanding, we would not grow flowers of compassion and peace. Hmm!
As it turns out, one of the little things I was blaming as being a cause of my agitation was taken from "me" without any interventions, and something else that I was deeming as a possible "escape place" should I need it, suddenly became available. Go figure.
Paraphrased and relatable gems of wisdom from Eckhart Tolle:
And from Thich Nhat Hanh's Audio Book:
- All emotion is organic and deserving of our understanding and compassion
- The Kingdom of God/ Pureland exists but it is not a place without suffering...
- We must get deeply in touch with suffering in order to be healed, in order to be free
- There is no path to the cessation of suffering without suffering
- Hell is a place where there is no understanding and no compassion. With compassion, Hell ceases to be Hell
- Our practice consists of generating understanding and compassion and using them to transform hell into peace
- Kingdom of God is in your heart and in every cell of your body...
Our practice is not about escaping or ending suffering. It is about finding that peace that exists beyond it. It is not about conceptually knowing but about letting go and trusting that the more we nurture what is inside and outside of us with awareness, non violence and nonduality, every challenging emotional experience we encounter will lead to the growth of amazing things...compassion and peace being just a few of them.
All is well.
Thich Nhat Hanh ( 2011) Peace is Every Breath. New York: Harper One
Thich Nhat Hanh/ Tranquil AF ( ) You are Here. Audio Book ..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMpj0ayG0Mc
Eckart Tolle (September, 2023) How Can I Balance Stillness and Awareness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXrQ-C-QBJg
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