We Grieve Because We Love

Excerpted from Dharma Dialogues with Catherine Ingram. Recorded in Lennox Head, Australia in March 2018. From the opening talk: “Our lives are filled with beauty and joy and love and sorrow and loss. These are the components that make up our lives, aren’t they? But is there a deeper sense of well being, a deeper peace beyond the joys and sorrows?”

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is excerpted from a session of Dharma Dialogues held in Lenox Head,

Australia in March of 2018.

It's called We Grieve Because We Love.

Our lives are filled with beauty and joy and love and sorrow and loss,

Loss and sorrow.

These are the components that make up our lives,

Aren't they?

It's normal.

But is there a possibility of a sense of well-being that is deeper than the joys and sorrows?

Or even just,

Let's use the word peace.

Is there a deeper peace than all the comings and goings and the highs and the lows and the wins and the loses?

And it doesn't have to be a steady state.

There might be times when you don't feel it,

You don't find it.

But can there be a general well-being that understands you win some and you lose some?

That understands that on the backside of joy often is sorrow,

Right?

We grieve because we love.

There's a lot of emphasis in certain spiritual circles on happiness.

There's a big happiness trend running around in spiritual circles.

I never was comfortable with it.

I like happiness,

Of course.

But there's been this kind of promise of some sort of steady state of happiness,

Or that you just have to have the right combination of things.

A lot of it is,

It seems like a kind of gimme-gimme program,

Like you're gonna get some things that are gonna make you happy,

Or circumstances.

You're gonna realize your big potential,

Or you're gonna unlock the secret.

I was always uncomfortable with these kinds of programs because I am so familiar with the possibility for suffering.

And I see that the acceptance of the losses,

The acceptance of suffering,

Is part of the well-being.

It's basically the understanding that you have to whisper yes to all of it.

Many years ago,

In I guess the 70s,

Probably,

Or maybe late 60s,

When I read that John Lennon fell in love with Yoko Ono in the following circumstance.

Maybe some of you already know it,

But he'd gone to an art exhibit in New York City,

And it was her art show,

Where she was one of the artists at the show.

And there was apparently a little ladder you had to climb up,

And I guess a white box in my memory,

Which is now not to be trusted.

But anyway,

This part I'm getting right.

There's just this one word lit up in the back of the box that says yes.

And in that moment,

He was bedazzled by the artist known as Yoko Ono.

And I really got that at the time.

I got it.

I understood.

And even more now,

There's a way in which you have to be whispering yes,

Okay,

Yes to the joy,

Nice,

Temporary,

But nice.

Happy to have it when it comes along.

And the sorrow hurts,

Hurts strangely more.

You know,

You get more and more sensitive somehow,

And the loss,

The current losses can trigger the memory of the previous losses,

Right?

They start to pile up.

Not that one wallows in them,

But just that the sensitivity,

You know,

I told this story on one of the other podcasts,

And so you might have heard it if you've listened to those.

But my dad,

About 15 or 17 years ago,

Came to visit me in Los Angeles.

At the time,

He was an older man,

But a man in full.

He was still very much,

You know,

He's always kind of was a macho man.

Not now.

He has Parkinson's and quite a bit of dementia and not much mobility.

But at that time,

He was still roaring along in life.

And I thought it would be fun,

He was visiting his wife and my half-brother.

They were somewhere else,

And it was just my dad and I in the living room.

And I thought it would be fun to play one of his old favorite songs.

It was also one of my old favorite songs called It's All in the Game,

The original version.

And so I put it on,

And within the first few bars,

I noticed that my father had tears running down his face,

Which was surprising to me,

A very rare event.

And again,

I understood.

I understood in that moment what was going on,

That for my father,

Probably it was triggering,

First of all,

It was probably triggering a lot of feelings of loss,

Lost youth,

Lost time,

Lost,

You know,

People even,

People who would have been in his life at that time and who now no longer were.

I really understood that level of sensitivity.

And I notice with my in my own aging process that it could look like sentimentality,

But it actually feels like a very deep well of love.

And that the sensitivity in that you will feel more also has this incredible beauty to it.

And yet,

I think sometimes I'll find myself with tears in my eyes,

But there's something also that's just not moving inside of me.

There's something that's very still,

Almost like witnessing,

Although I don't want to use that word because it implies like there's a second creature running around,

But almost like a witnessing feeling that there's a quiet.

What's coming for me is just the challenge in saying yes to difficulties.

That's all.

It's like it's easy to say yes to the joy and the beautiful rain and the,

But then the difficulty if there's flooding or,

Yeah.

So,

Anything to say about?

Yeah,

Well,

The problem is that,

You know,

Poonjatjai used to say,

I'm telling you the easy way.

Because the hard way is to say no to something that's happening,

Right?

That's the harder way.

You've got the initial difficulty,

But then the resistance to what is is just a pile-on of the suffering,

Right?

I mean,

Yes,

Of course,

There are certain things we just,

We don't have to love it,

Right?

We don't have to love it,

But there can be an acceptance of,

Okay,

Here it is,

Right?

I was listening to an interview yesterday with someone I had known years and years ago.

She was a Dharma teacher,

Is a Dharma teacher,

And I always admired her,

And she had written to me a few times.

I mean,

Going back 20 years ago,

She had been listening to my things,

And I was aware of hers,

And so we had a kind of nice interaction in those days.

And I hadn't thought about her in years,

But someone sent me yesterday an interview with her,

And she's been dealing with a very terrible kind of cancer.

And yet there she was on the YouTube clip.

You know,

You can see that she doesn't look well,

But there's a radiance about her,

And she had to get to the yes,

Right?

She had to get to the yes,

And this cancer bout that she's going through,

It happened very fast,

And it's very severe and very kind of horrible.

I won't go into the gory details,

But awful.

And she had to,

It's not as if she's saying,

I'm happy I have this,

But that she is in a profound acceptance of what she's dealing with,

And also what it might portend in terms of a death that is sooner than she had thought.

She's writing a book,

She'd like to finish her book on aging and dying.

That's what it's about.

But I could feel the truth,

I could feel through the whole hour interview.

I could sense where she's sitting in this,

And it was really inspiring.

I've been thinking about it since.

She had to get to the yes,

And she did.

She also spoke about the gifts that have come.

Not that she's,

You know,

Like I want to be clear,

She's not saying she's happy to have this necessarily,

But there were gifts that have come along with the situation,

And that's for which you might say she's grateful.

One of which I found quite interesting.

She said that as a dharma teacher,

She had always been ambivalent about having the sessions,

And that she never felt ambivalent about writing.

She'd written a number of books.

She was very clear about her writing,

But she was ambivalent about being a teacher and sitting in the chair,

You know.

And that with the cancer,

And that this experience she's gone through where she really has to face death,

The ambivalence fell away,

Not in any kind of certainty.

It didn't fall away into I'm certain I'm doing,

It's just more the self-referencing about it fell away,

And she's just doing it because it's what she does.

It's such a fine line between accepting in that situation and the fight of I'm going to fight this.

I'm going to do my best to get over it or heal or whatever.

Sure,

And that's an important understanding.

One of my other friends who had,

He had first lung cancer and then brain cancer and died,

But in that process he said at one point,

I'm going to fight for my life,

But I'm going to make an enemy of my death.

So it's that kind of,

You know,

You're doing your good work,

Right,

Whatever it happens to be,

And the outcome is not so much in your control.

And that's where we get caught,

I think,

You know,

Because we think I'm doing all this work and I'm trying,

You know,

Want this outcome,

And we're not guaranteed that part.

It applies to so many things.

You know,

One of the issues in our world now,

Of course,

Is,

And I don't know if you guys are experiencing it so much here in Australia,

But because I'm so connected to my American friends and the news there and so on,

You know,

People are in,

Kind of,

Different forms of rage and depression and anxiety and a lot of feelings of hatred.

Lots of people who I,

Who are close friends,

They send out all this stuff that's,

It's like filled with hatred about the sort of political players in the game.

And yes,

There's tremendous ignorance going on,

You know,

Tremendous greed and ignorance,

No doubt about it.

But it just seems to me the hatred is quite misplaced in that this rollout that we're watching has been going on a long time.

It's not new.

This has been going on a long time.

The madness of what humans do based on greed and ignorance and all the usual suspects.

And it's very,

I think,

Powerful to look at those impulses in oneself that greed and hatred and delusion,

Right?

There's a quote I like from the Bhagavad Gita to see the brave look at those who can forgive,

To see the heroic look at those who can love in return for hatred.

And that might be a bridge too far for many of us and I dare say for myself as well.

Sometimes it's very hard for me to find actually a loving feeling toward things that are so destructive and behaviors that are so destructive.

But I usually can find the forgiveness of sorts,

Which is a form of obvious acceptance that this is the rollout.

This is the evolutionary rollout that we're witnessing.

And then there comes down to this,

Yes,

This quiet,

Okay,

This is how it is.

And then you do your good work,

However,

Whatever you might be able to do,

You give it for free.

And with no expectations of it prevailing or of it even doing much.

If you can be offering a little help here and there,

That's very satisfying.

And yeah,

To your point,

I am dealing with hearing from a lot of people who are not working with the yes in this equation.

And that doesn't mean that we don't have to do it.

And that doesn't mean that we don't keep on our activism,

That we don't,

You know,

You don't just abandon ship,

Right?

It's not that you become apathetic,

Right?

I would say you free up your mind when you can do it,

Just because it's the right thing to do and it feels good.

Yeah,

I'm interested in the sensitivity you talked about.

So when you have that equanimity for experience and you're not fighting and pushing away,

You're just saying yes.

And then combined with that sensitivity that starts coming,

It's like life becomes too,

Not too,

But it becomes very rich and deep,

But very hard to hold.

Hard to hold.

Yeah,

To stay with,

Like,

Because I think that when you're saying no to life and you're saying,

I don't want this,

I don't want that,

You're quite busy with that.

You can numb out,

You know,

There's a lot of ways not to be in your experience,

But as soon as you take that away and you go,

I'm going to say yes and have that equanimity and I get that suffering is beautiful,

But then life becomes almost like this,

It's rich in a way that's sometimes a little bit unbearable.

Yes,

Sometimes it does feel unbearable.

Or not enough space for it too.

And sometimes it does feel unbearable,

Right?

But then you find that you're bearing it,

Right?

Now,

Not everybody does,

Not everybody does bear it well,

But I find that with the dharma on your side,

You can usually bear it,

Even though it seems unbearable at moments.

So what do you mean by dharma on your side?

Meaning that when there's a kind of love of the deeper well of being,

Right,

That you will return to it at some point,

You will return there and that becomes your sanctuary and that becomes your clear refuge and that,

When I say some people don't bear it well,

I'm talking about people who,

It breaks them,

Right?

Where life,

The pile up of too many losses or too much trouble or too much stress or whatever,

And we see,

I mean,

Probably the prisons are filled with people for whom that has happened.

And many other examples,

There's a tremendous breakdown of society,

How do we break down of society,

You know,

Happening worldwide,

Right?

But the dharma is a refuge.

It's,

From my point of view,

The only refuge.

There is no other refuge that stays a refuge.

Right.

I love that word refuge.

Yes,

Yes.

It really makes sense to me in this because if experience becomes too much,

There needs to be a landing somewhere.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Very good.

Yes,

That's it.

Right,

Exactly.

That when it gets to a kind of pitch,

You know,

An intense pitch inside or externally or whatever,

There's only one place to rest,

You know?

And we can well imagine circumstances whereby that's going to be the case,

Right?

So it's good to get comfortable in that along the way.

To be in the resting place,

More and more to return,

More and more so when that pitch is high,

You know how to return.

Exactly,

Right.

Yeah,

Where it becomes good,

Yes.

Yeah,

Where it becomes your habit,

You know.

And even if you don't necessarily even if you get thrown off at times,

Don't worry because at some point of the intensity,

You know,

In Buddhism they have an image that the Buddha allegedly used of holding onto a hot coal.

And at some point you can't hold it any longer.

You have to drop it,

Right?

And it's like that.

There's certain intensities that you might be gripping onto,

You know,

Doing your best to hold on.

But there comes a point where you can't.

You have to go to your,

What Poonjaji called the well of nothingness,

You know,

Go to the Dharma refuge of just being,

Just that,

Just down to the bottom of it until your last breath.

And until your last breath.

And,

You know,

It's very encouraging to know that,

Right?

It's very encouraging to know that there is a sanctuary and that you don't have to do anything to attain it.

You just start noticing it.

You don't have to climb some mountain of spiritual understandings or practices or anything.

It just feels so incredibly reassuring in the darkest times to,

You know,

To have that fallback.

That you know what's beyond,

You know who you are.

That's the nourishment that comes in the really dark times for me.

And just from my own experience,

It's sometimes in the most difficult,

Darkest times and,

You know,

They can be really prolonged,

But that knowing that,

Yeah,

That it feels,

You know,

It's really strong now,

It's really difficult.

And sometimes it feels like there's no access to the knowledge that,

You know,

There's no access to being in those times.

And just from my own experience,

It's sometimes in the most difficult,

Darkest times and,

You know,

They can be really prolonged,

But that knowing that,

Yeah,

That it feels,

You know,

The knowledge that from previous experience that I know what's here,

Even though I'm not experiencing it at the moment.

And that will open up.

In Tibetan Buddhism they say that,

You know,

Even on very cloudy days,

You know that the sun is still in the sky,

Right?

Like today we know that there is a sun out there.

And so it is that kind of confidence that you have that,

You know,

That this is not something that is,

You know,

A strange thing far out of reach,

You know.

And the strange thing,

What I have experienced myself is that sometimes the most difficult times and the darkest times brings the biggest openings and the most clarity and the most light afterwards.

You know,

It's almost like a dichotomy,

You know.

There'll be,

But that's been my experience through my life.

It's like the more difficult it is,

The more beautiful it is in the resolution and the opening afterwards.

It's a mystery.

It's such a beautiful mystery.

Right.

Oh no,

I know.

I understand.

It's often that way.

Yeah.

And those times where,

You know,

You have those longer periods where it's just really restful and peaceful.

One is grateful for those.

Just really enjoy it.

Enjoy it fully.

And it is interesting too,

As one goes in age or in wisdom,

That when one has had tough times and you have had to really find that well of being,

Of well-being through the difficulty,

When then you are on easy street again,

It's all the more delicious.

It's like you really,

The appreciation just is so accessible.

Right.

And you're not deluded by this isn't enough.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I look back on some of my younger years and with a kind of poignancy,

Realizing that that was really great,

But I don't know how to say it.

I don't know how to say it.

But I don't think I fully knew it at the time.

I was thinking there was going to be something else,

Something more,

Something,

You know,

And that had I really been able to fully appreciate it,

You know,

That would have been good.

Don't we all go through that?

Because,

I mean,

Initially when you had a lot of that,

Because,

I mean,

Initially when you have recognition,

It's so extraordinary.

Yeah.

And sometimes,

You know,

Your experiences just become more and more powerful and amazing.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

I recognise in myself in my early days that there was quite an addiction to the bigness of what those experiences could be.

Yes,

Sure.

It was almost like an addiction to experience.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

What's happened for me with maturity,

It's just like,

You know,

There's such a treasuring of the,

You know,

Just the little things.

The subtle beauty of just being here,

You know.

Yeah.

Just hearing the birds.

Yes,

That's enough.

Yeah.

Very good.

That's absolutely enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

Like,

I'm often in conversation with my daughter and wishing that if only she knew.

What you now know.

What now I know.

Yes.

But I was also just thinking,

God,

If only I knew.

So it's been really interesting for me to hear from our wise elders and to realise that so fundamentally in that is joy.

Yes.

You know,

It's like,

I also can relate to,

You know,

The younger years of feeling like it was all about having to have all the experiences and there was always going to be more and there was infinite options and you had to go after all of them.

And then there's moments where you feel like it's all kind of narrowed down because you've chosen certain paths and you're a parent now and you're doing this and you're doing that.

And yet,

Just something's just been reawakening and hearing you all share and reminding myself of what I now already know.

Is just that at the heart of all of it really is the love.

I mean,

All the struggles that we get into are because we love and all of the things that we think we have to do or accomplish or leave behind or all of it.

I mean,

It's all because of the love that we want to share and what's there.

And then to bring that thread in with leaving no trace,

It's like,

God,

What would that be if we were really just here to be this?

I mean,

Like,

And how simple that is for our children and our parents and our loved ones and the world and everyone.

It's like,

Wow,

What a gift just to be that for them,

For ourselves,

And to see it and hear it because we don't know really where it's all going.

No,

We don't know what they have to accomplish or what we have to or what success or life or anything has to be in the end or what I have to finish before I go or I don't know about any of it.

Just if we can sit together and laugh a little bit and remind each other to laugh.

Yes,

Yes.

It's beautiful.

I'm just remembering just one last thing to say,

A line that Dylan wrote that I so love.

Only a fool here would think he had anything to prove.

This has been In the Deep.

You can find the entire list of In the Deep podcasts at katherineingram.

Com,

Where you can also book a private session by phone or Skype and see my upcoming events.

Our Italy retreat of 2018 is now filled,

But we have space in the New Zealand retreat in May of 2019.

Till next time.

Reviews

Amazing! Thank you for sharing your being and love.

You wouldn't believe how much this has helped me in difficult times. Thank you 🙏

All of your talks are insightful & inspiring! Found myself listening to one after another! Thanks for sharing your own experiences & wisdom!