Shining Light On Brokenness

The ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi is all about the beauty of brokenness. When a vessel is cracked, or even smashed to bits, Kintsugi is about piecing it back together with gold. Far from being perceived as flawed, the vessel, in its brokenness, is then considered better than before, even luminous.

What if mindfulness could help us to approach our own brokenness in this way? Just imagine the light…

Transcript

Hey everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 324 on November 4th.

Welcome.

There's some activity going on outside of my office so it's possible that we will get interrupted or have some background noise,

So apologies for that.

I mentioned last week that this past week was the seventh annual Law and Social Change Jam and we completed the jam yesterday and it was amazing.

And today I want to talk about chapter eight of the Dhammapada which is thousands where we left off a couple of weeks ago,

Plus the law jam,

Plus Kintsuki,

The ancient art of repairing vessels with gold.

Chapter eight I think is inviting us to be less concerned with our own aspirations and more appreciative of others or it's offering humility as a practice which I love.

Then at the end of the chapter is a series of verses that say things like better than 100 years lived with an unsettled mind is one day lived with insight or better than 100 years lived lazily is one day lived with vigor and exertion.

Better than 100 years lived without seeing the arising and passing of things is one day lived seeing that,

And so on.

To me the verses seem not only like reminders of the importance of practice but also lessons in imperfection,

Because they're not saying better to practice for 100 years than to be unawake for 100 years they're not even saying better to practice for one year or one month,

Then to live without awareness,

They're saying better to practice for one day.

Just one day.

And so for me,

You know,

This really hits up against and kind of goes against my perfectionist strain big time.

I think,

Well,

What's one day of practice like how can that matter.

I should be practicing diligently every day.

And yet sometimes I don't like this past week during the lab jam,

I didn't practice every day.

So I'm feeling encouraged to read this beloved text to see in the beloved text that better than 100 years lived with an unsettled mind is one day lived with insight and I'm not letting myself off the hook I'm not suggesting that we,

We not be diligent with our practice.

I would say that there's a way of reading it,

That to me invites this practice of imperfection this idea this reality of imperfection which also came up for me at the jam and it came up for me in the form of brokenness so like I said,

I was reading chapter eight as saying your practice doesn't have to be perfect.

One day of being awake is better than none.

And that felt like permission,

Especially since perfectionism runs so deep in the lawn it's one of the four perils.

I'm always talking about.

But then at the jam.

I had the thought,

Or maybe it was an insight that maybe I have permission,

Not only to have an imperfect mindfulness practice.

And maybe not just to be flat out imperfect.

Right.

But what if it goes farther than that.

The thought I had after that kind of predictable and kind of well accepted thought anyway of not being perfect.

And that was okay was,

What if my imperfections are the most important thing.

And what if all of our imperfections are the most important thing.

In other words,

Just like in the ancient art of kintsugi where cracks in the vessel are filled with gold.

What if it's our imperfections that we have to offer.

What if it's our brokenness that we have to offer that can really help others.

So when this first popped into my mind I thought,

Nope,

I've been through a lot.

I've been through sexual assault,

Two divorces.

One which was violent and put my childhood at serious risk and other things,

Too.

And maybe you've been through some serious things too,

And maybe you can relate to the idea I've had all this time,

Which is that yes,

These things happened.

But now I need to heal them.

Because it's the healing that I have to offer not the brokenness.

And I think I would even go as far as saying that I've had the understanding that I can't really legitimately offer much,

You know,

To the world to the legal community even to my family.

Until I first heal myself,

You know,

Until I've done all the work,

Seen all the therapists,

Examined all the trauma and cleared,

Cleared all the things.

And then this week I realized that at least for me,

That's wrong.

You know,

And first it's wrong because it's not going to happen.

I'm not going to completely clear anything in this life,

No matter how much therapy I do.

I'm not going to become someone who is truly clear.

In fact,

Becoming is a form of suffering.

That sense of wanting to become something different.

It's one of the classical forms of suffering.

So I'm going to stay on a path toward healing and wholeness,

But the person on that path is fundamentally broken,

Cracked,

Flawed.

And I'm starting to see how that brokenness,

Which I've always my whole life,

Thought was something that first I had to hide,

And then I had to deal with but was ashamed to deal with.

And then I had to deal with and deal with the shame.

And then I had to heal and make sure it was gone,

That all of that is actually what I have to offer.

That,

Like the art of kintsugi repairing with gold,

It's the gold highlighting the brokenness that is the actual beauty that shines through.

That is the healing.

Because the truth is that I don't come to the wake up call,

Or to any spaces from a place of unmitigated love.

I don't come without the physical trauma that was visited upon my young body,

Or the emotional trauma that was blasted into my cells,

Or the existential trauma that all of us are experiencing in the world right now.

No one can have me like that because a human like that doesn't exist.

This human doesn't come that way and also,

I don't come without missing plenty of days on my cushion.

I don't come with a perfect practice.

I come with all of the pain,

All of the suffering,

All of the brokenness,

Even the sense of wanting to become.

I come with that suffering as well.

I come with all of it,

All of the imperfection.

And so,

If it is my brokenness that I have to offer,

Then I just have to believe it's the same for all of us.

That it's our brokenness we can offer one another.

Our broken hearts,

Our broken bodies,

Our broken families,

Our broken communities,

Our broken legal system,

Our broken political system,

Our broken ecosystem.

Broken all deeply imperfect.

And also,

As repaired as they can be,

As repaired as we can be.

Here's our frog.

As expertly and inexpertly as we can repair them day after day and year after year,

Luminous,

Because they are repaired,

Because they are repaired and unrepaired.

So when I think about these last verses of chapter eight of the Dhammapada that one day of insight is better than 100 years,

Essentially of delusion.

I also think that maybe one day of insight into our brokenness,

And maybe our collective brokenness.

One day,

Meditating on learning to love our imperfections and brokenness.

And even loving the fact that we can't love them.

One day seeing the rising and passing of brokenness,

Maybe that the arising and passing is in itself brokenness.

But that's better than 100 years of thinking that first before we can offer ourselves to the world we have to be perfect.

Because I think we can't be.

And even if we could be we don't have to be,

And maybe even we shouldn't be.

Maybe we should offer our brokenness instead.

So let's sit.

And today I guess I want to invite us all into our most imperfect practice.

So,

A way that is achy or sore or impacted,

Wounded,

Broken,

And settling into what's here.

A mind that is distracted,

Yearning or ruminating.

The broken heart.

Now trying to change anything,

Shift anything,

Move anything,

Not even necessarily trying to love.

Brokenness.

Just seeing it.

And just being with it.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Maybe in one way,

The brokenness.

Okay.

Shine,

Shine through.

Thank you everyone for being on the wake up call today.

Take good care.

And have a good Thursday.

Have a good weekend.

I'll see you next Thursday.

Reviews

A graceful take on brokenness. Thank you for sharing your insight and vulnerability. God Bless 🌈🌻💜

Lovely talk. Perhaps it’s our brokenness that we can use to create a sense of unity. Thank you.

A very helpful start to the day. Thank you 🙏🌻