Trust The Unfolding

In the Buddhist teachings, we are asked to use our meditation practice as a way to reflect on the profound truth of anicca, or impermanence: the truth that everything – including ourselves, is always and forever in a constant state of unfolding… along with the truth that if we can learn to trust that flow, & let go of needing to control it, we can truly live with much more joy, freedom, & ease in our lives. This talk investigates how we can learn to live in and even as that constant unfolding.

Transcript

Spot Saw meaningful And the dark gray pattern of leafFun Aliens 41 Earlier we wanted To preempt Back to associate So last week I was talking to my retreat manager,

Anda Chomps,

About a new situation that I'm suddenly finding myself in right now that is going to involve not only a really big letting go,

But also a giant leap of faith into the unknown.

And for those of you who may not know Anne,

She is an incredibly kind,

Wise woman who is very steeped in the practice.

And she also very often jumps in to serve as a kind of cheerleader for me.

And I wanted to share with you what she told me because it not only really resonated for me,

But it also pointed to the main theme of the Buddhist teachings themselves.

And for those of you who have practiced with me,

You likely know about my great love of putting short phrases that reflect the Buddhist teachings on sticky notes as a way of reminding us of some of the profound insights of the teachings in a way that's really easy for us to remember.

And now because of Anne,

I'm really happy to say I have two more of these phrases,

Which I think actually go together.

And what she said was,

Trust the unfolding,

Trust the unfolding,

Along with,

And I love this part,

The unfolding will continue,

The unfolding will continue.

And on the very same day that Anne shared those two phrases with me,

Another dear student of mine,

Monica Knapp,

Who is an absolutely gorgeous singer,

Sent me a short song of hers and the lyrics included these lines,

Which were,

Lay your burdens down,

Everything will unfold as it should.

Lay your burdens down,

Everything will unfold as it should.

And so I'm sending a very deep bow to these two wise women who helped to reaffirm for me the great importance of reflecting on the truth of anicca or impermanence,

The truth that everything,

Including ourselves,

Is always and forever in a state of constant unfolding.

Along with the truth that if we can learn to trust that unfolding,

As Anne said,

And let go,

We can truly live with more joy and ease in our lives.

Many years ago,

I remember hearing a story about the Zen master,

Shenzhu Suzuki Roshi,

Where a student raised his hand after a talk and said,

You know,

Master,

I just don't understand.

Can you please just put it in a nutshell for us?

Can you please reduce Buddhism to just one phrase?

And apparently people in the audience started laughing about this and Suzuki Roshi started laughing and before he moved on to another question,

He just simply said two words,

Which were everything changes,

Everything changes.

And so there you go,

The entire polycanon reduced down to these two simple words,

Everything changes.

And of course,

We don't really need a Buddhist master to tell us this,

Right?

We've all lived on this earth long enough to know the truth of anicca,

Impermanence.

And according to the teachings,

The problem is not that there's change.

Change is just a truth.

It's a reality.

And we can't really argue with that.

It's happening constantly without end.

We might even notice right now that just by paying attention to our breath in this moment,

We are always either breathing in,

Receiving a new moment or breathing out,

Letting go.

We are always doing this.

And of course,

Change can often really be a good thing,

A great thing.

It's actually a line that I love to remember from an interview the reporter Alex Banyan once had with Maya Angelou.

He said,

When I interviewed Maya Angelou,

She told me to write the sentence on a notepad and to never forget it.

She said,

Every storm runs out of rain.

I still think of that line to this day.

Every storm runs out of rain.

And during the height of the pandemic,

I actually really thought of that line every day too.

It was one of my favorite sticky notes to remind myself every storm runs out of rain.

And if we think about it really without change,

Life itself literally would not happen.

Everything,

Including ourselves,

Would just cease to exist.

The metaphor that's most often used in the Buddhist teachings for life is that of a river,

Which is a progressive movement,

Moment,

A successive series of different moments or movements joined together to give the impression of one continuous flow.

So even though it might look the same sometimes,

The river of yesterday is actually never the same as the river of today.

The river of this moment is never the same as the river of the next moment,

Although it may look similar.

So sometimes it's really easy to notice change because it's really quick.

We can see it instantly.

Maybe we decide to get a new haircut,

Instant change.

But for so much of our lives,

Change is just really slow.

And so what happens is that we tend to not pay attention to it or notice it even.

It can often feel just invisible.

When I first met my husband Brent about 27 years ago now,

He owned a business where he made custom-made windows.

And when we moved into the little farm cottage where we live today,

He showed me how our front window is literally melting.

It's very old and it has visible waves in the glass like a river.

And it's thinner at the top and it's much thicker at the bottom.

So every day when I look outside that window,

I'm reminded about this,

About how slow and invisible impermanence can feel,

But to see the truth that it's actually happening.

So right now you might even reflect on the fact that in the same way,

Everything in the space that you're in right now is also slowly changing and shifting.

All those tiny molecules,

Second by second,

Maybe the chair or the cushion you're sitting on will eventually disintegrate.

Maybe the road you're walking or driving on will eventually also disintegrate.

We can look back to the ancient ruins all over the world and remember this truth.

Even the moon and the sun and the earth will at some point no longer be here.

And of course,

We ourselves are not separate from this and are also continually changing,

Just like that river.

Right now our skin is slowly changing and aging.

Our cells,

About 50 to 75 trillion of them are changing.

They each have their own lifespan.

And when they die off,

They're replaced with new ones.

On and on it goes.

And of course,

At some point,

Our skin will even no longer be alive on our bodies.

But again,

We don't often want to think about these things.

And so we're mostly unaware of it as it's happening.

We just don't recognize it or notice it.

Several years ago,

I recall someone saying to me once that at some point in our childhood,

We and our friends went outside to play together for the last time,

And none of us knew it.

And that really struck me.

In the same way,

In every moment,

Various thoughts are also arising and passing in each of us constantly.

Probably not five trillion like ourselves,

Although it may feel that way some days.

Even our mental states,

Of course,

Keep changing from minute to minute.

So one moment we're happy,

Another we're sad.

One moment we might be concentrated,

Another moment we're distracted,

Forgetful.

All in accordance with conditions,

Which themselves are constantly in flow.

Just for a moment,

You might even reflect on how many times your mind state has changed just today.

How many times has your mental state changed?

So again,

We might assume the truth of anicca isn't something we can really argue with,

Right?

We all know the truth of this.

It's very obvious.

The problem is we actually do argue with it all the time.

Our human tendency is to want to do battle with this reality.

And this is one of,

If not the main sources of our stress and our fear.

Or in other words,

Our dukkha,

Our suffering.

So I'd like to invite you to really think about this for a moment,

Really contemplate it.

So for instance,

We might even notice how often this is true,

Even if we consider change a good thing.

Like maybe when there's a good change in your life,

Like a marriage or a baby or a job change or a move.

There's actually a name for this kind of change,

Which is called eustress,

E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S,

Which means that we don't often realize that these things too,

These good changes are incredibly stressful.

And again,

The reason for this is because they all involve change and often not a small amount of grief about letting go of what we've known,

What we've perceived our lives to be,

Along with fear,

Of course,

About entering something new.

Our tendency is to want to have control over things and never be in any state of uncertainty.

And if we really start to investigate and are honest with ourselves,

We might also notice that we tend to want most things to just remain the same.

This is because same in some way makes us feel safe and comfortable,

It's familiar.

We might recall the word familiar is related to the words family or friendly,

Which points to this idea that when we think we know something,

It becomes much less frightening.

This is often true,

Even if this is an old and maybe negative belief about ourselves,

Right,

Or maybe an old acquaintance or friend who just isn't right for us anymore.

We continue to hang on to that belief or that person or that situation because it just feels safer,

It's familiar.

It's that better the devil you know than the devil you don't kind of thinking.

What we tend to not like is new,

Different,

Strange.

New is a stranger,

Even if this means of course seeing ourselves as new.

And yet the truth is always right in front of us.

Everything changes,

Everything changes.

And the good news for us is that the entirety of the Buddhist teachings really are aimed at addressing how we can become familiar with uncertainty itself and how we can actually use it to help us discover more freedom from our suffering.

And along with Suzuki Roshi's two word summary,

Everything changes.

I would like to offer you a great four word phrase that tells us how we are being asked to practice with that truth.

This phrase is from one of my very favorite modern teachers,

The Buddhist monk and scholar Bikkyu Anayo,

Who I've studied with many times.

So he summarizes our entire practice this way.

Many of you know this already.

Keep calmly knowing change.

Keep calmly knowing change.

So this is it,

Our whole practice,

To continually,

Mindfully,

Calmly be fully awake and aware of the truth of impermanence or change and to not hold on to any of it.

And I use that phrase so often actually one of my students,

Actually several of my students made me different bumper stickers for it.

And another student made me a mug with those words on it.

So happily,

I get to review them on most days.

So what the Buddha is offering us is a kind of paradox,

Which is that if we can stop running and surrender and actually take a long,

Deep look at impermanence,

If we can actually invite it,

Become friendly with it,

Not in an intellectual way,

But in an entirely experiential one,

It actually doesn't lead to suffering at all.

It leads to great joy.

As all the great master teachers tell us,

Surrendering to impermanence is like the master key to open any door that we want.

It is so important in fact that the Buddha's last dying words were said to have been,

All conditioned things are impermanent,

Strive on with diligence.

All conditioned things are impermanent,

Strive on with diligence.

His last dying words.

The late Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh says that we should learn to say long live impermanence because thanks to impermanence,

We can change suffering into joy.

That surrender is sometimes called the Maha Sukkah,

The great happiness.

So it's really the opposite of what we so often think,

That impermanence is what is making us suffer.

What's actually making us suffer is our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our whole situation,

Our whole life.

To quote Thich Nhat Hanh again,

He very famously tells us,

It's not impermanence that makes us suffer.

What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

It's not impermanence that makes us suffer.

What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

I also like the way the teacher Stephen Cope says this.

He says,

Through practice,

I've come to see that the deepest source of my misery is not wanting things to be the way they are.

Not wanting myself to be the way I am.

Not wanting the world to be the way it is.

Not wanting others to be the way they are.

Whenever I'm suffering,

I find this war with reality to be at the heart of the problem.

My favorite Buddhist nun,

Pema Chodron,

Says another way,

Which is our discomfort arises from all our effort to put ground under our feet,

To realize our dream of constant okayness.

And I just love that term,

Constant okayness.

Because if we're honest,

Isn't that what we all actually really want?

How we think it's supposed to be,

Constant okayness?

We tend to want things to be permanent and solid and reliable.

And of course,

This includes our view of ourselves and other people.

We tend to want things that feel and smell and look and taste pleasant to us.

And when we can't pin something down or can't get something we want,

Or when we have something we don't want,

Doesn't something seem wrong?

Right?

You might take a moment just to think about whatever you're suffering with right now in your life and ask yourself,

Am I wanting something?

Something to be different than it actually is?

Am I wanting something to be different than it actually is?

Or am I wanting some person to be different than they actually are?

Or am I wanting myself in some way to be different than I actually am?

Or am I wanting something I can't have?

Or is there something I have that I don't want?

You might even take a moment to consider,

Is this ever not true?

Is this ever not true?

This constant wanting or not wanting?

Sometimes I like to ponder another question Pema asks,

Which is,

What is it like to realize that we can never completely and finally get it all together?

No.

Because,

In some way,

It's like we all think that someday,

If only this or that,

We'll finally reach that sweet spot.

We might even consider how often we think about this,

About finally getting there,

That place of perfection that will just stay that way forever.

Because all the great masters remind us the only sweet spot ever,

Ever is right now.

It's this moment,

The one that we are actually living.

I remember once hearing a story many years ago about the Dalai Lama who was being interviewed by a reporter about his life.

And the reporter asked him,

Venerable sir,

What do you think was the very best moment of your life?

And the Dalai Lama thought about this for a moment.

And finally he said,

I think now.

I think now.

So truly,

Everything else besides this present moment is simply a dream.

It's a fantasy,

Isn't it?

You might even think back,

For instance,

To this morning and what happened to that.

Right?

Is it still here?

It's a dream,

Isn't it?

And what about the past?

Is that real?

Is that real or is it just a dream?

For those of us who have siblings,

Aren't there memories of things that happened often totally different from ours?

Right?

So our viewpoint of the past or the future is often a fantasy.

Just for instance,

You might have plans for tomorrow,

But again,

Do any of our moments ever turn out exactly as we planned?

We might even consider,

Are we really in control of any of it?

Truly.

We might even consider how much time do we spend judging how well we're doing in regard to how we imagine our life is supposed to look like while ignoring how we actually feel in this moment,

The one we're actually living right now.

Dilgo Khancho Rinpoche tells us this,

In meditation we can see through the illusion of past,

Present and future.

Our experience becomes the continuity of nowness.

The past is only an unreliable memory held in the present.

The future is only a projection of our present conceptions.

The present itself vanishes as soon as we try to grasp it.

So why bother attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

The truth is,

Again,

We are always on unsolid ground,

Right in the center of change,

And we can never really know exactly how the next moment and the next are going to play out.

And yet again,

Our tendency is to want everything to just stop flowing,

Or maybe we want to cling on to the edge of the river,

Or sometimes we're great or cool with the flow of the river.

It's just that we want it to flow exactly how and where we want it to.

And according to the Buddhist teachings,

The way to stop suffering is by doing the very opposite of these things.

So instead of clinging and holding on or desperately trying to control the flow of the river,

We let go,

We surrender into the flow of it,

And we float.

Or as the poet John O'Donohue writes,

I would love to live like a river flows carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.

So this is really the heart of the Buddhist training.

We train ourselves to study and really get to know impermanence itself,

To be constantly awake and aware to this flow so that we can remain calm in the midst of change and become wiser about how we respond rather than constantly reacting and struggling and fighting against.

The philosopher Piero Ferrucci tells us,

We give up.

And by some benevolent paradox,

The very attitude releases the solution.

And the more we continue to practice in this way,

The more we begin to trust that we can rest in the unknowing.

We trust in the unfolding itself.

We float there,

If you will.

The late great Mary Oliver tells us,

Though I play at the edges of knowing,

Truly I know our part is not knowing,

But looking and touching and loving.

Now,

It's also really important for me to say and remind us that letting go does not mean we become numb or indifferent or hollow or victims or that we don't dream or plan or make goals or take actions.

Of course we do.

It just means that we're letting go of our expectations,

Holding on to how we want it to be.

Really important.

We might even start to notice that the more we can learn to let go,

The more we can move through life without thinking this or he or she or I should or should have been different.

Just as a,

For instance,

Even when say a loved one dies or when something happens that really shakes up our world in some way,

We can suffer for so many more years than is necessary by clinging onto one simple belief,

Which is it shouldn't have happened.

It shouldn't have happened.

And instead of clinging on so tightly,

We might instead try grieving fully whenever the grief arises for as long as it arises,

Letting it flow fully with the stages of grief and then acknowledging that this is how it is now.

This actually is what happened.

Not it shouldn't have happened.

This is what happened and grieving that.

And this points to a wonderful phrase from the Zen tradition,

Which is this is it.

This is it.

Which I actually use so often.

One of my retreat managers actually had this tattooed on her body.

Whenever we consider that this is it,

We can also automatically invite the question,

Now what?

This is it.

Now what?

What is the wisest,

Most compassionate response to this person,

Situation or even myself?

Now what?

And as the training shows us,

The more we can practice fully acknowledging and bowing to the this is it and awakening to our lives as it is,

What happens is we begin to feel everything even more fully.

We discover the joy of experiencing all of it.

All of this is it.

We ride the waves of what are often called the 10,

000 joys and the 10,

000 sorrows of life.

Another one of my teachers,

Dr.

Jon Kabat-Zinn,

Who founded Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction,

He wrote a very thick 720 page book to describe what we're doing here,

Which he called Full Catastrophe Living.

We're facing all of it,

The full catastrophe.

And to summarize our practice again,

His famous line is,

You can't stop the waves,

But you can learn to serve.

You can't stop the waves,

But you can learn to serve.

So what this practice is showing us is how we can meet or greet this full catastrophe just as it is,

Not how we want it to be.

What happens is that we begin to awaken to all of it with great gratitude.

Gradually we stop fighting and controlling all of it and become more and more grateful for the present moment,

For life itself,

Knowing that it's all precious and fleeting,

Everything and everyone around us,

All of our experiences,

All of our sights and smells and tastes and our loved ones.

Gradually all of this becomes so much more special and precious because we're more awake to the truth of impermanence.

We start to fully recognize that nothing will be here forever.

And this includes ourselves.

Along with being aware of impermanence,

We can also remember that every day everything is brand new,

Again,

Including ourselves and everyone we know.

This remembering can actually be really helpful whenever we look at those close to us,

Our family,

Friends,

Parents,

Children,

Partners,

Et cetera.

We might ask ourselves,

For instance,

How could I see this person or being as new?

How could I see them as new?

Or maybe even each day,

How could I see myself as new every day,

Every moment?

To go back to Biku and Ayu's summary of how we're being asked to practice,

The way we begin to get more comfortable with change is by paying attention to it very calmly,

Mindfully and consistently.

We keep calmly knowing change.

And our practice,

Our formal practice can be so helpful for this.

This is where we begin.

We can start with what is the closest to us,

The thing that keeps us alive,

Which is always in constant movement and flow,

Which is the breath.

We can watch it as it rises and falls and rises and falls again,

Expands and contracts,

Can notice its constant flow and rhythm.

So often each breath might feel the same,

But in many monastic communities,

The teachers actually ask the monastics to examine each breath during meditation and then tell the teacher every day for years how different the breath was.

How is the breath different today?

From the breath,

We can then expand our awareness to our whole bodies.

We can experience the sensations as they also come and go and arise and pass.

And notice spaciousness,

Heaviness,

Tiredness,

Heat,

Coolness,

Pain,

The whole flow of our bodies,

The sensations in the body.

Then of course we can pay attention to our emotions and our thoughts and sounds as they also arise and pass.

For instance,

We might begin to notice that the body is never really still.

It's never really solid.

It's in constant motion,

Just like our thoughts,

Just as everything is.

Now we can practice what in the Vajrayana tradition is called the Samaya vow.

We can commit ourselves to embrace the world just as it is.

Again,

This is it,

Just as it is.

And so in essence,

We surrender and make a commitment to not reject anything.

The Tibetan Buddhist master Dilgo Kinshe expresses this so simply.

He says the everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself.

And so first we practice mindfulness,

Coming back again and again to exactly where we are and to whatever we're experiencing in this moment.

So for instance,

We might feel our feet on the earth or our near back hurting,

Water flowing over our hands,

Windy air blowing through our hair,

The sound of trucks or wind,

Which I'm listening to now as I'm recording,

Or birds,

The smell of the earth.

And we add to that a sense of deep appreciation for each of these unique and precious moments of life,

Whatever they are,

Pleasant or unpleasant,

Joy,

Elation,

Irritation,

Anger,

Grief,

Sorrow,

All of it.

The point is it actually doesn't matter.

There's simply this precious life living through us and we're not clinging or resisting,

Struggling or wallowing in it.

We are letting it all pass through,

Experiencing all of it.

We're awake to it.

So through our practice,

We're learning to allow ourselves to rest,

To rest in the calm river of awareness itself.

Pema Chodron tells us this,

When you have this kind of genuine connection with yourself in the world,

You may begin to encounter wakefulness.

You suddenly feel as if you're in a vast,

Wide open space with unlimited breathing room.

It's as if you've stepped out of a small,

Dark,

Stuffy tent and found yourself standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

This is the place of just being.

It's not an otherworldly,

Ethereal place.

You haven't transcended the ordinary details of your life.

Quite the opposite.

You finally contacted them 100% and they've become a doorway to what is called sacred world.

Sacred,

Not in the sense of religious or holy,

But in the sense of precious,

Rare,

Fleeting,

Fundamentally genuine and good.

And so I think I will end there and invite you into just a really brief meditation.

So if it's available for you,

You might take a nice seat,

Find a good posture,

Relax posture,

Close the eyes.

If you're walking or driving,

You might really connect with your body,

Become more embodied.

You're sitting,

Feel your sit bones and your feet.

If you're walking,

Feel the bottom of your feet,

The act of the body moving.

Maybe taking a nice deep breath in,

Connecting with the breath and the body.

Slow exhale,

Letting go,

Settling into your body a little more.

Pull rounds of these on your own to reconnect with the body itself.

Relaxing the body,

Dropping the shoulders,

Letting the hands be open,

Palms soft,

Letting the face relax,

Eyes,

Forehead,

Cheeks,

Jaw,

Tongue.

Letting the breath to slowly become natural in the body.

I'd like to invite you for these next few minutes to just really concentrate your attention on the breath.

Gather your attention on the act of breathing,

Just that simple flow in the body.

Notice the rhythm of your own breath and body.

Notice that the breath is in constant flow and movement.

You're always and forever receiving a new moment and letting go,

Receiving a new breath and letting go.

Until the day we all die,

This is the truth.

Connecting with gratitude,

New moment,

Truly letting go on each exhale.

Anchoring your attention in the present moment right now by anchoring your attention to the breath.

Each time the mind naturally wanders away from the body into past or future,

Thinking very gently,

Bring it back home to this moment,

This inhale,

This exhale,

And just simply begin again,

No judgment.

We come back home again and again and again.

We come back home again and again.

To finish,

I'd like to invite you to just listen to this poem from the Theragada,

Which is an ancient collection of poetry from the very first Buddhist nuns.

Find your true home on the path.

Find the path right here in the center of your own heart.

If you keep searching in the past and searching in the future,

You will search and search,

But your searching will never end.

I'll repeat that.

Find your true home on the path.

Find the path right here in the center of your own heart.

If you keep searching in the past and searching in the future,

You will search and search,

But your searching will never end.

Namaste and blessings.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

These talks are always offered freely so that no one is ever denied access to these teachings,

And your support really makes a difference.

Dhanah is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart.

If you feel inspired to offer Dhanah,

You can do so by visiting my website at www.

Mindfulvalley.

Com.

Thank you so much.

Reviews

So clearly stated and I enjoyed the quotes and references.

This was one of the best talks I’ve ever heard. Thank you so much and many blessings to you.

This talk touched me deeply. Warm and heartful. Loved the reflections and quotes by various teachers. Has planted many seeds for my own reflection. 🌱 Thank you 💕

Such a beautiful and helpful session with much wisdom I needed to hear today! Thank you! I will return to this talk often and appreciate all the incredible quotes I wrote down in between! Namaste 🙏🏼 💗

Thank you

Thank you very much for this superb talk. Truly "all you need" 🌟

Thank you for this beautiful contemplation. I am listening many times as I try to truly understand the truth of impermanence and surrender to the life that is here.

You’re a gift, Shell. All of your talks. Thank you ❤️❤️❤️

Loved this so much She’ll 🙏🏼🌷

Quotes rock. Will be using this talk as a sticky note. 🙏🌱