When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics)

by Pema Chödrön

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present without reference point, experiences groundlessness. That’s when our understanding goes deeper, when we find that the present moment is a pretty vulnerable place and that this can be completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”

The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening. It’s too much. It’s gone too far. We feel bad about ourselves. There’s no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good. No matter how hard we try, it just won’t work. Basically, life has just nailed us.

Reaching our limit is not some kind of punishment. It’s actually a sign of health that, when we meet the place where we are about to die, we feel fear and trembling. A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us. Things like disappointment and anxiety are messengers telling us that we’re about to go into unknown territory.

I’d heard Zen teachers talk of meditation as the willingness to die over and over again. And there it was—as each breath went out and dissolved, there was the chance to die to all that had gone before and to relax instead of panic.

To undo our very ancient and very stuck habitual patterns of mind requires that we begin to turn around some of our most basic assumptions.

Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there’s anywhere to hide.