“Is a mountain heavy? It may be heavy in and of itself, but as long as we don’t try to lift it up, it won’t be heavy for us.” Thanissaro
It was, at first, a difficult start to what I anticipated would be an arduous 40-hour journey to Indonesia. As I my boarded my first flight, I was dismayed to discover that my assigned seat on the long, 16-hour leg was already significantly occupied by another woman. Partially hidden in her abaya, her ample size more than overflowed from her own tiny middle seat into mine. My impulsive first efforts to claim all of my own seat were confounded; there simply was no extra space for either of us in our already cramped seats or in the filled-to-capacity airplane. It was not what I wanted. My body contracted, reeling in cramped discomfort, my emotions raged, and my mind exploded in prejudice, complaint and worry. It was Dukkha. Unpleasantness. Stress.
Yes, it was, indeed, “like this now.” This was dukkha: stress, the unsatisfactory. It was no one’s fault. The unpleasant happens, influenced by infinite causes and conditions most of which are well beyond anyone’s personal control. Thanissaro quotes his teacher Ajahn Lee to remind me that painful experience is one thing, but it is what happens next in my mind that determines my actual suffering. “You don’t deny (problems)… and you don’t run away from them…you deal with problems where you have to and solve them where you can. You simply learn how not to carry them around. That’s where the art of the practice lies: in living with real problems without making their reality burden the heart.”
For my ordinary mind, this doesn’t make any sense at all. I am used to seeing only the pleasant as wholesome and to always trying to solve problems by ACTION that eliminates the obstacle. As far as it goes, this is perfectly sensible. The problem, the Buddha noticed, was that it doesn’t always actually work. Life has a way of not being in my control and not working out according to my personal views, wishes and plans. Looking at my realistic options with that airplane, the obstacles were simply there: intransigent and starkly unmoving. Phooey. Now what?
I decided that I needed to use my meditation practice and work not externally, but internally, with my own mind to find a wider awareness and a wiser calm. Otherwise, I thought, it would be a very, very long journey, indeed. My reactivity and agitation were unlikely to solve the problem and promised only to ripen into still more suffering.
I worked to settle my awareness and to release my narrow focus on a desperate struggle for comfort. I was able to widen and soften the mind’s ruminating on its internal flood of views, opinions, perceptions and stories about what was wrong. I moved to a more direct, embodied awareness and a deeper presence and compassion: with myself, first of all. “It’s like this now,” in this human body, this human mind. Slowly my mind calmed; my body followed. Still grumpy, tired and cramped, I felt a bit more ease.
After a bit, I relaxed even more. Limited by a language barrier, my seat mate and I nevertheless negotiated a quiet peace. I began to open to compassion for her suffering as well; imprisoned in a middle seat, her discomfort was likely even greater than mine. As I settled in, I also discovered that her body now offered me a very large and soft pillow; there was nothing to do but receive it. Slowly, we came to rest on – and in – one another’s arms. Together, we slept.
Toward the end of the fight, we labored through our different languages, attempting a bit of conversation. I learned that Amira was a school principal in a small town in Pakistan, returning home after a visit to her beloved son who was studying in the US. As we separated in Qatar, she was a little bewildered by the chaos of the airport. I helped her to find her way. When we parted, we each paused once again into simple presence; it was a holy moment. “I will keep you in my heart and in my prayers” she said.” Yes, and I you; may you travel safely.” We embraced in tears, tenderness and love. Nourished by the surprising sweetness of the encounter, I made my way on the rest of my journey
So it isn’t that the Buddha asks me to attend to only suffering or to difficulty instead of the pleasant. Quite the contrary. He simply proposes that when I desperately chase the pleasant, when I insist with my mind that life MUST work on my own terms, when I make my total well-being dependent on life meeting my own plans and wishes, I will suffer unnecessarily. I will miss the holy. The thing is, on that airplane, once I let go of my narrow, constricted insistence, I was able to open and see what possibilities existed, what choices I actually did have.
I learn again and again and again to lay down burdens when I can, and to rest in the presence of mountains without trying to pick them up and carry them around. I am invited to release judgment of myself and others, to open to ever wider and ever deeper qualities of goodness and well-being: qualities of freedom and happiness that don’t depend on any particular circumstance. Over the ocean that night, Amira and I discovered together the mysterious gifts of just being.