The other big factor in my mood changing has got to be something universal or environmental or something, because almost everyone I have talked to over the past couple of weeks has confessed that they have been feeling down too. Maybe it's a phase of the moon thing, maybe it's astrology, or maybe it's just the weather changing. I certainly don't know for sure, but I find it fascinating that whatever it was seemed to affect everyone in a similar way at the same time.
Along those same lines, I have been reading in my latest Pema book about the practice of Tonglen and how it can affirm our interconnectedness with the rest of the world, which I find incredibly comforting. Here's a passage:
In it's essence, this practice is: when anything is painful or undesirable, breathe it in. In other words, you don't resist it. You surrender to yourself, you acknowledge who you are, you honor yourself. As unwanted feelings and emotions arise, you actually breathe them in and connect with what all humans feel. We all know what it is to feel pain in its many guises.
You breathe in for yourself, in the sense that pain is a personal and real experience, but simultaneously there's no doubt that you're developing your kinship with all beings. If you can know it in yourself you can know it in everyone. If you're in a jealous rage and you have the courage to breathe it in rather than blame it on someone else, the arrow you feel in your heart will tell you that there are people all over the world who are feeling exactly what you're feeling. This practice cuts through culture, economic status, intelligence, race, religion. People everywhere feel pain -- jealousy, anger, being left out, feeling lonely. Everybody feels it in the painful way you feel it. The story lines vary, but the underlying feeling is the same for us all.
So lately, when I've been feeling sad or overwhelmed or crappy, it helps to think about how it's not just me feeling this way. When I'm upset I have a kind of tunnel vision sometimes where I can only see a short distance in front of me and I feel like I'm always going to feel this terrible for the rest of my life. This idea of interconnectedness helps to remind me that other people have felt this way and their lives have gone on and they survived. Anyway, I'm not trying to push Buddhism on anybody, I just thought it was a cool idea.
Hope you're all well :)
xo,
C
1 comment:
Actually, I've been in a pretty great mood this week, although I did hit a rough patch in August and September. I just finished reading The Secret of Letting Go. The messages in Letting Go seem to resonate with your description of Tonglen. The book I read talks about confusing your feelings and who you are. The writer advocates thinking less about yourself and to want what life wants. The advice to "think about yourself less" is not a message to be less selfish, as least not directly, but instead to stop obsessing over your own feelings and opinion of your self. A person exists outside of his or her feelings and opinions of herself. It's a simple read, but it rang true for me. The author says you should never defend being in a bad mood. That's a tough habit to break, though, right? ;)
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