I am back in one of my happy places on the planet. This time a group of my closest friends joined me. It is beautiful, it is warm. There is a lack of urgency in the air. A relief from the hectic pace of the U.S.
But I am still on the earth, still in a human body.
From what I understand, this means regardless of the conditions there will be a sense of “offness” in one way or another. This is not meant to be a drag, but rather a coming to terms with what is. I find acceptance lends us its own type of sweet relief.
It was my first time in Mexico that really allowed me to understand this idea of “dukkha” in a full-bodied way. Dukkha being the word that is most often translated into “suffering” from Sanskrit. When we hear, “Life is suffering,” from Buddhist rhetoric what is really meant is that having a human incarnation indicates that there will be a sense of unease threaded through everything. That’s apparently what makes a human incarnation ripe for awakening.
The way one of my teachers taught it, he said the word “dukkha” better translates to a sense of “offness,” or, “like an axel that doesn’t fit quite perfectly into a wheel.” No experience will be what we imagine to be “perfect,” and within it lies the gift of releasing ourselves from clinging. Releasing ourselves from limited, small beliefs about this world and reality.
Here, in one of my most favorite places on the planet, with some of my favorite people, I am still not immune to the woes of human life. On this trip, it was one of the smallest organisms on the planet that took me down.
After a series of kismet events one meandering Friday, I was invited to a “very special, very traditional” temazcal in a neighborhood near the one I am staying in. My friend said that he could not go but that I should try to attend. I had not participated in a temazcal before but I was excited (and afraid) to. When I would feel into going that night, I felt a deep river of calm. I took it as my sign to go.
It’s funny how things work out. The temazcal was an incredible experience, one that was healing on many levels — but that’s actually a story for another time.
It was when we walked out of the blackened tent after two hours of steaming amongst hot stones that I was waiting in line to be doused with a bucket of cold water. Water that was colder than I had anticipated. So cold that my mouth opened to gasp air and in went a whole mouth-full of Mexican water.
We all know what happens in the coming days. Unfortunately, it coincided with the arrival of my friends and many activities. I kept my spirits up for the most part but after a few days it was clearly time to start taking antibiotics for my condition. It was then that the medicine, while healing, also caused me to feel like my soul was leaving my body.
I am grateful for the medicine yet at the same time my body was struggling from the lack of indigenous bacteria in my gut. If you don’t know already, gut health is intrinsically linked with mental health. For me, this showed up as a complete lack of energy and enthusiasm. I felt hopeless and full of despair. Just to say, not my typical mental state.
A previous version of myself would believe the thoughts and feelings. I would give in to what was coming up, making it into a bigger emotional hurricane than it needed to be. Even if I would have had the understanding that this is a temporary moment, part of me would be suffering over the fact that I am in a gorgeous, tropical location with my most favorite people. I would think, “I should be living the ‘best’ life possible.” Regretting every moment not spent in absolute bliss.
Instead, what I have been deciding to do is observe the thought and then release it. Allow the feeling to come up and then immediately let it go. I had a clear sense of what I wanted to have happen on this trip, but life clearly did not have the same plan for me. There are projects that I wanted to work on while I was here, things I wanted to do, people I wanted to see but I have had to let those go too.
Part of me believes that if I “slip” in my thought, feeling, and action for even a moment then I will “regress” backward. But I have to trust that I have done meaningful work up until this point and life will not let me go now. That everything will not crumble into pieces just because I feel like shit for a week or two.
A thought of complete hopelessness arises — I know that it is expressing something but perhaps not exactly what the thought is telling me to do. The body is trying to convey to me that I don’t feel well, that I need to rest, and move even more slowly than I would like to. My mind has been trained to prioritize things like activity, happiness, and career. There is a tension between the two. I know there is more to the picture.
My body is trying to convey a message but my mind doesn’t understand. My mind translates it into a language that it has been taught to speak. Worry, stress, and anxiety over what it thinks we should be doing. I watch the thoughts about how horrible it all is, and I let them go.
Another way I could put this is — one time I meditated my way through a tattoo. By the time I was 26, I had spent the previous two years of my life practicing copious amounts of meditation. I had that beginners’ enthusiasm where it felt natural to me to pursue my practices with intensity and vigor. Twenty minutes everyday, with two hours on Sundays dedicated to practice. Sometimes I would attend retreat. I am grateful for that foundation.
That year, a couple of friends suggested we get tattoos together. They thought the rib cage would be a great place to get them. I already knew how painful the experience would be because I already had a rib cage tattoo, after which I had promised myself I would never get another tattoo again.
But these were my besties, and maybe it would be different this time? (lol)
Lying there on the table, I spent over an hour having my ribs stabbed to the point that I felt like my entire skeleton was shaking from the inside. It was just as intense and seemingly unbearable as the first time. I remember looking at the clock up on the wall near the ceiling, watching the second hand tick by wondering when this experience would be over.
In the midst of my pain I had this idea, “What if I just started meditating?”
It was the pain of my life that had led me to a meditation practice to begin with. Meditation had started to alleviate some of my daily stress. The thought wasn’t so out there, so I decided to go for it.
I did, and weirdly enough it worked. For at least a few minutes I was able to sustain a meditative awareness through the experience. It was a powerful moment that showed me the beauty which lies within an awareness-based meditation practice.
The pain disappeared.
What I experienced in those few minutes of meditation was only the present moment. Within that present moment there was only the one prick of the needle.
Not a comfortable sensation but also not an excruciating one either. I realized that I had not accumulated any other needle-pricks from the past and that I was not anticipating every other needle-prick to come in the future.
It was just me, the hand resting on my rib cage, and one moment of pressure into the next moment of no pressure, on and on like that for the short amount of time that my meditation practice would let me sustain.
It was this experience that crystallized the benefit of residing in the present moment. Spiritual practices are not meant to be an escape from life, but instead an invitation to really be present with it.
Often, we carry the pain of past experiences with us because they have not been healed and released properly. This leads to our suffering in the present moment. A situation can become more overwhelming or intense because instead of just representing that one moment it is another straw added to the pile of painful moments unprocessed from the past.
On the other hand, we may have ideas of what we think our lives should be like, which limits our ability to be with what is actually happening. It is only in the present moment we can learn, grow, pivot, change, and receive the gifts that the universe is actually trying to offer. The more we cling to what we think should happen, the more we suffer.
As Ram Dass says, “The next message you need is always right where you are.” If we are looking through a particular lens or series of beliefs that are not serving us, we miss the message. Life is trying to redirect us to our most wholesome path.
This is in no way an excuse to endure harm or bypass what we are feeling. Instead, what it should do is give us an ability to work with what is happening instead of being overwhelmed by it. To make a decision more accurately because we are dealing with what is actually happening, not our stories about it.
In the instance of my body during this trip, I could have let myself wander off into the painful thoughts that were arising. Adding more fuel to the fire, treating them as though they were real, the ultimate truth. Or I could have spent my time lamenting how I couldn’t participate in all the activities I wanted to that week, causing myself more emotional harm than I really needed to.
What I chose to do instead is accept the condition my body and mind were in. To understand that I was working with a lack of sleep, an imbalanced gut, and weakened muscles. That it doesn’t make sense for me to try to address anything more than the physical state of my body during this time. That it wouldn’t help for me to think of the way things “should be.” There is no way it should be, there is only what is.
The kindest and wisest thing I could do is release any expectations of myself and just keep checking in moment by moment.
When things either don’t go the way we had planned, or we feel unwell, or our hearts are broken we can run off with the stories in our head. This is what the Buddhists call “the suffering of suffering.” Of course the actual illness we are contending with may make our body hurt, but we don’t have to make ourselves feel worse by creating a story around it. We can release our expectations and allow ourselves to heal.
All of this translates to so much more than these “big” moments though. It is also letting go of how quickly we think we should get through the check-out line or how we think we should look perfect on a special occasion. The more we can release these grasping ideas about life, the more we are fully able to live life. More energy is liberated into our system because we aren’t using it to make ourselves feel worse. Creativity, happiness, and energy come back into our being.
I want to share with you so much more about this experience. Like how being ill on this trip actually allowed me to confront parts of my psyche that needed releasing. Sometimes I would watch as ideas I had about the world came up, ideas that have been handed down to me by society, and how they dissolved before my mind’s eye. It wasn’t the type of experience I was trying to manifest but instead I received something just as important, if not more.
The only way I was able to open into this seemingly psychedelic moment was by releasing what I thought “should” happen. Otherwise, I would have spent my time fighting what is or denying my reality, spending all my energy in a way that would not have served me as well. I don’t think that we always have to learn through difficulty, however, there is something to this certain amount of offness that comes with being a human.
There is no perfect state to get to. Life is an ever changing experience. Reality is much grander than we have been taught it is.
When we are confronted with an uncomfortable experience that pushes our edge, it is not a punishment. It is an invitation to see where we can let go. Where we can accept more. We become calmer, because we know we can embrace the ups and downs of life. There is an understanding that we are not being punished for something we did wrong, but instead these waves are inherently part of human life.
When we relax into this space, we are offered a wider view. Our mind expands to more of reality. Then comes wisdom, compassion, and perhaps a few psychic gifts as well.
There is no freedom in ideology, or limiting beliefs. Many of our beliefs have been put in place in order to keep our wheels spinning. To keep us from stepping more fully into our power.
So then it might be our “suffering” that offers us a clue toward our liberation. By leaning in and becoming curious about what causes us to suffer, we can also learn how to release it. From this place we can really start to heal and live happily.