True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart (8 page)

Now I felt an upwelling of sadness. My sense of grievance was shifting to grief, and my attention was becoming more intimate and kind. The ache of grief began rolling through me like a tide, flooding my heart, clearing out all thoughts of blame, all stories of personal failure. Gradually, the raw intensity that had felt so overwhelming began to ease up. As the waves of grief slowed, I found myself resting in a quiet tenderness.

As if acknowledging my inner weather, the skies suddenly let loose. Surrendering to the strong steady rain, I started making my way back home. Once again, I invited my family members to come to mind. One by one, I found that with each, the rain had dissolved my ideas of “wrongness.” I no longer experienced them as “problem others … out there.” Rather, each was a unique being who occupied a special place in my heart.

When I reached my parents' house, I was soaked. No one was around except the dogs, who made a fuss over me. Everyone else was on their computers, napping, or otherwise occupied. That felt fine. I was blessedly unencumbered by stories about how anyone should be different from the way he or she was.

After dinner that evening, my mom went to the piano and started playing Christmas carols. We all joined in, singing off key, not remembering most of the verses. The program moved on to musicals. We sounded pretty awful and we soon ended up laughing at ourselves. Then we sang some more.

I drifted off to sleep that night with a deep sense of well-being. My family hadn't changed, but in the place of my trance of separation and blame was an openness full of love and ease. This is the blessing of taking refuge in truth.

As poet Dorothy Hunt wrote,

Guidelines for Practicing with RAIN

You can practice the steps of RAIN during a formal meditation whenever a difficult emotion arises, or, as I did, you can call on it in the midst of daily life. Either way, the key is to be conscious and purposeful as you initiate the practice—knowing that you are offering a committed presence to what is true, here and now.

Here are some more specific suggestions that have emerged as I've taught RAIN to many students and therapists.

Pause

Before you begin RAIN, take the time to pause. The pause might be in the form of a physical “time out” that removes you from immediate external triggers. More important, it is an internal time out from the reactive tumble of thoughts. In a pause, you intentionally create a space in which you set aside distractions and pay attention. This willingness to deliberately interrupt habitual activity and dedicate time to being present will lend increased focus and clarity to your practice.

Give Yourself the Support of a Regular Meditation Practice

A regular meditation practice directly awakens the key ingredients in RAIN—mindfulness, openheartedness, and inquiry. During my evening walk, the skills developed through past meditation training served me in several key ways. My practice in being mindful of thinking helped me to be aware of my thoughts without getting lost in them. Similarly, my practice in bringing presence to unpleasant experience allowed me to open to the raw feelings and sensations in my body. Maybe most important, my practice with awakening self-compassion, a key element in my own meditative path and in my teachings, enabled me to bring a warm, intimate attention to the onslaught of judgment and blame.

Cultivate Flexibility

You have a unique body and mind, with a particular history and conditioning. No one can offer you a formula for navigating all situations and all states of mind. Only by listening inwardly in a fresh and open way will you discern at any given time what most serves your healing and freedom.

As you practice RAIN, remember that the sequence I've suggested is neither rigid, nor necessarily linear; you may need to adapt the order as you attend to your inner experience. You might find, for instance, that as soon as you feel rising anxiety, you recognize it as a familiar inner weather pattern that happens to you and most everyone you know, and hence does not feel so personal. In moments like these you have already arrived at the
N
of RAIN; so, rather than any continued “doing,” such as investigating with kindness, you might simply rest in natural presence. Similarly, you might end your RAIN practice before formally moving through all the steps or cycle through the process again if you encounter something unexpected.

As you listen inwardly to what is needed, you may also feel drawn to weave other forms of meditation into your practice of RAIN. To ground yourself, you might begin with a body-based reflection (see “A Pause for Presence,” on page 000), yoga, or a walking meditation. If strong feelings arise in the midst of RAIN, you might take some time to simply focus on your breath. Or you might find that a few minutes of lovingkindness practice (see page 000) helps you to bring a gentler and more compassionate attention to investigation. This kind of inner listening and adaptability can help you transform what at first might seem to be a mechanical technique into a creative and vibrant means of awakening on your spiritual path.

Practice with the “Small Stuff”

Eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva suggests that by staying present “with little cares, we train ourselves to work with great adversity.” Each time you bring RAIN to a situation that usually causes you to react, you strengthen your capacity to awaken from trance. You might identify in advance what for you is chronic “small stuff”—the annoyance that comes up when someone repeats herself, the restlessness when you are waiting in line, the frustration when you've forgotten to pick up something on your shopping list—and commit to pausing and practicing a “light” version of RAIN, as in the guided meditation at the end of the chapter. By pausing many times throughout the day, and bringing an interest and presence to your habitual ways of reacting, your life will become increasingly spontaneous and free.

Seek Help

Practicing RAIN can intensify your emotional experience. If you are concerned that you might become possessed or overwhelmed by your feelings, postpone practicing RAIN alone and seek help. Particularly if you are working with post-traumatic stress, it can be important, and even necessary, to have the support of a therapist or psychologically attuned meditation teacher. The presence of a trusted and experienced person can help you feel safe enough to connect with inner vulnerability and also to find relief if what arises feels like too much. (See chapter 9 for more guidance in dealing with trauma.)

Let Your Senses Be a Gateway to Presence

The practice of RAIN comes alive as you learn to step out of your thoughts and connect with your body's experience. Many people move through daily life possessed by thoughts and, to varying degrees, dissociated from the felt sense in the body. Strong emotional trauma or wounding makes dissociation from bodily awareness particularly likely. Whether you are working through deep fear and shame, or a less acute emotional reaction, your inner freedom will arise from bringing attention to how the experience is expressed in your body. On my evening walk, the pivotal moment came when I could directly feel how layers of judgment, assumed unworthiness, and grief were squeezing my heart.

Be Mindful of Doubt

Doubt acts as a main impediment to RAIN, and more broadly, to any gateway of true refuge. The Buddha considered doubt (along with clinging and aversion) to be a universal hindrance to spiritual freedom. When you are stuck in beliefs like “I'm never going to change,” “I'm not cut out for spiritual practice,” or “Healing and freedom aren't really possible,” you get stopped in your tracks.

Needless to say, some doubt is healthy, as in “I'm no longer certain this job is in line with my values,” or “Maybe
I've
been the one who is avoiding intimacy,” or “I wonder whether I can trust a spiritual teacher who speaks disrespectfully of other teachers.” Like investigation, healthy doubt arises from the urge to know what is true—it challenges assumptions or the status quo in service of healing and freedom. In contrast, unhealthy doubt arises from fear and aversion, and it questions one's own basic potential or worth, or the value of another.

When unhealthy doubt arises, let it be the subject of RAIN. It helps to say to yourself, “This is doubt,” consciously acknowledging its presence in your mind. By recognizing and naming doubt when it arises, but not judging it, you immediately enlarge your perspective and loosen the bind of trance. If the doubt is persistent, you can deepen presence by regarding it with kindness. Rather than being controlled, and perhaps paralyzed by doubt, let it be a call for a clear, mindful presence.

Be Patient

Patience gives you joy in the process of awakening. Without patience, you may find yourself at war with your own forgetfulness or reactivity. Long-term meditators or therapy clients often complain, “I've been dealing with this same issue for decades.” They are troubled by their regressions into old feelings of being worthless or rejected, unsafe or ashamed. Such bouts of trance can be accompanied by desperation and the fear that there will be no end to the cycling of unhealthy patterns of feelings and behaviors. While RAIN reduces the grip of trance, it is rarely a one-shot experience. You may need to go through numerous rounds of RAIN, again and again meeting entrenched patterns of suffering with attention and kindness.

The belief and feeling that “something is wrong with me” was a key theme in my first book,
Radical Acceptance,
and it continues to be part of my life. But my many rounds of meeting it with presence have had an effect: The trance is much more transparent, short-lived, and suffering-free. Often it makes a brief appearance, and then there's recognition, “Ah, this again …” and a letting go. It's not that “I” am letting go, but rather the old false sense of self just dissolves when it is seen. What remains is an invigorated realization of the heart space that holds this life, and a trust in the tender awareness that lives beyond the trance.

Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There's less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what's happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom.

Be Sincere

An attitude of sincerity in approaching spiritual practices like RAIN orients your heart and mind toward freedom. Let yourself recall again and again what for you is the most important thing. Perhaps you long to realize the truth of who you are, to love well, to touch peace, or to live more from presence. Whatever you most care about, let this tenderness of heart energize your meditation. The sincerity of your longing will carry you home.

Guided Reflection: Bringing RAIN to Difficulty

Sitting quietly, close your eyes and take a few full breaths. Bring to mind a current situation in which you feel stuck; one that elicits a difficult reaction such as anger or fear, shame or hopelessness. It may be a conflict with a family member, a chronic sickness, a failure at work, the pain of an addiction, a conversation you now regret. Take some moments to enter the experience—visualizing the scene or situation, remembering the words spoken, sensing the most distressing moments. Contacting the charged essence of the story is the starting place for exploring the healing presence of RAIN.

As you reflect on this situation, ask yourself, “What is happening inside me right now?” What sensations are you most aware of? What emotions? Is your mind filled with churning thoughts? Take a moment to become aware of your “felt sense” of the situation as a whole. Can you feel how the experience is living in your heart and body, as well as in your mind?

Send a message to your heart to “let be” this entire experience. Find in yourself the willingness to pause and accept that in these moments, “what is … is.” You can experiment with mentally whispering words like “yes,” “I consent,” or “let be.”

You might find yourself saying yes to a huge inner no, to a body and mind painfully contracted in resistance. You might be saying yes to the part of you that is saying “I hate this!” That's a natural part of the process. At this point in RAIN, you are simply noticing what is true, and intending not to judge, push away, or control anything you find.

Now begin to explore what you are experiencing more closely, calling on your natural interest and curiosity about your inner life. You might ask yourself, “What about this most wants my attention?” or, “What most wants my acceptance?” Pose your questions gently, with your inner voice kind and inviting.

Notice where you feel the experience most distinctly in your body. Are you aware of heat, tightness, pressure, aches, squeezing? When you have found the most intense part of your physical experience, bring it into your face, letting your expression mirror, and even exaggerate, what you are feeling in your body. What emotions are you aware of as you do this? Fear? Anger? Grief? Shame?

As you continue to investigate, you might find it helpful to ask, “What am I believing?” If this leads to a lot of thinking, drop it. But you might find that a very distinct belief emerges almost as soon as you ask. Do you believe that you are failing in some way? That someone will reject you? That you will not be able to handle whatever is around the corner? That you really are flawed? That you will never be happy? How does this belief live in your body? What are the sensations? Tightness? Soreness? Burning? Hollowness?