Kopan MonasteryA couple of days ago I tripped and fell down a flight of stairs on my way to teach a yoga class. After about 30 minutes of pain and limping, it became apparent that I had broken one of my toes. Since I don’t really believe in accidents (sorry, but I cannot recount here 31 years of antidotes to explain why), I immediately started contemplating the deeper meaning behind the incident. My thoughts turned to the time when I fractured my left ankle in a dance class about 9 years ago. Fracturing that ankle ended up shifting the course of my creative process as a performance artist and my interactions with a few specific people, that was, in retrospect, exactly what I needed to do. I became much more empowered by the rippling effect of that ankle fracture. I regard the event with thanks.
So now, I have this toe issue, this small reminder of something. Something. The first thing everyone said to me was, “It must mean you need to slow down.” Which my first reaction was, “I thought I wasn’t going fast enough?” I have a lot of reasons, I (sorry again) cannot write at the moment to explain why I felt this way.
However, upon closer inspection, it wasn’t my daily schedule that was haywire, so much as the race of my own thoughts. I have a daily meditation practice that runs about 30 minutes each day. After the accident, I had a bit more time to invest in, not only my meditation time but also reading, writing, and clarifying what the nature of my mind-stream was as of late. And the fact is, I have to admit it: they are right. There has been bit of a treadmill quality to my thinking. I am guilty of the thought pattern of: hurry up and get this done so you move onto this next thing so you can FINALLY get to this thing…it’s sad. I know.
If you’ve studied any yoga, you know, this is the type of thinking that meditation practice aims to harness and with a steady, razor sharp focus, weaken and eventually destroy all together. So I sat. And sat. And continued to sit in meditation and realized, I’m still caught in a little thing called, chasing happiness.
By chasing happiness I don’t mean not enjoying the moment, I mean not being able to be fully present in the moment AT ALL. I bought a ticket and boarded the Train of Perpetual Discontent. Faced pressed against the glass, I watched the landscape wizzing by. Sometimes, we Westerners try to make this human ailment attractive by calling it Ambition. Nice try. But it’s a no go. A little introspection will let you know if are being motivated by an abundant desire to create and explore or just run to the next thing because you are afraid of fully sitting with what is happening in the present. One is motivated by abundance and clarity. The other is motivated by delusion and dissatisfaction. One is a path of wisdom. One is a path of fear.
I got on the wrong train. I know it. In my meditation, I could see all my spiritual teachers, waving goodbye to me from the platform for my yet another, excursion on Perpetual Discontent. After I roll out of the station, they all go out for a cup of coffee and lament over my progress. “When will she get a clue?”
So I broke my toe. It was enough. Just enough to get me to sit a little deeper and a little longer in my last few meditations.
I got off at the next station and took a breather. Looked around and assessed my situation for what it really was and remembered that my future karma is determined by my awareness and actions in this VERY MOMENT. And this very moment was filled with a sense of desperation about how to manifest a specific dream I have. Not good. I knew this intellectually and yet, I needed a strong reminder experientially. I needed it to enter my heart. I needed a broken bone.
If the present moment is motivated by desperation then you are manifesting desperation. If you feel, act, and complain that your greatest dreams are miles away, then they are miles away. If however, you see how the present moment is filled with abundant potentiality, then your future, my dear, will be abundant. Your future will be a cornucopia of good stuff. Let it go and you finally get it. Be fully present and you will finally manifest a fulfilling future.
I had a good cry–several actually. The kind of cry the wells up organically with no accompanying feelings of pain. It was a cry of crystalization that screams, “YES!” It was so funny, because in that cry, I felt like I could hear the machine of the universe start to launch itself into gear to get all the stars aligned for the next exciting life dream to begin. I heard Kurt Russell’s voice in the movie Captian Ron, “Lets kick the tires and light the fires!”
So what is this future dream, I’m chasing, you ask? I want to devote more of my life (huge swaths of it…like years) to more intensive devotional practice and less time to worldly pursuits. That is something I know in the deepest part of my core and it’s time I fully live from that place NOW and stop putting it in some imagined future. It’s time to take my spiritual practices and craft an entire life that supports me doing these practices over long periods throughout the day in the land of my spiritual lineage…yes, India (and Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bali…you get the point).
The truth is, my interest in living in the U.S. and participating in it’s capitalist culture has been waning for the last few years and ever more so with every passing season. However, for most of my 20’s I used to really enjoy it. I didn’t mind joining the game and the signing the contracts to buy things, drive things, wear things and insure things. But now, lately, contracts make me sweat. Honestly, I don’t like them. Even a lease makes me uncomfortable. And this is coming from a girl who bought her first home at the age of 24 years old.
The thing is, when I look out my window, I don’t see what I value being reflected back to me in any prevalent manner and it makes me itch. In addition to that, I see a lot of women my age having babies, buying homes and getting married. They are interested in nesting and shaping their entire lives to support that decision. Yet, the only thing I feel like nesting at the moment is divine revelation. I ask myself, “Why cannot I, make a nest for God, as others make nests for babies and family?" Make a nest for God. For Emptiness. For Brahman. Sounds good to me. The inclination becomes more and more insistent. Every year, I always have one friend that looks at me and asks, “Are you going to become a Buddhist nun?”
“Nooooo.” I say. “I cannot go back into doing performance art if I become a nun…can I?”
The fact is, even after walking the path of genuine spiritual inquiry since I was 13 years old and 10 years of focused study in yoga, I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m still REALLY hungry for philosophical and spiritual knowledge, travel through Asia and above all, devotional practice in holy places of pilgrimage. My trips to Asia thus far have only further confirmed the resonance I feel in that part of the world. It has wet my appetite, not satisfied it.
Daily, I’m stirred by the words my friend Patricia said to me on my last day in Nepal; only 4 hours before my plane was due to take off, she took my hand and said, “Come back to us Sati. Come back to us.”
It took everything I had not to fall into her arms and not let go.
How this will manifest exactly, I’ll let you all be surprised (including myself). It may take a bit of work, but I know for sure that I’m present and therefore, I’m empowered to make it manifest. I know it’s time to stop making excuses as to why I cannot fashion a life with new shape, color and sound. The shape has the contours of prostrations, hands in prayer and ancient asanas. The color is a landscape filled with Buddhist and Hindu devotion. The sound is of ancient mantras in Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan.
I found an old poem I wrote while I was visiting Thailand about chasing happiness. I thought it was apropos to republish it here. I think I'm a bit more courageous then my previous incarnation who wrote this several years ago. How do I know? Because, she asked herself the important question. Now, I’m ready to answer it.
Sati. It’s time. Build a nest for God. Build a nest for Emptiness. Its time to get off the Train of Perpetual Discontent. It’s time to stop chasing happiness.
Chasing Happiness
(originally published 12.13.06)
Stop.
Be Still
Stop.
Chasing Happiness.
You are like a dog running after a toy that you may never get in between your teeth
Amidst all this change
Rushing, rolling, polluted city
I found a full moon
A blind man trying to cross the street
Countless people driving too fast
Chasing Happiness
I kept walking
and thinking
as I often do
wondering what life would be like without
WANT
If I stopped trying to chase happiness for one moment
and did as my teachers have said
Just BE PRESENT
Am I willing to lose myself to that degree?
A girl without need
Not yet. But perhaps. I'm tickled by the possibility.
I've seen tragedy
I've known debilitating pain
I've beheld beauty
and love so profound
my ability to express seemed
a mere joke of the divine plan
Yet I wonder:
by the light of this insane and lovely creation–
Could I dare
Ever dare
Stop.
Chasing Happiness?
