Dear Friends,
We have entered a phase in this pandemic time characterized by both impatience and fear. We ask, “Why can’t it all be over so I can get back to normal?” and “Wait, is it too soon? Is it really safe?” Pushed around by our desire to live our lives as we choose and our understanding that COVID-19 doesn’t know or care what we want, we find ourselves attached to ideas and wishes we can no longer fulfill, and so we suffer. Anguish and frustration begin to dominate our attitudes and ways of engaging with others.
A nun in the American Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Pema Chodron suggests “Next time, try patience. Slow down, instead of immediately acting on a habitual response. Sit with your anguish and the discomfort of it.” And while we long for “some kind of secure and comforting way, either on the side of ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’” sitting with the hard emotions, she goes on to say, teaches us that “there is no resolution for these uncomfortable feelings.”
So, how is a lack of resolution a good thing!? Try patience, Chodron says, though it “gives us nothing to hold on to.” Without expecting ourselves to be perfect, “sitting still with the moodiness of the energy until it rises, dwells and passes away” can give rise to “joy, happiness, inner peace, and harmony.” This is because “Patience is a way to develop fearlessness, to contact the seeds of war and the seeds of peace and decide which ones we want to nurture.” The painful emotions need their space, need their time in the light of day. When we stop holding on to them, which sometimes looks like trying to wish them or push them away, they dissipate as all emotions do. Patience enables the process of detaching from sorrow and the move toward abundance and gratitude.
May you practice patience with ourselves and all the range of feelings that emerge for you in these changed times, as you remember, today and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.
Blessings, Rev. Rita