When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala Classics) Publisher: Shambhala by Pema Chodron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Chodron draws a portrait of Buddhism that is both intensely personal and highly unfamiliar. From the desperation of her unhappy marriage she tells the tale of her discovering Tibetan Buddhism, embracing it and then coming to terms with it.
New Age approaches to Buddhism tell of Eastern gurus with deep wisdom, sages that can see right through us, and of course, the ever-lasting mystical bliss, as being a deeper reality available to us if we only reach for it.
This may be how many of us are drawn to Buddhism, but the Buddhism Chodron paints is one of intense suffering. Sitting for hours on end, meditating, performing routine chores, putting yourself in socially awkward positions… it seems a monk’s life is only there to expose you to your own folly. Left to your own devices, all you can do is let your ego run rampant through the monastery (either by promoting it, or fighting it) or let it pass through you.
But be aware, she isn’t just talking about her own life, she is making a connection to you through her own trials. Chodron is very clear. Suffering in this life is only through our own actions. Even if we locate the problem outside of ourselves, our suffering through it results in the attitudes we have about ourselves, and the expectations we have about who we are what the world owes to us… the kind of life we deserve. Seeking to fulfill the requirements of one who deserves the best won’t make things better… it makes it worse. Because if you succeed, you’re tied to the idea that somehow you earned it (many people have tried to win at life, and why they fail often has to do with chance more than anything else). So the only way out of this slavery to our own unconscious whims? Failure. Suffering. Learning who you are by discovering how little you can do without. Ultimately, what you learn to do without is also your own self: the very thing you set out to save.
And be warned, this book is dense.
I read it very carefully, taking over a month to engage in the various parts in the book. There are so many passages I could quote from but I’ll end it with her own quote from Jean-Paul Sartre:
“There are two ways to walk into a gas chamber–free or not free”
Life is short. We can’t wait. We often live our lives with the view that we can do things tomorrow. We expect the future to be always around the corner, but at the same time, never quite here… so we often don’t live in the present. We live for tomorrow, we live for the next day, and we never quite make it to living. Really though, the choice is ours… and our own poison is how we run our lives with the expectation that we are going to make it to a place of bliss, in the future… a place that won’t ever exist unless we make it happen right now.
Talk about Buddhist nihilism. It’s also the elimination of ideas like nihilism. You can’t ever get to keep your own philosophy, or system.
In short, her emphasis isn’t merely that Buddhism is there to help you “when things fall apart” but rather Buddhism is there to help you make “things fall apart”… the when, is NOW.
