Pema Chodron's "Commitment"
T and I discovered early on that we both love Pema Chodron's books. We have been reading from her work every day--or nearly every day--since we got together.
Somehow, though, we never considered a reading from her book for the wedding. Yesterday we discovered one possibility--a chapter in her book Uncomfortable with Uncertainty called "Commitment."
In the middle of this short teaching, Chodron writes, "In order to go deeper, there has to be a wholehearted commitment. You begin the warrior's journey when you choose one path and stick to it. Then you let it put you through your changes."
There is no doubt that our relationship has changed both of us profoundly, in ways we expected, as well as in ways we never expected. We have felt raw pain and grief, as well as soaring joy, as well as hours and days of ordinariness that felt either restful or boring, depending on how we used them, how carefully we paid attention and stayed present.
"Without a commitment," Chodron writes, "the minute you really begin to hurt, you'll just leave or you'll look for something else."
Of course, she's not writing about real abuse here--she's writing about the hurt that everyone is bound to feel in any relationship that goes beyond the surface. Love puts us in touch with the tender places in our hearts that we didn't even know were there. Love allows us to open further or forces us to close up, depending on how we approach the love.
We have chosen, deliberately, to stay open. We remind each other of this anytime one of us begins to close up.
It is harder to stay open than to close up, of course. Much harder. But it also means that there is the possibility of boundless joy, even if we only feel it briefly. That, too, is part of the journey--not to hold too tightly to either the deepest grief and anger or the most profound joy.
"The question always remains: To what are we really committed?" Chodron asks. "Is it to playing it safe and manipulating our life and the rest of the world so that it will give us security and confirmation? Or is our commitment to exploring deeper and deeper levels of letting go? Do we take refuge in self-satisfied actions, speech, and mind? Or do we take refuge in warriorship, in taking a leap, in going beyond our usual safety zones?"
The leap she writes about here is not the ordinary and much-examined leap of "falling in love" when doing so was not in the plan. That's obvious. Of course anyone who falls in love is taking a leap. But to be willing to let that love move you into deeper levels of letting go is truly difficult. To recognize that the love does not exist to provide you with more self-satisfaction, more affirmation, more security, but instead to teach you to be a warrior--well, that is a novel concept, not one we want to hear or live.
And yet I am realizing, finally, that this is the only kind of love that is satisfying, authentic--a love that challenges (gently, slowly, authentically, not forcefully or out of cruelty or a desire to cause pain), a love that ironically makes one more real and less reliant on others to make one real.
This is a tension, a paradox, we are living each day. We talk about it, think about it, fail at it over and over--and then, we get back on the path.
Somehow, though, we never considered a reading from her book for the wedding. Yesterday we discovered one possibility--a chapter in her book Uncomfortable with Uncertainty called "Commitment."
In the middle of this short teaching, Chodron writes, "In order to go deeper, there has to be a wholehearted commitment. You begin the warrior's journey when you choose one path and stick to it. Then you let it put you through your changes."
There is no doubt that our relationship has changed both of us profoundly, in ways we expected, as well as in ways we never expected. We have felt raw pain and grief, as well as soaring joy, as well as hours and days of ordinariness that felt either restful or boring, depending on how we used them, how carefully we paid attention and stayed present.
"Without a commitment," Chodron writes, "the minute you really begin to hurt, you'll just leave or you'll look for something else."
Of course, she's not writing about real abuse here--she's writing about the hurt that everyone is bound to feel in any relationship that goes beyond the surface. Love puts us in touch with the tender places in our hearts that we didn't even know were there. Love allows us to open further or forces us to close up, depending on how we approach the love.
We have chosen, deliberately, to stay open. We remind each other of this anytime one of us begins to close up.
It is harder to stay open than to close up, of course. Much harder. But it also means that there is the possibility of boundless joy, even if we only feel it briefly. That, too, is part of the journey--not to hold too tightly to either the deepest grief and anger or the most profound joy.
"The question always remains: To what are we really committed?" Chodron asks. "Is it to playing it safe and manipulating our life and the rest of the world so that it will give us security and confirmation? Or is our commitment to exploring deeper and deeper levels of letting go? Do we take refuge in self-satisfied actions, speech, and mind? Or do we take refuge in warriorship, in taking a leap, in going beyond our usual safety zones?"
The leap she writes about here is not the ordinary and much-examined leap of "falling in love" when doing so was not in the plan. That's obvious. Of course anyone who falls in love is taking a leap. But to be willing to let that love move you into deeper levels of letting go is truly difficult. To recognize that the love does not exist to provide you with more self-satisfaction, more affirmation, more security, but instead to teach you to be a warrior--well, that is a novel concept, not one we want to hear or live.
And yet I am realizing, finally, that this is the only kind of love that is satisfying, authentic--a love that challenges (gently, slowly, authentically, not forcefully or out of cruelty or a desire to cause pain), a love that ironically makes one more real and less reliant on others to make one real.
This is a tension, a paradox, we are living each day. We talk about it, think about it, fail at it over and over--and then, we get back on the path.
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