Time well spent

Sometimes I hear people rue that there’s only one unclonable version of them—for example, a friend from college who had to choose between a late night Harry Potter movie premiere and a cram sesh for a huge exam the next day, agonized between the immense and opposite forces of wanting to indulge a bone-deep childhood nostalgia versus the obligation to, ugh, like, study.

She was so bitter that she couldn’t do both. That there couldn’t be more hours in the day.

But I find this finite quality of life invigorating.

Imagine if we all lived forever. No achievement would ever be interesting. “Oh, you won an Olympic gold medal for swimming? I’m sure I’ll get there too… someday, when I finally decide to get in the water.”

Nope. We live, we get old if we’re lucky, then we die. That’s why I’m so fascinated by the decisions made around how we spend our precious and fleeting time.

In this lifetime we can only pick a few things—maybe even one thing—at which to really practice.

One thing to which we devote most of our time, energy, and mental space. One thing that serves as the north star for each of life’s major and minor and subconscious decisions. One single thing that we each believe will bring us the most happiness and/or the least amount of pain. 

For me, it’s awakening. For others, it’s achievement. Or prestige. Or leisure. Beauty. Alcohol. Charity. Family. The list goes on.

The amazing thing is, we all get to choose for ourselves.

That’s why I find it so special to meet others who sincerely practice the Dhamma, whether they call it that or not. I don’t care if someone meditates, or wears ochre robes, or knows how to recite the Four Noble Truths—I just love it when they practice those Noble Truths: knowing suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the way out of suffering. Because this path is so devastatingly hard sometimes. It seems like I spend as much time walking it as I do limping along, or crawling on all fours, or lying flat on my face with tears pooling slowly around my cheeks. 

Of course, the devastation is always followed by a proportionate sense of lightness and joy, so the nadirs of Dhamma practice are more than worth the pain to me. But—especially before entering this practice, and even during its first few years—it can be so much harder to hold the white-hot coals of suffering than to try and fling them far, far away. Those attempts at dodging discomfort never worked for me, but I understand perfectly why anyone would prefer to try.

I don’t ask anyone to walk this path with me. 

Actually, I think it’d be unfair—and unwise—to expect this of others.

But that just makes it all the more precious when I meet fellow travelers, who work to awaken too.

“The days and nights pass relentlessly. Right now, what are you doing?”
—Gotama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 10.48, as said by Luang Por Chah

Suffering, I get

I once heard someone share how she was confounded by one of the Buddha’s fundamental teachings—that every worldly condition is marked by impermanence, uncontrollability, and suffering. “Actually, no,” she caught herself. “I get some of it… Suffering, I get.”

At the time, I laughed in agreement. 

I thought I “got” suffering too—because, well, who doesn’t suffer?

But just because I knew the experience of suffering didn’t mean that I understood how to work with it skillfully. At the time, I thought of suffering as the frustrating evidence of my shortcomings, my defilements. It was a bullet to dodge or an enemy to vanquish. Or a hairball to sweep under the nearest rug. 

I was missing out on all the benefits that suffering can bring.

Because suffering can also be treated as the mark on a landmine, letting me know which bomb to neutralize next so that it doesn’t explode instead upon an innocent passerby. A bomb that could only be nullified with the Four Noble Truths—by facing the exact source of my discomfort, settling into the tension, and asking the pain itself, “What are you telling me? Where did you come from? How shall I practice in this very moment?” 

Frustration, for example, is often a sign that I need to take an immediate break. Disappointment, a sign to adjust my expectations. Arrogance, a sign to face some hidden insecurity. To grant myself some gentleness. 

So I listen to the suffering. And I practice, practice, practice.

I used to be mad about all the red flags that marked my many landmines and cluttered up my mental landscape. They were obscuring the picture-perfect view! But now I grateful for those very same flags. They show me where to go and work within my mind—how to make it a sweeter place, a safer refuge. 

And gosh. What a relief to wear one less bomb in my bones, every time I engage this way with my suffering.

“When a mendicant is committed to development, they don’t know how much of the defilements were worn away today, how much yesterday, and how much previously. They just know what has been worn away.”
—Gotama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 7.71

Go where it's most fertile

I used to be so sure about what I wanted to do with my life, and I thought I knew exactly how to get there: get a book deal, get pregnant, have a baby, become a bestseller, sell the movie rights, send the kid to college, and then sit back and be happy. As you know by now, that didn’t work out—and walking that route didn’t lead to real happiness for me. So now, life is an open field, and my next steps are taken based on the fertility of the soil.

That is, I go in whatever direction will bring me the greatest personal growth.

That’s why I kneel onto the cushion to meditate at specific times, then leave the seat when ready; why I pick particular books to read and abandon others on the shelf; why I cook certain dishes and listen to certain podcasts. And most of all, why I love my partner more and more every day. Because these choices all lead to my most fertile grounds for awakening.

And so far, these grounds only yield riper and sweeter fruits of practice—even as they defy conventions.

For example, my realization that I no longer wanted to become a mother. My partner and I had tried to conceive for two full years and every time we failed, I further investigated my desire to have a baby—and found that so much of it was rooted in the false and widespread idea that a woman only becomes whole when she births a child. Or the myth that a person can only truly know love when they become a parent. Or the arbitrary Norman Rockwell standard of a family, which requires a toddler or two (or 1.94 to be exact, as of last year) to count as complete.

And the fact that I no longer lust for renown, as an author or otherwise. The vexation of public adoration, condemnation, and all-around politics just isn’t worth it. I’d rather be anonymous, blissfully unknown. When I die, I hope to be remembered fondly but briefly by a dozen or so people, burned to ashes and scattered in the wind, and then forgotten by all of the world.

And even the convention of a devoted Buddhist. There was a time earlier this year when many people thought I would ordain as a nun. I’d made a pilgrimage to the meditation masters of the Thai forest, where my understanding of the Dhamma deepened in the same way a pothole is deepened when it’s hit by a meteor. I’d come home and underwent some abrupt and drastic changes in my values and demeanor. My colleagues, teachers, and even my therapist leapt to conclusions and asked, “So are you going to shave your head and become a monk? Are you and Kyle going to split?”

But why would I do that, when my marriage is the most fertile practice ground of them all?

Because of our love, my heart now opens to give when it would previously shrink with stinginess. My heart steadies with patience when it would otherwise rush ahead in self-absorption. And my heart strengthens with courage to examine and work with its own defilements, when it would otherwise cower and hide in shame.

I have no use for conventions. Whether I fit or defy them is out of coincidence. 

I am only acting out of my worthiest purpose.

That is—of course—my awakening.

“In your own way you should practice.”
—Gotama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 4.117

Trading ambition for tenderness

Ever since my kindergarten teacher first asked about my life dreams, I’d proudly declare the ambition to become a full-time artist. And to become a full-time artist means building a wide enough audience to make enough money—which means generating and maintaining a pretty high degree of fame. Which means I’d hoped to be famous since I was six years old. That is, until my manuscript was universally rejected.

Now I know: I’ll never become a full-time artist. 

And—thankfully—I’ll never be famous.

Because soon after letting go of that dream, I noticed a subtle but massive shift in the heart. One day I made a mistake and upset my partner, and I was able to apologize with unprecedented depth of humility. The remorse didn’t just speak from my lips. It blossomed from every organ, every bone, every single cell of my being—from somewhere deeper than ever before.

“Wow,” said Kyle. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this from you before.”

I was just as stunned. “I’ve never felt this before, either.”

And I’m certain that letting go of the full-time artist fantasy led directly to that moment.

Because even just the pursuit of fame required a certain hardness in the heart. 

A protective shield of arrogance, which allowed the mind to assert again and again in the face of constant doubt and rejection and criticism: “My work is great. Pick my book, because it’s better than all those other books—and if you don’t like it, the problem must be you.”

When I renounced that pursuit, I also gave up its hard-heartedness.

Or as I told Kyle, “Between becoming a full-time artist or being a better partner to you, I choose you. I’d choose you a hundred million times.”

For both our sakes, I’d rather my heart be tender.

“May I never become famous. May fame not come to me.”
—Gotama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 5.30

The dream evolved

Spoiler: I did not get a lucrative book deal from a Big Five publisher.

But there was a bigger, better dream that came true for me.

Growing up in America, I was conditioned with stories about George Washington’s cherry tree, the Boy who cried wolf, and the Emperor’s new clothes. I would always marvel at the importance of Truth—and at the sheer courage it takes to practice constant integrity, when sometimes it’s so much easier just to fib. I hoped with all the earnestness in my small toddler body that, if placed in scenarios like those of the folk tales, I’d also confess to my father that I cut down the tree; I’d only shout about wolves if one were actually present; I’d also declare to the crowd that the emperor was, indeed, naked.

Of course, the strength of one’s integrity is only known when it’s tested.

And for many years, my integrity was not strong. I lied to my parents first as a child—pretending to have practiced violin when they were out of the house—and then as a teen, sneaking out the window at night to drive around with not-so-nice friends. I’m appalled at this now, but I was actually trained to lie as a film student—encouraged by well-meaning teachers to bullshit my way through interviews and win the job at any cost. Even into my 20s, I would exercise the “white lie” (the equivalent of, “um… it could have been anyone who cut down this cherry tree”) to serve my own convenience.

My integrity had the strength of a Jenga tower. 

But something shifted when I decided I’d rather be universally rejected than compromise my ideals. 

My integrity became… ironclad.

I made that decision, and I drew a hard line on my values. I chose the tenderness of my own heart over the perceived potential for money and fame–for the book deal I craved for so many years. And from that day forward, in any choice between my integrity vs. any worldly gain (no matter how vast or tantalizing), my ideals would win. Every time. 

That choice became easy (even if the conversations around that choice, whether with friends or with colleagues, were sometimes not).

This, my friends, was a much sweeter dream come true.

And I didn’t know it at the time, but when I fully let go of the book deal dream, I would soon find another gift waiting for me.

“An ethical person, who has fulfilled ethical conduct, need not make a wish: ‘May I have no regrets!’
It’s only natural that an ethical person has no regrets.”
—Gotama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya 11.2