girl jumping in hole of stars

Overcoming adversity and finding the path away from suffering takes an entire toolbox full of skills. Sometimes it feels like my life came in a box from Ikea and the only tool included was this tiny, cheap Allen wrench. Unless you have or know someone else who has a whole toolbox, this could be unnecessarily hard. 

 

By Holly Herring

 

I woke up enlightened this morning.

It was a welcomed change from waking up confused and disgruntled. I turned to my dog, who was still snoring in the space next to me and said, “I know the way to Nirvana. Let’s go for a walk.” Berkeley, the dog, came alive suddenly at the mention of a walk. 

I do some of my best thinking when I’m asleep. This explains all the poor decisions I’ve made during my waking hours. The night prior, in my sleep, an image of me staring at a pothole in the road appeared. Dream Holly lifted her dream foot and stepped over the pothole. Then I woke up knowing exactly how this whole cycle of birth and death worked. 

Let’s get real here, ending that cycle (saṃsāra) is what it’s all about, right? If Buddhism was a football game, then Nirvana would be winning the Super Bowl. Following the Football/Buddhism path, dukkha would be a fumble, kick-off would be birth, and a field goal would be death.

Now, don’t quote me on any of that comparison because I’ve never even watched a football game from start to finish. 

When I was a traumatized teenager the entire selling point of Buddhism was this Nirvana part, and not only because it was a really cool up-and-coming band at the time. The only thing I wanted when I was in the throws of reliving trauma daily was for it to stop. Often I’d sit alone rocking and whispering under my breath through tears:

Please stop. Just stop. Please, just for now?

Nirvana, as presented to me, sounded like heaven.

“You mean there’s a place on Earth that’s free from greed, hatred, and ignorance? You’re telling me if I work hard at it, I can earn my spot there? I know how to work hard and I am motivated”, I thought to myself. Fortunately for me at that time I was learning from a Mahayana Buddhist who was also in a 12-step recovery program at the time. The benefit is that both of those traditions feel being of service is central to ending suffering. 

If there was ever a girl who needed help on her journey, it was me. 

It still is me. 

If there was ever a girl who was stubborn and independent, it was also me. That’s probably where my journey for enlightenment took a road less traveled approach to Nirvanaland. 

Looking back, I can see patterns. I repeatedly made the same turns in life. Now, at the time it was difficult to see. Nobody on Earth could make me see these patterns. I had to arrive at that destination myself, on my own time, as part of a long-term learning experience. Then I got educated about why I took those turns. With that knowledge, I learned how to do something different the next time I encountered a situation that felt familiar. 

If I wanted different, I had to do different.

Then I read a poem that was key. It was titled, Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson. The poem itself was part of a larger work titled, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery. The book cover was displayed, poster style,  on the wall of the psychiatrist’s office in the movie Good Will Hunting. The poem was adopted often and rarely credited to Ms. Nelson.

The poem tells a simple, five-chapter (or verse in this case), autobiography of a woman’s life. I like truth in advertising, so I appreciate the title. It describes five times a woman encounters a hole in the sidewalk and her resulting feelings and actions. 

The first time she encounters the hole, she falls right in. She describes feeling lost and hopeless. She says that she knows it isn’t her fault and that it takes “forever” to find her way out of the hole. 

At the second encounter with the hole in the sidewalk, she tries to pretend the hole just isn’t there. The woman falls in the hole again and can’t believe she’s in the hole a second time. Still, she doesn’t blame herself and, while it takes a long time, she gets herself up out of that hole. 

Is the third time the charm? No. This time she sees the same hole in the same sidewalk, down the same street and it’s almost too easy to fall in the hole. She refers to it as a “habit.” She knows exactly where she is, she describes her eyes as being “open.” This time, though, she accepts some personal responsibility for being in this same hole. She states “It’s my fault,” and gets out of the hole immediately. 

On her fourth walk down the street, she sees that darn hole again. You darn hole, you! She walks right around that hole. There will be no climbing out of holes today! 

You might be thinking at this point that the autobiography ends, and you’d be wrong. Because encountering a familiar danger and moving around it isn’t the way to stop that painful cycle of birth and death. The suffering can stop, she can make it stop herself. 

You can make the suffering stop yourself too.

In the autobiography’s last chapter, enlightened, the woman chooses a new path.

I compared Buddhism to a football game earlier in this text and that was kind of funny. But overcoming adversity and finding the path away from suffering takes an entire toolbox full of skills. Sometimes it feels like my life came in a box from Ikea and the only tool included was this tiny, cheap Allen wrench. Unless you have or know someone else who has a whole toolbox, this could be unnecessarily hard. 

My life was unnecessarily hard.

Young Holly didn’t have a toolbox, she only had a butterknife and a coffee mug that got applied to every problem she encountered. Mug and butterknife in hand, she walked down the same street and fell in the same hole time and time again. Clawing her way up out of a deep hole with a mug and a dull knife could work, but there were more effective tools in the world. Grown-up Holly had to go find help, someone who had tools for her so she could get out of these holes she kept falling in. 

Grown-up Holly found a program eventually willing to share their tools and show her how to use them.

Those tools made identifying and getting out of holes much easier. Tools like mindfulness, confidence, assertiveness, and boundaries. Grown-up Holly realized that even with a full box of well-used tools she could use to get out of holes, she’d ultimately rather stop falling in holes altogether.

Having had enough suffering for suffering’s sake, Grown-up Holly took a good look around. She knew the neighborhood and the location and depth of each hole it contained. Sure, she could just go around them.

But this time, Holly took a turn down Enlightenment Avenue and walked along the sidewalk towards towards Nirvanaland Street. 

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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Were you inspired by this? You may also like:

Doing God’s Work

The Reality is that Enlightenment is Simple, but My Ego Wants it to be Hard

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Holly Herring
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