When I was diagnosed with cancer for the first time and told there was a 5% five-year survival rate, I was thrown into groundlessness. Nothing felt stable anymore.
But deep down, after I got through the fear and panic, I knew this was also a potential opportunity. A chance to rewrite the story of my life.
It felt terrifying. AND it was also liberating in the way big shifts seem to be when we can stop resisting what is happening in the moment.
That feeling of groundlessness is definitely relevant in the world today. What’s happening now is actually a very magnified version of the uncertainty and groundlessness that is always a part of life. Every day.
So this week I want to dive into some teachings that have made a big impact on me over the years, and I think they’ll help us a lot during these times of uncertainty.
One is learning to be in the bardo, which is used in Tibetan Buddhism to describe the space between life and death. It’s that in-between time, where something has ended, but the next thing hasn’t started yet. And it happens in the endings and beginnings we experience every day.
Finishing a cup of tea. Saying goodbye to a friend. Goodbye to feeling healthy when we get sick. Waking up out of dream. Having bad dream.
How do we usually respond to the unexpected? The unplanned? The endings we don’t want?
When Ghandi was assassinated, his last word was “Ram.” Most of us don’t have that response when something scary or unexpected happens.
Chogyma Trungpa would joke that the thing we usually think of when something unexpected happens is “oh f*ck!” … not thoughts about our Buddha nature.
But we can practice shifting how we react to being in the bardo of the unknown, the unexpected.
We can practice to become aware of how we react to unexpected changes and endings, and see if we can take on MORE agency with that so we are less hooked and run by our reactive, habitual emotions and patterns. Then we can begin to come from a much more intentionally responsive way of being.
The difficult part of this is that we hardly even realize we’re in bardo most of the time. Instead, we forget that everything—our lives, our moments, our very sense of self— everything is part of this ongoing ebb and flow of transitions between endings and beginnings.
Instead, we are repeatedly shocked by change and endings and not having control. We think something is fundamentally wrong when we don’t know what’s next.
The truth of this one wild and whacky life is that everything we experience leads to a bardo state.
Think of a rainbow – it appears when the conditions are just right – sunlight, water particles in the air, and the observer in the right spot. And for that brief moment, it’s stunning. But as soon as any of those conditions shift, the rainbow disappears.
In that moment of it fading, we don’t panic. We don’t try to hold onto that rainbow forever. We just appreciate it for what it is in that moment, then let it go. We tell kids “Oh that’s what makes them special! That they don’t last, and that they don’t always appear.”
Emotions are a lot like rainbows, but we forget that. They arise, they live for a moment, and then they pass. But we don’t always treat them like this. We hold on to them, thinking they define us, that they’ll last forever,… when in reality, they’re also passing phenomena, arising and dissolving. Maybe not as pretty as a rainbow at times, but as transient.
And this is true not just of emotions, but of ALL phenomena. We’re always in this flow of impermanence. And the trick, the practice, is to learn to be comfortable with that.
Now, let me tell you, getting comfortable with groundlessness is no small task. I’ve been there, and I’m sure you have, too.
Breakups, job loss, economic crashes, health diagnoses, and right now, current policy changes that are impacting millions all over the globe.
But this is the human experience, my friends. Moments of fear and insecurity will come. And… they don’t last.
And the sadness, the anger, or the despair that comes with all of it… they end too.
So what if we started to let these states be, to not hold onto the way we need things to be so tightly or push things we don’t want away so intensely?
Now, to be clear, this isn’t about stepping back and pretending that injustice, inequality, and harmful policies don’t need to be fought with everything we have. The world right now needs us to show up, speak out, and take action towards the changes we want to see to the degree we are able.
What I’m talking about here is the unnecessary suffering we often add to the mix. The suffering we create in our own minds when we resist the flow of life and refuse to accept impermanence – which ironically makes us less effective change agents too.
When we cling to the way we think things should be rather than accepting what is, we enter into an internal struggle which limits our ability to act with clarity, compassion, and effectiveness.
So the practice of sitting with the uncomfortable spaces between things doesn’t mean we stop working for a better world.
It means we work from a place of understanding, a place of openness, a place where we’re not tied to fixed outcomes, but where we can see and act with more clarity, without being consumed by fear, anger, panic, or hopelessness.
So yes, let’s work toward healing and change. AND let’s also recognize when we’re caught in unnecessary suffering because we’re clinging too tightly to how we think things “should” be, or because we’re afraid of the uncertainty ahead.
Now, our mind is an extraordinary thing—it creates the experience we have of the world. The way we see the world is shaped by the state of our mind.
A lot of people think meditation is just taking a break or relieving stress, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about understanding how this amazing mind works and how we can use its natural qualities to bring peace, resilience, and clarity into our lives.
In our practice we are learning to understand our mind and the way it perceives the world and shapes our experience of the world. When we meditate, we create space for our minds to settle a bit, which gives us a chance to explore what’s there and get curious about what’s really going on inside us.
This then helps us understand how to live in the gaps, the bardos, of life, the constant ebb and flow and change. The groundlessness. AND it helps us come to terms with the reality that impermanence is the nature of life and to let go of resisting it.
When we can learn to hold these experiences lightly, like we do with a rainbow, we stop getting stuck in them. And when we let them go, they dissolve naturally, just like the rainbow does.
Living in the bardo is both terrifying and full of possibility. But practicing being with it helps us move through life with more ease and less stress and fear.
So here’s my invitation to you: let’s start getting comfortable with the unknown and the in-between. It starts with noticing how everything in our life is a transition – a bardo. What are some you can identify from earlier today?
Then we can try seeing these changes as another moment in the never-ending flow of life, like a wave that comes, peaks, and then fades into the vastness of the ocean.
May you ride these waves, soul surfers. You were made for these times, and you’re not alone.
You will learn:
// What the Bardo is and how we can shift our reactions to the unexpected endings we experience through our day to day lives
// How to let go of resistance to change and let BE
// The difference between accepting what is and ignoring the suffering of the world around us
// How embracing groundlessness can actually HELP us act with clarity, compassion, and effectiveness
// The importance of our daily practice in helping our mind change how it views groundlessness so we have more peace and less fear
Resources
// Episode 24: How to Be With Any Emotion
// Episode 60: How to Avoid Necessary Suffering
// Episode 63: Being Human Is Hard – The First Noble Truth
// Episode 199: What is Liminality? The Space Between Transitions
// Episode 222: Struggling with When Things End
// Episode 234: For Uncertain Times
// If you’re new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You’ll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics.
// Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support and getting coached by yours truly? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. We dive into taking wisdom and applying it to our daily lives, with different topics every month. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can’t wait to see you there!
// Have you benefited from even one episode of the Rebel Buddhist Podcast? I’d love it if you could leave a 5-star review on iTunes by clicking here.