From Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart…
“If there’s any possibility for enlightenment, it’s right now, not at some future time. Now is the time. What does it take to use the life we already have in order to make us wiser rather than more stuck? What is the source of wisdom, at a personal, individual level?
To the degree that I’ve understood the teachings, the answer to these questions seems to have to do with bringing everything that we encounter to the path. Everything naturally has a ground, path and fruition. This is like saying that everything has a beginning, middle and an end. But it is also said that the path itself is the ground and the fruition. So one sometimes reads, ‘The path is the goal’.
This path has one very distinct characteristic: it is not prefabricated. It doesn’t already exist. The path that we’re talking about is the moment-by-moment evolution of our experience. the moment-by-moment evolution of the world of phenomena, the moment-by-moment evolution of our thoughts and our emotions.
The path is not Route 66-destination, Los Angeles. It’s not as if we can take out a map and figure that this year we might make it to Gallup, New Mexico, and maybe by 2001, we’ll be in L.A. The path is uncharted. It comes into existence moment by moment and at the same time drops away behind us. It’s like riding in a train sitting backwards. We can’t see where we’re headed, only where we’ve been.
This is a very encouraging teaching, because it says that the source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today. The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant. We’re always in some kind of mood. It might be sadness, it might be anger, it might be not much of anything, just a kind of blur. It might be humor or contentment. In any case, whatever it is, that’s the path.
When something hurts in life, we don’t usually think of it as our path or as the source of wisdom. In fact, we think that the reason we’re on the path is to get rid of this painful feeling. (When I get to LA, I won’t feel this way anymore). At that level of wanting to get rid of our feeling, we naively cultivate a subtle aggression against ourselves.
However, the fact is that anyone who has used the moments and days and years of his or her life to become wiser, kinder and more at home in the world have learned from what has happened right now. We can aspire to be kind right in the moment, to relax and open our heart and mind to what is in front of us right in the moment. Now is the time. If there’s any possibility for enlightenment, it’s right now, not at some future time. Now is the time.”