Anaïs Nin: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”
Bodhipaksa (July 24, 2008)
I sometimes think that my life has proceeded by way of a series of breakdowns and reconstructions. Such episodes haven’t exactly been frequent in my life, but they have represented important turning points. There have been three times I can recall where I’ve hit emotional bottom, learned something important about myself, and found a release that led to significant growth taking place.
In each case there had been a long period of holding on to some pattern that had been causing me pain (usually unacknowledged). I’d been a tightly-closed bud. This was followed by a catalyzing event (in each case it involved being on retreat) in which I became fully aware of the pain I’d been causing myself. The pain of remaining closed became too much. Then there was a grand finale of emotional release and a spiritual awakening into greater wholeness and well-being. The bud opened, albeit painfully. Anaïs Nin’s quotation — “…the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” — seems to perfectly encapsulate that process.
…to my surprise, I found myself overcome by emotion. I’d try to say something and the words would get stuck in my throat, turning into inarticulate sobs.
I realized how important friendship was to me a few years after taking up Buddhist practice. I was on a retreat which had the theme of spiritual friendship (coincidentally the theme of last month’s blog). As part of the retreat we studied a series of talks on the theory and practice of friendship, or kalyana mitrata, and we also spent time with each other, as we do in my tradition, getting to know one other and developing friendships. (It’s not like that in all Buddhist traditions — sometimes retreatants are not allowed to talk to each other or even to make eye contact). All of that was great — the part of the retreat I was anxious about was where we were going to talk in small groups about the spiritual friendships in our lives.
Basically I thought that it just hadn’t happened for me — that spiritual friendship just wasn’t a significant part of my life. I mentioned the word anxiety in relation to this part of the retreat, but it wasn’t the terror of public speaking or the nervousness one experiences about revealing oneself to relative strangers that I was experiencing, it was more a kind of embarrassment at not having anything to say, while everyone else (I imagined) would.
The evening arrived when it was my turn to “share” and I started off by apologizing that I wasn’t going to be able to say much. But there were a few people who had helped me or attempted to befriend me, to various degrees of success, and I thought that I should at least say something about them. And to my surprise, I found myself overcome by emotion. I’d try to say something and the words would get stuck in my throat, turning into inarticulate sobs. I’d collect myself, let the emotion subside to the point where I could speak once again, and the same thing would happen again. And again.
I realized a number of things. I’d remained tight in a bud. I’d come to Buddhist practice because of painful experiences in which I’d lost friends and experienced loneliness and suffering. Those experiences revealed the world to be an unreliable place, and I was looking for a spiritual tradition that emphasized looking within for happiness. I thought that with Buddhism I’d found a way to close myself off from the world. A famous Buddhist saying was “Fare lonely as a rhinoceros horn.” And inspired by this kind of thinking I’d been resistant to opening up to friends. I was guarded and wary, and suspicious of looking outside of myself for happiness and wellbeing.
The isolation I was imposing upon myself created a deep sense of loneliness, but I managed to avoid acknowledging those feelings. After all I didn’t want to take the risk of developing and losing friends again. Loneliness became my defense against loneliness. So remaining tight in a bud was painful. But not painful enough to make me change.
It took two weeks spent on retreat, reflecting upon friendship — and more importantly experiencing friendship in the form of the small group in which we were sharing our stories — before I could really start to experience the pain of the closed bud. I always think it’s very significant that it was in the very act of communicating with others that I came into a more intimate contact with myself, that the moment in which I started to open up to others was the moment in which I opened up to myself and acknowledged my pain.
But the bud was now opening.
Difficult though it was to experience the pain that I’d managed up to that point to avoid, there was also a sense of the light finally making its way into the heart of the bud. I experienced gratitude towards those who had been kind to me in the past and who had tried to be a friend to me. And I could see how I’d limited myself, and how I could no longer keep doing that. I’d seen the risk of remaining tightly closed, and it wasn’t a risk I was prepared to take. I’d been stuck, but now (for a time at least) I was unstuck, free, an open and opening bud.
And in that moment, as I sat in a circle, I realized that I was being fully accepted. No one was judging me. No one was thinking less of me for having been a closed bud, or for having shown my vulnerability. Instead they were quietly and compassionately being there for me. We were a circle of opening buds, all of us having decided that the risk of remaining closed to each other was greater than the risk of opening up. We were open to each other, blossoming. And the reward of that was more than worth the pain of having opened up.
Bodhipaksa is a Buddhist practitioner, writer, and teacher, and is also the founder of Wildmind. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and daughter, and has a particular interest in teaching prison inmates.
As well as teaching behind bars, Bodhipaksa also conducts classes at Aryaloka Buddhist Center in Newmarket, New Hampshire. He muses, rants, and shares random aspects of his life on his blog at bodhipaksa.com. You can follow Bodhipaksa’s Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/bodhipaksa.
Comments
Comment from jenny
Time: July 25, 2008, 4:42 am
loneliness became my defence against loneliness is just where I am, just what I am realising. This summer I have wrestled myself to a standstill; now I am looking for what I have ignored, shunned, kept boxed down, within and without. There is a breaking open feeling of pain and release as I write this, that I recognise to be more real than my defences.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 25, 2008, 3:21 pm
Hi Jenny.
I’m pleased to hear that you’re experiencing a sense of relief or release as you write. Sometimes we feel much better once we’ve been able to name to ourselves what is going on that’s been causing us suffering, and sometimes (as I mentioned in the article) expressing that to others, as a kind of confession, comes as a huge relief. We no longer need to pretend to ourselves and others that everything’s OK. We can accept that to suffer is not a failure, but simply a part of life.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Comment from Dom
Time: July 30, 2008, 11:19 am
Thanks, that struck a chord.
It’s hard for me to find the right arena to ‘risk blossoming’ though. I can see how the supportive atmosphere of a retreat might be suitable for opening up, but if I did that with my few friends there’d be, well, issues to say the least!
Comment from Stephen
Time: July 30, 2008, 11:36 am
I used to believe that I didn’t need any friends. That since I had always been lonely, that I could survive as a lonely individual. Each year the lonliness got worse as I pushed other people away and as I pretended that it was an ok situation to be in. While it took baby steps to crawl out of my self-imposed cage, I have a sense of freedom that I didn’t have before. It wasn’t just that I was lonely, it was that I judged myself so harshly that I thought being lonely was the type of life that I deserved. I am now so grateful that I have friends who I can express emotions to as it helps me to deal with problems so that those problems don’t drag me down.
Comment from marcia
Time: July 30, 2008, 11:37 am
I have always used my employment as my defense against loneliness. Having been unemployed for many months now, I have become isolated and defensive about reaching out and making new friends. I am in a new location, due to my husband’s employment, and I can’t seem to fit in to any social or spiritual communities here. I am a social and political liberal who has been “exiled” to South Carolina!
Right now, my two closest companions, my son and daughter, are in the process of moving far away for their respective careers, and I am on the verge of despair without anyone to talk to about it. My husband is no companion in this area. He wants no part of spirituality of any kind and is not interested in hearing me “complain.”
I do have a meaningful job lined up that will begin in a few weeks, and I am hoping that I will find solace in my new work that will ease my loneliness.
Thank you for this posting and for giving me the opportunity to put these thoughts and feeling into words.
Comment from Trish
Time: July 30, 2008, 2:24 pm
I have been lonely all my life - always ‘different’ in some way - until I found the Dharma and, more precisely, my local Sangha. The lack of judgement I found there taught me to start judging myself less harshly and the Buddha taught me that I, too, have potential (yes, even ME!). I agree with you, Bodhipaksa, that retreats are a great way to discover other ‘closed buds’ - that become friends - and, in my experience, just ‘putting out there’ (i.e. verbalising in a group) what you are experiencing, just seeing it for what it is, helps enormously to see it (and yourself, and others) in a more healthy context. It then ‘re-lights my fire’! This is my first visit to this site …… I’ll be back!
Comment from Kaye
Time: July 30, 2008, 2:37 pm
Thank you all for sharing such intimate details of what you are feeling, after reading the above post. It seems that I stumbled across these posts today, quite by accident. Until I started reading that is. Now I realize that I have stumbled into the right place. I too shut myself away from people, and fear any contact that makes me feel vulnerable. I stay at my desk for lunch, read or clean when at home, and try not to think of to much at a time. I feel safe, lonely, and like a bird in a gilded cage. A self imposed cage. That is the worst part of it. I am just beginning to find peace in meditation, and seeking more from the Buddhist way of life.
Comment from Michel
Time: July 30, 2008, 7:47 pm
Thank you for sharing this experience with me. I recognize myself in the bud you describe. The group of Buddhists you’ve been on retreat with are very ‘enlightened’ in a specific way. My experience with other groups is, that the practices focus very much on the self, which (for me, anyway), has become a hindrance in becoming (more) communicative, including building friendships.
Is the Buddhist group you did retreats with, known throughout the world?
Best regards,
Michel
Comment from Trish
Time: July 31, 2008, 3:52 am
Michel - I’m not sure who your question is addressed to … probably Bodhipaksa but, as I am unsure how often he is able to view these comments, I’ll risk ‘jumping in with both feet’ and say that both Bodhipaksa and I belong to the F.W.B.O. (Friends of the Western Buddhist Order) which, yes, has Centres - or at least activities - in 24 countries (possibly more now?) around the world. I live in England, Bodhipaksa in New Hampshire (I have never met him!), I have just recently met two fellow retreatants, one from Holland and one from South Africa and we have a lady in our local Sangha from Poland! I am therefore very hopeful that you will have an FWBO centre where you are and that you are able to make contact with them. I wish you well,
Trish
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 31, 2008, 9:45 am
Hi Dom,
It certainly can be hard to find a suitable arena to risk blossoming, and in my case it took me some time to learn to trust others enough to reveal my vulnerability (and in some ways I guess I’m still working on that).
The Buddha placed great emphasis in his teachings on finding suitable friends, and given that there are some shortcomings with your existing friendships it may be that you need to enlarge your social circle and find new friends who are more likely to accept you. It’s not always easy, but finding a sangha (spiritual community) would be a good first step. There may be local practice groups, and you could also look for retreat opportunities (or hopefully both).
It may also be — although I’ve no way of knowing, of course — that you’d find more acceptance from your existing friends that you might think. It might be worth sharing a little and seeing how that goes.
A third option, which doesn’t rule out either of the others, would be finding a good therapist or counselor. A good therapist acts, in effect, as a spiritual friend, giving us acceptance and helping us to tap into inner resources that we didn’t know existed.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 31, 2008, 9:49 am
Hi Stephen,
I’m truly delighted to hear your story! It seems that, like me, your self-imposed loneliness was a result of a lack of self-confidence. It’s a terrible burden to carry around, that sense that we’re not “good” enough to have friends. I’m glad that you’re now free of that burden.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 31, 2008, 10:20 am
Hi Marcia,
I was so glad to read at the end of your comment that you’d found a job. I’m sure that will be helpful in many ways. Being unemployed can severely dent our self-confidence and hopefully you’ll feel more of a sense of purpose and engagement in your new position — and an opportunity to show your effectiveness. And the other benefit of course is social — work is one of our most important ways of forming connections with other people.
And I sympathize with your “exile” in the South, where it can be much more difficult to find people interested in spiritual traditions other than Christianity. You might want to take a look at our Open Circle, which draws together a community of people interested in exploring Buddhist teachings without assuming that they want to become Buddhists. The Open Circle is based around a study text, and the point is to take the teachings, reflect on them together, apply them to everyday life, and share the results with the rest of the online community. It’s much more than just a discussion forum, though. People have their own home page, for example, and so it really is very effective online community.
There’s a link to more info on Wildmind’s home page.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 31, 2008, 10:28 am
Hi Trish,
Thanks for commenting and for replying to Michel.
Michel — I looked up your IP address and it looked like you’re in Pennsylvania? (Honestly, technology can sometimes seem a bit creepy). Anyway, my local Buddhist Center is also a retreat center, and since it’s in NH it’s perhaps not too far for you to travel for a retreat. You can check it out at http://www.aryaloka.org. The folks there are really great.
Comment from Graycard
Time: July 31, 2008, 4:32 pm
I’m profoundly interested in pursuing this spiritual friendship and would be deeply grateful to hear of retreats or workshops that might foster it, in a tradition like yours that permits the exercise of friendship. I’ve been to one of the other kind and left after 45 minutes when the “no talking” rule was announced.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: August 1, 2008, 3:11 pm
Hi Graycard,
I’ve been in Insight Meditation retreats which involved no communication (even eye-contact) and found it valuable, but that was after years of practicing in a more Sangha-based community. The value for me of the no-contact retreats is that it allows me to focus more on my own experience and also be less caught up in meaningless communication. But if I’d been a newcomer I’m not sure how I’d have got on. I think I would have found it depressing.
Most Tibetan traditions are pretty Sangha-based, as is Thich Nhat Hanh’s movement, and of course the FWBO, but to some extent we have to work with what’s available in our local area. There may well be Tibetan and Thich Nhat Hanh groups in your area.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Comment from Bonnie Over the Sea
Time: August 8, 2008, 7:21 am
Hi Marcia,
Just wanted to reinforce the idea that no matter where you go (yep, even in the deep South!), you will find spiritual kinship. It just takes longer in some places than others. You have to trust that there are good, kind people everywhere, and you never know how or when you may have the opportunity to meet them. Again, the opening of that tight little bud is required in order to be ready for all the experiences that the universe can offer you. If you feel you’ve been “exiled” to a place, it’s hard not to convey that (even without realizing it) in your demeanor and in the extent to which you open yourself to new possibilities. What a wonderful twist of fate it would be if you found the closest friends of your life in this unexpected place! Stranger things have happened. I wish you all the best!
Bonnie
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