Balancing the Pairs of Opposites: Spring Equinox Reflections on the Middle Path

Happy Spring! So the equinox is a time of “equal” day and night, right? I’ve been thinking about the many “pairs of opposites” lately and specifically about finding the middle point among them all—what the Buddha called the “Middle Path.” For finding this “middle ground” is the only real way to find peace, both within ourselves and in the world.

Pema Chordon writes about the “eight worldly dharmas”—the four pairs of opposites—four things we like (pleasure, praise, fame, and gain) and four we don’t (pain, blame, disgrace, and loss).She explains how we can get “hooked,” or caught up in them and also how we can learn to more consciously choose our reactions to them.

“The point isn’t to cultivate one thing as opposed to another,” Chodron says, “but to relate properly to where we are.” For example, "inspiration and wretchedness complement one another. With only inspiration, we become arrogant. Without wretchedness, we lose our vision. Feeling inspired cheers us up…feeling wretched humbles us…softens us up, ripens our hearts. It becomes the ground for understanding others.”

In this sense, we can celebrate the many “pairs of opposites,” for they all have a purpose in our lives: day and night, sun and moon, yang and yin, Shiva and Shakti, male and female, white and black, up and down, happiness and sadness, joy and despair, success and failure, and so on….The key is to let them be what they are, to honor them for the lessons they offer, and to find our peace and center, our still, quiet place in the midst of it all….

Play Time: So for today, on this beautiful day of balance, I invite you, if you feel caught up in one emotion or perspective, to just take a moment to pause, and contemplate its opposite. You don’t have to do anything about it, just invite its presence into your life. And see if even just doing that helps you to feel just a little more balanced…..

When Things Fall Apart...Relax Into It?

There comes a time in each of our lives (some of us more than others!) when "things fall apart," when nothing seems to be going right, when our lives are a mess, and we wonder if we'll ever "get it right." In times like these, we often feel lonely, depressed, confused. Yet we also tend to feel exposed and vulnerable. If we can go deeply enough into this vulnerability (which is in essence our humanness), we can find the gift of greater intimacy with ourselves—and the world.

As Pema Chodron writes in Things Fall Apart, "we can use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep." She says "it's a kind of testing...that spiritual warriors need in order to awaken their hearts."

Since in the last six months or so, I have felt my own life "fall apart" (having to leave a place I love due to financial difficulties, being injured in a bus accident, and more), these words come as a comfort and a much needed answer to an essential life question. Just be with it, Chodron guides, stay on that brink of not knowing, of not being sure of anything, really. Just relax into that uncertainty, that impermanence, that eternally changing nature of things, and learn to find peace in the midst of it all.

I had been wondering what higher purpose or lesson could come from the recent series of disappointments in my life, things not turning out the way I thought they would—and the resulting feelings of loss and sadness and even failure. And then, I read these words from Chodron:

"Things are always in transition...nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs."

Well, I certainly feel in that "off-center, in-between state"(!) in my life and I am learning to view it as an "ideal situation," one from which many gifts can come, such as a re-evaluation of what's really important, needed resting time, and a chance for rewarding inner work (and who knows what else?). So I'm choosing to allow this situation to "wake me up" and open me to both my pain and my tenderness, both my sorrow and my joy, and to let myself lovingly, compassionately, become more intimate with myself, and therefore with all of creation.

Play Time: How have you allowed (or could you allow) a seemingly "bad" situation(s) to "wake you up;" to open your mind and heart to new possibilities; to connect you more to yourself, to others, to God; to help you cultivate more love, tenderness, and compassion in your life? How could you view where you are right now as an "ideal situation?"