A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

A Tribute To Pema Chodron



 

I painted this portrait about two years ago and I have hung it in my living room where I can see it often.  It was such a pleasure to capture a likeness of this woman who I think is a wonderful person and teacher.  I look up to her as an example of the best that the human species has to offer, a person of integrity willing to go the distance to promote peace and healing here on this troubled planet.  

Pema Chodron was born in July of 1936 in my hometown, New York City.  She celebrated her 76th birthday this past summer.  She became a Buddhist nun in 1974 after having been an elementary school teacher in New Mexico and California and after having given birth to two children.  When she decided to become a nun she was still young enough to be open to the Buddhist teachings and teachers (especially her root teacher Chogyam Trungpa), but old enough to have a lot of life experience with being a wife, mother and teacher.  These skills served her well as she moved from being a dedicated Buddhist student to being a Buddhist teacher in her own right. 

I discovered Pema Chodron at a crucial point in my life, only a couple of months after my last psychotic break eleven years ago.  I had only just decided to commit to taking the anti-psychotic medications; I mark my entry into recovery from severe mental illness from that point on.  I bought a six audiotape program by Pema Chodron called Awakening Compassion:  Meditation Practices For Difficult Times.  I responded right away to her down to earth style, her intelligence and humor and honesty.  I confess that I chose her audio program not only because she was teaching about Buddhism, which I had been interested in since before I became ill, but because she was an American woman.  I needed a female role model to teach me, a mentally ill, middle aged woman, how to follow a spiritual practice that would help guide me through my symptoms and, at the same time, deepen my connection to the people I encountered in my life.  She offered me a way to begin and several practices to follow in my day to day existence.  

I began to collect other audio programs as well as books by Pema Chodron.  During the early stages of my recovery her voice and words and the Buddhist teachings she taught on were like a lighthouse beacon when I began to get lost.  She radiated both common sense and a wholesome goodness and I came to trust her overall guidance.  I live in a rather isolated place that has an almost entirely Christian population with little access to Buddhist teachers or community.  And so I came to rely on books, audiobooks and some information and community on the internet.  More than half of my studies were devoted to Pema Chodron, but I also studied such teachers as Thich Nhat Hanh, Alan Watts, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, Chogyam Trungpa and Robert Thurman.  I read and listened, took notes and meditated, but more than that I took what I was learning to heart and began applying it to my life.  

I thought about the value of patience as I sat waiting for my brother to finish shopping so that we could get home before dark.  I thought about the value of generosity and the deep bonds it creates in friendships as I offered the use of my car to a new friend who could neither afford to repair her vehicle or to pay for the monthly insurance.  I thought about the value of honesty as I continued to write and talk to myself in my audio journal, passing on what I'd learned to the people who read this blog and to the people in my life.  I especially took the Tibetan Buddhist mind training slogans "Always maintain only a joyful mind" and "Be grateful to everyone" to heart.  

In the moments when my spirits flagged and I was heading towards a depressed kind of circular thinking, I would pause and remember to be joyful.  Just saying aloud "Always maintain only a joyful mind" made me smile with relief.  It was as if I had just given myself permission to be happy, to be content with the advantages and limitations of my situation, of my life.  I have a refrigerator magnet that says "Count your blessings" and when I aimed to be joyful that's what I did.  I found joy in my easy breathing, in all the space around me, in the shelter of my home and the light that came in through the windows.  Joy in the ability to move, in my senses, in the ticking of the clock, in the fond attention of my cats.  I took and continue to take much comfort and guidance from the basic goodness of the stuff of existence.  Amidst all that goodness I also felt my own essential goodness as both a witness of life and a participant in it. 

What Pema Chodron has done for me is to help me believe in Buddha Nature or the essential goodness in everything inanimate and alive.  I think I spent much of my youth and adulthood in the shadow of the concept of original sin even though I wasn't raised with Judeo-Christian religion at home.  By the time my parents got married they were ex-Catholics and had rejected the concept of God or a higher power, but shame and guilt had unfortunately been instilled in them early on.  I think I followed my mother when I began to believe that there was something wrong with me and along with that shame came a sense of guilt, too.  I had too much and I didn't feel as if I had earned it and I thought that there was something wrong with not just me, but with my family.  

Pema Chodron has said on many occasions that self-denigration is one of the biggest obstacles to acquiring wisdom, that and always blaming others while ignoring our own faults.  And so we swing from two poles, seeing ourselves as either less than or more than others when in truth we are all on the same playing field or, as Pema likes to say, in the same boat.  Much of my suffering came from believing that I was different and less qualified than other people.  Because I believed this I cultivated a tendency to pull into myself and by the time I had my first nervous breakdown that pattern was deeply entrenched.  It was my mysterious voices that alternately helped and tormented me into reaching out to help others in a community with very little mental health resources.  To my surprise, I found that in helping others, they helped me to cut through my isolation and they gave me a warm place to occupy and some purpose.  I was an odd mixture of both insanity and sanity, at times succumbing to the force of my delusions and other times keeping them hidden from others.  

Before I moved away from New York City, I shamed myself; afterwards I began a relationship with someone who took my sense of shame and amplified it into a potent mixture of shame and resentment.  Those two negative emotions would eventually grow into an outbreak of schizophrenia.  When the voices overtook my life they quite plainly forced me to be useful in a way that I had not ever been before.  They turned me upside down and there was much pain and suffering, but part of it was because I held on to the sickness that I had oddly nurtured over the years.  Through Pema Chodron's wise guidance I began to see, after years of struggle, that encountering and overcoming obstacles is a spiritual path in itself and that many people are on that path; it is not just me alone. 

My self imposed isolation is on the wane.  I will always need a lot of time alone being creative in one way or another, but my heart has thawed out and I am including other people in my life.  I realize now what I didn't believe before, that we are all interconnected in a magical web and that I've always belonged here.  Pema Chodron has been for me the best of guides through the twists and turns of my mental illness always pointing out possible healthy paths to take.  Pema Chodron's message is the same as Jesus' message and Buddha's message: Practice lovingkindness towards yourself and spread it out towards all others.  Call it what you will, love, compassion, tolerance, generosity, gentleness, patience -- all of it is the basis for spiritual practice for any living person and a collective spiritual practice of love, preferably at all times, is the only available key to finally change the face of humanity individual by individual.  I am not enlightened, but I think I am on the mend because I am more awake to the profound meaning behind Buddha Nature.  Thank you Ani Pema.  

4 comments:

Chris said...

Hey Kate,

I bought two Pema Chodron books: Taking the Leap (short and tiny yet oh so good) and When Things Fall Apart (doubly good).

Alas, I can't commit to becoming a total Buddhist or adopting Buddhist principles.

I can see a lot of the focus on compassion is valid yet Buddhism seems itself like another organized religions whose beliefs you're supposed to adhere to without questioning.

I wonder about this.

What is your take on it? Can we take what we need and leave the rest when it comes to our spirituality?

A noted priest who wrote a book lamented the "cafeteria style" method of picking and choosing what beliefs you adopt.

Yet I'm not sure this is totally wrong. A person can take parts of Christianity that work and leave behind what doesn't like some of the women's health stance.

I didn't read his book straight through. It was popular about seven years ago.

Possibly I believe we all have a spirit that is the essence of who we are and this could be our original self apart from a doctrine. Even if the belief is one we treasure.

Certainly:

Faith and spirit have a reverent place in a person's recovery.

Regards,
Chris

Ashley Smith said...

Hi Kate,

I am glad to hear you are maintaining good health!- 11 years strong since your last psychotic break.

I did not know of Pema Chodron, however, I have had a few mentors to understand the care she must have had for you and other mentees. Your mentor sounds non-judgmental, passionate, and wise. When I pass, I hope I've made my impact on the community and an array of individuals with or without mental illness.

I am not familiar with the Buddhist practice but would not mind learning it, in order to learn more about myself and to have inner peace. I went to a couple of meetings last year and I liked the ongoing educational aspect of it. But I am not sure if that is the path for me because of my Christain upbringing.

In fact, I know a couple of individuals who also have a mental illness and practice Buddhism. I think that is awesome- practicing Buddhism because I know it must take a lot patience commitment, and hard work.

Best wishes,

Ashley Smith

Karen May Sorensen said...

Hi Kate!

Its nice to have a hero. I have many, but they are artists. I love reading about their lives, thinking that if they can deal with obstacles, then I too can overcome adversity. Of course my hero's don't usually talk, they make pictures and that is what I think about and ponder and let influence me in the direction my work takes. But I think that with my heroes, some have had unhappy endings. I do what I can so I don't go the dark places they go. I try to learn from other's mistakes. Of course that's not anywhere as good as learning from another's course of wisdom............you are lucky that you felt such a bond with Pema. I think by nature you are kind and compassionate, and a religion that holds these things central is a very good one for you. I know a mentally ill man whose life was saved by Buddhism, literally he stopped trying to commit suicide after he started practicing Buddhism.

My current hero is David Hockney, an artist who has had a long, prolific life. I love what he is doing in old age.............it gives me the hope that my best work is still to come. I suppose that Hockney is a man who never stopped changing and growing, and if you can have a life of constant growth, I think this is ideal. Wisdom is never just finally caught and pinned down. I think you have to search for it until the end.

All my love,
Karen

Pamela Spiro Wagner said...

Dear Kate,

What a wonderful, wonderful post and portrait! Do you know that I was just thinking about Pema Chodron and wondering whether it was time for me to take the plunge and look at her "stuff" now...I so agree with all that you wrote already. Though as you also know I have yet to reach any place of lovingkindness for myself...In fact, it is precisely the LK stuff directed towards me that keeps me back. I won't write about it now, because I just wanted to say hello and tell you how much, how very much this post meant to me. It made me happy on a bad day. It just was so lovely to read and know that you were able finally to write it and mean it. I am so glad to hear how you have journeyed on your path. It brought tears to my eyes to know that you are NOT quite so isolated, and that you are more balanced and indeed that Pema Chodron's teaching were at least partially responsible. I can believe that.

Take care, my friend. My email box is always open for communication from you if you have the time or desire for a longer "letter" someday. In the meantime, be well, stay well, and be at peace.
Yours,

Pam W

PS I see double all the time, so I hope I can make out the two words to prove I am not a robot! 8D