Pema Chödrön

As much as we might try to resist, endings happen in every moment—the end of a breath, the end of a day, the end of a relationship, and ultimately the end of life. And accompanying each ending is a beginning, though it may be unclear what the beginning holds. In How We Live Is How We Die, Pema Chödrön shares her wisdom for working with this flow of life—learning to live with ease, joy, and compassion through uncertainty, embracing new beginnings, and ultimately preparing for death with curiosity and openness rather than fear.

Poignant for readers of all ages, her teachings on the bardos—a Tibetan term referring to a state of transition, including what happens between this life and the next—reveal their power and relevance at each moment of our lives. She also offers practical methods for transforming life’s most challenging emotions about change and uncertainty into a path of awakening and love. As she teaches, the more freedom we can find in our hearts and minds as we live this life, the more fearlessly we’ll be able to confront death and what lies beyond. In all, Pema provides readers with a master course in living life fully and compassionately in the shadow of death and change.

How We Live Is How We Die

Laura Mei

During every moment of our lives, something is ending and something else is beginning. We live in a wondrous flow of birth and death, birth and death. The end of one experience is the beginning of the next experience, which quickly comes to its own end, leading to a new beginning. It's like a river continuously flowing. The seasons change, the days change, the hours of the day change. We ourselves change all along, and we experience many changes from moment to moment. This happens all around us and within us, never stopping for an instant. We tend to behave as if things are more fixed than they really are. Despite our lifetime experience of change, something within us never stops insisting on stability. We'd rather deny the reality of continual change than accept the way things are.

All-pervasive suffering is the constant discomfort that comes from our basic resistance to life as it really is. We want some solid ground to rely on, but that's just not in the cards. When we examine very closely, we see that even the most apparently stable things are constantly changing. Everything is on the move, and we never know which direction things are headed. If even mountains and boulders are unpredictably moving and changing, how can we find security in anything? This constant feeling of groundlessness and insecurity quietly pervades every moment of our life. It is the subtle discomfort that underlies both the suffering of suffering and the suffering of change. As Thich Nhat Hahn says, "It's not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not." We can continue to resist reality, or we can learn to frame things in a new way, seeing our life as dynamic and vibrant, an amazing adventure.

In the Buddha's teachings on karma, the teachings on cause and effect, whatever we do, say, or even think makes an imprint on our mind. When we do something once, we're likely to do it again. When we react to a situation in a certain way, we're likely to react the same way the next time that situation comes up. This is how propensities develop. As a result, we usually behave and react predictably. In some particular circumstances, we're very generous; in others we're self-protective. In some, we're tolerant; in others, irritable. In some, confident; in others, insecure. At every moment, we have two basic alternatives. We can escalate or deescalate our misery. We can strengthen unhelpful habits or ventilate them. By becoming more conscious of what's happening, we can put out the fire at the ember stage and save ourselves and others so much grief. To grow in the ability to know what to do when an emotion grabs you, it's helpful to remember three words: embodied, present, and kind. Drop into your body, bring your attention to where you are now, and be kind.

Everything in our experience is sacred. We discover that we live — and have always lived — in a sacred world. The word "sacred," however, doesn't mean religious." It means awake already. All that appears is awake already: everyone you meet and all that you see is a deity, a manifestation of an enlightened form. Every sound you hear is a sacred mantra, a manifestation of enlightened speech. And everything you think is a display of enlightened mind. On a simple, everyday level, a sacred world begins with an openness and curiosity rather than judgment and dread. When you wake up in the morning, you think, "I wonder what's going to happen today" as opposed to "I've already figured out why today is going to be miserable." We can allow everything to be just as it is — without being for or against it, without labeling it as right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant. Instead of following our ego's likes and dislikes, we can learn to enjoy phenomena just as they are. We begin to experience the world as "imbued with an atmosphere of the miraculous."

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