Sharon Salzberg

The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

Real Life

Laura Mei

Connection is a profound human need. While loneliness has elements of feeling abandoned, discounted, and not belonging; solitude, by contrast, is a state where we may be alone in terms of actual contact with others, but we have ease of heart. Solitude can enhance our personal growth and resilience. Loneliness is a much tougher thing to feel. It is an incredibly painful, constricted state and can be a kind of 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘰, a place where we feel we have been erased. We can feel lonely and emotionally abandoned even when we're surrounded by other peoples. Thinking of deep connectedness, of fulfilling our destiny by caring for one another, of offering nourishment to those in need and assuming the mantle of legacy toward those yet to come — is a vision of life that lifts us and opens our hearts to whatever we may be going through. In the story of Indra's net, the universe is described as a net of infinite proportions. At each interlacing point, where the strings of the net meet, there is a multifaceted, highly reflective jewel. Each jewel reflects the others, including the reflected images held in the others. To look at one jewel, at one point, is to see the reflection of all jewels, at all points. To look at ourselves is to discover all beings and all things in the universe; to look at others is to see ourselves as well. Every event, every entity, every emotion, every experience we have is born out of a web of interconnectedness. In all existence, there is no one and no thing that stands apart.

Aspiration is bigger than realizing a specific, narrow hope or dream and vanquishing fears around it. It's a broad vision of meaning in one's life, a North Star by which to navigate, a guide to returning when you've felt lost. Even though an aspiration is overarching, it's not hovering somewhere overhead, disconnected from everyday life. Aspiration does manifest through our intentions, through the ways we speak or act or we hold back from speaking or acting, through our choices every day. Aspiration is an active presence in our lives every day that we recall it, we reflect on it, we work with it. My own aspiration is to live in-touch with goodness, to weave a story of life not made of fear but of love. Many of us long for an underlying sense of meaning, something we can still believe in no matter what happens to us, a navigational force to pull all the disparate pieces of our lives together into some kind of whole. A commitment to an aspiration like kindness can be the thread that twines throughout our various successes, disappointments, delights, and difficulties — making our lives seamless.

In addition to great works of art, majestic forests, or natural grandeur, we can feel awe at people's kindness, at their courage, at their ability to survive through unspeakably challenging conditions. Everyday experience — the freedom of a child's laugh, the determination of a student to understand, a gesture of kindness, a glimpse into the fortitude of a parent accompanying their child through suffering and uncertainty — can also move us to awe, and we live in a different way when it does. It's awe-inspiring in and of itself that our bodies work, that our consciousness is mutable and that change is possible, and that most times we can get up out of bed and have a day. We put so much pressure on ourselves to make something extraordinary out of this existence of ours when, in reality, our breath, the mere presence of our flesh, our feet touching the ground and our hands reaching for a forever-burning sun is as extraordinary as we need to be.

Freedom is not about moving away from or transcending all the pain of life in order to travel to an easeful, spacious realm of relief devoid of feeling. We cradle both the immense sorrow and the wondrousness of life at the same time. What does cradling it all mean? It's easy to get lost in the darkness when it is so relentless; however, there is a lot to be learned in holding both. When we are in the depths of darkness, the light is implicit. And when we are in the moments of light, the darkness is implicit and acknowledged. It is the ability to see the yin and yang in any moment that reveals our sense of wholeness. Instead of fixating on avoiding pain, or being too guilty to take in the joy, we can open our minds and hearts and be in touch with it all. Amid the chaos of our days, without at all denying the suffering, we can also look for the compassion that does exist in this world. We can look to the people who help and be inspired by their actions. Then, holding that inspiration alongside the honest recognition of suffering, we have the strength and the energy to once more, if only for today, get out of bed, to once more, if only for today, continue to try, and once more, if only for today, leave room for the possibility of interest, connection, resilience, and love in our lives.

Our attachments to whom we think we're supposed to be are like chains around our necks. Our identities get wrapped up in external roles, titles, and accomplishments that we put value on. At first, it might seem that one pursuit or identity is more valuable than another. Surely, the cure for a disease is more important than how many books an author sells. Surely, creating social change that improves thousands — if not millions — of lives is more important than increasing the wealth of one individual. At a fundamental level, though, no matter what our vocation is, our accomplishments are where we find our core self-value and feel affirmed. Attachments are attachments, no matter who we are or what we identify with. When we value ourselves because of what we accomplish and how much we accomplish, our souls are forever held hostage to these attachments. No matter how much we do, how many dollars we accumulate, cures we discover, books we sell, or people we help, it is never going to be enough to permanently fulfill us.

Think of the last time you were lost in fear. The last time you were harshly unforgiving of yourself. The last time you felt trapped. The last time a craving was so strong that all reason and common sense fled. The last time any sense of potential change collapsed and you fell into hopelessness. Those are time we experience limited options, the blunting of our creativity, a feeling of disconnection, the dimming of our vision of what is possible.

Each of us lives, at least at times, in the narrow straits of seeing few options, or being defined by someone else who has more power than we do in a situation, or feeling so unseen that we absorb someone's projection so thoroughly we come perilously close to forgetting who we are. Think of the last time you were lost in fear. The last time you were harshly unforgiving of yourself. The last time you felt trapped. The last time a craving was so strong that all reason and common sense fled. The last time any sense of potential change collapsed and you fell into hopelessness. Those are time we experience limited options, the blunting of our creativity, a feeling of disconnection, the dimming of our vision of what is possible. Perhaps we've been engulfed by a personal tragedy or crisis, so that taking the first tentative step out of overwhelm toward an uncertain but beckoning future seems untenable. Or our actions are so determined by what we have been taught to believe, in contrast to what we can newly discover, that our ability to know wonder or awe seems completely beside the point. Our personal Exodus is journeying out from an opaque world — where it's difficult to breathe, where change, the ever-present rhythm of life, is all too muffled, where the tight bindings around our hearts keep them from generously nourishing our bodies, our feelings our entire existence — to a wholly different kind of world. We journey from fixity to freedom. 

Real Life The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

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