When Things Fall Apart
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problems, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved.
They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.
We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don’t know. We never know if we’re going to fall flat or sit up tall…when things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell…thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what to Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly. The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last.
Pema Chodron– When Things Fall Apart