Exiting Lockdown
Original source: satipanya.org.uk
In this timely reflection, Noirin Sheahan examines the spiritual challenges and opportunities that arise during transitions, particularly as we emerge from periods of enforced withdrawal like lockdown or retreat back into active social and work life. She identifies the common patterns we experience during such transitions: projecting excessive happiness into future experiences, only to face disappointment when reality doesn't match our expectations, or conversely, becoming attached to withdrawal and dreading the return to busyness.
The essay presents mindfulness as the key tool for navigating these transitions skillfully. When caught up in pleasant expectations, Noirin suggests we pause to savor the anticipatory joy itself as a form of muditā (appreciative joy), cultivating gratitude while grounding our expectations in reality. When experiencing dread about re-engagement, she encourages us to fully feel this unpleasantness as a direct experience of dukkha—the unsatisfactory nature of conditioned existence and the First Noble Truth.
Drawing on fundamental Buddhist insights about suffering and liberation, Noirin transforms what might seem like mundane psychological challenges into profound opportunities for spiritual development. She emphasizes the importance of patience with our inevitable mistakes and the value of community support and daily mindfulness practice in navigating life's transitions with 'minimal misery, maximal learning and deeper gratitude.'
Exiting Lockdown
As the restrictions start easing again, many of you will be engaging with social and
work life more fully. Similarly for us here at Satipanya, as the winter retreat closes,
we start looking outwards, forwards, planning outings, visits, work.
Transitions are tricky. We so easily lose the run of ourselves, expect too much of
whatever is on the horizon. You might be dreaming of booking a meal in your favorite
restaurant, on retreat we’re dreaming of the first breakfast when we can chat. We
project too much happiness into these and get disappointed, bewildered, angry when
the initial happiness fades, leaving us as grumpy as ever! Or it can be the other way
round, we suddenly realise how attached we’ve grown to the enforced withdrawal of
lockdown, of retreat, and dread all the coming busyness. Most of us suffer from both
afflictions – expecting wonders one moment, dreading change the next!
The good news in all this is that transitions are also rich opportunity for spiritual
practice. Its where we see our attachments and delusion most clearly, and thereby
find a precious opportunity to work with these, find new ways of responding.
As always, mindfulness is key. Can we tune into whatever emotions are driving our
thoughts, actions, speech? Say we’re being fired up by expectation. Stop a moment,
acknowledge and explore this experience. Expectation usually has a pleasant, happy
flavour. Stopping to savor that is a form of mudita – appreciative joy. It is good to be
able to look forward to things, to have faith that we can enjoy life. Anyone who has
suffered from depression knows what a great gift this is. Stopping to enjoy our
anticipation of happiness cultivates gratitude for mental well-being as well as
whatever we are looking forward to. Stopping also grounds us, makes our
expectations more realistic, lessens any disappointment if things don’t go exactly as
our dreams predicted.
Say we’re being driven in the opposite direction – dreading the thought of going back
into society. Can we feel the unpleasantness, allow it to register fully? There is truth
here too – going back into society will not bring us lasting happiness. Though this
insight is painful, we have the good fortune of knowing that the Buddha saw value in
this pain and formulated it as the first noble truth; he told us we must fully
understand dukkha (the unsatisfying nature of life) to become liberated. Knowing
that the pain we are experiencing is also a spiritual insight lifts our spirits. The
burden of dread diminishes, and we might even start looking forward to a meal in
our favourite restaurant – after all its another opportunity for spiritual insight!
As we see-saw between these extremes we learn to savor here and now the happiness
we’re projecting into the future, and to embrace the unhappiness that teaches us the
first noble truth. None of this is easy however, and we need to be patient with our
many mistakes as we fly up into the sky with false expectations and get rudely
dumped on the ground with disappointment and bewilderment. Transitions are
precious. Transitions are tough. Good friends and a daily mindfulness practice help
us transit from our various lockdowns back into society with minimal misery,
maximal learning and deeper gratitude for all that society offers.