Between Here and There
Facing the 10,000 Things
Today it rained in Bangalore, for the first time since I moved here. I was going through my emails when I suddenly heard a gentle tap-tap on my windows. Coming from the tropics, the music of rain is as familiar to me as my own heartbeat—and a sound I have been yearning to hear in this dry place. Breathing in the cool, fresh air and watching the water flow off the ferns into the earth, I thought: it’s time to write again.
There is simultaneously so little and so much to say. The speediness of life has died down, but my mind has yet to get the memo. I keep wanting to do things, to get stuff completed, to fill all the empty spaces of life that are now being revealed to me. Last night I sat on my terrace watching the stars, and realised I had completely forgotten the natural pace of things. Despite my conscious efforts to stay connected to the sun and the moon, the land and the turning of the seasons, I still feel alienated from it all.
Nature, particularly in this season, moves so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. The other day I went back to Cubbon Park (fast becoming one of my favourite places in the city), and spent an hour or two lazing around, doing nothing. Lying under a tree, I was reminded that the earth under my body is alive in its stillness. It is alive, even without any visible sign of movement, or growth, or something concrete being ticked off the to-do list. Just like you and me are alive, sitting right here, breathing. Nothing more is required.
When I reconnect with that deep, natural livingness inside me, or around me, I can sometimes feel the seed of something being born from there. In that state, things appear to happen as if by magic—or perhaps, by manifestation. A small example: at some point while in the park, I started desiring a cup of chai, and planning out in my head where I could stop for one on my way home. I let that thought drift away, and a few minutes later, a guy came by selling tea and coffee. (₹20 for a tiny cup, sweet and strong, just how I like it). This sort of thing has happened over and over again in the past weeks and months, and every time it does I get a little hit of surprise and wonder. What is this mysterious power that makes things happen? Where does it come from, and how do we interface with it? It sounds a bit woo, but I am beginning to sense the potency of my thoughts, words, intentions, and desires. They are not nothing, and, astonishingly, they are not confined to the world inside.1 Something outside us answers the inner call, when we are aligned and paying attention.
Back to the park for a moment. After a while— having soaked in that luxurious permission to just be—I felt like the trees were also reminding me to move, to follow my desires and to be free. Being a tree may be about standing in one place, as the one who shelters and becomes a home for others. But being human involves a certain dynamism, dancing with the changes of life as adventure. And somehow I believe that my experience of moving around, exploring, doing, nourishes them; and their experience of rootedness, being of-a-place, always stable, gives me something in return.
trusting the mess
One of the reasons I haven’t been writing much is because everything feels so messy, including the contents of my own mind. Writing, to me, involves finding an order, a clarifying meaning, in whatever I’m experiencing. But I am still in the process of making sense of things, and I can’t quite grasp the message that supposedly waits at the end. My thoughts keep coming undone, fraying into loose ends even as I try to tie them up into neat little packets. I can’t offer any final conclusions, or take-home insights; only the rawness of what I’m actually going through, and how I’m facing it.
As a meditator, it has been sweetly powerful to accompany my mind on this journey of sense-making. I have the feeling of slowly rebuilding what was broken inside me, and discovering so many lost parts of myself in the process.
One of the things that meditation has taught me is how to trust the movements of mind and heart. In the midst of big change, my mind tends to zoom rapidly in and out like a camera lens that can’t find its focus. These movements aren’t always comfortable, and don’t have any visible logic to them—it’s like being in a dreamworld while awake. Thoughts about where to buy a shower curtain blend seamlessly into grand visions of the values I want to orient my life around. Memories of past joys interrupt the most mundane of moments, as I’m buying vegetables or paying for a metro ticket. And other times my mind just drops into deep empty space, which I now recognize and welcome as a blessed time-out, an instinctive recovery from the chaos all around.
The same thing happens at the level of heart. Gratitude and grief, fear and excitement, quiet peace and throbbing resentment; all vie for space to be felt. Emotions chase each other through the landscape of my heart, arising and falling away with what seems like no sense of order or timing. Everything is mixed up, and not in a way that seems beautiful or even sane. Yet slowly, slowly, a pattern emerges. Healing happens in ongoing spirals as hurt meets presence. Bit by bit, pain is uncoupled from memory and love remains in its place.
Another of my made-up mantras for the moment: the intelligence is in the brokenness. The fact that I can’t make sense of what I’m thinking and feeling is exactly why I have to trust. If I knew what was going on, I wouldn’t need to trust. And what I am trusting is not the particular contents of my mind and heart, but their essential movement towards integration, sense-making, wholeness.
don’t hold back
I recognize that the transition I’m going through right now is singular in many ways, and unlikely to repeat itself (at least, so I think). I’ve moved many times in my life, but never so completely or so rapidly. The word that I keep returning to is intensity, but then I wonder: is my life now more than it ever has been, or is life always this way and I just wasn’t seeing it? In other words, where does the intensity come from—inside or outside?
With intensity naturally comes overwhelm, a state I’ve become reluctantly intimate with over the past few months. One half of dealing with overwhelm is to let myself be, literally. Every day for about half an hour, I take a time-out and do nothing (sometimes called meditation). This is the time when thoughts and feelings knock around inside me and sort themselves out, as long as I don’t interfere too much.
The other half is to not hold back, especially in the midst of living. Fullness of attention meets fullness of experience. That’s the only way it dissolves and transforms. Holding back creates tension that impedes the flow of one thing into the next. Only surrender works. It’s fear that makes us hold back—the fear of falling apart, of feeling too much, of not being able to function, or of (not wanting to deal with) what is. Dropping that fear, we find safety and trust.
I’ve been reminded of this in so many ways, by so many people. You’re not going to have this experience again, so as much as you can, be present and open to it. This advice holds no matter the kind of experience you’re having—mundane or fantastic, intense or ordinary.
In Daoism, the forms of this world are called the 10,000 Things (based on the Chinese character 萬 or wàn). I’ve always loved this phrase; like the best of teachings, it is both pithy and profound. Doesn’t it sometimes feel like the world is throwing 10,000 things your way all at once? And yet when you step back and face them, you realise they are all part of one form (creation), coming from one thing (mystery). No matter the precise qualities, the level of intensity, the specific appearance of your experience—it is always reflecting and manifesting that basic, core pulse of life, the heartbeat at the center of the universe. All we have to do is face it fully and openly, and we will inevitably find ourselves touching that essence too.
Thank you for reading. As always, if you appreciate my words, please consider subscribing, liking or sharing this post to show your support. I’m glad you’re here with me.
Especially highlighting theses words Vaishali..."Something outside us answers the inner call, when we are aligned and paying attention...Healing happens in ongoing spirals as hurt meets presence. Bit by bit, pain is uncoupled from memory and love remains in its place." Thank you for your writing.
Cubbon Park has some epic trees. Loved reading your reflections on time passing in Bangalore. Also I replied to your email and hopefully that works?