I sat across from a woman at dinner on a Saturday night-- a woman I knew first as a girl, who now has a beautiful girl of her own, and another on the way. Surrounding us were the flesh and faces that accompanied us both during our college days. We had all gathered after many years to celebrate the most recent accomplishment of one of our dear friends, and this had turned out to be a full-fledged college reunion of sorts, complete with the obligatory barrage of surface-level questions better suited for a job interview than a gathering of friends.
Let it be noted that this is where I usually slip out the back door of the mindfulness meeting. Put me in a context that reminds me of less enlightened days, and I often feel, well, less enlightened. I’m working on that.
Like so many of us, I’m waking up…emphasis on the –ing. It’s still very much an active process, and I’m still waiting on my Eckhart Tolle-esque get-sucked-into-the-vortex-and-never-look-back experience. But since the all-at-once-awakening is more the exception than the rule, I’m doing everything in my power (or at least that’s the goal) to be as awake as possible in every second of every situation, knowing that eventually the momentum of my mindfulness will be strong enough that one day I’ll look up and realize that the obstacles that used to exist in the gap between my ego and my true self have all but dissolved. Luckily, those of us who have been at this long enough know that enlightenment is possible in any moment…but sometimes we forget.
I forgot this weekend.
I forgot, but was beautifully reminded by someone I didn’t expect to remind me, in a situation I didn’t expect to be reminded in. For many of us, reminders of just how much progress we’ve made in this life-game tend to show up when we’re presented with a situation that looks, smells, feels, or tastes like less enlightened days. A face, a flavor, a smell, a feeling: any of these can transport us back to what feels like a previous version of ourselves. As if we’ve restored our software version to a past iteration and the program is running on autopilot, playing the ventriloquist in control of our mind-and-heartstrings; speaking through our lips sentiments prehistoric. Upon shaking ourselves free of this contextually induced slumber, we realize just how much better our newer programming feels, and just how many version upgrades we’ve installed since our beta testing days.
As I sat across from my old friend at dinner, we were discussing what is arguably one of life’s most awe-inspiring miracles: childbirth. Realizing the precious nature of both the subject matter and this moment, I struggled to remain mindful. To resist defaulting to the knee-jerk questions and responses, to remain open to anything and everything my friend-turned-mother-of-(almost)-two had to say about this potentially perspective-shattering experience. To invite the bigger version of myself to the table rather than residing in my chattering mind, where I would’ve most certainly resided in this same situation had the clocks been 8 years reversed. As I sat, doing everything in my power to stay in the moment and resist the social and sensory overwhelm of the situation, my friend said this of the most trying moments of her childbirth experience:
“You know, you can always breathe through anything.”
And there it was: the key to transcending any situation, from a chattering mind to childbirth. I took a deep breath, and so did she. Together, we ushered in the moment of reunion, with ourselves and with each other. There was palpable relief; a remembering and unspoken understanding that enlightenment is an in the moment, every moment, practice. A remembering that we don’t have to force it into place, but rather invite it into all the places we used to force it out of. A remembering that a deep breath is the perfect invitation.
Underscoring all of this was a deeper reminder: that it might be better to forget and remember again than to never have forgotten at all. After all, isn’t that what we’re all doing here—playing with the memory of that expansive, connected, collective consciousness from whence we all came? Isn’t that where the thrill is?
Friedrich Nietzsche noted, “What is great in man is that he is a bridge, and not an end…what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under.” It is by the breaking down and rebuilding of bridges, by the shattering of old neuronal patterns and rebuilding of new neural connections, by the overlaying of existing schema with new and novel stimuli that the fabric of our enlightened evolution is steadily and deliberately weaved. It’s that uncomfortable contrast giving way to sweet relief, that feeling of being pulled from the dark into the light, that moment of surprise and delight at a seemingly stale situation suddenly opening our eyes to the sprouting of truth that has taken root in what we once thought to be infertile soil: that’s waking up. That’s enlightenment, and it’s everywhere, just waiting for you to breathe it in.
