Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön Page A

self-denigration—or seeds of righteous indignation, rage, or whatever other frustrations we take out on other people—we can sow seeds of strength, seeds of confidence, seeds of love and compassion. We’re sowing seeds so that we will become more and more like that grandfather and the many other people we know—or have heard about—who seem to be happy to put their life on the line for the sake of others.
    When you do feel bad about yourself for your rigid and unforgiving heart, you can take consolation from Shantideva. He says that when he took the vow to save all sentient beings, it was “clear insanity,” because even though he was unaware of it at the time, he was “subject to the same afflictions” as others—he was as confused as anyone else.
    Our confusion is the confusion that everyone feels. So when you think that you’ve blown it in every possible way, that you’ve broken the commitment irredeemably, Shantideva suggests that instead of becoming mired in guilt, you view it as an incentive to spend the rest of your life recognizing your habitual tendencies and doing your best not to strengthen them.
    Making the warrior commitment is like being on a sinking ship and vowing to help all the other passengers get off the boat before we do. A few years ago, I saw a perfect example of this when a U.S. Air plane went down in the Hudson River in New York City. Shortly after the plane took off from LaGuardia Airport, birds knocked out the engines, and the pilot had no choice but to ditch the plane in the river. The landing was so skillful that all 155 people aboard the aircraft survived. I can still picture them standing on the wings until they were rescued by a flotilla of small boats that rushed to the scene. The story is that the pilot stayed on the plane until everyone was safely out, then searched it again twice to make sure that no one was left behind. That’s the kind of role model who embodies the warrior commitment.
    On the other hand, I’ve also heard stories from people who were in similar situations but fled for safety without giving a thought to anyone else. They always talk about how bad that makes them feel in retrospect. One woman told me about being in a plane crash many years ago. The passengers were ordered to evacuate right away because the plane would probably blow up. The woman raced for the exit, not stopping to help anyone, not even an old man struggling to undo his seatbelt and unable to get free. Afterward, it weighed pretty heavily on her that she hadn’t stopped to help him, and it has inspired her to reach out to others as much as she can, whenever she has the chance.
    Shantideva says that the only way to break this vow completely is to give up altogether on wanting to help others, not caring if we’re harming them because we only want to make sure that Number One is safe and secure. We run into trouble only when we close down and couldn’t careless—when we’re too cynical or depressed or full of doubt even to bother.
    At the heart of making this commitment is training in not fearing fundamental edginess, fundamental uneasiness, when it arises in us. Our challenge is to train in smiling at groundlessness, smiling at fear. I’ve had years of training in this because I get panic attacks. As anyone who has experienced a panic attack knows, that feeling of terror can arise out of nowhere. For me it often comes in the middle of the night, when I’m especially vulnerable. But over the years I’ve trained myself to relax into that heart-stopping, mind-stopping feeling. My first reaction is always to gasp with fright. But Chögyam Trungpa used to gasp like that when he was describing how to recognize awakened mind. So now, whenever a panic attack comes and I gasp, I picture Chögyam Trungpa’s face and think of him gasping as he talked about awakened mind. Then the energy of panic passes through me.
    If you resist that kind of panicky energy, even at an involuntary, unconscious