"In this, there is that"

There is a slogan in ALANON that says to "Take what you need and leave the rest."  This particular slogan, of the many, has been very helpful to me long past my days of going to twelve step meetings. In fact, it is a slogan I try to practice regularly.  And yet, it is still so hard for me to do.

I was recently reminded of this slogan, and my difficulty with it, while reading bits and pieces of a book called "One Buddha is not Enough" because it occurred to me that it may be my sometimes rigid black and white thinking pattern that makes this slogan so challenging to actualize.

The book itself is a collection of narratives written by the monks and nuns who live with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk, author and Buddhist teacher who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 19 times, in his community in France called Plum Village.

The book is kind of interesting in that it was born of a moment that never happened. Thich Nhat Hanh was scheduled to lead a retreat in Colorado that was all filled up with Buddhist practitioners coming from all over the world. But "Thay," as the monk and nuns in Plum Village affectionately refer to him in the book, fell ill and was unable to attend. The group, who was ready and waiting for him, literally waiting in the meditation hall, was crushed, some devastated. But, here comes the but, the retreat went on. Led by the monk and nuns of Plum Village, participants engaged in a retreat that became so life changing, a book was written about it.

But within this already interesting and unique book, there was a particular story that reminded me of the ALANON slogan.  It was by a Vietnamese nun named Sister Dang Nghiem called "We Inter-are."

This monastic woman tells the story of some beans that were sent to her by a friend. The beans are commonly called Yin Yang Beans, but I understand there real name is orca or calypso beans. The common name comes from the coloring of the beans which resembles the yin yang symbol of a little circle of black in a sea of white and a little circle of white in a sea of black.

First off, I loved the idea of the beans themselves and immediately looked them up online to try to order them to use as a mindfulness exercise with my patients at work. But more so, I loved the words the nun chose in her story to describe the lesson she took from both the beans and the retreat as a whole. She simply said: "In this, there is that."  Gorgeous, uncomplicated language. She goes on to say: "in the white there is the black, and in the black there is the white. This is in that, and that is in this."

Which brings me full circle to the ALANON slogan again that I struggle with: take what you need and leave the rest. In a blog almost two weeks ago I wrote about some of the negative associations I learned while growing up about humility. And we all have stories like that right? Things we learned along the way that were in hindsight deeply flawed and misguided. But maybe that is not the whole story, because all or nothing, black or white rarely is. There are these shades of gray aren't there?

So in the spirit of dialectical thinking, here is another kind of list of messages that I was equally taught while growing up: Always keep a journal, be willing to spend the money to take care of your teeth, fight for those who are oppressed, spend time in nature regularly, play music and light candles for dinner even on weekdays, sing in the car and before bed, value books and education and theater and museums and travel to cultivate cultural intelligence, every now and then stop everything that you are doing and just play.

These are the messages and associated memories I will hold on to, and I will try to let go of the rest. What can you intentionally hold on to and let go of today?