When lost, return to Pema

I'll just say it, I love Pema.  Love her.  I am referring of course to Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist nun who is the director of a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia and a writer of I don't know how many books.  I re-read a passage from her book The Wisdom of No Escape this morning.

I've been posting lately, maybe for a month or so, that I have drifted far away from the spiritual practices that had been nearly daily.  Practices that I have found essential for maintaining any sort of bare minimum sanity.  And without them, it has led to me feeling a bit lost.

So this morning, a Saturday when I don't have to head into work and get my son off to school, after nursing my daughter at 5 a.m. (her preferred time this morning, not mine!) rather than going  back to sleep because my mind felt too awake already (you know when the thoughts are already moving above the speed limit) I opted to pull Pema off of my bookshelf.

Now, The Wisdom of No Escape sits next to another Pema Chodron favorite on my bookshelf in the living room, The Places That Scare You.  This book, a paperback,  is so beat-up at this point from casual reading, furious reading, desperate reading that it has become sacred to me.

Yes, I used the word "sacred," but if you are wary of religious language from early childhood nonsecular scars, do not fret.  Though I may be a Pema groupie, I am not someone who turns humans into idols or gods.  Humans are just too human for that.  Having said that, I have found that some people seem to just have gained more wisdom in their single lifetime (to my knowledge...) than the rest of us.  People we all know about like Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Mohamed, Maya Angelou, Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Aberham Lincoln, Anne Frank, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Ruby Bridges, Eleanor Roosevelt, & Thich Nhat Hanh to name a few.  But also people only some of us know about in our own very personal lives like my Great Aunt Bunny who died in October of this year.  For me, Pema Chodron is on this list.  Someone I can reliably go to for wisdom when I am feeling like the ground is moving beneath me and I need a hand to hold so I don't fall over.

This morning she was discussing a sign she had read on a bulletin board: "be open and accept all situations and people."  And the famous words of Zen Master Dogen who said "to know yourself or study yourself is to forget yourself, and if you forget yourself then you become enlightened by all things."

I had read this chapter in her book before, but I find that doesn't seem to matter at all. I simply take in her words and move into my meditation practice.  And with her discussion of openness and acceptance I decided to sit with my palms open and up rather than folded  in my lap which is how I usually sit. A symbolic gesture of sorts.

So today, as I go through my day, feeling alternately lost then found then lost again, I will come back to Pema Chodron. Her presence. Her words. The life she embodies, to find my footing once again- and again.

Today,  who can you turn to when you feel lost?