Liberation from Disappointment

Nineteenth century author Henry David Thoreau said: "If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment." If that's true Mr. Thoreau, then I am a well-compensated individual.

I disappoint very easily.  Plans get cancelled. People don’t come through.  Good times turn to bad times faster than I can imagine.  All of this leads me to disappointment.

I used to think of this rabbit of hole of disappointment as a problem of mine- meaning, something I needed to work on in myself.  I saw it as an ugly spot that required correction.  However, in the last few months I have been trying to work with this emotion in a different way.

This effort (and make no mistake, it is effort) began after listening to a Dharma Talk by author and Buddhist teacher Christina Feldman called the “Wisdom of Disappointment.” 

Sometimes when I am driving to and from work I will listen to a podcast on a website called www.dharmaseed.org. The podcasts are free, and they include many of the who’s who of western Buddhist teachers.

I was drawn to this talk because of its title alone: the “Wisdom of Disappointment.”

“How on earth,” I thought, “coulddisappointment be virtuous? What possible good could disappointment do?”

Though clearly suspicious, I proceeded to listen.  And then I listened again.  And yet again.

In the talk, Ms. Feldman, in her soft, feathery English accent, says,

“Disappointment is one of the hearts most frequent visitors. It can be a doorway to despair and bitterness or acknowledged as being the starting point of every a journey of liberation.”

I must tell you, this perspective on disappointment was a complete paradigm shift for me, and yet, I was totally intrigued.  And I wondered, could such a paradox be possible?

Recently, I’ve had a series of experiences that have allowed me to test this hypothesis.

On one such occasion I was walking a very narrow tight rope between what Ms. Feldman identified as “despair and bitterness” versus a point of “liberation.”  In fact, it really was touch and go there for a while as to which way I was going to go, and I knew I needed to draw on the wisdom of some other brothers and sisters who aspire to rise above as I do.

The moment came at about 2 in the morning.  I woke up out of a restless sleep to ruminations about a recent let down I had experienced, and there was an additional sprinkling of betrayal in there too for good measure.

In that moment it was clear to me I had a choice.  I could continue to water those seeds of negative emotion born out of disappointment, or I could rise.  I chose to rise.

So I thought to myself, as I lay in bed, who has wisdom about rising? And without skipping a beat, my mind said: Desmond Tutu.

For those of you who don’t know, Desmond Tutu is a Nobel Peace Prize winning Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa who headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission following the end of apartheid, and he considers the experience of voting for the first time at age 63 to be the greatest moment of his life.

Given that biography, I felt certain Desmond Tutu could teach me a thing or two about how to liberate myself from disappointment.  So I began to watch and listen to his interviews.

(As an aside, one of the benefits of technology is at the touch of an iPhone, a spiritual teacher can be virtually available to you- especially at 2 in the morning when you can’t seem to get out of your own way.)

In each interview and video this religious leader who grew up under apartheidconsistently advocated for a non-violent and compassionate responses to horrors that anyone else would have excused as reasonable for retaliation- even if only in the mind where disappointment and her sisters (resentment, revenge, etc) festers.

He also reliably states over and over: “God is in charge.” Words which I have now incorporated into one of my most tried and true mantras to ceaselessly repeat to myself until it no longer needs repeating.  To me, his words also go well with my other mantra of author Anne Lamott’s words, “Grace, eventually.”

But you know what was even better than his words? His fantastic laugh.  This 84 year-old man has the most wonderful, infectious, boyish laugh.  Not unlike the 80 year-old Tibetan Dalai Lama who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the 89 year-old Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1967 for that matter.

Maybe there is something to that…These 3 elders all have gone through lives of terrific hardship and victimization by anyone’s standards. Civil war. Minority Oppression.  Exile. Yet they laugh? How could they possibly laugh? What do they know that I don’t know? How did they figure out how to liberate themselves from disappointment?

I don’t know.  I wish I did.

Here’s what I do know though.  It’s possible. 

Individuals like Desmond Tutu inspire me to aspire.  If they can do it, then so can I.  And the reward? What is the treasure buried at the end of this rainbow? Wisdom.  I just know it.

So how do you liberate yourself from disappointment?

And just because, I’ve included the words of another elder, a sister, who seemed to know something about rising.

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, 1928 - 2014

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.