Gordon Peerman’s Blessed Relief: What Christians Can Learn from Buddhists About Suffering has been a life-changing read for me. It is helping me learn how to get some distance from my emotions and approach discomfort and even suffering from a position of acceptance rather than resistance. I’d love to share some passages with you over the coming few weeks.
From there, I’ll turn to the other books I read in Bhutan… Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, The Art of Living, and Happiness, all by Thich Nhat Hanh; and Married to Bhutan and A Field Guide to Happiness, by Linda Leaming.
Gordon Peerman, a Nashvillian, is an Episcopal priest and psychotherapist in private practice. He has taught Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction at Vanderbilt’s Center for Integrative Health as well as mindfulness practices at Vanderbilt’s Law and Medical Schools. A graduate of Yale Divinity School (M.Div.) and Vanderbilt Divinity School (D.Min.), he has been an adjunct faculty member at Vanderbilt Divinity School, where he taught a class in Buddhist Christian Dialogue. He teaches Centering Prayer and leads retreats at St. Mary’s Sewanee.
Peerman begins Blessed Relief by explaining the basics of mindfulness. You might think he wouldn’t need to. At this point in American popular culture, “mindfulness” seems almost like mac and cheese: it’s everywhere. We all think we know what it means – or at least I did.
I needed some further understanding.
Here are some passages I found especially helpful and hope you will as well as we approach the holidays…
On “The Heart of Mindfulness”…
This was my first time in Alaska, and it seemed to me as though we were paddling through a Tang Dynasty scroll. Cloud-hung mountains came right down to the water. The occasional human being boating across the water was tiny in the vastness of the landscape. We floated past the trunk of a tree where someone had nailed an enormous whale skull.
Enormous, too, was the silence of the place. There were no mechanized sounds, just water sounds, wind sounds, eagle sounds, all coming from and disappearing into the great silence… “This is wonderful. I could stay here forever.” Breathing in, “Happiness is like this.” Breathing out, “Smile.” Just breathing, floating, smiling, happy. Nothing else was necessary.
But since, as Buddhism teaches, everything changes, so does the mind with happiness. After a while, I found myself wanting just a little bit more happiness. Buddhists call this the ‘grasping mind,’ and it is this grasping that leads to suffering and stepping on the wheel of samsara, the endless cycle of birth and death. The grasping mind was wanting just a little bit more. The thought came to me, “I wish Alex [my son] and Kathy [my wife] could see this.” How quickly on the heels of happiness comes an improving thought: “This could be even better.” Mind with happiness becomes mind with improving – a slight bit of resisting what is.
When we are able to watch our minds, we can notice that different thoughts come and go. Who knows where these thoughts come from or where they go? Usually this coming and going of thoughts happens out of our awareness, but with mindfulness practice, we can take notice and watch. Watching thoughts is like watching boats moving past our view on the water: “Here comes the ‘improving’ boat; there goes the ‘it’s-not-quite-right’ boat.” By knowing that the mind has moved to improving, we can choose whether to follow this improving thought or to simply watch the urge to improve arise and let it be, without having to take action or fix anything.
…Paddling that afternoon, when I stopped to pay attention to the improving thought in my mind, I was able to let it be, and in time, it let go of me. Could Alex and Kathy be here with me now? No. More to the point, could I be here now? With this question, something shifted inside me. Being here now happened, and letting go of improving happened, and a little movement of energy flowed through my torso with this release. I came back to the feeling of the paddle in my hands, the sound of the paddle in and out of the water, the rhythm of my breathing. I thought of what one of my Buddhist teachers often says: “Be here now. Be someplace else later.” Smile.
*
On “Small Mind, Big Mind”…
…Small mind is the narrow, grasping mind reaching out whenever it can for pleasure, praise, recognition, or gain. Small mind reflexively grasps for what it believes will bring happiness and pushes away what it believes will bring pain. The little crabs in the tidal pools of Tebenkof Bay, their claws reaching skyward seemed the perfect representation of small mind. Watching my own small mind’s pincers open and close on what it wanted at the moment – whether it was a more comfortable sleeping bag spot or less snoring from the tent next door, or more of a particular kind of food or a warmer or cooler temperature – I saw all the big and little ways I was in contention with reality. Small mind, resisting what is, wants just a little bit more or just a little bit less…
Big mind, on the other hand, is open to what is. Because it knows the truth of impermanence, that everything changes, big mind knows that pleasure does not come without pain, that praise does not come without blame, that gain does not come without loss, that recognition does not come without disgrace. These Eight Vicissitudes, as the Buddha called them, inevitably come conjoined as “terrible twins”… Big mind is open to the full play of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral events, but small mind wants only the pleasant and inevitably suffers when reality brings pain, blame, loss, or disgrace instead. Buddhist teachers compare small mind to a little container, a cup, into which a handful of salt has been dropped. Big mind, by contrast, receives the same salt of experience, but the salt can diffuse into great spaciousness, like the wide waters of Tebenkof Bay.
Again and again on the Alaska retreat, I got to see how mindfulness could convert the narrow grasping of small mind to the spacious openness of big mind. The Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa used to say, “There is no cure for hot and cold.”
Jennifer, great start to sharing more of this book with us. I look forward to it!
I hope it will be a blessing to you, as it has been to me! Xoxo
Dear Jennifer — So glad you are featuring Gordon Peerman’s book celebrating the insights of both Christianity and Buddhism. I read the book several years ago, but reading these passages again this morning makes me want to read it again. On this cold November morning when we are sheltering inside, it’s also lovely to read the description of kayaking in Alaska. Thank you as always for your thoughtful posts and beautiful illustrations.
Good morning, Ophelia! I’m so delighted to hear from you! I think I’ll be keeping this book close to me for a long time. I hope to see you soon! Xoxo
“Be here now. Be someplace else later.”
❤️ ❤️
Life advice doesn’t get any better – xoxo
Dear Jennifer, Thank you for reminding me how much I enjoyed reading Gordon’s book. I definitely needed this refresher this morning and I will look forward to future posts!
Hi Melinda! I’m glad you know about this book! It is so extraordinary. I knew I couldn’t do it justice by just summarizing it. I am eager to share more… xoxo
Hi Jennifer, I attended Gordon and Kathy’s meetings on Wednesday nights for years. Thank you for reminding me of these teachings. While not related to any religion, the teachings remind me of Byron Katie’s teachings of acceptance of reality.
I hope to find out more about those meetings! Thank you for mentioning them! And Byron Katie’s work. Xoxo
Hi Jennifer~
I was unaware of Gordon Peerman and will be ordering this book. Thank you!
A few years back I was able to hear Amy Tan speak and she told us about monkey mind. Boy, did I relate and your post reminds me I have much to learn!
I do too, Marci – I do too. So great to hear from you! Xoxo
I have done several OLLI sessions with Gordon so your morning gift of passages from his book was especially meaningful. I am going to work hard to remember to be self aware in the pain and pleasure of the coming weeks. Thank you so much.
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” we are told – but wow sometimes it feels like the hardest too. I’m going to try to diminish the “improving mind” in my head. Xoxo
Hi Jennifer, I have SO many books to read, but guess I need to add this one as well. Peace, LaMon
I believe you do, LaMon!! Xoxo
Jennifer~this book was given to me by a beloved friend when I was going through a particularly difficult season with depression. It was the only thing that I could read during those dark months. Gordon’s teachings from this book and the many Wednesday nights of listening to his meditation talks have given me so much hope & new practices for living in joy and pain. Thank you for sharing~Hannah
It sounds like this book has touched you as deeply as it touched me, Hannah. I am glad it saw you through a period of darkness. What a miracle, for both of us. I want to learn more about these Wednesday night meetings! Xoxo
Gordon’s writings and teachings are inspired and he made a huge impact on me in a difficult season. I will be forever grateful to him. I need to get this book down off the shelf and re-read and remind myself to be here, now! Thank you for sharing.
I love knowing how many of my favorite people have already found his work! Thank you for letting me know, dearest BK. Xoxo