(This isn’t exactly about running. I’m including it because the theme of taking small steps is fundamental to all sports training.)
Over forty years ago, I spent two and a half years paralyzed from the chest down. The neurosurgeons tried unsuccessfully to remove the cyst that was compressing my spinal cord, and a year of physical therapy brought no improvement, but a second surgery succeeded, and I gradually recovered the use of my legs. I
I’ve had a wonderful life, so don’t waste your sympathy. But having my spine Roto-Rootered has presented obstacles. There’s mild spasticity in my left leg and mild numbness in the right. (Meet Spaz and Gumby.) There’s some cross-wiring between my heart and brain that can make it hard to concentrate.
Recently, I was having trouble quieting my mind in meditation, and I prayed desperately, “How can I meditate correctly? I need Your help!”
I seldom receive God’s answers until I’m ready to own up to my true feelings and really mean business. He seldom helps simply because He’s aware of my need. I must ask with deep feeling, and then I can be absolutely certain of a response.
That night, I had a dream. I was walking down a broad, sandy path with a group of other spiritual seekers. I couldn’t see the others clearly, but I was aware of their presence. The feeling was impersonally spiritual and tinged with joy. They were all men, and I sensed that they were true lovers of God. They were walking in silence, their eyes down, and the mood was still and reflective. I knew that I was in good company, and that I was part of the group. This was very comforting to me, because it meant that, regardless of my problems with meditation, I was walking in the right direction with these good people.
My spiritual teacher was walking with us, and I was telling him about my troubles with prayer and meditation, and explaining how frustrated I was because I appeared to be making such slow progress. I had gotten a taste of inner peace – and why couldn’t I forge ahead and go more deeply into that peace? It seemed hopeless, possibly even a waste of time. Maybe I should give it up and just drive in the hills in my truck, singing to God and working to open my heart.
Quietly, the teacher said, “Take one small step at a time.” And then the dream faded.
The next day, at the bookstore where I was working, I found a wonderful book, The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion. The author, China Galland, describes her visits with women around the world who exemplify what she considers to be the highest feminine virtues of compassion and courage. Some of the women were politically active, such as the “Mothers of the Disappeared” in Argentina, while others were spiritual teachers. Some were religious renunciates engaged in serving others. Such a one was Sister Chan Khong, a Vietnamese Buddhist nun who had served since the 1960s as assistant to the well-known Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nat Hanh. China Galland has graciously given me permission to quote at length from her book.
While the Vietnam War was raging, Chan Khong busied herself helping rural people rebuild their villages. In one village, just as the final touches were being made, the bombers came over and obliterated everything again. Sister Khong and the villagers patiently returned to work; in all, the village was demolished five times. Several of her friends were killed by bombs, and others were executed by South Vietnamese or Viet Cong soldiers who suspected them of working for “the other side.” Each time this happened, Chan Khong’s fury knew no bounds. She described her terrible struggles, after each cruel loss, to find the compassion that lies at the core of the Buddha’s teachings. She told China Galland:
I had to put everything aside. I went back to my breath. I did a little bit of work, cooking, preparing, a number of small things. When I walked, my attention was with my breath and my step. When I gardened, my attention was with the act of gardening and my breath. When I cut carrots I was totally with the cutting of the carrots and my breath. When I washed my face, I was with only that. Breathing in, breathing out. I dissociated myself from the anger, for how long, I didn’t know. In Buddhism, as I am trained, the first part is calming down the agitation.
We can calm down when we are carried away by anger because we have the breath. The breath is the link between the body and the mind. The body is here, but the mind is carried away by anger. So I had to dissociate myself from the anger by building into myself that link, which is the breath. I focused on the breath.
China Galland said, “Yes, Sister…but when your friends were being killed, when your village was being destroyed over and over, it’s hard for me to believe that you just took a breath and calmed yourself and went on. I want you to tell me precisely how you did that.”
Sister Khong said:
We walk….. We focus our attention on the breath and the step. So, on the in-breath, I take one or two steps, on the out-breath, I take one or two steps. I dwell in my breath and in my steps to dissociate myself from the anger. It doesn’t mean I surrender and suppress my anger. I will go back to my anger, but when I am quieter, when I obtain more serenity. I do not rehearse my anger. I have to look deep into my anger with a serene mind, and I will see the roots of my anger and the fruit of my action.
I walked several hours, almost all day long, to calm my anger. Sometimes in the war I was so angry that I walked for several days. But I refrained from doing anything except small things like cleaning, small work, helping people carry wood, distributing food, but not getting carried away by big action like joining that side or the other side or shouting or screaming or doing something very drastic.
Then I looked deeper, and I saw the decision makers were somewhere else, in the Kremlin, in Peking, in the White House. They were not the soldiers of both sides. These soldiers were only victims of the big machine of confusion and ignorance….
When I am angry, I first focus on the breath to calm myself. When I feel my heart is less agitated, I go to the second part, which is mindfulness, looking deeply into oneself and into the cause of the anger. Why am I so angry, I ask myself. Is there a physical problem – do I have a headache, an unhappy body? Next I consider my feelings. Sometimes I am angry for nothing, I’m irritated by things that have happened before this; anger just comes out as the last straw. The other person who is supposed to be my enemy brings out the last drop of all the anger I have felt in the past. When I have gone through my body and my feelings, I go next to my perception. This is very important, because my perception is my outlook, the way I see things. The Buddha explained that in the dark, if you see a snake, you scream. But when you have a light, you see it is a rope. Sometimes we see a person as a snake, whereas she is only a rope. When I change my perception of the situation, my anger is transformed.
Reading about Sister Khong’s struggles with anger helped me greatly, because it reminded me of the many times, in the years that I’d been praying and meditating, that I’d experienced the power of taking small steps. To me, Sister Khong is a beautiful soul; yet she too has anger. She, too, must deal with her problems one small step at a time, and this gives me hope. Even wonderful spiritual people must struggle, but their lives testify to the power of winning small battles.
I realized anew that my greatest happiness has come when I’ve dealt with small things, never when I sought earth-shaking experiences, or an immediate, life-changing “spiritual overhaul.” Looking back, I saw that my big prayers were seldom answered. My biggest problems, in fact, turned out to be small ones. Resolving them with small steps, I found a peace that allowed my heart to open naturally to God’s love. In that love, I could pray effortlessly for others. Finding the place where I could share my true feelings with Him, I found God’s guidance leading me toward inner expansion and happiness. He accepted me as I was, and like a loving mother, led me one step at a time toward greater light.
My problems with meditation were small, my despair a misunderstanding of the proportions of the true spiritual work. I don’t need to meditate flawlessly, fearing that God wouldn’t come. He comes when I pray frankly and courageously, pulling back the petals of my feelings so that He can flood me with His grace.
