We can meet our match with a poodle or a guard dog, but the interesting question is – what happens next?

Pema Chodron

The third chapter in Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart, “This Very Moment Is The Perfect Teacher,” further introduces the idea that the present moment, as fallen apart as it is, can be our teacher. That is a comforting and hopeful thought. Somewhere in that idea lives wisdom, peace, meaning.

Chodron tells the story of her teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche’s, response to being asked if he had ever been afraid. He explains that he was once confronted by a fierce guard dog. The people he was traveling with ran from the dog. He ran toward the dog. The dog was so surprised that he ran quickly away. Chodron views moments when fear and anxiety test us as moments to stop struggling and look directly at what is threatening. She explains: “The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping in to unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be to just keep moving.” She cautions, acknowledging how hard it can be to keep moving, “Rather than realizing it takes death for there to be birth, we just fight against the fear of death.”

Chodron views the moments that scare us a great teachers. “If sometimes we can approach what scares us, and sometimes we absolutely can’t, then that’s our experience. ‘This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s always with us’ is really a most profound instruction.” She ends the chapter saying, “Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.”

As a student of wide-awakeness, Chodron’s thoughts make me think. She suggests meditation as a path to staying in, and learning from, the times when anxiety and fear abound. We must find our individual path to just keep moving. Finding our way to presence and learning from falling apart is key. It requires a personal answer. It may look like meditation, or running, or reading, or playing chess, or climbing mountains, or yoga, or listening to music. Wide-awakeness as teacher makes sense to me. In staying in, we are born. In staying in, we learn and grow. In staying in, we get through. In staying in, we shine.