Baggage Galore
There’s an old story – from China I think - about two Zen priests out for a walk. They come to the banks of a shallow river where there’s an elderly woman who wants to cross the river but fears she might slip on a rock, hit her head, and drown. I know; it’s already sexist and ageist but that’s the way with old stories, so bear with me.
Zen priests at that time were strictly forbidden to touch a woman. One of the priests explained this to the woman but despite this rule, the other priest offered to carry her across. The woman accepted, so the priest safely took her across safely.
When the two priests resumed their walk the priest who refused to touch the woman reprimanded his friend for breaking a vow of the Order. Half an hour later he was still telling him off, explaining why the rules exist and why, no matter the situation, you should stick to them.
The priest who had carried the woman across suddenly laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?” asked his friend, annoyed that the other was not appreciating the seriousness of the offence.
“Well I let go of that old woman ages ago but you still seem to be carrying her around with you. And it’s weighing you down.”
With life comes stuff. Good stuff, like doing well in an exam, getting a job we wanted, falling in love, becoming a parent, the last payment of a mortgage after twenty-five years of paying, seeing your kids grow up. And bad stuff. Little bad stuff like losing a friend over some petty argument, or not getting the Christmas present we wanted, or not getting the promotion we had applied for. And really, really bad stuff. A contentious divorce, the death of a child, a family suicide, sexual abuse, physically violent abuse, serious illness, and stuff not many of us thankfully have witnessed – war, torture, the destruction of our home town.
We have memories. Memories are, according to scientific researchers, very skewed personal takes on something that happened. And we keep them with us, like an internal series of stories and images. Some of the good stuff, some not so good, some bad. In most cases we can live happily, enjoyably and actively with this plethora of memories archived somewhere in the amazing archive system of the brain.
There’s the old phrase “forgive and forget”. Actually in practical terms it’s just as helpful if we can’t forgive something but for the most part we do forget about it. In other words it’s not getting in our way in our daily life.
In some cases however the baggage we carry with us is unhelpfully heavy, and in extremes weighs us down so much we can barely function.
I remember when it was announced that the English entertainer Roy Castle had terminal cancer and given six months to live. He decided to do a tour, reckoning that if he only had such a limited time left to him he would enjoy it as much as his condition would allow.
Most people given similar bad news go into depression, often severe. They lose much of their will to live even before they lose life itself. That normal and understandable, but it’s such a waste of the precious life that was still available to them.
They carried their life sentence around with them, dragged down so heavily that they could barely move. Roy Castle meanwhile, with the exact same pain and challenges played his trumpet, told stories and danced. Danced to the end of love, as the late Leonard Cohen put it.
Mindfulness is noticing what’s going on. Inside as well as out. So much of the baggage that we carry about with us ignites, often at random moments, and takes us over for a while. It does so very powerfully, so that we suffer the effect of it without really being aware of how it arose in us.
With the practice of mindfulness we start to get a hang of noticing, quietly, deliberately. Anything will do. Notice the head of the tea through the cup onto your fingers and palms. Or the lovely lubrication that water provides to your throat as you swallow.
Noticing deliberately, without too much intellectual inner commentary or judgements, hones this as a deep-seated, subtle skill. It grows in you almost without you noticing – isn’t that ironic? As it develops you start to notice things about yourself that you previously didn’t see. Like all the baggage. The pain, the regrets, the suffering, the hatreds, the guilt, the prejudices. A lot of stuff. Ugly stuff. But hey, welcome to the human race. There’s a lot of good in you too; kindness, love, forgiveness, humour, insight, creativity. So don’t get hung up on the negatives, but do address them.
It comes slowly, the letting go. If you’re impatient and annoyed that some baggage doesn’t disappear more quickly that is in itself developing more baggage – impatience, frustration, annoyance. They’re all forms of baggage too. So if you really want to slowly let this stuff go, be patient, accept its existence in you, while you practice your everyday mindfulness. The time will come when you actually notice the baggage as it arises, and you are able to sit with it in your head, but without it taking you over and poisoning your state of mind. Then you’re on the road to decluttering your most toxic forms of baggage. Over time you’ll walk more lightly on this world, maybe so lightly you can readily carry some old woman – or man – who needs your help.▢
More Mindfulness:
JONAA©Hans Vera
Martin Stepek is a member of the JONAA team in Scotland, a founding member of JONAA and sits on JONAA’s board. A Scot with Polish heritage, a Mindfulness teacher, poet, published author, columnist on Mindfulness (Ten for Zen and the Sunday Herald) and the Chief Executive of the Scottish Family Business Association.