Measuring Progress

Yesterday, I heard a huge crash outside the house. Things were breaking. I went out to see what had happened. The workman had cut a heavy branch from high in a tree near the house and it fell into our entrance roof, smashing the roof, disconnecting part of it from the wall, destroying the drainage pipes, breaking a piece of an adjacent roof above it and breaking the capital on a column.  I was aware that, when I encountered this minor disaster, I felt no anger. I was not interested in berating or humiliating the worker, or telling him how he could easily have prevented the accident with a piece of rope. I just got to work cleaning up the mess and starting the repair.

Not so many years ago I would have gone into a pretty heavy anger trip and really made the worker feel bad. I would have been upset for days and muttered about the whole annoying thing every time I walked by the roof. I would have told people the story with lots of judgment and blame.

It seems that progress in our personal and spiritual growth is revealed in this way. Something happens that earlier in our  lives would have caused an instant, and perhaps unskillful reaction, and, instead, we respond much differently, with more peace and assurance.

People often wonder if they are making progress in their personal work and spiritual quest.  Because we can, and often do, fool ourselves with denial, emotional disconnection, and objectivity, creating a true metric for progress can be difficult. One thing for sure, if we are feeling pride in our response rather than equanimity, we probably aren’t there yet. The ego is celebrating a fake out.

That is why these sudden situations are the best gauge. We don’t have time to prepare a skillful response or contrive anything.  We are completely connected to, or shocked into our current truth, our unvarnished self. This happens when we  find ourselves in what once was a fearful situation, and we feel no fear; when we find ourselves in a situation that would have invited unnecessary anger and we feel no anger; when we find ourselves in a situation that would normally cause untoward grief, and we truly do not feel grief or the time of grieving is shortened. There are other examples, and each of us have our own personal triggers.

People are always looking for exceptions. “But what  about when this happens?” they say.  So to be clear: this understanding of progress is not saying that anger, fear and grief do not have their place.  Anger is an expression of our passion and necessary for creating clear boundaries. Fear can alert us to true danger, and grief is necessary for inner cleansing and coming to peace with loss. Part of our growth is being aware of when our emotional response  is useful and appropriate, and when it is not. As we practice awareness and introduce the pause that changes everything, doing the inner work that allows us to respond skillfully rather than react unconsciously, we experience more equanimity in our encounter with life’s sudden, upsetting, surprises, until, one day, an old trigger happens, and we feel a wonderful calm in the presence of an old, and traditionally disturbing, story or event.

I still have plenty of work to do, but I find it good to know there is a real way I can  measure and review my progress. No need to worry about these situations failing to arise either. As Rumi says of life, “never for one moment has this flowing towards me stopped or slowed.” I can relax in the knowledge that these deep trials are not in my control and come when they will. There is no  way to “push the river.” If there were, we would not have the wonderful measure created by surprise.