Insurgent Heart: A Vipassana Manual for the Guerrilla Yogi — {11}

Independence: Autonomy / Self-Retreat

OSPAAAL poster image by Rafael Zarza / Image courtesy Lincoln Cushing / Docs Populi

Table of Contents

~ Preface

~ Introduction

2. Indigenous Knowledge: Bhavana

3. Contact: Aim /Attack / Harass

4. Mobility: Bases / Fluidity / Agility

5. Distrust: Suspicion / Investigation

6. Medicine: Metta / Divine Abodes

7. Retreat: Encirclement / Escape

8. Diversion: Distraction / Misdirection

9. General Strike: Invisibility / Cessation

10. The Guerrilla Band: Camaraderie / Community

11. Independence: Responsibility/ Self-Retreat

12. Intelligence: Education / Reporting

13. The Revolutionary Spirit: Discipline / Determination / Faith

14. Protracted War: Land Reform / Regular Army / International Support

15. {Afterword} Mindfulness: A Balm or a Bomb for Babylon?

~CHAPTER 11~

Outside of the support he gets from the people among whom he operates — and this support must never be underestimated for it is vital to his eventual success — he fights alone. He is part of an independent formation that is in effect an army by itself. He must be self-contained. If necessary he must act alone and fight alone with the weapons at his disposal — and these very often will not be of the best. He must find his own supplies. His endurance has to be great: and for this he needs a fit body and an alert mind. Above all he must know what he is fighting for — and why. ~Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army

Sometimes the drama of community, of relationship, is too much of distraction and the guerrilla yogi, realizing that they have limited energy, determines to use that energy to direct the mind inwardly. There is work and benefit of sangha culture that is important and valuable. But we should never lose sight of the primary field of our own practice as the foundational locus for this battle, even in the midst of social crisis.

Why should other people’s minds be so hard to bear? It is because in them our own minds are unbearably brought to light. Our reactivity to other peoples’ views and actions, as well as our attachment to our own, can trigger deepening cycles of aversion, delusion, or craving in our hearts that can be increasingly hard to untangle. Spending time alone, having each moment be a reflection of internal impulse whose impact we take responsibility for is a profound gift that requires its own conditions and accommodations.

There is a story from the suttas. The death of the Buddha was imminent and a certain monk was asked to join an assembly to help make preparations for the transition of the sangha. We can only imagine the pressure elder monks faced in helping ensure the future of the dispensation after the Buddha was gone. But while there were certainly endless important matters to discuss, this particular bhikkhu refused, deciding his energy was better used trying to attain final liberation while the Buddha was still alive. Other monks even went to the Buddha to complain about this bhikkhu. But the Buddha upheld him as the ideal.

The value of sangha cannot be overstated, but neither can its potential threat. Even in the greatest expression of sangha we can imagine, each of us must do our own work and win on our own terms in our own way. In the end no comrade can fight for you. While the emotional and material support is essential, each of us must fight our own war and sometimes this means periods of greater intimacy or distance with others, with community, with the greater society, as always: dependent upon conditions.

The guerrilla yogi may find the path frustrating and lonely at times if the Buddhist communities that are available do not feel like they offer supportive conditions for their development. For any number of valid reasons, the culture of any given sangha may feel too dissonant with or distant from our current needs.

When our options for sangha are repeatedly frustrating and dispiriting, we have the choice to 1) get involved and accept it; 2) get involved and try to change it; or 3) as the Buddha himself encouraged,

As a deer in the wilds,

unfettered,

goes for forage wherever it wants:

the wise person, valuing freedom,

wanders alone

like a rhinoceros. In the midst of companions

— when staying at home,

when going out wandering —

you are prey to requests.

Valuing the freedom

wander alone

like a rhinoceros. … Unstartled, like a lion at sounds.

Unsnared, like the wind in a net.

Unsmeared, like a lotus in water:

wander alone

like a rhinoceros. Like a lion — forceful, strong in fang,

living as a conqueror, the king of beasts —

resort to a solitary dwelling.

Wander alone

like a rhinoceros. At the right time consorting

with the release through good will,

compassion,

appreciation,

equanimity,

unobstructed by all the world,

any world,

wander alone

like a rhinoceros. Having let go of passion,

aversion,

delusion;

having shattered the fetters;

undisturbed at the ending of life,

wander alone

like a rhinoceros. ~The Buddha, Rhinoceros Sutta

Stars at the center of a solar system burn at a relative close distance to each other: light-days or light-weeks apart. But throughout the rest of the universe, this is actually very rare. Most stars find themselves an average of five light-years — about 30 trillion miles — away from their nearest neighbor. A guerrilla yogi must be able to look up into the night sky and find solace in that isolation, relief in that potential for seclusion, as if that might be us in a future life, burning up our last remaining kamma in the cold depths of the dark expanse of the universe.

NON-COMBATANTS

A guerrilla force can operate successfully only in an area in which the civilian population is not merely passively in sympathy with them, but in which there is a far proportion who will give them active and willing support. ~ Bert “Yank” Levy

The ideal in the Rhinoceros Sutta of a lone monastic wandering in the woods is a fantasy that may never have been broadly realized in reality — even in the time of the Buddha. To the degree that it did exist, the solitary wanderer in his day was held by a broader culture that supported and valued that kind of renunciation and commitment to awakening — a social reality that was essential to its functioning. To this day monks and nuns continue to be entirely dependent on donations from lay people and so could never wander or live too far from a village. The fact that multitudes of others were operating in monasteries created the cultural context for the lone wanderer to succeed in those more “independent” conditions. In this same way, a guerrilla fighter without a revolution is just a vigilante, and a guerrilla yogi can never truly be considered alone because of the context of other yogis in the world.

Though I have no family of my own, yet I have a very big family — the working class throughout the world and the Vietnamese people. From that broad family I can judge and imagine the small one. ~Ho Chi Minh

So it is important for a guerrilla yogi to consider the relational conditions of their lives that support or threaten their solitude, and the strength or strain that this solitude puts on their social relations. The guerrilla yogi lives at the tension between householder (gahapati), and renunciate — and this tension must be addressed. Neither fully outside of society nor fully inside it, they ride the razor’s edge between the worlds. In the case of our families and non-dhamma acquaintances, there are tensions that can arise between our need to struggle and our need to be in healthy relationships.

The Ignoble Path factor of Right Irresponsibility shows us that we need, at times, to be willing to let down the people that want so much from us. We decide not to go out to a party, rest instead of answer the phone, sit instead of respond to email, disappear onto retreat — for longer and longer periods of time — and we are sometimes resented for it. The people in our lives who do not understand our dedication, who do not share in our interest, feel that they are losing us to something that threatens them and their needs. If we disappear into the battle for a weeklong retreat, that sometimes can be OK, but when we are gone for a month, three months at a time, six months, a year at a time — we are inevitably gone during someones illness, during a birth, a death, some up or down in friends lives, where the specter of death looms, people get married, have children, graduate, get a promotion, get divorced, and you are not there to share it with them.

Family and friends need to be trained to accept this reality. But as a guerrilla yogi you cannot expect them to keep pace with your own enthusiasm. Because they do not understand or share your goal of the happiness of peace, they are less concerned with your journey toward it than with their own beliefs in what would make you happy or in getting their own needs from you fulfilled. Part of their training is slow progressive comfort with longer and longer times away, but it is also demonstrating the value of your time away for them. They must come to recognize that you are a better version of yourself when you have had time away, that you are happier, kinder, more patient, more understanding. They can learn to recognize that if you do not get this time away you are more contracted in the heart — and this effects them negatively. A guerrilla yogi must train their friends and family to feel as if they have already died — and that any time you show up is a miracle for which they eventually become grateful, if not sated.

A new spirit permeated the Sierra. Peasants would come and greet us, no longer fearful. We, in turn, had more confidence in them. Our relative strength had increased and we felt safe against any surprise attack; we also felt that a closer bond existed between us and the peasants. ~Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Sometimes we become aware that we need more significant distance from certain people in our lives in general — not just when we are on retreat. We come to see that engaging too regularly or casually with them leads to more and more conflict and strife and drama that effects our mind and overall wellbeing. Letting go can be hard but at some point we learn to stop betraying our own needs for the sake of others. It does not mean that we never stretch or sacrifice for the wellbeing of another, of course not — but rather that we are not ultimately going to undermine our own potential for liberation to satisfy someone else’s defilement-based needs of us. To dedicate your life to feeding insatiable hungry ghosts might be kind but it is not heroic, nor wise. It is folly. A guerrilla yogi can be relieved to consider: Beings are numberless. I vow to disappoint them all.

All food taken from them must be paid for at a good price, thanks must be repeatedly expressed and peasants made aware that they are helping their own cause. Our men will try to repair things in the house such as beds, closets, tables that might be ruined. They will help the peasant in fencing his lot or in sowing or clearing the fields, and in so doing they will clearly show our sympathy and attract the peasants to our cause so that we may eventually request their help any time. ~ Alberto Bayo Giroud

The guerrilla yogi desires to help but is not here to “save” all sentient beings and is not trying to convince anyone about the Dhamma. If someone is inspired to join the cause, wonderful — as rare as they are, we never leave the opportunity for a new sampavaṅka on the table. But we leave salvation to others. Besides the obvious unrealistic aspect of that aspiration (after all, even the Buddha did not save all sentient beings) it is unavoidably evangelical — because salvation can only mean that they convert to the Buddha’s path. In our tradition, we help people and society as much as we can, in as many ways that we can or are moved to, but we also recognize that people are the owners of their actions. Just as no one can save us, there is no saving anyone else. We can support them and struggle with them in all imaginable ways but we also must be thoughtful and considerate in regards to the proportion of our energy that goes into our practice versus the world around us. We need to be in healthy relationship to society, whatever that may mean at any given stage of our struggle. But at some point we must recognize that we cannot have it both ways: we are either committing to samsara or committing to liberation and it is fantasy to hope that those paths can be the same.

True isolation is not something most people can handle for very long. The Buddha encouraged monastic life near villages and towns: apart from society but still in relationship with it. The monastic sangha is entirely dependent upon laity for their livelihood. This dynamic must never be forgotten. The guerrilla yogi is no different that others — and must defend against conceiving of themselves as better, worse than, or equal to — but must recognize where their aims and the aims of society are different, where they align, and how to manage that tension. We are a part of and apart from society, and that is a role that requires firmness and flexibility.

The urban guerrilla must know how to live among the people, and he must be careful not to appear strange and different from ordinary city life. He should not wear clothes that are different from those that other people wear. Elaborate and high fashion clothing for men or women may often be a handicap if the urban guerrilla’s mission takes him into working class neighborhoods, or sections where such dress is uncommon. The same care has to be taken if the urban guerrilla must move from the South of the country to the North, and vice versa. The urban guerrilla must make his living through his job or his professional activity. If he is known and sought by the police, he must go underground, and sometimes must live hidden. Under such circumstances, the urban guerrilla cannot reveal his activity to anyone, since this information is always and only the responsibility of the revolutionary organization in which he is participating. ~ Carlos Marighela

SELF-RETREAT

For the guerrilla yogi, the ideal of the rhinoceros takes its most dramatic form in the process of self-retreat. Intensive periods of practice are generally supportive to all guerrilla yogis but there may be times in our lives where being in a large retreat container — with the distraction of numerous other yogis, an inflexible schedule, costly expenses, travel challenges, etc — that can be inappropriate or impractical. Sometimes our practice is simply at a point of maturity where we need to test our capacity for our independent action. For these reasons it is important to learn how to go on a self-retreat.

We encourage all yogis to attend a number of formal organized vipassana retreats before embarking on a self-retreat. There is a lot to learn about our relationship to structure, to the formal process, and that holds and protects us for moments of crisis and confusion that we may not otherwise be trained for. There are so many opportunities to get caught in wrong-view, to strategize based on preference rather than wisdom, to be overwhelmed in isolation and hindrance patterns that we must really have a good handle on basic training in a community before we try to go off on our own.

When we do decide to try a self-retreat, it is best to start small: a daylong or a weekend. Try doing a number of short self-retreats to get a sense of the logistical and spiritual challenges to trying to create the protective conditions for practice.

Often we will need to sit self-retreats in our own home. This can really only be done successfully if you live alone or at least have the space to yourself for the time of the retreat. Turning your day-to-day living arrangement into a space of intensive practice can be a challenge but also very fruitful in terms of the long term possibility of getting quiet in your daily life. Of course issues such as internet, household chores, cooking, shopping, etc will arise in relationship to this independent form of intensive practice. Your relationship to the space takes on a different character that goes a long way toward the “integration” that we all long for. Just remember: you are not in a remote cave deep in the Himalayas. Don’t pretend you are. Don’t hold yourself to that standard of seclusion. But, a high degree of seclusion is often possible and it is worth finding those boundaries and flexible places.

There are a number of things important to the process of preparation for a self retreat. Of primary concern is how best to create the conditions of seclusion and renunciation in a space in which there is no sense of authority watching over you, no social pressure to keep you within the bounds of approved yogi behavior. This lack of pressure is fundamental to training for our own attunement to our determination but also has the risks of over-slackness in our endeavor or an overly porous container for our mind.

Protection from technology and our addiction to it is an ever-increasing challenge and vitally powerful for a guerrilla yogi. Set an automated email “away” message, leave an appropriate message on your cell phone, turn off your wifi, delete compelling apps from your phone, turn off automatic password entry, put your phone and computer in harder to reach places. These are all things that can help you keep these tendencies at bay. Have a mala — a string of prayer beads — that you carry with you on your wrist (or in your pocket instead of your phone) so that when you have the impulse to “check” you find your beads and can practice metta rather than get sucked back into social media, news, work, etc. Be careful about using your phone for an alarm or even a meditation timer. Most timer apps are now integrated social apps as well and it can be hard to maintain the protection of seclusion. On the other hand, having a sense that you are sitting with others can be a psychological support for some yogis on self-retreat. Let yourself explore.

Try to organize some teacher support during your longer retreat. Can you ask for a phone or video chat interview at some point so that a teacher can check on you, hear about your practice, and give you guidance?

Just walking around your living space can be very distracting as you notice all the little projects that you suddenly have time to attend to. Be careful. There is nothing wrong with a little yogi job each day but don’t let yourself get entirely distracted by the long list of projects you have been meaning to get to. There are a number of understandable and typical distractions that we should be wary of:

• If you need to exercise, OK but keep it boundaried.

• If you need creative time, OK but keep it boundaried.

• If you need to read, OK but keep it boundaried.

• If you need to do work, keep it very boundaried.

• If you need to use technology, keep it very very very very boundaried.

One can easily see how those five things could take up your whole day and entirely undermine our efforts for seclusion and concentration. With too much other stuff to do, you’ll never meditate. The point of secluded retreat time is to build enough strength to be with yourself without the distractions — external or self-imposed. So much of what we do to fill time or entertain ourselves is a kind of escapism from moment to moment reality. Self-retreat shouldn’t be a prison, and there should be pressure release valves for us when we need them. But the baseline should be renunciation so that we don’t need to lean on distractions for sense of peace. It’s the only way to build up confidence in the mind’s ability to be with unmitigated reality.

Make a schedule. Don’t make it too tight, too constrictive. But don’t make it so loose that you find yourself wandering around wondering what to do. Let it be based on sense of natural rhythm with your day. Give yourself room to breathe and space for cooking, cleaning, rest, and space for other unexpected variables, inspirations. Make sure you get outdoors, even if it feels difficult. If that means going out of seclusion, take it seriously and follow the Moscow Rules laid out below.

One of the biggest logistical challenges for being on self-retreat is food: Its purchase and preparation. The best scenario is if you have a situation in which you can purchase all of your food ahead of time. If this is not possible, you will need to leave the protective conditions of your retreat container at times and enter areas outside of guerrilla control. This should be done as infrequently as possible and with the utmost care and protection. If you have a sampavaṅka who is not on retreat and willing to support you in your worldly errands, all the better.

If a yogi on retreat must leave their protected container they should try to blend in as much as possible in the outside world and not draw too much attention to themselves by strange yogi behavior: walking super slow, not speaking when spoken to, looking unkempt, or wearing unfresh clothes,

Do not forget that your uniform is designed to bend with the prevailing colors of the countryside. If you wear civilian clothes, choose things of a neutral colour, brown or dark grey — not white, light grey, black or navy blue… ~Bert “Yank” Levy

The “Moscow Rules” are a list of heightened precepts that intelligence agents in the CIA use when operating deep in enemy territory. Most of these rules are perfectly relevant for a guerrilla yogi who is on self-retreat and must enter enemy territory on occasion for supplies. When a yogi who is on intensive self-retreat needs to go into town for supplies (or for any other reason) they should follow these same rules to secure the protection of their own minds. Here is one list, culled from various sources:

1. Assume nothing.

2. Never go against your gut.

3. Any operation can be aborted. (If it feels wrong, it is wrong)

4. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.

5. Do not look back; you are never completely alone.

6. Go with the flow, blend in. Maintain a natural pace.

7. Do not attract attention, even by being overly careful.

8. Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.

9. Do not harass the opposition.

10. Lull them into a sense of complacency.

11. Pick the time and place for action.

12. Keep your options open.

13. Technology will always let you down.

14. Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.

15.There is no limit to a human being’s ability to rationalize the truth.

This may all seem a bit paranoid, but when you are a yogi who ventures out into the world after days, weeks, or months in silence you will not regret having this guidance. When negotiating the world of non-combatants it is unlikely you will be able to note as precisely about each breath or physical sensation. Instead, a general noting of “seeing,” “smelling,” “body,” “thinking” can be of enormous support. Of course you cannot be expected to maintain perfect silence while out in enemy territory, which would draw too much suspicion and potentially (and unnecessarily) alienate you from neighbors, and members of friendly samsaric society — who you are invested in over the long haul. It is best to act relatively normal but try as hard as you can to maintain your sense of seclusion.

With one foot in the spirit world and the other on the gas, simply driving a car while being a yogi can be a harrowing experience. Going outside of your sacred container can be a challenge before, during, and after returning back. It also can provide powerful perspective on your understanding of the value of the container as we often become aware that we are quieter than we think we are when we are forced to puncture the boundary. We learn to trust that our system knows how to get solid if it needs to — knows how to normalize — often to a degree that is painful once we return home. We can feel afterwards as if we have lost all of our momentum, our concentration in particular. We might feel agitated, exhausted, beset by the hindrances in a powerful way. We should take it as a learning opportunity. If our car breaks down out there in enemy territory, we have an opportunity to show up to a stressful experience with more momentum of mindfulness than we tend to in daily life. We also get a sense of enemy’s society and hopefully find ourselves drawn back thankfully to the seclusion of our retreat container.When we come back to our base camp after a run to get groceries we are hit with the impact of the kamma of the past few hours and it can be shocking — not in the least because we recognize that we are going through this every day without the time, space, or tools to recover and so the trauma of daily life builds.

I remember a small girl who kept watching me as I listened to the women who came to me, with an almost religious attitude, in an effort to find out the reason for their various illnesses. As the girl’s mother approached my office — a corner of an old palm-thatched hut — the little girl said to her: “Mamma, this doctor tells every one of them the same story.” The little girl was right. My experience as a doctor was limited; moreover, everyone of them had told me, unwittingly, the same horrible story. What would have happened if the doctor had come to the conclusion that a young mother of several children complained of fatigue following her daily task of carrying a bucket of water from the stream to her house, simply because she did not have enough to eat? It is useless to try to explain the reason for that fatigue to a woman of the Sierra. She will argue that she has done that kind of work “all her life” and it is only now that she gets this sudden feeling of tiredness. There is the whole sad story: People in the Sierra grow like wild flowers, unattended. Then they fade away constantly busy at a thankless task. It is due to our daily contact with these people and their problems that we came firmly convinced of the need for a definite change in the life of our people. The idea of an agrarian reform became crystal-clear, and communion with the people ceased to be a mere theory, to become an integral part of ourselves. ~Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Food preparation is another challenge — for time and for the mind. For the guerrilla yogi, tasty foods that are simple and quick to prepare are the best. Two meals a day should be enough. If a recipe is too complicated the mind becomes stressed and too much time is spent on the complicated task. Casseroles or soups that contain proteins, vegetables, starch in one dish are of particular efficacy.It is sometimes helpful to cook basic ingredients most simply and make an over-sufficient quantity so that the left-overs can be used in a new way, with new amendments, for a new meal. A basic tomato sauce can be used in pasta one night, add a few spices and it can be added to a soup, used to fricassee chicken, or to poach eggs. Left-over vegetables and grains can be added to eggs for a frittata. Basic beans can be had one night and then one can add different ingredients each day — spices or squash — to give the yogi a bit of variety.

… it is very pleasing to a soldier subjected to the extremely hard conditions of this life to be able to look forward to a seasoned meal which tastes like something. (One of the great tortures of the war was eating a cold, sticky, tasteless mess.) ~ Ernesto “Che” Guevara

A guerrilla yogi on self-retreat cannot forget the ignoble path factor of Right Treats. Some sweets or snacks that provide a boost to our spirit can be a helpful in case of emergencies — or the pervasive doldrums. On my first long self-retreat I was in a cabin in the woods for 2 months with little more than a stock of rice, beans, canned fish, oatmeal, powdered milk, and tea. Toward the end of my retreat I started to feel desperate for something fresh: a salad, some fruit! Oh how my mind started to think about oranges. And then one chilly December morning, after my trek through the snow to gather sulfurous water from the well, I returned to my cabin to find a bowl of oranges at my door! The caretaker of the facility had gone into town and brought me this amazing gift. It was an act of generosity that helped me get through the last few weeks in ways I cannot express.

Our recently appointed monastic teacher at the Kyaswa Monastery Fusion retreat in Burma, met our yogis outside of the hall as they exited after the morning sitting with a box of donuts and cupcakes — to their delight! These kinds of offerings are of such value and inspiration we cannot forget them. The sweetness of the metta pervades long after the sweetness of the sugar has dissipated. We cannot always depend on our good karma for treats to miraculously show up so we should take steps to plan ahead as much as possible and benefit from the special circumstance of when we are both the donors and receivers.

Salt is one of the essential supplies… The inhabitants of the zone should have on hand a minimum of food supply that will permit them at least to survive, even though poorly, during the hardest phases of the struggle. An attempt should be made to collect rapidly a good provision of foods that do not decompose — such grains, for example, as corn, wheat, rice, etc., which will last quite a long time; also flour, salt, sugar, and canned goods of all types; further, the necessary seeds should be sown. ~ Ernesto “Che” Guevara

HAPPY YOGI CONGEE

This recipe is for a congee that is a great breakfast, lunch, or snack and balances simplicity with mental buoyancy. All one really needs for congee is rice, water, and salt and so this recipe can be made with any of the ingredients listed here or just the three. The more ingredients, the tastier it will be. It is said in the Visudhimagga that greedy types should eat very bland and flavorless food, while aversive types need really good food to keep them uplifted enough. You can make your own choice about what kind of nourishment you need.

It can be used breakfast — or any meal — for several days. It refrigerates well. Simply add water and reheat.

3 tbs peanut oil (or any oil, preferably not olive)

1 cup white or brown rice

10 cups water (or 5 cups chicken broth/5 cups water)

1 onion, peeled whole

3 cloves of garlic, peeled smashed

1 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled smashed

2 bulbs of lemongrass, smashed

1 hot chili pepper, diced

4 tbs soy sauce

bunch of mushrooms (fresh or dry), chopped

1 chicken breast (optional)

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

poached egg:

1 egg

water

2 tbs vinegar

salt to taste

Garnish with cilantro, soy sauce, hot sauce, etc

For the congee:

1) Sauté the rice in the oil until browned and popping.

2) add everything else

3) Bring to a boil, lower heat, and let simmer gently for at least an hour, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick and burn.

4) Remove the ginger, lemongrass, onion

For the poached egg:

1) bring water to boil

2) add vinegar and salt

3) crack in eggs

4) lower heat for a soft roll, cook for about 3 minutes for a still-soft yolk

If there is no barber, it is unimportant. If there is an insufficient number of cooks, any member of the company may be designated to prepare food. ~Mao Zedong

VARIABLES

Self-retreat has its particular challenges in the beginning, the middle, and in the end. The end can be particularly hard for many. As the bubble of our container starts to break, the psychic barrier weakens and we find that people start to call, text, message. We are often faced with greater doubt, restlessness, etc. Our concentration may seem to falter. The five hindrances (craving, aversion, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt) can be harder to see and therefor more powerful when we don’t have a group or teacher to reflect the situation back to us. Just remember: they are normal tactics of the mind to defend itself from the changeable, undependable, core-less qualities of reality that the mind is just not well-trained to navigate. They are understandable but we don’t want to be beholden to their power. Be kind to yourself and be careful about believing in these phenomena as true — especially doubt, which is the most insidious. Whatever cracks arise in the container, simply commit to the structure and begin again. Over time you will be amazed at how the present moment awareness continues to provide sanctuary no matter how the conditions of the mind or body have changed.