The Light Inside the Darkness: A Winter Solstice Reflection
The Winter Solstice is a time to reflect on peace and good will in many cultures and religious traditions--Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Persian festival of Yalda, Soyal, celebrated by Native Americans, Dongzhi in China and others. Because it is the shortest day and longest night of the year, we gather together to create sacred rituals reminding us of the light inside us that help to get us through the darkest times.
Honoring the deep stillness--"Silent Night, Holy Night" –is akin to going deep within on a meditation retreat. By turning inward, we touch something sacred below our normal waking consciousness that is accessed in the quiet and stillness. When we are willing to open to those places that scare us, we find beautiful qualities that we didn't know we possess, capable of holding whatever negative forces we may find.
Joseph Campbell points out in "The Hero's Journey," his classic presentation of the hero archetype in myth, that in order to become a hero, we must be willing to endure great hardship and truly let go of our ego. It is only then that we discover qualities of courage, faith, surrender, love, and wisdom.
In this time of darkness, we are reminded that these qualities are developed by allowing ourselves to fully experience the Buddha's First Noble Truth, the truth of dukkha, that fact that there is suffering in life. It is by directly coming to terms with that reality that we experience the end of suffering. This requires a willingness to face our demons and find that there is a light within us that is more powerful than all the dark places.
Pema Chodron writes of this process in her wonderful book The Places That Scare You. She calls a key aspect in facing the darkness “Learning to Stay,” which we can cultivate through meditation practice. We begin to understand that practice is not just about reducing stress or feeling good, though that certainly can happen. We practice in order to learn to be with everything. We are like the Buddha, sitting under the Bodhi tree, willing to face all the obstacles sent by Mara, the personification of ignorance. Even the Buddha had to contend with this force of doubt which intended to derail him from his commitment to enlightenment.
The Four Components of Learning to Stay
Steadfastness: This is our commitment to not run away or distract ourselves when things get uncomfortable. Pema Chodron writes: “No matter what comes up – Aching bones, boredom, falling asleep, or the wildest thoughts and emotions – we develop a loyalty to our experience…being able to stay present with ourselves.”
Clear Seeing: We acknowledge what is here with patience, kindness, and self-compassion. We see things as they really are, not denying or embellishing. We are bringing a mindful awareness to our actual situation.
Experiencing our emotional distress: As Robert Frost famously pointed out, "The only way out is through." We open, little by little, to the discomfort and pain that we usually avoid fully feeling. We do this while respecting our window of tolerance, not taking in more than we are able to feel.
A friend recently shared that on her retreat a host of difficult feelings—anger, fear, confusion—visited her. This is not an uncommon occurrence in meditation when we allow to surface whatever needs to be experienced. Instead of resisting she asked with curiosity and kindness, “Why are you hurting?” Much to her surprise the energy came right into her heart area and curled up there wanting to be comforted and loved. And she was able to do that, which resulted in a profound transformation of that contracted energy into openness, clarity and love.
One of my favorite practice poems that describes this alchemical transformation is “Unconditional” by Jennifer Welwood:
Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere; Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within; Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the universe; Surrendering into emptiness, I find fullness without end. Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me And becomes itself transformed Into its radiant jewel-like essence. I bow to the one who has made it so, Who has crafted this Master Game; To play it is pure delight, To honor its form true devotion.
Attention to the present moment: As we learn to be with our difficult emotions, we understand that rather than trying to comfort ourselves by escaping, numbing out or becoming distracted, we grow in confidence and trust that compassionate awareness can meet whatever moment that arises.
Pema Chodron writes: “We make the choice, moment by moment, to be fully here. Attending to our present-moment mind and body is a way of being tender toward self, toward other, and toward the world. This quality of attention is inherent in our ability to love.”
Discovering the Light Inside the Darkness
As we are willing to open to our experience with compassion and love, we discover that underneath our fears and dark places is a purity and power that can hold anything. Loving awareness can hold it all. We begin to realize that this loving awareness is what we really are. This is the process of awakening to our true self, the light right inside the darkness.
I recently sat a self-retreat. With decades of retreat experience, I thought I had done all the life review one could do. However, as I sat, once again the mind recalled earliest memories as if somehow searching for a clue to why habits of fear and insecurity were so prevalent in my childhood. I suddenly remembered a picture of myself as an infant, a picture that I had always cringed at. I didn’t like the way I looked—dorky, weird, even ugly in my mind.
I had my phone with me (used only to listen to Dharma talks, not for email or surfing the Internet!) I pulled up that picture and looked at it with fresh eyes without the identification “Ugh, look at me!” To my amazement, with my heart open, not clouded by habits of self-judgment, I fell in love with that cute innocent being in a way I never had before.
I highly recommend finding a baby picture of yourself in a happy moment and taking a good look at the innocent being you see. Allow whatever resistance or cringing that may arise and keep looking more deeply to the perfect expression of life that you are. Discovering the goodness within, whether you call it “Bodhicitta” (the awakened heart), “The Kingdom of Heaven “or “The Buddha Right Inside of You” is the magical shift that helps us connect with this true nature beneath any self-image we usually carry. This is what “Taking Refuge in the Buddha” really means. We are taking refuge in that place of purity and goodness that is what we really are. It doesn’t belong to us. It is life manifesting its divinity by expressing itself through us.
The Wonderful By-Product of Seeing Our Own Light
The profound by-product of this realization is learning to recognize inherent goodness in others as well. We might imagine them too as the innocent children they were before conditioning molded them in ways that might have blocked that goodness from manifesting. We can have compassion for them because of all the forces that impacted them. This will help us understand the way they see the world. Longfellow wrote: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” I like to imagine troubling people as the innocent children they were before their their goodness was blocked. Knowing they were impacted by many forces enables me to have more compassion and understanding for the ways they see and act in the world.
I invite us, at this time of Winter Solstice, this darkest time of the year (for those in the Northern Hemisphere), to remember that the greatest gift we can give the world is our light. And to help each other remember the light within all of us.
“A Winter Solstice Prayer” by Edward Hayes
May we find hope in the lights we have kindled on this sacred night, hope in one another and in all who form the web-work of peace and justice that spans the world.
In the heart of every person on this Earth burns the spark of luminous goodness; in no heart is there total darkness.
May we who have celebrated this winter solstice, by our lives and service, by our prayers and love, call forth from one another the light and the love that is hidden in every heart. Amen.