Sense of Surrender

Can you surrender your need to be right, to be perfect, to understand, to control?

In the Buddhist tradition, there exists the concept of the bodhichitta, the awakened heart.

One of my favorite writers on spirituality Pema Chodron, a contemporary Buddhist nun, points out that we often liken a spiritual journey to climbing a mountain; as we progress, the grade steepens and we face more challenge. But Chodron explains that a spiritual journey is more like traversing a valley, going down and down and down. It is surrender.

“Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away...At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta...our wounded, softened heart.”

But surrender is hard, because it requires trust. And each of us have had our hearts wounded in a million different ways by this world. We learn to arm ourselves and harden our hearts. The alternative is to trust. That trust starts with our bodies. It is the first relationship we have in this world and the only one we will have for our entire lives. When we learn to trust our bodies, we begin to find a sense of surrender.

We are not our bodies or our minds; we are something divine.

The quote above is pulled from Pema Chodron's Comfortable with Uncertainty, which I highly recommend.