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Before she became a Buddhist nun, Pema Chӧdrӧn worked as a primary school teacher and was married with three children at home. Everything started to change on the fateful day when her husband came home from work and told her he was having an affair. Responding to the question how she came to Buddhism, Pema jokes that it was because she was so outraged at her husband. In reality, when her marriage ended, she tried to put her life back together in the usual way, but it didn’t work. Then she realized that the only way out was to leave the old, dependent version of herself behind and allow her ego to be completely destroyed so she could work with was left of her once indestructible self.
"When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times" was first published in 1997 and included lectures and presentations that Pema Chӧdrӧn delivered between 1987 and 1994. This was many years ago, but the content of this book is as relevant as ever. During times of turbulence, uncertainty, and an unclear future, all of us feel fear, pain and anxiety. Apart from major global catastrophes there are still both big and small tragedies happening in all of our lives. We face loss and disappointment, and we live through personal crises and difficult family and career stages. How do you cope with all this pain? How do you preserve the ability to love and feel compassion, and for yourself as well?
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Pain is trial by fire and gives us the opportunity to awaken our heart. Any pain is connected to loss: loss of a loved one, your youth, health, or your daily routine in life. Pain emerges on the scene when our hope that everything will always be good or at least stable shatters. But the truth is that nothing ever gets fixed completely: pieces are glued back together only to fall apart again, over and over. That is the essence of life. And pain is a chance to launch the process of healing. We remain healthy when we give a seat at the table to everything that happens to us in life: be it grief, relief, despair, or joy.
The most important thing to give a voice to is the unknown. During hard times we attempt to do things that we believe will help. But truth is we don’t know whether it will help or not. We don’t know whether this is the end or a start of a great adventure. When we find ourselves on the edge of an abyss, this is the time to fulfill our primary goal: just stand there and preferably avoid trying to dive into the specifics of your pain.
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