Pema Chödrön’s ‘How We Live Is How We Die’ and 3 Ways to Notice Impermanence
Pema Chödrön’s most recent book, How We Live is How We Die, tackles the difficult topic of how embracing our mortality can help us live a fuller, more present life while preparing us for the final moment of letting go.
Already a fan of Pema Chödrön’s work, when I found out my local meditation centre was offering a course on this book, I jumped at the chance. As the facilitator of the book course, Susan Chapman, explained - this book should not be experienced in solitude. It needs to come alive in conversation within a community. When you meet Susan, it’s hard not to notice how she embodies 50 years of practicing meditation and buddhism - her wisdom nurtures you with its gentle humbleness. This book can be confrontational, and without a trusted guide who has dealt with their own fears of mortality, it is harder to digest. Susan’s course has truly been a gift and given me practices from this book that I plan to take with me for life.
As a therapist who practices a mindful approach, the power of noticing thoughts, emotions, impulses and sensations is one of my favorite skills to help my clients with. The better you get at noticing without reacting, the easier it becomes to appreciate how these thoughts and emotions are shifting constantly. It can be quite astounding to notice just how many thoughts, impulses and emotions come and go throughout the day, especially as you learn to attach yourself to them less.
This is not just about the impermanence of our thoughts though. It is also about noticing the impermanence of our life in these bodies. This is often a harder layer to grasp. The benefit of orienting to life this way though, is more freedom. Fortunately, Pema outlines 3 very practical steps to noticing impermanence.
An Inquiry Into Why You Suffer: Notice When the Mind Clings
The first step towards noticing impermanence is to ask yourself : Why do I suffer? The idea is you will notice that suffering is rooted in living under the pretense of permanence when the reality is that everything changes. As a trauma-informed therapist I think it is important not to dismiss all the very valid reasons people suffer: mental illness, trauma, war, climate change, grief and loss, etc. This does not negate the reality of impermanence though. It just provides some context as to why it can be so challenging for us humans to orient to impermanence.
For instance, when triggered, the nervous system also becomes dysregulated - this disrupts functioning of the prefrontal cortex, which is implicated in exercising good judgment, learning from experience, and thinking clearly. As such, it is imperative to be gentle on ourselves when we get caught up in triggers. Here’s the good news: practicing mindful awareness by noticing when the mind cling on to thoughts and old stories helps to bring the prefrontal cortex online, enabling more helpful ways of relating to these old stories or thought patterns in the mind.
This is precisely what Pema encourages - to notice when the mind clings, and to try to approach that with curiosity, rather than judgment. As soon as you are able to notice, you have just a bit more distance, which allows the prefrontal cortex to stay online.
It also gives us a little glimpse into what is often referred in buddhism as ‘basic goodness.’ This is that which is permanent and unchanging. So, what is permanent here? The capacity to notice. After all, if it is the mind clinging, then who or what is that which is noticing?
What do we do when we notice? Pema Chödrön encourages us to celebrate the noticing! That is, even if you get caught up in a thought spiral, anxiety loop, or old disparaging story, as soon as you are able to pause and notice what the mind is doing, celebrate the fact that you were even able to notice at all. I love this compassionate playfulness around noticing. It is such a simple concept in theory, but in practice it can be tough and deserves some congratulatory acknowledgement.
This simple pause to notice mustn’t be underestimated. When we are able to take a step back and create a pause even for a moment, the prefrontal cortex is back online, we can learn from new experiences, and notice the nuances of how our triggers impact us. For instance, we might become more aware of the precise way our mind spins stories.
If you are very triggered or dysregulated then noticing tends to be a lot harder, but with consistent practice, it may also become possible to notice more intense or painful emotions too. With this increased capacity, the strong emotional charges don’t overwhelm quite as much, nor do they get shut down - it may become easier to feel them and notice them at the same time.
2. Viewing Your Day As a Series of Bardos
In buddhism, a bardo specifically refers to the transition period between life and death. In practice though, our whole life can be seen as a bardo with a beginning, middle and end. If you apply that concept on a micro level, you can even start to use the concept of a bardo as a metaphor for the various events in a single day. As Pema Chodron elucidates, ‘We are always in a bardo because impermanence never takes a break.’ (p. 12).
One benefit to this practice is if I can really be with the moment by viewing it as a whole lifetime, I might be enamoured, grateful or joyous for things which I previously took for granted. Yesterday morning I noticed tiny condensation droplets around the tip of my tea mug, and they reminded me of the skin of an iguana, because they were so small and densely populated. Then, I went to the carwash. The rainbow soapy foam and flashing lights made me feel like I was in a far off galaxy for a minute or two. One might consider these everyday mundane activities, but framing them as entire lifetimes can foster an appreciation for them - perhaps even an ability to experience them with new eyes. This is not to mean that this practice will put you in a constant state of joy. Rather, viewing your day as a series of lifetimes invites you to be more present with whatever is, including when things are not going your way.
Another benefit to this practice is when things don’t seem to be going well. When life throws me a curveball, my mind might want to spin some stories about how my whole day is going to be awful. If I can view that event as its own bardo, or lifetime though, it can be liberating. It invites me to hold onto that belief loosely, and be curious as I enter the next lifetime, i.e. part of my day.
Over time, you can get a lot of practice on the art of letting go this way. It doesn’t mean that stuff from the past will not impact you , or that you won’t get caught up in old patterns at times, but it is a helpful metaphor that you can always come back to.
3. Notice When the Bubble Of the Ego Pops
If the bubble is a metaphor for the ego, we can’t force the bubble of the ego to pop, because that would be coming from the ego. Rather, this is about noticing when something interrupts our everyday ego identity and stream of consciousness. The interruption, or gap, allows you to experience, even for a split second, a taste of that which is eternal - the space that exists long after the physical bodies we are in have passed.
In this book, Pema describes how, at a meditation retreat, she hears others talk about this vast spaciousness yet feels like a ‘loser’ for not having had the experience yet herself. During one of her sits, a humming fan suddenly stops. This might seem like a non-event, but for her it was a moment when the bubble popped. The fan had stopped and started up again many times before, but before this particular moment she describes, it did not interrupt her ego-identity stream of consciousness. This time it did - it was like there was a little gap of nothingness. What I find particularly beautiful about this simple example, is that she describes all the frustrations including the experience of feeling like a ‘loser’ as part of the process. It became the preparation or groundwork to have this expansive experience. That is, the struggle and confusion was necessary to receive the wisdom.
I had my own experience of the bubble of the ego popping while reading this book for the second time once I got to this passage:
‘And why do we get so serious about what goes on in the mind? Even though our thoughts are as elusive as mist, how can they cause us endless unnecessary problems?’ (p. 49).
It did not pop my bubble the first read, but this time it almost felt like it produced a chemical reaction. I was not taking the words in with my mind. Rather, it was as if the words bypassed my intellect and dropped down into a deeper truth that could only be expressed as a knowing laughter. A compassionate amusement came over me, at all the funny ways us humans can get caught up in our heads. It was as if I was able to access an expansive space of compassion - I could not help but giggle at how much time I have spent taking my thoughts seriously in the past, and how it is such a common human experience for others as well.
The bubble popping does not have to be an intense experience though. It can simply be a gap from your stream of consciousness that arises spontaneously - one that sends you into a broader state of awareness, even if it is just for a brief moment. Over time, as you practice noticing impermanence, you might find yourself experiencing flashes of spaciousness or expansiveness more often.
The beauty of these 3 practices is that they make spirituality so accessible and practical. Even though our tendencies to get attached to stories or to be taken over by emotions can feel powerful, so too is our ability to pause and notice when our mind clings, to view our days as a series of bardos, and to notice the bubble popping in our day-to-day life.