June 23, 2025
GOING WITH THE FLOW…OR NOT
“There really isn’t anything or anyone absolutely bad or negative, and nobody benefits from your effort to understand that, except you. It helps to remember that each one of us is not an island, and that we have our seasons, and our ups and downs. Life is not just a straight line. It’s a wave. Sometimes you are on top of the wave, sometimes you have to go to the bottom, and then you have to make sure you have enough momentum to come up again on the other side.” (Swami Sivananda Radha Time to be Holy Timeless Books 2010)
The other morning I experienced a graphic example of the vicissitudes of leading an examined life. Or any life. My swim partner and I set out to swim part way across what I’m calling Jericho Bay, a small scallop of shoreline off English Bay where Jericho Beach is located, and where, on most any day, a handful of intrepid open water devotees (and me, who is a relatively fair weather swimmer) can be identified by the color, shape and size of our “swim buddies”, inflatable sausage-shaped tubes that come in bright colors and stand out against the dull blue-gray of the water.
This particular morning we crossed the entire bay with ease and were pretty chuffed with our performance. Until we turned around. Not having guessed that the current had played a great role in our progress, we found ourselves practically swimming on the spot. With a water temperature of about seventeen degrees (Celsius) one’s strength can get zapped pretty easily. At least psychologically. Thankful that we’d stayed fairly close to the shoreline and could put our feet down if necessary, or indeed climb out onto the beach, we gamely persisted until close enough to scramble up the sand, grab our towels and scurry back to the showers. Not gonna lie, I’m extremely grateful to have access to a hot tub and steam shower (please don’t judge me) to raise my core temperature, and while doing so, contemplate first world problems with whomever happens to show up in the hot tub.
Spiritual life is very much like the push/pull of the currents along Jericho Beach. When everything in my life is flowing smoothly, it’s easy to attribute this ease of well-being to my own efforts, my degree of enlightenment. When the tides and currents of life’s events seem to turn against me, maintaining any degree of equanimity is not so easy. At times like these I at least have my spiritual practices to fall back on, and what Swami Radha calls my spiritual bank account to draw from.
Not surprisingly, cold water swimming is also part of this spiritual bank account, teaching me how to literally and figuratively keep my cool when my inner maniac is screaming at me to cut and run. The research tells us that there are several voluntary and involuntary reactions that can be triggered by uncomfortably low water temperatures. The urge to dunk-and-dash-for-shore is a pretty universal (and highly compelling) reaction. Simply being able to resist this urge for a few minutes or longer builds resilience that can be recruited in other situations from which our gut reaction is to escape. Post haste.
To be able to stay with any unpleasant sensation or awkward situation is a powerful tool for controlling our emotions, our fight or flight mechanisms. It gives us the “staying power” that enables us to choose what we are going to do versus being run around by our less-evolved personality aspects.
Pema Chödrön says as much in her guide to meditation. In Six Kinds of Loneliness she describes it thus:
“Meditation provides a way for us to train in the middle way—in staying right on the spot. We are encouraged not to judge whatever arises in our mind. In fact, we are encouraged not to even grasp whatever arises in our mind. What we usually call good or bad we simply acknowledge as thinking, without all the usual drama that goes along with right and wrong. We are instructed to let the thoughts come and go as if touching a bubble with a feather. This straightforward discipline prepares us to stop struggling and discover a fresh, unbiased state of being.”
It is this fresh, unbiased state of being that I associate with true enlightenment. Nothing more esoteric or complicated than that. It’s not a one-and-done laurel leaf crown, or an unlimited get-out-of-jail-free pass. It’s a state that we maintain through daily practice and study that remind us we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Or, as I wrote in last week’s blog, it’s about re-minding myself, time after time, that I’m not the fish, I’m the pond.