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With an Open Hand
Years ago, a friend introduced me to the phrase, "with an open hand." It was her way of saying she had expressed her desires, was making no demands, held no hidden motives and had no attachment to the outcome.
I've heard it said that waving hello as a greeting grew out of the need to show an approaching stranger that we were unarmed and posed no threat. Each time I heard my friend use her phrase I would relax and open.
Clinging or Pushing Away
I try to meet life with that open hand. When I do I feel centered, generous, peaceful and playful. To do so, I find, requires watching my mind's habits; in particular, the habit of identifying "enemies" and what I "need to protect" from them. Basically, what Buddhists call craving and aversion.
Let me illustrate with a story from a workshop I recently co-led.
I've made an assessment that my co-facilitator is not available to prepare with me for the workshop to the degree I'm accustomed to. I don't know how much of this is because I haven't made clear requests and how much is due to choices she's made to give her attention to things in addition to our workshop. It's two days before the event and I'm feeling panicky. My mind creates an "enemy" when it decides that because of this she is "bad." As a result, my hand is no longer open; it wants to push her away or punish her.
What I'm trying to protect or defend is the quality of the workshop and the depth of learning for the participants. I'm also concerned with my reputation--wanting to impress the participants, be admired or well-regarded, to look good! My hand is grasping for, or clinging to, these things I do not want to lose.
Control & Surrender
In both my "pushing" and my "clinging" I am trying to control something outside of me. I am not over my center, where I have the most power and control. And for that I suffer: from the aversion of my colleague's "unavailability" and the craving to do good and look good. Neither anger nor anxiety feels good inside.
When I stop suffering is when I let go of trying to control our level of preparedness and simply focus on mine. In the process I discover that I had also been craving a level of connection I hadn't yet experienced with my colleague. When I surrender to not having that connection with her and focus, instead, on being fully with myself, again the suffering dissolves. I shift from orphan boy craving Mother to resourceful adult and the panic subsides. I am able to befriend (and parent) myself and feel the warmth of my own company again.
As I come back over my center, my hand slowly opens. I arrive at the workshop with a genuine smile, no longer clinging to my expectations (which I had not fully shared!) and no longer angry with my co-facilitator for not meeting them. I am ready to work with what's available--our actual preparedness and level of connection. Over my center, I'm now attending to my own needs and trusting my preparedness and ability to improvise. Having come back home to myself, I feel present and ready to play.
Your Palm Pilot
To recap, I see the hand as a powerful body metaphor that can guide us in our lives and how we move through the world. When we feel "tight-fisted," our task may be to ask, "What am I clinging to that I cannot actually control?" Or "What am I trying to protect or defend?"
On the other hand (pardon the pun), if we find ourselves pushing away or punishing, we may ask, "Who or what have I made an enemy?" And "What 'bad' experience am I trying to avert?"
In either case, we are likely off-balance--trying to control something "over there" and beyond our control. The move, then, is to come back over our own center: to find what we can control, how we can meet our own needs, and where we have true power.
As we come home to ourselves in this way, our hand can open again.
Relaxed, strong, peaceful, genuine. Offering what we have to give and
open to receiving what the world has in store for us.
No Enemies, Nothing to Defend
When my only focus is on not letting "bad" things happen or on keeping safe the things I cherish, I'm constantly
scanning the perimeter. When I turn my focus inward, I can build my
resilience, my capacity to weather unwanted events and the
loss of things I hold dear.
At some point (and I've had brief glimpses of this), I come to experience that
there are no enemies and nothing I need to defend. Echoing Buddhism again, what I truly have cannot be taken away. What can be threatened was not really mine to begin with.
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