Untying the Knots
#23 Drip, Drip, Drip, the Bucket Fills
The other day my husband glanced over at me and said, “You’ve got the patience of a saint.”
I’ve never been accused of being patient before but I knew why he said it. At that moment there was a chaotic muddle of yarn sitting in my lap which I was methodically untangling. It’s not my favorite thing to do but when it happens I have learned how to deal with it.
During the first month of the pandemic lockdown, when most of us were experiencing existential confusion manifesting as brain fog, I had my first gigantic yarn snarl. I was winding my yarn into a lovely round ball in preparation for knitting. One minute the yarn was nicely organized as a loop around my knees and the next minute it had detached itself and collapsed into an anarchy of wool.
It took me three days to get it untangled. It seemed no matter how I tried to track the direction of every little strand, tugging and tucking and untwisting them, the tangles got worse. When I got really frustrated I started growling and pulling on the yarn which, of course, tightened up all the knots even more.
This thing where yarn has a mind of its own has happened a few times since then and that is what my husband saw. He knows that I no longer freak out when this happens. No more growling or dramatic sighs.
But it’s not the patience of a saint that gets me through this situation. It’s discipline. I settle in. I see what has to be done, I focus and I just do it.
I never liked the idea of discipline. My best friend growing up was practical and disciplined and I eschewed all that. To me, discipline was the enemy of creativity, fun, spontaneity. But now I see that discipline is a kind of protector.
Discipline protected me from being hooked by the seduction of righteous frustration, the kind of frustration that seems like it should be released by screaming. But actually that just riles you up further. Having a hissy fit might be momentarily satisfying but really it’s a slippery slope that still won’t get the yarn untangled.
In my heart, I knew that. So I pulled up the resource of my Discipline which keeps me stable and on course. This doesn’t feel harsh or repressed. It feels safe, steady, grounded.
Discipline is #2 of the Six Practices of a Bodhisattva—someone who dedicates their life to relieving the suffering of all beings, including their own.
The Six Practices are:
Generosity (Here is the link to my recent post on the Three Kinds of Generosity.)
Discipline
Patience
Wholehearted Enthusiasm
Meditation
Wisdom
Like a Russian doll, these practices are nested within each other, starting from the top.
Generosity tempers discipline.
Discipline supports Patience.
Wholehearted Enthusiasm is balanced by the warmth of generosity, the clarity of Discipline and the spaciousness of Patience.
And so forth.
Discipline is a commitment to being both gentle and on point. It’s not about being tight or aggressive or perfect. It’s about being loose and available for whatever is needed.
In this way, Discipline allowed me to avoid up-regulating my nervous system just for the sake of some twisty yarn. And my husband was right—this opened the gateway to the practice of Patience.
The qualities of Patience are clear seeing, oceanic spaciousness and confidence. Confidence can bloat up into spiritual arrogance without the seasonings of Generosity and Discipline which keep you in touch with the Bodhisattva commitment to never cause harm to anyone, including yourself.
Ok, we are just talking about yarn but I have had similar feelings of frustration sitting in my car, stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway when I am already late for an appointment.
Or stuck in a boring and way too long business meeting where nothing is being decided anyway.
Or sitting in meditation and feeling like the bell will never ring.
When you are stuck with a bunch of tangles, or stuck in a car on the freeway, you can act out. But when you are in a meditation hall with fifty other people you learn to stay still. You realize that you have three choices:
Work with your mind by refreshing your posture and reapplying yourself to your meditation practice.
Make yourself crazy by indulging in a loop of discursive thought that involves blame and frustration.
Act out and get kicked out of the meditation hall.
These are the knots we are really talking about. In the Buddhist teachings, the word, “tangle” refers to our intertwined branches of craving, our habitual patterns of self-centeredness and ego-clinging which get caught up in the eight Worldly Winds of praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute.
We crave some of these, we push away the ones we don’t like, and when we can’t make it all work out in our favor, we ignore what’s happening all together by creating a little shell or tying a little knot, around our own self-concerned drama. Recognizing this habit is the only way to shift it.
This is the lesson Buddha taught to his monks.
One day he showed them a handkerchief with knots in it. As he pulled on both ends of the handkerchief, he asked the monks whether the knots would open this way. They replied that this kind of pulling would tighten the knots and make it more difficult to open.
Buddha said, “What then needs to be done to open these knots?
One monk replied that he would need to carefully observe and try to understand how the knots were formed. If one could ascertain the cause of the knots, one would be able to untie them.
Buddha replied, “Now go and meditate upon your own knots.”
Next week I will begin posting a series of 5-minute audio guided meditations. These will be behind the paywall at first and will eventually be posted on the homepage for Drip, Drip, Drip. If you are interested in these meditations sooner, please become a paid subscriber.
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I also wanted to say that your post on generosity helped me greatly in writing my own post on the subject for this Sunday. Thank you for that post and this one.
I actually get enjoyment out of untangling knots, have ever since I was a kid. I find it very meditative now a days. Probably comes from years of being a boy scout but who knows.