If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day. –Leonard Cohen
In my home growing up, when I needed sage advice from an elder, a Leonard Cohen quote was offered up. My mother still refers to him as “Lenny” as if she had an intimately personal relationship with him. I can totally understand that because when I listen to his music (I have almost everything he ever recorded), I feel like he is speaking directly to my experience and gets what its like mucking through the strange and often challenging experience of being human. I also appreciate his humble presentation of incredibly wise words.
I remember being completely gobsmacked when Donald Trump became president of the US and frantically called my dad and step-mum who live in the US to check in. My dad’s response to how he was doing under the circumstances:
In one week, Donald Trump was elected President and Leonard Cohen has died. What’s the point of getting out of bed?
The quote at the top of this page however came to me not from my parents, but from the Buddhist community. As I’ve stated before, I am an aspiring Buddhist or as I prefer to identify myself, a “JewBu“. The lesson I keep hearing over and over again in my studies of Buddhism and mindfulness practices is this:
Our emotions are like waves in the ocean- they can be big and crashing (like rage), or small and quiet (like calmness and peace). While the intensity of each wave may look slightly different, they all have the same pattern: the wave rises, falls and goes away.
In other words, emotions come and go and rise and fall- IF WE LET THEM. The fact is that most of us get really identified with particular ‘waves’ and hang onto them so that they are prolonged and cause us great suffering.
Here’s an example:
Sarita has been dumped recently by her boyfriend of two years. She experiences the following emotions (or waves):
denial
panic
rage
sadness
These emotions rise and fall as she lets the facts sink in and she vacillates between them. But she notices she feels the best when she is full of rage and angry at her ex. She feels powerful and in control for a while and stays in her anger for weeks at a time until she is completely burned out and exhausted.
Instead of allowing the various emotions to move through her, she gets stuck in the waves and makes herself ill. Buddhists suggest that we envision being the ocean itself which can hold all of the waves– no matter how big or small they are.
That means allowing all of the waves to be there and to do their thing without trying to control the current. It’s a process of seeing clearly what is happening in the ocean, naming it and allowing it to be- knowing the entire time that this is what oceans are supposed to do and we are exactly where we need to be in this moment.
I have found in my own life that if I can let go of grabbing onto a wave as if my life depended on it, and instead, surrender to all of the waves by becoming the container to hold them all, I experience much more peace and equanimity. Being a control freak however, this is much easier said that done. But slowly and with lots of practise, my grip is becoming a bit looser and I am learning to surf rather that sink.
To end, I’d like to leave you with a meditation on being the ocean with one of my favourite Buddhist teachers, Tara Brach:
Meditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves (retreat) (26:55 min.)
As well, check out this article I wrote about managing emotions:
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