Introduction
In her book "Real Life," Sharon Salzberg offers a unique perspective on living a life of clarity and connection. Drawing from her background in both Judaism and Buddhism, Salzberg provides readers with tools and insights to navigate life's various seasons. The book aims to help readers fully embrace life's joys and sorrows, avoiding the trap of merely skimming the surface of existence.
Salzberg's approach is inclusive and adaptable, encouraging readers to examine what feels true and right for them rather than adhering to a single rigid path. The ultimate goal is to reach the end of life feeling that we've lived it to the fullest, appreciating each season for what it offers.
What Keeps Us Small
Salzberg introduces three main hindrances to living a life of clarity and connection, drawing from Buddhist philosophy:
Grasping: This refers to clinging to people, objects, or experiences. It can range from minor cravings to full-blown addictions. We grasp in the belief that we can hold onto or attain pleasant sensations.
Aversion: This is the act of fighting against ourselves, others, or experiences. It can manifest as self-criticism or hatred towards others. We engage in aversion hoping to avoid unpleasant sensations.
Delusion: This occurs when we disconnect from experiences that seem ambiguous, boring, or neutral. We tend to space out during the "uneventful" moments of life.
To live a fully engaged life, we need to cultivate the opposites of these states:
- Peace instead of grasping
- Compassion instead of aversion
- Vibrancy instead of delusion
While it may seem challenging to overcome ingrained habits, Salzberg asserts that the possibility for change is always available to us. Even though we may have developed strong neural pathways, we have the power to rewire them at any moment.
Navigating Challenging Emotions
Salzberg shares a personal anecdote about dealing with grief during a meditation retreat. Her teacher, Sayadaw U Pandita, encouraged her to fully experience and express her emotions rather than suppress them. This highlights the importance of metabolizing our feelings instead of avoiding them.
To help navigate difficult emotions, Salzberg introduces the RAIN technique:
- Recognize: Identify and name the emotion you're experiencing.
- Allow: Accept the presence of the emotion without judgment.
- Investigate: Explore the cause and physical sensations associated with the emotion.
- Non-identify: Separate yourself from the emotion, recognizing that you are not defined by it.
Salzberg also emphasizes the power of language in this process. For example, saying "I'm feeling fear" instead of "I'm scared" can help create distance between yourself and the emotion.
Additionally, she suggests changing your physical perspective to gain emotional relief. Simple actions like lying on the grass, floating in water, or stargazing can provide a much-needed shift in perspective and connection with nature.
Navigating Challenging Situations
Salzberg uses the story of Robert Thurman, a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism who lost an eye at a young age, to illustrate how to approach life's challenges. Thurman's teacher encouraged him to view the loss as an opportunity for gaining wisdom rather than a devastating blow.
When dealing with difficult situations such as illness, loss, or caregiving, Salzberg advises finding a balance between acknowledging the reality of the situation and avoiding unnecessary suffering. She cautions against both toxic positivity and actively seeking out hardship in the name of enlightenment.
Key points for navigating challenging situations include:
- Recognizing and allowing the inherent difficulty of certain life experiences
- Being mindful of language to avoid identifying too closely with circumstances
- Embracing the concept of yin and yang, recognizing that light and dark coexist in all situations
Expanding
Salzberg shares a personal experience of feeling stuck while writing her tenth book. A friend's invitation to see the Broadway show "Hamilton" unexpectedly reignited her creativity and passion. This anecdote illustrates the power of changing our external landscape to shift our internal state.
The author introduces the concept of awe, a profound emotion triggered by encounters with the sacred or sublime. While awe is often associated with natural wonders, it can also be found in art, music, and other human creations.
When awe is hard to come by, Salzberg suggests cultivating its close relatives: curiosity and gratitude. These emotions can help expand our perspective and pull us out of self-centered suffering. She encourages readers to:
- Practice genuine curiosity about everyday things like your breath or the sun
- Express gratitude for simple pleasures like morning coffee or a child's laughter
- Seek out experiences that inspire awe when possible, but remember that curiosity and gratitude are always accessible
Remembering
Salzberg introduces the concept of Indra's Net, a Buddhist image representing the interconnectedness of the universe. In this metaphor, each of us is a clear, radiant jewel at the intersection of countless threads, inherently lucid and interconnected.
When we find ourselves caught in delusion or disconnection, Salzberg suggests:
- Engaging in creative activities to reconnect with clarity
- Practicing "microconnections" - small moments of shared experience with others
- Remembering our inherent nature as represented by Indra's Net
These practices can help pull us out of delusion and back into a state of clarity and connection.
Aspiring
Drawing from her experience of virtual Passover Seders during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Salzberg discusses the power of aspiration. Unlike goals or bucket lists, aspirations serve as guiding principles that remain relevant throughout all of life's seasons.
Salzberg shares her personal aspiration to be a force for good, noting how this aspiration became even more meaningful during the challenges of the pandemic. She encourages readers to:
- Identify their own overarching aspiration
- Reflect on the depth and details of this aspiration
- Keep this aspiration close as a source of enduring clarity and connection
Final Thoughts
"Real Life" by Sharon Salzberg offers a compassionate and practical guide to navigating life's various seasons with clarity and connection. By understanding the hindrances that keep us small and disconnected, we can learn to expand our awareness and engage more fully with life.
Salzberg's teachings emphasize the importance of:
- Recognizing and allowing challenging emotions and situations
- Using tools like RAIN to process difficult experiences
- Cultivating awe, curiosity, and gratitude to expand our perspective
- Remembering our inherent interconnectedness
- Holding onto a guiding aspiration throughout life's ups and downs
By applying these principles, we can work towards living a life that feels rich, meaningful, and fully engaged. Salzberg reminds us that while we will inevitably experience both joys and sorrows, we have the power to use every experience as an opportunity for growth and deeper connection.
The book encourages readers to embrace all of life's seasons, recognizing that even challenging times can lead us back to a truer sense of clarity and connection. By doing so, we give ourselves the gift of being able to look back on our lives with satisfaction, knowing that we lived them well and fully.
In essence, "Real Life" is an invitation to step out of our small, disconnected states and into a more expansive way of being. It's a call to engage wholeheartedly with the world around us, to metabolize our sorrows, celebrate our joys, and remain curious about the neutral moments in between.
Salzberg's approach is gentle yet powerful, acknowledging the difficulties we all face while consistently pointing towards our capacity for growth and transformation. She reminds us that in every moment, we have the opportunity to choose clarity over confusion, connection over isolation, and engagement over apathy.
As we navigate the ever-changing seasons of our lives, "Real Life" serves as a compassionate guide, offering practical tools and profound insights. It encourages us to remain open to the full spectrum of human experience, to cultivate resilience in the face of challenges, and to nurture our innate capacity for wisdom and compassion.
By integrating Salzberg's teachings into our daily lives, we can learn to move through the world with greater ease and authenticity. We can develop the skills to weather life's storms without losing sight of our fundamental interconnectedness. And perhaps most importantly, we can learn to appreciate each moment for what it is – a unique and fleeting opportunity to engage fully with the richness of life.
As we close this summary of "Real Life," let us carry forward Salzberg's invitation to live with intention and openness. May we remember that each day offers countless opportunities to choose clarity over confusion, connection over isolation, and full engagement over mere existence. In doing so, we honor the preciousness of our lives and contribute to a world that is a little bit brighter, a little more compassionate, and a lot more connected.