little baggage as possible into each moment, and accumulate as little baggage as possible in each moment? How do we enter into each moment of the present with a clear conscience and a clear consciousness, gently holding and realizing the world and our life?
Richard Baker*
I’m just a beginning Buddhist, but in trying to grasp the meaning of not grasping, I have found an intermediate step of not expecting. Seek and ye shall find ... ask and it shall be given—more and more expectations everywhere you look. I have spent much of my life being distracted by what could be.
I have been the great expecter!
Putting expectations on myself is one thing, but putting expectations on others is a travesty. I burden someone else with my needs for their behavior. I create unneeded and usually unwanted goals for others and then expect them to understand my disappointment and sometimes my anger when they don’t live up to my goals. It is really my expectations that fail, not the other people, but, of course, I blame them.
I have been a rabid perfectionist most of my life. I practiced perfection. I expected everything I did to be perfect, and I expected everything everyone else did to be perfect—by my standards of perfection, of course, not theirs.
Slowly, I am learning that people are different—especially that they are different from me. They have different time concepts, different food preferences, different religions, different cultural behaviors, different politics, and talents, and philosophies.
One of my own philosophical differences is that I happen to agree with the teachings of Buddhism. A friend once said it takes years to put one’s philosophical beliefs into action. Putting my beliefs into action is what I am working on here.
Certainly it is through our actions that we are known. But do we act the way we are or the way someone expects us to act?
Act like a woman. Act like a man. Act like an adult. Act like a professional. Pretend to be something others expect you to be, even if you’re not.
Usually these are the rules of society. Sometimes they are someone else’s idiosyncratic expectations.
As living beings, we have been given so many miracles, yet we seem to continue to expect more and more of ourselves, of everyone else, and of the planet.
Writing this manuscript is one way for me to come to terms with the knowledge and principles of the Buddhist discipline. This is a philosophy that brings me peace and joy, and I hope to share it with others. I believe that we can live better if we expect less in every aspect of our lives.
It doesn’t matter what you’ve been given, whether it’s physical deformity or enormous wealth or poverty, beauty or ugliness, mental stability or mental instability, life in the middle of a madhouse or life in the middle of a peaceful silent desert. Whatever you’re given can wake you up or put you to sleep. That’s the challenge of now: what are you going to do with what you have already—your body, your speech, your mind?
Pema Chodron
Footnote
* For information regarding the source of all quotations in Expect Nothing, please see “References,” page 117.
PART I
TEACHERS
Each of us encounters many teachers in our lifetime. We don’t always know that they are our teachers at the time, this awareness only coming later. Even a rock can be a teacher, after all. As I move more deeply into Buddhism, I see that I have been blessed with good teachers all around me, though it has often taken me too long to glean their lessons. We are surrounded by teachers, if only we know enough to see them. One way to acknowledge and truly own the lessons life has for us is to identify and acknowledge the teachers of those lessons. Here are some of mine.
ONE
JUST LIVING
Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing, and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.
Sogyal Rinpoche
During my past life, one of expecting everything, I made some adjustments in the way I lived. Many things were reduced to the level of automatic responses.
I expected the alarm clock to go off when I set it, and as a result of storms and electrical outages, I purchased a windup alarm clock.
I expected there to be coffee and toast available for breakfast. That’s why I made a grocery list and bought stuff before it ran out.
I expected to have cleaned, ironed clothes ready to put on before I left the house. That’s why I washed and ironed them ahead of time.
I expected the car to start and have gas in it. So I filled it ahead of time and took it to the mechanic before it fell apart.
I had all these expectations. They weren’t met, for a variety of reasons—from relying on electric alarm clocks to being too tired to shop or being just plain forgetful.
But now, I really don’t expect any of these things. And I get an interesting surprise when other things happen—though I still have a windup clock.
Most of us have been through all these failures of expectations and these changes, and now, usually, most things go according to our expectations, at least those things that are within our own control and grasp. Control and grasp are so full of expectation, commitment, and energy, they seem as if they belong to the very core of life.
When other people get involved, like spouses, children, parents, friends, and strangers, even more disastrous events can take place.
The morning paper didn’t get delivered on time. Somebody drank all the milk. Somebody else didn’t get up in time to get to school without a ride.
The slow driver in the fast lane. So many cars on the road at this hour. The secretary is late again, and my tests aren’t ready. The lecturer assigned for today’s session thought it was scheduled for tomorrow. Two of the three committee members didn’t do their homework, so we had to postpone the meeting.
Other people just don’t seem to understand how hard I work, and that is why they fail to do what I need at the right time. Other people just don’t understand my simple concepts. Other people are involved in too many other things, instead of my things.
Or worse—other people are mean and vindictive. They don’t respect me. They come from a different planet. It’s all their fault I don’t get my work done and don’t get promoted.
There are only two alternatives here that I see:
1. If I want it all done right, I must do it all myself, which creates too much work and too many expectations in my already burdened life.
2. Expect nothing, which also happens to free and liberate me and bring me peace and joy. Of course,
