This Moment

Abandon All Hope

Abandon all hope? Where's the heart in that?

The word "hope" - and our related perceptions and senses - is full of triggers for many of us. Perhaps we've had life experience that has taught us to dare not have hope. We need to protect ourselves from the potential dismay. Perhaps we have felt crushed by our hope's desires or expectations. Perhaps the loss of hope has led us to great sadness or despair. On the other hand, perhaps hope has solely sustained us when all else seemed to fail or fall away.

For better or worse, hope is a powerful energy with a biological basis. One cannot dismiss the significance of the placebo effect, as there have been far too many remarkable studies. Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of Anatomy of Hope, discusses the impact of hope on healing and claims that it's the very heart of healing.

Generally, an accepted definition of "hope" is a wish for something with the expectation for its fulfillment. The dharma teaches that this path leads to suffering. It is akin to "getting attached to outcome."

There is a series of teachings called lojong teachings in the Tibetan tradition. Lojong means "mind training." The teachings are organized around seven points that contain 59 pithy slogans that remind us how to awaken our hearts.

Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron writes, "When I first read the lojong teachings I was struck by their unusual message that we can use our difficulties and problems to awaken our hearts. Rather than seeing the unwanted aspects of life as obstacles, the experiences are raw materials for awakening genuine uncontrived compassion."

One of these wisdom slogans is "Abandon any hope of fruition." Fruition here implies that at a future time you will feel good or that things will be better. Chodron states, "One of the most powerful teachings of the Buddhist tradition is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you're wanting yourself to get better (or for things to get better), they won't. As long as you have an orientation toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are."

She continues: "One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not good enough. We think back to the past a lot, which maybe was better than now, or perhaps worse. We also think ahead quite a bit to the future…which we may fear…always holding out hope that it might be a little bit better than now."

Even if things are generally OK, there is this human tendency to want things to be different. We can't quite seem to give ourselves over to how things are in the present moment. There is this subtle or not-so-subtle sense that things are not quite good enough. To a lesser or greater degree, this keeps us unhappy.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, says that the "basic premise of the clinic - to which many people come with a lot of types of pain - is to give up any hope of fruition." Otherwise, he states, the experience won't work.

From my own experience in facilitating this program in Columbus, I have discovered that when participants attach themselves to some desired outcome from this work, the result is that their "hopes" can actually get in the way of the wisdom work and insights that uniquely await them. In other words, their hopes and desires can blind them from the possibilities inherent in the moment-to-moment experience.

Chodron writes, "If there's some sense of wanting to change yourself or some condition, then it comes from a place of feeling that you're not good enough. It comes from aggression toward yourself." It is acceptance, compassion, and loving kindness that we truly need, not aggression. "This simple ingredient of giving up hope is the most important ingredient for developing sanity and healing," according to Chodron.

"Abandon[ing] any hope of fruition" requires a significant and certain kind of courage and leaves you in the present with whatever "is." It can be frustrating and even painful; however, according to the teachings, it can awaken your heart and soften you.

Cheryl Rapose, M.Ed., L.I.S.W. is the Behavioral Health Programs Coordinator for the Elizabeth Blackwell Center, Riverside Methodist Hospital. She teaches the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program on a quarterly basis. She can be reached at (614) 566-4448.