No way back

In a recent lecture, Forall spoke about the principle of entropy. Beneath the unobtrusive “S” in physics formulas something mysterious and even horrifying is at work. He explained the concept to us in plain terms: entropy means there’s no way back. (Once you’ve done something irreversible, that is, if you want to get technical. But, while Forall didn’t make this explicit, this addendum led me to wonder: is anything in this world ruled by law of karma reversible?) The lecture proceeded on its way, but for a time I was thrown back into the memory of my interview that morning, when he had made the same pronouncement in quite another context.

It had been several days since the end of the last awakening period, when we put our responsibilities aside to dive deep into meditation without a break for days on end. I had emerged from that period with a lot of fire in my practice, but the transition back into responsibility is always a challenge. It was clear that if I kept the fire burning, I would be able to make huge strides in both my practice and my work—and that if I lapsed into certain old patterns of mind, comfortable as they may be, it threatened to wipe away the great efforts I had made.

Someone in the community had been through a similar situation recently and had thrown away their progress. “Why do we stop when things are going so well?” Forall asked me. “Because it’s scary,” I answered, knowing the feeling all too well. “Exactly. But why? Why would happiness be scary? Why would excitement be scary? Why would getting everything we ever wanted be scary?” “Because there wouldn’t be a way back to the thing we called home.” I said, almost surprising myself. “That’s right. So face this. Face here and now. That there’s no way back.” I stared , trying to keep my attention on the sensations of the breath in my core. “It doesn’t matter whether we practice,” he continued. “But it helps,” I offered, trying to be clever.

“There’s no way back,” Forall said, in a tone that was very different from his first time saying those words—flat, brutal, unequivocal. It hit me like a heavy weight dropped from a great height. “The difference is not that practice helps you get back or stops you from getting back. The difference is the practice means that being unable to get back is happiness, rather than suffering.” I scrambled to keep myself afloat, recalling how we had recently decided to call our awakening periods “advances” rather than the traditional “retreats.” “It helps forward,” I tried, but he offered no quarter. “It doesn’t. It’s all already gone. There’s no forward.”

At this point, I was reeling. It was all I could do to stay upright and breathing. “But for it all to be gone, is that suffering or peace?” he asked. In an interview, it can be hard to tell if a question like that is merely rhetorical, but this time it seemed he was expecting an answer. Thoughts raced through my head, but at this point they offered no comfort, no certainty, no refuge. In a weak voice, I replied, “I don’t know yet.” “But you do know. Right now.” I looked at him, sitting calmly on his cushion, poised perfectly between two windows on the wall behind him, one opened and one closed. The moment had suddenly resolved into quiet simplicity. “That’s true,” I said, once again surprising myself. “We try to resist, say we’re not ready,” he said, “but all that means is we have to prepare ourselves for suffering. There is no way back. This is just how it is.” He bowed, ending our exchange. I bowed back and quietly left the interview room, paying close attention to each footfall as I made my way to the door.