Panic is not an option

Apprentice Can you tell me what I can do when life gets too much? I sometimes feel as if I am a wild horse that is going to throw me at any moment.

Ngak’chang Rinpoche Well—last time I was on a wild horse I rammed my heels down and wrapped both hands round the pommel. I was lucky to have been riding a Crates Endurance saddle and lucky to have remembered Melissa’s constant admonitions vis-à-vis keeping my heels down (Melissa is my riding teacher in Wales). Rosy, the evil Worcester I was riding up near Krinklehorn in Montana, was spooked out by the wind and rattling tarpaulins, so she decided to run me in a circle in an attempt to buck me off. [Worcester is Cockney rhyming slang for horse, i.e. Worcester sauce . . . horse.—Ed.] She made about dozen go-rounds before she stopped, and as I had no desire to hit the ground, panic was not an option.

An amusing story perhaps, but I tell it for a reason. You need to know where your heels and pommel are in terms of practice. Your greatest security is often found in insecurity. When we panic—on horseback—we tend to flinch into a foetal position, and that is why we fall. When life seems ‘too much’ it is simply an indication that we have flinched into the foetal position. When that occurs we need to stretch our heels down into emptiness and grasp the pommel of lineage. If we panic and take refuge in the foetal position of samsara, we will always be thrown.