For Grandma

These reflections came during my evening walk tonight as I get closer to the end of a 2-week silent retreat at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS).

I recorded some voice notes on my watch as I walked 😏, reflecting on my Grandma Sarah, who died by suicide when I was in college.

I cleaned them up a bit before heading to bed and decided to share them so I can release this and get back to silence for these final few days.

I hope it resonates with someone who may need to hear it.

For Grandma.

One of the things I love most about retreat is that it slows me down enough to see clearly.

Not just the world around me.

My own mind.

My own heart.

The stories I tell myself.

The ways I still get caught.

The places where I lose my balance and make life harder than it needs to be.

The ways I still create suffering where none is required.

And occasionally, if I’m paying close attention, something unexpected reveals itself.

One of the things that first drew me to Buddhist practice was its invitation to investigate for myself, rather than simply accept what I was told.

It didn’t ask me to believe anything blindly.

This path invited me to investigate my own experience.

The emphasis was never, “Believe this or else.”

It was, “Come and see for yourself.”

See what leads to suffering and what leads to freedom, to love.

That spirit of investigation is one of the reasons I keep coming back to retreat.

For a little while, life becomes simpler.

A rare and precious opportunity to slow way down.

There’s space to listen deeply.

Space to notice what is actually true beneath the noise and momentum of everyday life and other people’s opinions.

This retreat hasn’t been two weeks of feeling peaceful.

It’s been two weeks of simply seeing and feeling more clearly.

Seeing the habits of mind that sometimes make life harder than it needs to be.

Feeling the tenderness beneath so much of that striving.

And little by little, things settled.

Not because the difficult things disappeared.

Pain and discomfort still come and go.

But because I remembered how to meet them with care, curiosity, and wisdom.

There were moments of deep tranquility and concentration.

Moments of awe at things I would normally walk right past…

Like the shape of the clouds.

A tiny brown spider just chillin’ on a leaf.

My own heart beating without me having to do a thing.

I could rest, breathe, and surrender to the moment just as it was.

There was sadness too.

And lots of peace, even joy.

All of it moving through the same open space of awareness.

All of it welcome.

Tonight, I was walking down the road at IMS as the sun went down.

The sky was turning that breathtaking orangey blue.

The birds were making their last calls before it got dark.

In the stillness, I started thinking about my family, friends, and all the people I mentor.

I found myself remembering cousin Anna Mae.

I met her recently at my wife’s family reunion in Florence, South Carolina.

She was celebrating her 107th birthday.

And as I kept walking, I did some math…

Fifty years ago, when IMS first opened, Anna Mae was already in her fifties.

So while Anna Mae was navigating systemic racism, economic injustice, and the constant threat of violence in the deep south of the 1950s, other people were attending meditation retreats and exploring spiritual practice in places like this.

Places devoted to understanding suffering.

To reducing the harm we cause to ourselves and others.

To training the mind.

To freeing the heart.

Anna Mae told us her grandfather had been born enslaved.

Her Grandpa…

A human being legally owned by another human being.

The distance between history and the present suddenly felt very small.

I felt the truth of that in my gut.

And I found myself thinking about my own Grandma.

Born in rural North Carolina in 1906.

A strong, faithful, resilient woman who carried so much, and rarely put any of it down.

She made the best biscuits, gave the softest hugs, and drove too fast.

Known as “Ma Sarah” in the community for her big, generous heart.

When I was in college, she took her own life.

For years I wondered…

Did she not know how much she was loved?

Grandma was surrounded by people who adored her.

She belonged to a family and community that loved her deeply.

She was needed.

Respected.

Cherished.

And yet all these years later, I realized…

We can be surrounded by people who care about us and still be overwhelmed by the suffering we carry.

Often silently.

As someone who found recovery many years ago, I know those two things can exist side by side.

My grandmother had love.

She had faith, too.

Grandma’s faith didn’t fail her.

Love didn’t fail her.

Family didn’t fail her.

Suffering is simply deeper and more complicated than that.

Gratitude welled up for the many conditions that continue to support my own healing and freedom…

Teachers and teachings that help me understand the mind.

Practices that help me meet life’s challenges with greater wisdom and compassion.

Communities devoted not just to enduring life, but to understanding it.

My own mother, who loved me fiercely, even when I felt unlovable during active addiction.

And suddenly I felt an enormous love and tenderness for Grandma.

I had to catch my breath.

Not grief exactly.

Not pity or sadness.

Just profound tenderness.

And overwhelming gratitude.

Her life, just as it was, made my life possible.

Somehow, through generations of causes and conditions, these teachings found their way to me.

As I continued walking, my attention widened as the sky kept changing.

I started reflecting on the conditions that shaped us both…

Grandma didn’t choose most of the causes and conditions that shaped the way she met life.

Neither did I.

Neither did you.

Much of what we all inherit, mentally, physically, and emotionally, arrives long before we have any say in the matter.

She inherited burdens.

Narratives.

Ailments.

Wounds.

Expectations.

Ways of surviving shaped before she was born.

Before she knew there was any other way.

I inherited some of those too.

Not in the same ways.

But enough to recognize them.

Retreat was also reminding me of something equally important.

While we may not control the conditions that shaped us, we can participate in the conditions we create today.

Mom and Dad modeled this in the ways they could.

They planted different seeds.

And we can plant different seeds too.

I’m planting seeds of mindfulness.

Compassion.

Love.

Wisdom.

Tranquility.

Resolve.

Truth.

And over time, these seeds bear fruit.

What we practice becomes more available.

This is how freedom grows.

As I stand here looking at the open sky, I’m reminded the personal and the collective are not separate.

Every time I meditate and study, I carry with me people who never had access to these teachings.

Every moment of freedom ripples backward and forward through generations.

Every hour studying or on the cushion.

Every retreat.

Every talk I give.

Every time I unapologetically claim my birthright of joy, belonging, and freedom.

It is for my Grandma Sarah.

For cousin Anna Mae.

For all the grandmothers and grandfathers who carried what they never chose to carry.

For everyone who still doesn’t know that freedom is possible.

The sun was nearly gone by the time I finished walking.

The road ahead was still visible, just not as clearly as before.

And somehow that felt true, you know…

We rarely see the whole path.

We only imagine we know where it leads.

But we keep walking.

We keep practicing.

We keep planting seeds with our words, our actions, and the ways we orient our hearts and minds toward love.

Not only for ourselves, but for those who came before us and those who will come after.

New conditions can be cultivated in the mind and heart.

We cannot change the past.

That’s not where our freedom lies.

But we can decide what we carry forward.

And what to set down.

Freedom is possible.

May we all be free.