Dancing with Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering

Product Information

Rippon greatly appreciated Widdrington’s patience in the training room. “Every time I would get into a panic about learning something, he’d say ‘Of course you can’t do it – I’ve only just asked you. I’ve been doing it for 20 years; you’ve been doing it for 20 minutes.’ But just watching him was marvellous: his entire body is musical.” The great challenge you face, like everyone else, is discovering your essence and then learning how to respond to life in light of this insight and wisdom. The central purpose of this book is to help you achieve this transformation in your life. But first you must learn to discern what is authentic, to separate it from the many false or episodic identities you have undoubtedly acquired in your struggle to find your way in life. For example, a false identity you may have adopted is one that needs to be in control of what happens to you. If things go well, you are pleased with yourself; if they don’t, you blame yourself. But it only takes a moment of reflection to realize that this is a false identity.

Truth #1: Dukkha (suffering) is present in life at every turn, and we must examine Dukkha consciously. Instead of clinging, live your life from your deepest core values at every moment, regardless of outcome. Like Phillip Moffitt who left Esquire, and the industry, in 1987 after an apparently stressful stint as CEO and editor-in-chief, to devote himself to what he calls “the inner life.” In the two decades since, he has been ordained a Buddhist priest and, in 1991, founded the Life Balance Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to the study and practice of spiritual values. (He didn’t leave the industry altogether. From 1998 to 2005 he penned a bi-monthly column for Yoga Journal called “Dharma Wisdom.”) Moffitt brings to his role of dharma teacher a range of life experiences which include being a longtime student of yoga and Theravadin Buddhism, author, former editor-in-chief and chief executive of Esquire magazine, and board member for the C. G. Jung Institute. His long- standing interest in Jung, Helen Luke, and T. S. Eliot enriches his teaching with psychological insight. This beautiful book offers subtle and vast teachings on the mystery of the body and mind—combined with paintings by an Indian master that evoke deepening states of meditative awareness.”In a sense, then, you are already an expert on suffering. You remember it from your past, and you easily recognize it in yourself and others. You have an array of skills for averting it when possible and surviving it when it is unpreventable. But do you have a conscious relationship with your suffering? Do you utilize it to enrich your life? Or is it merely something you try to avoid? When you suffer, do you experience it as failure, an embarrassment, something shameful? If so, how much of your life is unacceptable or alien to you because it contains suffering?

Moffitt states that the purpose of writing this book was to “help people learn to live more skillfully,” just as he began to do at age 40. Leaving behind a successful career, he embarked on a journey of study, meditation, and Jungian analysis to discover new capacities in himself, and a connection to a larger purpose. That larger purpose evolved into helping others find clarity, direction, and meaning in their lives.Dancing With Life offers us a way to face “the second kind of suffering” and thus have a more meaningful relation- ship with our lives—for this is it! Why wouldn’t we want our participation to be as rich as possible? We may not be living the lives we wished we lived: but, nonetheless, this is the life we have. This book details the path of bringing as much mindfulness to our daily experience and enriching our lives in that manner. Traditional stories, including those conveyed through drumming and dance, can provide a meaningful educational approach for transmitting cultural knowledge, wellness, and identity to youth and future generations,” he writes with coauthor Carie Green in a 2016 book chapter. Dancing With Life is divided into four books—one for each of the Four Noble Truths—each containing three insights. The Venerable Ajahn Sumedho, who wrote the preface to Dancing with Life, writes that “. . . the lucid way in which Phillip has written about how to actualize the twelve insights is a real achievement.” Imagine learning to accept gain and loss equally, deriving wisdom and insight from both. Also imagine a life where you feel empowered to pursue your dreams and goals without worry, opening your heart and mind to a deeper, richer, more satisfying relationship with your life just as it is. In Emotional Chaos to Clarity, Philip Moffitt, former editor-in-chief/CEO of Esquire magazine, and renowned meditation teacher, offers concrete, practical guidance on how to make these imaginings a real possibility. You learn to speak only what is true, useful, and timely, even during moments of anger and outrage.

Awakening through the Nine Bodies is at once a vivid map connecting the vast territories of consciousness, a practical guide that can immediately be put to liberating use, the tale of a unique spiritual apprenticeship, transmission of a precious lineage that otherwise might be lost, a bridge between various yogic and Buddhist models, and an invigorating call to awaken.” Truth #3: cessation. Once cessation is achieved, you no longer observe cessation: "it just is." Just like becoming fluent in a foreigh language: with years of practice, you stop translating. Three different dukkhas: physical/emotional pain, constant change, and life's complex compositional nature. Researchers Maristela Moura Silva Lima and Alba Pedreira Vieira observed that the elderly dancers gained a sense of confidence, self-esteem, and elegance over the course of the year. Through dance, “the body may change from being a source of oppression to a source of freedom,” they write. The ancient practice of mindfulness is increasingly being shown in scientific studies to have remarkable consequences for healing and well-being across the lifespan. Dancing with Life systematically maps out a rigorous and profoundly loving choreography for cultivating mindfulness in the service of embodying our full potentiality as human beings, utilizing whatever circumstances we happen to find ourselves in. It is a practical and reassuring dharma guide for a great many people in the ongoing development of their practice and lives. It is very different from most dharma books in that it has such an elaborate and friendly structure to it, nested within and around the Four Noble Truths and Ajahn Sumedho’s lovely voicing of dharma. I love the precision of Phillip’s teaching of the embodiment of each insight, and the stories about his students and their challenges. And also, his willingness to share his own trials, travails, and openings along the path.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and Arriving at Your Own DoorHow often in your adult life have you experienced the queasiness and unease that come from a sense of meaninglessness in your life? Think of all those occasions when you felt as though you were wasting your life, or sleepwalking through it, or not living from your deepest, most heart-felt sense of your self. Remember the times when you’ve felt as though there is little you do each day that has any real, lasting significance. We’ve all fallen prey at some point in our lives to such constricted, dreaded, almost unbearable dark times of self-doubt and existential angst. Dance is an antidote to stress, a way to combat negative emotions, an elixir for the body, mind, and brain,” write Christensen and Dong-Seon Chang—an Argentine tango dancer and swing dancer—in their 2021 book Dancing Is the Best Medicine. Insights come only through reflection, and not belief. (Perhaps one of the biggest points in this book.) At the pinnacle of his success as chief executive and editor in chief of Esquire magazine, Phillip Moffitt walked away from it all—the glamour, the accolades, the punishing schedule—and chose instead to wake up each morning and breathe, to explore the mysteries he had always intuited. Read more

Moffitt’s ultimate goal is to eliminate or lessen what he calls “the emotional chaos of the untrained mind.” Our minds are constantly racing in a state of turmoil. We make plans and they fall through. We react and we often react poorly. What Moffitt would like us to do is to not perceive ourselves as having to react, but rather choosing how to respond. This slight adjustment in perception can make a world of difference. The second major theme is intentionality, the commitment to living all the moments of your life based on your values as you move toward your goals. It is genuinely possible to experience a sense of purpose in life, one that is based on living from your intentions, regardless of almost all external circumstances. This is a remarkable truth that has held my wonder for decades and has been a major source of inspiration. All my life I've been trained to be the lead in a couple's lead. I must learn how to be the follow as well.

3. Dance helps with depression

At dance events, people often mingle and chat before pairing off and heading to the dance floor. And then they experience another key aspect of dance: physical touch, ranging from holding hands to the full-body embrace of blues or tango. The first major theme is the development of mindfulness. Mindfulness is more than simply being present and accepting the moment; it involves meeting the moment with your deepest values. Between shows they also spent time together one-on-one, like going for coffee, just the two of them. “Then, if the whole group went for dinner, they would sit together, deep in conversation.” Within the Four Noble Truths the Buddha described Twelve Insights. These insights are revolutionary because they transform the Truths from a philosophical statement about suffering into a method for directly coping with suffering in your life. They elucidate not only the Truths themselves but also the way you can experience the Truths on an emotional as well as an intellectual level and then integrate these experiences into your life. In other words, the Four Noble Truths is not just a summary guideline, a creed, or a statement of philosophy, but an actual practice of insight and realization in and of itself. It is a teaching in how to live wisely. There are several reasons why grooving makes us feel so fabulous. The potent mix of biological, social and cognitive stimulation that happens when we dance creates the perfect emotional martini. It’s a couple of measures of brain-juice, one of social bonding and a half measure of clear thinking, with a twist.