Putting Down Our Pekele

I recently attended a women’s retreat where I shared T’ai Chi Chih with almost 50 women. That in itself was a real thrill and made the retreat valuable to me.

As a parting gift, our young female rabbi gave us each a copy of a book, Found in Translation, Common Words of Uncommon Wisdom, by Rabbi Pamela Jay Gottfried. In one essay, Rabbi Gottfried wrote about a Yiddish word I’d heard my parents and immigrant grandparents use but hadn’t quite understood.

The word is pekele, pronounced “peck-eh-le,” means package, parcel or bundle. After reflecting on this word, I understood its relevance to TCC practice. In a metaphoric sense, a pekele is a bag of troubles, baggage we carry around. Everyone’s bundle is unique. We shove all kinds of things in our pekele – difficulties of all descriptions, disappointments, frustrations, personal issues we do not want to deal with – and we carry them around.

The longer and tighter we hold on our baggage, the heavier it gets. I’ve come to appreciate that when we practice TCC we’re able to put down our pekele, if only for a few minutes. So can our students. When we quiet our minds, stay in our feet, flow softly and continuously, we easily and effortlessly put down our pekele. Over time, our bag of troubles seems lighter, and some of those them have simply gone away.