Happy Bird

When Things Fall Apart....

Number One: We contracted with someone to replace our front stairs (from the street to the upper walk). They have been disintegrating and in need of repair for some time. The Concrete Guy came yesterday and...did a disastrous job. I mean, truly dreadful. We're talking unsafe. Not to code. Visibly crooked. Disappointing doesn't even begin to describe it.

Our new front steps...briefly

Number Two: When we came home from our long weekend over Memorial Day, our freezer wasn't freezing properly, which means that our refrigerator wasn't refrigerating, either, which meant spoiled food. (Good thing we're vegetarians!)

Number Three: I work in an environment in which my boss doesn't have my best interest at heart, at least that's the way it seems to me. Not that I am in any way objective; I could be entirely wrong here. I freely admit the possibility—the likelihood even—that she is a saint and I am an asshole. Though there is precious little evidence of the former assertion, there is plenty to support the latter. Still, this blog is about my world, n'est-ce pas? In any case, all I'm saying is that it makes for a moderately tougher work week. I'm not trying to make a case here for summary execution or (yet more radical) a job change. I just wish it didn't have to be so hard.

So, what the heck am I trying to say?

While growing up, my brothers and I loved listening to Little Orley stories. My son liked them too, once I found them on CD. (Every once in a while we play them for our partners and they think we're nuts. Guess you had to be there). Anyway, one of the stories in there is about the Happy Bird, who prescribes singing a happy little song, when every little thing goes wrong. Be as happy as can be and fill yourself with glee. Just sing a happy little song. Eventually the Happy Bird falls in a mud puddle and Orley challenges him to sing his own little happy song, which he does, if grudgingly. Today I feel like the Happy Bird covered with mud. But I ain't singin' no song.

The Buddha wants us to understand that considering anything as lasting is to court suffering. Everything is ephemeral. In fact, the most concise description of the teachings of the Buddha is this simple phrase: "All that has the nature to arise has the nature to pass away." Nothing lasts. To say that things fall apart is like saying one must breathe. Things fall apart not because of anything I did or because the world is out to get me. Things fall apart because things fall apart. Things fall apart because they cannot do otherwise.

So, I know that crooked stairs are a temporary phenomenon. One of these days I will have forgotten all about them (which will begin next week when they are torn out and replaced). I also know that my freezer that isn't freezing can be repaired (and will be, I hope, tomorrow). And aren't we lucky to have the money to pay for these things? I further know that my feelings of stress, my insomnia, and my dissatisfaction with my work life will pass, will pass, will pass.

But sometimes the directive to consider all phenomena as ephemeral feels like the Happy Bird singing. Like it or not, I'm the one living in the world with these crooked steps and this unsupportive boss in it, living with what Pema Chödrön calls "a lot of ephemeral—but at the same time vivid and convincing—stuff....When the bottom falls out and we can't find anything to grasp, it hurts a lot". What to do? I can't sing a happy little song, dammit, I just can't. Yes, this too shall pass. But right now it sucks.

Pema again:

The path...is not about going to heaven or a place that's really comfortable. Wanting to find a place where everything's okay is just what keeps us miserable. Always looking for a way to have pleasure and avoid pain is how we keep ourselves in [suffering]. As long as we believe that there is something that will permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable.

Her solution:

Instead of always blaming the other, own the feeling of blame, own the anger, own the loneliness, and make friends with it....See how you can place the anger or the fear or the loneliness in a cradle of loving-kindness...learn how to be gentle to all that stuff. In order to be gentle and create an atmosphere of compassion for yourself, it's necessary to stop talking to yourself about how wrong everything is—or how right everything is, for that matter....I challenge you to experiment this way: drop the object of your emotion and see if the fact the intensity of the emotion lessens.

This isn't the Happy Bird's advice. Pema (and the Buddha) are telling us something we already know but have trouble believing—the source of our suffering lies within us and therefore the end of it lies there, too. Perhaps this is not what we want to hear. It is much easier to blame the Concrete Guy for my unhappiness. Yet when I practiced kindness toward him while remaining firm, I did not have to add to either his suffering or mine. Or to the suffering of the world. There is enough of that. There is enough.