Not sure where to begin. I feel so lost sometimes, as if the core if who I am gets called into question. I know I have written about this feeling a great deal lately. But this is, for me, the most profound of all experiences, this contrast between my reality as a being that does, after all, exist in some form (however ephemeral) and the truth of the constantly dissolving, crumbling nature of that beingness.
Does this sound very foreign and strange? Contradictory and a little nuts? Yeah, it feels that way to me too, quite often. Yet it also feels more entirely truthful than the next largest truths there are. I want for things to be certain and comfortable, always. Yet because I desire the certainty, I cannot have the comfort; there's a Catch-22 for you! It's as if I had hitched my happiness to the sun always shining—at least once a day for half the day (or thereabouts) my hopes would be dashed.
My parents are old and becoming gradually less able to care for themselves. Contemplation of the inevitability of aging, decay, and death is one of the Buddha's primary instructions to us, an entry point to the holiest of understandings, that all things are of this nature, the nature to arise and pass away. We can understand this intellectually with great profundity, yet have no capacity to face the reality of it in the form of our own illness or injury, or the slow diminution that is the inexorable march toward the end of life as it is experienced by those we love. Because it is deeply uncomfortable, of course. Death is one thing, but gradual loss is quite another. Here's the Buddha's take on this, though: suffering is my resistance to the truth; the experience itself is entirely neutral.
Easy for him to say.
There is another factor in this situation with my parents: we cannot afford to provide them with everything that might make this journey as comfortable as it could be. This precipitates us into hard choices and difficult conversations no one wishes to contemplate.
So much comes down to humility, it seems to me. In the contemplation of the great mysteries, even in thinking of the smaller ones, the minor questions, an honest survey reveals how entirely helpless I am in the face of these forces. Not merely the forces of old age, disease and death, not just the forces of nature that destroy homes and lives, not only the forces of economies and injustice and misplaced societal priorities, no, even in the contemplation of the smallest realities of my existence I am almost entirely powerless to change things. I can choose which shirt I wear today and, perhaps (if I am willing to be uncomfortable) not to wear a shirt at all. But I can choose neither the nature of the body upon which I place the shirt nor the need it feels to be clothed. I cannot willy-nilly decide to disregard decades of conditioning and wear a dashiki instead, not with any level of comfort. I must humble myself to know that I am the sum total of the causes and conditions that brought me to this point. Far from being a free agent, I am at the mercy of that which led to this time in my existence. I must, in the words of the old phrase, "dance with him what brung me".
I am tired today, without any identifiable reason. I have goals and plans and schemes, but I am tired. I probably won't do most of what I had in mind. I must listen when my body tells me to halt. I need to make myself a steward of this body and this mind in order to move forward into a deeper understanding of what it means to have a body and a mind.
There is no easy solution to my parents' situation, of course. There are complexities piled on top of complications. Also to be considered is the fact that the grooves of the relationship between my parents were first laid down over 70 years ago when they first met and have been worn and deepened every day since. We may be as logical, sensible, rational, caring, loving, and reasonable as we wish, yet this will be no proof against these well-worn patterns of love between them. Because it is love, that's clear, even when (especially when?) they bicker or disagree or grow impatient.
I began this post by saying I was lost. And I am. But lostness is the truth of our lives. It is when we consider ourselves found that we are living most in delusion, if only because even if this feeling is true it cannot last. Where I have found myself will change, I will change, and once again I will be lost. We are all wanderers in this wilderness of being alive and human. It is not easy. But it sure beats the alternative. It is enough.
Does this sound very foreign and strange? Contradictory and a little nuts? Yeah, it feels that way to me too, quite often. Yet it also feels more entirely truthful than the next largest truths there are. I want for things to be certain and comfortable, always. Yet because I desire the certainty, I cannot have the comfort; there's a Catch-22 for you! It's as if I had hitched my happiness to the sun always shining—at least once a day for half the day (or thereabouts) my hopes would be dashed.
My parents are old and becoming gradually less able to care for themselves. Contemplation of the inevitability of aging, decay, and death is one of the Buddha's primary instructions to us, an entry point to the holiest of understandings, that all things are of this nature, the nature to arise and pass away. We can understand this intellectually with great profundity, yet have no capacity to face the reality of it in the form of our own illness or injury, or the slow diminution that is the inexorable march toward the end of life as it is experienced by those we love. Because it is deeply uncomfortable, of course. Death is one thing, but gradual loss is quite another. Here's the Buddha's take on this, though: suffering is my resistance to the truth; the experience itself is entirely neutral.
Easy for him to say.
There is another factor in this situation with my parents: we cannot afford to provide them with everything that might make this journey as comfortable as it could be. This precipitates us into hard choices and difficult conversations no one wishes to contemplate.
So much comes down to humility, it seems to me. In the contemplation of the great mysteries, even in thinking of the smaller ones, the minor questions, an honest survey reveals how entirely helpless I am in the face of these forces. Not merely the forces of old age, disease and death, not just the forces of nature that destroy homes and lives, not only the forces of economies and injustice and misplaced societal priorities, no, even in the contemplation of the smallest realities of my existence I am almost entirely powerless to change things. I can choose which shirt I wear today and, perhaps (if I am willing to be uncomfortable) not to wear a shirt at all. But I can choose neither the nature of the body upon which I place the shirt nor the need it feels to be clothed. I cannot willy-nilly decide to disregard decades of conditioning and wear a dashiki instead, not with any level of comfort. I must humble myself to know that I am the sum total of the causes and conditions that brought me to this point. Far from being a free agent, I am at the mercy of that which led to this time in my existence. I must, in the words of the old phrase, "dance with him what brung me".
I am tired today, without any identifiable reason. I have goals and plans and schemes, but I am tired. I probably won't do most of what I had in mind. I must listen when my body tells me to halt. I need to make myself a steward of this body and this mind in order to move forward into a deeper understanding of what it means to have a body and a mind.
There is no easy solution to my parents' situation, of course. There are complexities piled on top of complications. Also to be considered is the fact that the grooves of the relationship between my parents were first laid down over 70 years ago when they first met and have been worn and deepened every day since. We may be as logical, sensible, rational, caring, loving, and reasonable as we wish, yet this will be no proof against these well-worn patterns of love between them. Because it is love, that's clear, even when (especially when?) they bicker or disagree or grow impatient.
I began this post by saying I was lost. And I am. But lostness is the truth of our lives. It is when we consider ourselves found that we are living most in delusion, if only because even if this feeling is true it cannot last. Where I have found myself will change, I will change, and once again I will be lost. We are all wanderers in this wilderness of being alive and human. It is not easy. But it sure beats the alternative. It is enough.
Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity.
Pir Vilayat Khan
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