I ended my last post with the teaching “every breath, new chances.” This is something that one of my early Zen teachers liked to say. As I said before, this is the “upside” of the fact that everything changes. One of the hallmarks of negative mind-states such as sadness, grief, or depression is the sinking conviction that this is it, nothing will ever change for the better. This is the “death-spiral” or feedback loop that sends people deeper and deeper into despondency. During one of my illnesses, I experienced this and I can testify to the incredible certainty with which my mind viewed my condition as unalterable and permanent. At one point, my wife was reduced to repeating to me over and over, “This is temporary!”
I remember thinking, “Oh, fine. She’s just saying that to cheer me up. No good. I know better.”
Of course she was right. And when I did get better and looked back, my state of mind during that dark period now seemed deranged. But the Buddhist view of our ordinary confused and emotional mind-states is that they are all in some sense deranged. The belief that anything will last, or stay the same, or never change, is rather deranged, and not at all in accord with reality. But we persist on thinking that way, because we cling to whatever we have, even if it is a tiny cleft in the rock of our suffering.
Fear of loss of livelihood: there is no getting around the fact that for many people, the loss of a job or home or life savings is indeed irrevocable and perhaps for the rest of their life there is no getting those things back. In that sense it is like having your leg amputated—you never go back. But of course amputees learn to adjust, change, and go on, and most often revive to lead full and engaged lives. When Buddhism teaches that things can and often do change for the better, it is not necessarily the “better” that we prefer or imagine. In fact, it is not “better”—in the sense of comparing it to some former state—at all. It is just something else, something new, the next thing.
Every breath, new chances. But do we notice? That’s the trick.
Thank you Lewis. Always helpful, always lots to reflect on.
What I notice, seems to be different than what “other” people notice, so I don’t mention it for fear of being branded as a “weirdo”, of which I probably still am, to “them”. It’s ok.
But, there are relationships, to people, events, everything in and around the field of sensations, consciousness, that has a rhythm, that we either hear and be in synch with, or not for various reasons most of which are imposed by fear, doubt and denial… and predominantly “male” imposed since most sad emotions tend to be viewed as feminine and receive the judgment of some men with rejection, fear.
Take a deep breath. Let it go. That alone is beautiful. And within that beauty is a different quality of sacredness, which makes most everything sacred, everything to be treated differently at least, so that the seeds of sacredness can be nurtured, transformed, transferred to all.
Thanks, Lew. & Gassho.
Dot
Coupled with fear of loss of livelihood is the fear of “what did I do to lose the livelihood”, or good old fear of failure. Another fear that can be linked is dread that I harmed someone or did “wrong action” in that livelihood. And there’s another issue of how to deal with the lack of awareness of my contribution that may have led to this circumstance, so that it doesn’t repeat. My ego is so clearly oblivous to many of these things, and I can’t always see what’s going on until I’ve made a mess. This is “deranged mind”, right? I’m right in the middle of one right now that could get me “fired”, but more importantly, hurt someone unintentionally. Every effort to clean up the harm has actually seemed to be off target; that’s the indicator of the delusion. There’s so much to learn here.
Thanks for any techniques to find space and discernment.
Thanks for writing this Lewis. I am going through this right now. At first I was terrified, but I can attest to not looking beyond the next moment, how much relief the mind and body receives. It is true that nothing is static. Keeping my mind in control has allowed a lot of things in the universe to flow towards me. On the horizon I can see several possibilities, but I am not counting on anything but the next breath.
I’m in the middle of running a search for a temporary teacher at my college. I’ve done this several times before and all of the other times were “trouble-free”.
The agony that I’m experiencing this time is a change in the applicants. Several of them (all with PhD’s and years of teaching and research experience and solid recommendations) have seen good-paying jobs disappear on them in the past year or two.
More than ever before, I feel glad to have my job (cling-cling-cling). Sadly, I can only hire one temporary person. Perhaps sadder still, that best-qualified person might be someone just entering the workplace rather than an unemployed person.
I want to approach this situation with equanimity. I try to tell myself that I don’t know that I will do harm by not hiring person X or person Y, but it’s hard.
I'm in the middle of running a search for a tempkrary teacher at my college. I've done this several times before and all of the other times were "trouble-free".
The agony that I'j experiencing this time is a change in the applicants. Several of them (all with PhD's and years of teaching and research experience and solid recommendations) have seen good-paying jobs disappear on them in the past year or two.
More than ever before, I feel glad to have my job (cling-cling-cling). Sadly, I can only hire one temporary person. Perhaps sadder still, that best-quqlified person might be someone just entering the workplace rather than an unemployed person.
I want to approach this situation with equanimity. I try to tell myself that I don't know that I will do harm by not hiring person X or person Y, but it's hard.;