Surfing Life's Ups and Downs

In a world of constant change, everything is subject to impermanence.  Trying to concretize what is essentially changeable is both impossible and unwise. No one can be praised all the time and every time.  When praise is present, there exists the possibility for blame.

     Outside my kitchen window is a camphor tree.  It is a statuesque sculpture of a tree with sinuous splayed branches bearing bunches of leaves like baskets. Every day as I stand at the counter, washing dishes or cutting vegetable, I see people walking their dogs.  And every single dog is drawn to sniff, pee or poop at the base of it. What I am struck by is the tree’s ability to still remain beautiful.

       Even though this tree suffers humiliations and ‘insults’ every time a dog visits it, none of it is evident.  The tree doesn’t shrink in shame or change in any visible way.  It remains open to receiving who ever may visit it. 

       One evening we came home to find a young man standing in front of it with his head bowed, knees slightly bent, and arms spread open in a receiving gesture.  Concerned we asked him if he was okay.   He said he had to stop to accept the tree’s powerful calming energy. Half an hour later, he was still absorbing its strength.  This tree experiences indignity and worship and through it all, it remains unfazed.  

      How well do we adapt to the ups and downs in our life?  We are drawn to always seek praise, fame, and recognition and to avoid blame, correction or insult.  When someone fails to thank us or acknowledge our effort, or even notice us, we feel lessened.  Something in us caves in and leaves us feeling hollow.  To cover up this hole or ‘bad feeling’, we get upset with ourselves or the person.  However, we don’t have to look at the feelings we experience as bad.  We can use them as a reminder to become aware of what we do when we feel pain, shame, or sadness.  The same goes for when we are praised, admired or recognized.  

     With kind curiosity, you can begin by noticing the thoughts that immediately pop into your mind when you are not honoured.  Note how the mind creates a story to either defend yourself or denigrate the other person.  If the person praised you, see what story the mind makes up about that person’s wonderful qualities.  These are attempts by the ego to reject or grasp onto something that is destroying or building it up respectively.

     In a world of constant change, everything is subject to impermanence.  Trying to concretize what is essentially changeable is both impossible and unwise.  No one can be praised all the time and every time.  When praise is present, there exists the possibility for blame.  As much as we know this, our habit is to strive towards wanting to feel good all the time.  It isn’t easy learning that life can be painful.

     We can train in learning to deal with its unsettled nature though.  The basis for this practice is to begin to know your ideas and thoughts, and their influence on your reactions and interactions in situations.  To begin catching the stories we weave when we are upset or happy, the practice of mindfulness is very helpful.

    Mindfulness is paying attention to what’s happening in the moment without changing anything.  It is the skill to keep the mind on whatever you want to keep it on.  With this training, you’ll begin to see when your mind drifts away from the focus.  Then you note where it went and gently return to the thing you want to be paying attention to.  You do all of this with a sense of curiosity and interest as if it’s happening outside of yourself; you become an observer of your mind’s antics from moment to moment.

     The benefits of training in this way is that it helps you:

1.      see clearly what’s happening in the moment as it is happening,

2.      trains you to let go and come to back to what you are choosing to focus on,

3.      grow your attention and lessen your distractibility and reactivity, every time you come back.

It also lessens stress, improves relationships by making you more present and most importantly, it helps you begin to know and grow to accept all the perfect and imperfect parts of yourself completely. 

            May you awaken to life’s impermanence.