Hurdling Through Our Lives
Posted: Monday, February 08, 2010
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
Why can't my neighbors be nice people instead of idiots? Where have all the intelligent people in America gone? When I move out of here things will be better. If only I can stay here, things will be alright. Why can't she see how controlling she is. Why can't he keep a job, like other husbands? If only my kids could come around and start doing things right. If only the government would make my life easier, and make me richer.
Can we stop all this insanity? It seems as if when one problem is solved, another either pops up immediately somewhere else, or we create one.
This is what we call stress. And it is incorrigible. We keep thinking that if we organize our lives around some kind of an ideal, everything will be fine. But it never is. Even if we seem to get it all together, miraculously for a moment, our friends and relatives can't, and aren't we forever entangled in everyone else's problems? Even the government's! There is no end to where we stick our noses because in a convoluted way, we like problems. Problems makes us feel alive, keep us busy so we don't have to think about our final destiny, which is a hint about the root cause of our constant worries.
Life just will not permit us to control it, regardless of how diligently we try. Life is a wild card, and we can never know what the deck will face up next. It's a constant worry, a noose around our necks, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. And we don't like it one bit (even though we thrive on it).
Anyone who says that they are in control of their lives is living a temporary dream. Controlling life is like herding cats; life tends to be all over the place. No matter how conservative we are, how much we hold on to what we have, we can never keep things from changing. So why not relax and enjoy the ride downstream without even a paddle. Isn't it only when we have to get somewhere that we paddle furiously upstream?
Relaxing and enjoying life involves a philosophical outlook called equanimity. We have to see that one thing is not better than another. One person is neither superior nor lower in rank than another. We have to understand that, because that's the way it actually is, that's a fact whether we agree or not. We have to live this very moment, because only in this very moment is the possibility of free will. The past and the future are merely a cause and effect journey which keeps us on track for a predestined destination. Only this moment is where we can alter that course that we have set ourselves on. But to be free in this moment is not easy.
Being in the moment, which is our ultimate freedom, provides our wormhole, our escape from the known, which is all the past baggage in our heads. Only when we shake loose from this can we appreciate the unlimited potential of life, which has nothing to do with hurdles or trying to make things better. It is only the acceptance of this present moment; the understanding that this present moment is always perfect in its results when considering what has led up to it, that can free us. If we don't accept this moment and instead fight it, we will never cultivate the insight to end the hurdles, and they will continue on for eternity.
So relax, let it all happen and enjoy the ride. And in that relaxation, in that compassionate aloofness, life will begin to be lived at a different level, free from wanting and grasping and lived to the fullest where it is no longer about what we want, but what we are, and no longer reactive, but receptive.
Then, miracle of miracles, the one who is hurdling through life disappears, and there is only life, beautiful life with no hurdles, no wanting it our way - just life. And whatever happens, it's now okay. We can handle it, because we no longer have such a great stake in our future. We now know that the future is only a fantasy, the past but a thought, and this very alive moment is all we really have.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Things are different in this world e, back in the 60s we couldn't sit back and enjoy the ride for the ride was taking us to destruction. It's different today perhaps we now can sit back and enjoy the ride.Good point, David! Thank you so much. I enjoy all of your articles, I like the thread that runs through them all.
Best..............e
Enjoy the ride, but keep your hand on the steering wheel or.... well you know the rest. Good thoughtful article E- you're definately a work in progress, as we all are- it's just that some are running a little bit faster than others. You may be one of the winners in the race!-- Always--EllaElla Camp, my loyal reader! I hope that I can continue to earn your respect, and I really appreciate your comments. I have some interesting articles in the "can" waiting for the right time. I hope that you will enjoy them.
Metta (lovingkindness)...........e
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