I was thinking today about how once I fell of a clinician stool in a clinic full of patients and other physical therapists. I was moving from point A to point B while rolling on the stool between my two patients and caught the wheel on a towel on the floor. I laughed along with everyone and announced that I’d planned that! No embarrassment—okay very, very minimal.
So could I feel that same way about my life today? Could I look at some of the “revolting developments” like my mother used to call them – those frustrations of life and act like I planned those and laugh about it? Hmmmmmmmm….. really, did I and could I?
I’ve been learning about co-dependent arising of energy and it’s complicated but we could say it has to do with that k word that everybody cringes about—karma. There’s good karma too and lots of it and I’ve got a lot of that going and I think we all do, so why do we tend to be focused on the opposite? Good questions to contemplate in meditation to get a personal view. But Buddhism already has some of the well thought out and logical insight already there on the plate but fair warning—there “ain’t” no savior in Buddhism; it’s all you and if you can’t handle that one, best not go there.
But one part of Buddhism has to do with just looking at what we think of as reality and not arguing with it and just seeing it as the illusion it is. When we energize the illusion by getting all excited about it, we create all those “arising’s” as we drift farther away from …. What’s the best word to use here? Tranquility Base! Yeah, I know, it’s a 60’s reference to the Moon landing but I like it.
To me that’s the core and base still mind that simply just IS and there is no thought there on tranquility base, simply tranquility. The more we drift away from tranquility base and play in illusion and energize the thoughts that create the illusion, the less tranquility we have and the more cause and effect, ugh, that K word. With positive karma in mind and realizing we can’t just sit in tranquility base 24-7 (we do have to engage in certain functions), the more we energize the most positive illusions, the better.
All of this is another way of saying what all the modernized teachers are saying which are the ancient teachings of Buddhism.
Anyway, I’m going to pretend just for today that no matter what has happened recently and what is happening now that I planned it like that; I’m going to agree with it just like when I fell off the stool. No resistance, no trying to make it any different—these frustrations, these “revolting developments”… I planned it that way and let me laugh at it all like I did when I fell off the stool. No need to take it all so seriously—right?
However these things arise, these developments, some have to do with me and others don’t—life is as life is. I can’t take credit for everything and I can’t be blamed for it all either; I am only a part of it as I breathe in and breathe out… it’s an illusion and what affects me personally, I planned it that way and it’s funny. Why? Because it’s all an illusion and it’s only as serious as my mind makes it!
I had quite a laugh earlier today reading an email from a Buddhist friend of mine who, like me, just made it through another x-tian holiday with x-tian family members and reading it had me laughing out loud! It so helps to have others who get the illusion and find humor in it! Hey, I planned it that way!
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