Bouncing along Bottom

Last updated on: May 19, 2008 at 7:35 pm by Justin Whitaker

Bouncing along Bottom 2008-05-19T19:35:00-06:00 Justin Whitaker

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Lately I have spent a fair amount of time feeling like this:

About a year ago I blogged about the rocky emotional ups and downs of my life. At the time, I was working on my Philosophy MA, applying to study in London, trying to figure out things with my then girlfriend Ana (who lived in Spain), teaching, and leading a meditation group on campus. And of course feeling pretty overwhelmed. For part of that meditation group, I introduced the latest book by French Tibetan monk Matthieu Ricard:

One of the sections in the late chapter [of Happiness by Matthieu Ricard], “The Path” is titled, “Like a Wounded Stag.” There he praises the act of separating oneself from society, like a wounded stag would do, to help heal the wounds “of ignorance, animosity, envy” (p.262). This is a temporary process, but a necessary one.

“In the whirlwind of daily life, we often feel so hurt and drained that we are too weak even to do the exercises that would give us strength” (ibid.).

How true. In my own life this has happened to an extreme a couple of times. Life simply became day-to-day crisis management, tasks looming, frantic activity, breathing shallowly, exhaustion masked by anxiety. How much we all need pause from this – but not just pause, but escape to something positive so as to find peace, and “finding our own peace, we learn how to share it with others” (ibid.).

And now again I find myself escaping to something positive in life: home, Montana, familiar places, familiar people and routines. And it feels good. Being apart from many wonderful people carries some sadness (I really wish I could have drug them all to Montana with me). But that is to be expected. With all loss comes sadness. We humans aren’t built to handle too much change, yet so much of our society these days seems hooked on it like a drug.

So it was a bit humbling when I read today that, in Buddhism, all of our suffering is due to our ignorance, our misperceptions of reality. Really? Can’t we just blame somebody? Apparently not. As in the Dhammapada verse that I blogged about recently:

3. “He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.

And, lest we forget, Shantideva’s stern words:

Anger destroys all the good conduct… which has been acquired over thousands of eons.

Buddhist-saint hyperbole? I would hope. Much of western wisdom – going back to Aristotle – holds that there is something like ‘appropriate anger’: at the right time and in the right proportion. I’m not sure. Perhaps it is a matter of semantics, what Shantideva and Aristotle are talking about are two different things. Perhaps it is tied to different visions of human nature and reality. Hard to say.

What is easy to say is that I found another great bit on gratitude, a video in fact, that I’m all too happy to share with you all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NeMC1Fl3J0 And while sometimes I do feel like I’m just bouncing along bottom in life, it does bring me a big smile to think about the many things I have to be thankful for (and to dance).

That video will be #1.
Blogging. Like journaling it gives us a nice record of our lives. Even though the public nature of it makes it impossible to be fully honest; heck we’re not really fully honest in our journals either most of the time, or even to ourselves in any given moment. Such is life. But it does keep us grounded to some extent.
Kindred spirits. I watched Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance tonight. Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word meaning:
1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
It is a beautiful portrayal of the contrast between nature and our contemporary society; taking us inside twinky factories, watching traffic, and so on. It reminded me in part of Chronos, another beautiful film exploring the passage of time in human societies, which I watched with friends in London. It also reminded me of Ashes and Snow, by far the most beautiful cinematic experience I have ever had; which I last watched on a warm night in Montana last summer, just south of Missoula a ways, with a beautiful red-head at my side.
Health. It is so often and so easily taken for granted, but it could fail at any time. My paternal grandfather is 88, has smoked for over 50 years, and still gets around on his own. My maternal grandfather was of similar age, strong as an ox, when he fell five years ago, hitting his head on the wall in his house and slipping into a deep coma before passing away. Then there are the countless many who have died recently in Burma and China, not to mention so much of the rest of the world which seems so deeply embroiled in conflict.
A safe environment. I’ve never been anyplace too crazy; South London is a far cry from Montana in terms of safety, but it’s no Baghdad or Darfur. Simple things like leaving doors unlocked, freedom to wander where ever and whenever, knowing that people – even complete strangers – will lend a hand when its needed all help bring the calm I need to move forward with the good of life.

And for all of that, I am grateful.

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