Queen Lolo
June 21, 2005
I finally roped one of my family members into watching one of my old favorites, “Joe Vs. the Volcano.” If you haven’t seen it in awhile, do yourself a favor and take a look. It’s a lovely “fairy tale” about the awakening of Joe Banks, a guy suffering from “terminal brain fog” who faces his mortality and becomes a hero. There are plenty of sleepy moments, but the overall message is worth wading through the rest.
My favorite moment in the movie (and I don’t give anything away here) is when Patricia Graynamore, played by Meg Ryan, tells Joe, “My father says almost the whole world's asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says only a few people are awake. And they live in a state of constant, total amazement.”
I saw the movie for the first time in 1990, and that line has stuck with me ever since. “Living in a state of constant, total amazement” is, to me, what being awakened and enlightened is all about.
I only got through half the film with my daughter before we decided to go to sleep and save the rest for tonight. As I turned off the VCR, I asked her what the film is trying to tell us. “It’s the same as when I always say we should live life the way it’s meant to be lived,” said my eight-year old Buddha Girl. “We should have fun and appreciate life.”
In his review of the movie, Roger Ebert wrote, “At night, in those corners of our minds we deny by day, magical things can happen in the moon shadows. And if they can’t, they should, and we should always, in any event, act as if they can.”
The truth is, the magic isn’t just in the shadows of the moon. There’s magic in the glaring light of day, in the trees, in the warmth from my laptop computer, in your heartbeat, in the annoying sound of the leafblower outside my window, in every little thing that makes up life. When we’re awake, we know it’s all magic –and yet it’s also all ordinary. When we’re not quite awake, we can still act as if the magic is there. Perhaps that, in fact, is what faith is all about.
Posted by at 01:34 PM | Comments (1)
June 14, 2005
Is the problem really within you?
Buddhism teaches us that relying on external sources for our happiness is the sure-fire path to pain. Whatever we can GET, we can lose. (And we will.) If I need things to be a certain way in order to be happy, I will constantly suffer. Either I will suffer from the eventual loss, or I will suffer from fear of the eventual loss, or I will suffer from it all being other than what I expected. You get the picture.
On the other hand, if I accept life and other people on their own terms, I will not be attached to things being a certain way. So I can be happy no matter what.
But lately I’ve been thinking. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with suffering. This eternal process of wanting… searching… getting… becoming dissatisfied… wanting again… searching… and so on… Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe it’s what keeps us moving, growing, evolving, expanding.
For instance, for years I lived in a place I didn’t like anymore. I wanted to move, but my husband didn’t. I was suffering in that environment, but I tried not to focus on it. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter where we lived. That happiness comes from what’s INSIDE, not the external surroundings. That in fact, we had a nicer place than most of the world’s population and I should be damn grateful.
It didn’t work. I grew more and more unhappy. I wanted more. I wanted something different and new. Well, we did finally move. Our new home is prettier, more peaceful, more spacious, surrounded by nature. And guess what? We’re all much happier. I'm happier. My family is happier. Really and truly happier. From the outside in.
So here’s my question. How do you know when the problem really IS something outside of you and that a real, physical change is in order? If your job, your home, your partner, your pajamas just don’t feel RIGHT – how do you know if it’s just your own expectations that need to be adjusted, or if you really should move on? How do you know if it’s your relationship, or your job, or your pajamas – or if it’s just that never ending, gnawing sense of dissatisfaction we all carry around from birth to death as part of the human condition?
Lately I’ve been think that perhaps suffering isn’t something to alleviate, but rather something that helps us pay attention and keep moving forward. If we don’t try to numb it, medicate it, hide it, run from it, or put on a happy face, suffering can be a very motivating force and one hell of a wake up call.
The question is – how do you know if it’s a wake up call that needs to be answered, or just that nagging itch that wiggles through our lives life to make sure our monkey minds are never at peace?