Life is full of surprises

Life is full of surprises.
Photo Silvija Budaviciute

We often say and hear: the life is full of surprises, but we are not always convinced it is true. Thankfully some of those surprises help us to stop the train of thoughts and remind us to acknowledge the joys of now.

This morning my husband and I, we wanted to do something to enjoy the starting day. A park my friend recommended was closed today. We couldn’t go anywhere far as our car requires maintenance. Thus, we decide that perhaps we should take a bike ride and check the path I don’t yet know, but I was planning to take to visit my friend tomorrow. So we did.

We just started riding the bikes downhill as my husband, being slightly ahead of me, abruptly pressed the breaks. I followed with the same response and pressed my breaks…a bit too much. The rest you can imagine. In a slow motion: I am on concrete, the bike flying over me, the back wheel now touching my right arm and the whole bike finally lands on me. Unable to move and in pain, only very few things come to my mind: 1. I need to get that bike of me, 2. My knee and elbow hurt and 3. Why my husband is so serious?  After the pain passed, we started to laugh; that was a salto mortale, but I am alive and nothing is broken. Just yesterday I worried about so many things, but not a single time did I think I would crash my bike. Yet, that is what happened. Isn’t that a surprise?! All my worries I thought as important yesterday were just images produced by my mind and none of them might ever become true. Yet, I spent my time worrying about them, while life kept happening and presenting its own solutions for me.

I am grateful for life for such surprises. They return my wondering mind to present. I am not saying I like such experiences (would prefer not to have a tire markings on my arm). I prefer nice surprises, but only unpleasant ones can teach you something. Today's experience reminded of the following things:

1. I am grateful to be alive.
2. I don’t like bad things happening to me, but I have no control over them.
3. I don’t have control over good things either.
4. I can choose how I respond to bad things.
5. I can train my mind to respond to bad experiences with joy (Pīti in Pali).
6. Both bad and good things end (some earlier, some later).
7. There will always be surprises in life. I don’t use this one to depress myself that there is something lurking in a corner. Just to remind myself that we have no control over the most of the events in our lives. The only thing we can do (whatever happens) is to remember the points above (1 – 6) and choose our response.

Beware of a surprise behind the corner.
Photo: Sergey Gerasimenko

Talking about surprise behind the corner, as we continued our ride (now with some of my limbs slightly bleeding) we found this little fellow lurking in the shadows of a construction site.

Perhaps life is like this little creature, suddenly appears surprising and presenting itself in the most peculiar ways when you least expect it.

Your response is your choice

A truly inspiring mediation at Nirondha on a warm evening of 21st July. Everyone is preparing for the meditation session with James Baraz on "Transforming Suffering into Happiness". Everyone suffers, so of course who doesn't want to be transformed! 

I was quite frustrate about certain things when I came for the meditation, so when James invited to observe our anger in our meditation I decided to give a try. Now, I thought, I will see anger for what it is. I will see how it really feels to be angry without judging this experience.

I was determined to give an end to that mystery of anger, but of course it wasn't that easy as I thought. My mind was wondering back and forth about different things, but finally for a second I got myself to look into my anger. To my surprise as soon as I truly looked at it, it was puff and gone. Of course, then I got angry and all judging: why can't I see my anger! And we are back to getting our mind to a present moment...everything is so brief.

After the meditation, James gave a lovely talk on "Non-Greed, Non-Hatred, Non-Delusion". I was trying to be mindful about the talk and it was touching my heart, but one thought was coming back: " What is he talking about? What hater, what judgement?! I was trying to observe it and  I found none!" And there it hit me. I haven't found it, but I thought I was angry!

After the truly inspiring talk, I asked James: "I am puzzled. I tried to stay with my anger, but I couldn't find where is it. It all seems to only exist in my thoughts. If don't thnink about it, there is nothing to observe. When I don't find the anger, I get all judgy about not having that anger". He interrupts me and with half smile says: " Don't you think you hit something proofed there"? 

Buddha says: nothing is permanent (1). It only now resonates with me what a Buddhist nun Yifa was saying at the Buddhism and Modern psychology course (2). She says when you get angry or experience other strong emotions you grasp to that feeling as it would be something real. In meditation, however, these feelings are revealed as not real. She gives this beautiful analogy of a strong emotion as a movie. If you start seeing this movie frame by frame, you observe that there is no movie. It is true for every emotion or feeling that arises in us.  It is beautiful said by Steven R. Covey: "between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response" (3). 

References
1. The Three Basic Facts of Existence.I. Impermanence (Anicca) with a preface by Nyanaponika Thera, 2006.

2. Buddhist nun Yifa. Robert Wright, Buddhism and modern psychology. Lecture on Feeling and illusion. Coursera course, 2014.
3.  Covey, S. R. 1989. The 7 habits of highly effective people. Powerful lessons in personal change. Free Press, New York.