Life, It’s Complicated

Open the door
And walk away
Never give in
To the call of yesterday

Memories that made
Those days sublime
These ruined halls entomb
Stolen time….

Here in cherished halls
In peaceful days
I fear the edge of dawn
Knowing time betrays

“Edge of Dawn”, theme Song for Fire Emblem: Three Houses, YouTube

Recent events are a reminder that even when life is calm and going well, something bad can hit you square in the face like a frypan. Try as we might, this is not something we can always avoid.

In the Pali Canon, the Buddha said the following:

You shouldn’t chase after the past
or place expectations on the future.
What is past is left behind.
The future is as yet unreached.

Whatever quality is present
you clearly see right there,
right there.

Not taken in,
unshaken,
that’s how you develop the heart.

Ardently doing
what should be done today,
for — who knows? — tomorrow
death.

There is no bargaining
with Mortality & his mighty horde.

“The Sutra of the Auspicious Day” (Bhaddekaratta Sutta, MN 131), trans. by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

People who are chasing after spirituality through Yoga and self-help books will mostly fixate on just the first part, without knowing the rest. No one wants to pay money to be told life sucks, afterall.

While the world might be interconnected, and life has its beautiful moments filled with laughter, light, and love, it is also marked by pain, frustration, death, fear, frustration, strife, humiliation, and so on. People try to run away from the latter, while chasing happy moments for that “spiritual high“, but it’s all in vain. It’s like covering a pile of dog-poop with some silk. It’s just more of the mind leading the mind astray.

Simply put: life is complicated.

Life must be faced with both eyes open, and as the sutra above says, one must train the mind not to be taken in by the highs and lows, neither to be taken in by nostalgia nor illusions of the future. Like a mountain quietly sitting, regardless of which way the winds blow, or a blade of grass that bends. For sooner or later, time betrays and the frypan of life will smack you in the face once more.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu