In the blink of an eye

Things change in the blink of an eye. It as simple as that and yet we live like things will continue and sustain themselves forever. We live like we will live forever. We forgot how fragile life is. If this corona pandemic has reminded me again and again is the changing nature of things and of our lives and its inherent fragility. In some ways its comforting but its also discomforting at the sometime. Ironic!

This was the first year didn't have plans for a major vacation. Each year over the past decade or so, we've travelled to different places on earth far and wide. It's just been great. We have done China, Scandinavia, Iceland, Africa, South America, Australia, parts of Asia....but for some reason this was the year we were going to take it easy. Cause as fun as it may sound, traveling can be tiring. So we decided to go back home to Sri Lanka, where we were born and raised. So in January we booked for travel in March. Little did we know. By mid March we had cancelled all our plans because of the pandemic. And now we've been at home in isolation for just over a month. 

But my story is actually isn't a good description of how things change in the blink of an eye. To me what's happening around us is. My training had to be cancelled. My piano lessons had to go online within a week. We had to get used to a new way of living in a hurry. But that's the least of the problems. I think of (as of today) almost 23000 families that lost a loved one. People who are in ICUs waiting to be able to live normal again. All the workers in healthcare and other essential services, who have to go into work everyday knowing that are risking it all. So many millions of people out of work..there livelihoods gone in the blink of an eye. This was a great year for the markets..record highs and then it fell like a wave falling back to the ocean. Who would have thought? No one did..yet it happened. Job numbers were high as the skies and then it was gone. Airline industry was making record profits and then it was grounded....things just stopped.... in the blink of an eye.

Life changes so fast...but we don't notice and for the first time we are forced to take note. It's happening so fast and for long enough and in vast numbers and all around the globe at the same time  that we are forced to stop and look. I hope we do that instead of turning a blind eye and getting on with our little lives. I hope people stop to notice that even if it isn't to you or your loved ones its someone else's and the pain is no different to than if you had to go through it yourselves. I hope we find perspective, compassion, empathy in this very difficult time.

I have yet known anyone close to me who is sick or have died. But the operative word here is 'yet'. There are no certainties....how can there be? We got to be real stupid, or be in a la la land for not to feel that way...at least I think that way. Its insane. I have never experienced or lived through a situation like in my 45 years. I have lived-in a country that was ravaged with a civil war for most of my childhood. But never were we restricted to a house. But this isn't a war...at least not in the sense of have come to known wars. But yet it feels like one. It feels like one way war...where nature has decided to raise itself in defense, perhaps, maybe....but I feel She has finally decided enough is enough. And we have no defense for he first time. All the money, all the weapons, all the brains and technology in the world, hasn't been able to fight it. We have been pushed into our homes and locked down.

Things change in a hurry. I bet this too will change at some point and life will go back to normal, whatever that normal maybe at such a time. But I hope and sincerely hope we will not forget the lessons that this pandemic I believe is here to teach us. For if we d we will only leave ourselves vulnerable and open such incidents in the future. What is it that I have learnt? This is personal but this is what I have learnt so far. 

That life and nature is precious. Each one of us including all other beings are lives that yearn to live. No one wants to die but we do. No one wants to be sick but we do. No one wants to have their lives altered in drastic ways but it does. So we have to live in a more wholesome way. Its not enough that we find compassion, empathy, love, generosity when things go wrong...it's good that we can summon it at somepoint but it's no enough. We can't wait for things to wrong, people to get sick, people to lose jobs, people to die before we summon the better angels in ourselves. We have to do it everyday. And it doesn't have to be big. Sometimes we get these things wrong. We want to go big, do big...actually that's not necessary. Life doesn't happen as "big bangs' most of time. Life happens in moments. Life happens in each breath. But we are so distracted and busy that we cannot see it. So we need tone simple and live simply and life closer to those truths than what we want to believe in. We need to align ourselves to the pattern and rhythms of nature. We need to learn respect it and learn that we cannot control it all. We will try to and sometimes we might be successful but that is no indication that we are able to do that all the time. We also need to change ourselves continuously. We are such creatures of habit and in that we have created our own sufferings. Over the weekend which was Easter, so many people were unhappy that they couldn't attend church. If God is omnipresent then he/she can be wherever you are...doesn't have to be in a church with a congregation. Whats wrong with looking at things differently and doing things differently? In wanting to stick to things just because that's the way we've done it for years does't mean that we have to continue that way any longer....we need to be able to change and adapt because it's required of us every single day. But we don't notice and we don't have time to make the adjustments. 

To me these are some of the lessons and I hope that at a time we are back to normal that they stick with me. I hope people learn for themselves some of these lessons if not more....I hope for a better, a more wholesome being emerges from these dark and difficult time.

2020

It April 7th of 2020. We are in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic. It's insane. I cannot remember a time when we've had so much tragedy and destruction of life in such a short time. We have been under stay-at-home order since middle of March and expect it to last until end of April, at least. But that's the least of my problem.

This year was off to a terrible start I thought in late January. The US and Iran got into a near war with missiles flying all over. And just we were beginning to think "thank goodness no people were killed',  a missile mistakenly took down a civilian plane killing nearly 300 people. I remember feeling utter sadness at this. People, innocent people died just because everyone was on the edge. 

Then came the bush fires in Australia. What devastation of nature and life and wildlife. Then came the bush fires in California. I mean, it seems the Mother Nature was not happy with us. Just as we thought things were calming down, hit the pandemic.

In February along we knew it was in China. But little did we think we'd be locked inside in our houses for weeks on end....but that is the least of the pain. So many people have died during the last three months almost 100000. Can you imagine? Almost one hundred thousand lives lost for a virus.....100000 families lives changed forever and it continues.

The virus seem to put all before that into pale in comparison. There are no words to describe how shocking it is. People dying like flies. They say its mostly older people and those with underlying health conditions. But does that matter if it were you or a member of your family? I don't think so.

I have been wanting to write for a while...but there is so much going on that I waited...now what's happening it beyond what words can capture be it the suffering, loss of life, changes in life as we know it feels like its beyond my ability to capture them into blogs. Yet I have my own takes on each of them...so I will write as I always do how I feel about things happening around me.....I hope to someday look back and read them so that I may have perspective on things 

Good Enough

I am a perfectionist. I am sure it's not just my assessment. I do like things to look perfect. I strive for perfection as much as possible in all that I do. I think I was like that as a child. Well mainly about school work and making my parents happy. They never expected it but I was happy when they were and made it a point to keep it that way. I guess I have been like that all of my life until a few years ago.

It's not that I started becoming a less of a perfectionist because of the toll it took on me. It was that life forced me to be and accept less perfection. I have chronic pain. It started as only headaches. Then it became constant. Then the shoulder and neck pain kicked in. Then the knees got a bit wobbly. Then tinnitus started and recently my sciatica issues started. 

Over the years Iv'e had to adjust my life and how and what I saw as perfection. I no longer could do things the way I once used and to the way I once did. I used to love cleaning my house. It was something I took pride in; to have a beautiful place spick and span, floors gleaming and everything in place and organized. But with time I realized I could no longer do it. I had too much neck pain and shoulder pain and my knees could no longer support me as and when I wanted them to. So I had to adjust. I first adjusted to doing less at once, spreading things apart so I don't exhaust myself in one go. But then with time even that got difficult. It didn't matter if I had time in-between cleaning, all other activities started to weigh in on me. So then we decided to have cleaners come in twice a week. It was not easy I can say. People don't clean the way you want them to. So I had to adjust my idea of what cleaning should be like. At least they cleaned the entire house in one go, which I couldn't do. Also they cleaned things that I never used to do. So why the big fuss. But because they came every other week I would resort to an in-between clean from time to time. But over the last year or so I have learnt to be ok with no cleaning between the cleaners visits. It's not easy for me. It's certainly not easy to cook leave stove top uncleaned over the weekend so that they would do it. But I have had to learn to do this. I have had to learn to say 'good enough'. 

I used to meditate everyday. I used enjoy the total silence that envelops you in meditation. But when the tinnitus kicked in, I felt like life robbed me of something so precious; my silence. It was incredibly hard to to cope with the constant noise in your ears/head. It took me almost 4 months to come to terms with it and stop wishing I were dead. Then I learn to meditate with it. With the noise filling up my meditative space. Then with time I learnt to be ok with and then with more time and as meditation progressed I realized the noise vanishes its own for the duration of my meditation. So once what was perfect was no longer and I had to learn to be ok with it. I had to learn to say 'good enough'.

With constant pain, I can no longer do things at the pace that I once used to. So I have to pace myself and what I do during the course of a day. It must sound insane to you. I am only 44 years old and I feel like I am in a body of a 80 year old. I am constantly having to resent my expectations of myself and body. I am constantly having to resent my head and emotions. I've been pretty sad lately. Mostly because of the pain and toll it's taking on my daily life. 

I feel like this is not how it should be. I feel like I am too young to to be 'not able'. I am no longer perfect...I never was but for some reasons I feel I am less than I am supposed to be. This is a hard bullet to take. I feel miserable and inadequate. I compare myself to others and feel that they do so much and I cane barely move a finger without hurting. I know there are people who are worse than I am. I have told myself that and have been able to move and adjust and go forward. But now I feel like I have reached a point where I cannot do that. At least that's how I feel now. I am sure I will be able to at some point. I really hope so. I mean I have always come through but this feel like a new low that I am unable to navigate myself in and out.

It is also frustrating to always having to say 'this is good enough'. I feel like I Have done that for so long. Perhaps this is the best. The 'good enough' is the best. I don't know. I don't feel like it. How can I say to myself 'this is good enough' when I am in pain and I cannot do things and function normal? I don't know how. 

So I feel like I am at cross roads or even back to square one feel. It's very frustrating and I feel incredibly sad. I don't know how to deal with myself and m emotions. It's like a cyclone and I feel like I am spinning out of control. Saying this is how it ought to be or 'good enough' is something I cannot do right now. It's not good enough right now for me. 

Pain

I have chronic pain. Its not just in one area of the body but in many. It comes and goes. But lately it seem to come and stay. It's been a tough 2 months and its only seem to getting worse. Pain is never easy. Physical or otherwise. I am sure all of you would have felt both at least once in your lives. Its no wonder to me that pain medicine is called "pain killers". Ironically pain feels like it's killing you a little bit at a time. 

To me what has become unbearable is the fact that it seems to drown me now. Before one thing stops another begins. So over the last few months I have had pain almost every day in one more more parts of my body. Some days I have managed to withstand and other like the last few days I have lost it.

Usually I am able to put things perspective and change how I feel by looking at what I go through, experience differently. I usually recognize that there people in this world at any given moment in time feel pain. Some most likely a whole lot more than I do. Some probably feel not just physical but mental agony. I also remind myself that there are people, who may have all that and have to suffer from hunger, thirst, loneliness and may others. So I have been able to keep my feelings from overwhelming me by recognizing that I need to put my pain in perspective. But over the last couple of weeks, I seem to be unable to do that. 

I feel like I am drowning and there is no shore in sight. I feel so much despair and sadness in my heart that I don't know if my pain is partly aggravated by my mental suffering. Either ways it's not a good place right now to be in. I have been prescribed many medications and injected and received and continue to receive physical therapy. But my body does not seem to want to respond. At least that's how it looks like right now. I am at a loss as to what to do with myself and how I feel. I cry quite a bit of the time. Sometimes I feel better after a cry, like today morning.

I have a meditation room at home. But I haven't sat for meditation for a while now. Mostly because of the pain. But today I went in and sat in front of the Buddha picture and cried my eyes out. I know He is not here to hear me or see me or help me out. But I feel His strength is out there. His kindness and compassion is still out there. Right now I don't feel any of it but I cried hoping for some of that in the universe to come and heal me and lift me up...at least a little. 

Buddha spoke of suffering as part of life....like being sick as I am now with pain. He said that one cannot do much about the suffering of the body. The body follows nature. One days its good and another day its bad. One day it's alive and another day its dead. SO the body follows nature. There is not much I or one can do about it. But He said that we can do something about the mental pain. This is where I am struggling now. My mental pain is like an arrow that is stuck in my mind. It's sticking and I feel like I have no control over it. But the Buddha said that this the only thing that I have control over. My feelings. Cause feelings come and go unless you look at it through aversion and greed. I suppose right now I am looking at it through aversion. SO I am angry on top of my physical pain. See the thing is it's easy to write that down but feeling it and allowing my mind to recognize it beyond me at the moment. 

I am sure this will pass at some point. I am about to go on holiday on an African safari. We've planned it for almost a year and now that it's only a few days away before I leave, I am struggling with pain. Life is an irony. It's sometimes cruel...or maybe that's just how it is. So today this is me. All messed up and sad and wondering what to, how to and when. I am planning to take a note book with me so I can write my thoughts down. Let's see how it goes. 

I hope I don't drown and suffocate. I hope that I come out of it strong. But thats a hope. Only time will tell how things span out. But I intend to hold what the Buddha said close to my heart. As unpleasant as it is right now, it has to end at some point. I just hope I can find a way not to wait. 

Life is Endurance

Strength of a life depends not on its length, health, gains, successes....it’s strength lies in its ability to endure. Wow!!

Endure through it’s ebbs and flows, hills and valleys, good and the bad, happiness and u happiness, successes and failures, tragedies, haeqrbreaks, triumphs, losses, gains all of it. Cause all that is life. No matter the situation,no matter who we are with, no matter how we feel and what we experience they all fall into any one of the buckets that wrote above and there are more. Actually let me correct that. The Buddha outlined them in his first sermon very clearly.

The reason why it seems hard, unfair, overwhelming is cause one cannot endure through it all. We don’t have enough cushioning around our hearts to endure through it all....isn’t that incredible?! Is this the answer to my questions earlier?! Maybe

Endurance can only be done through kindness and understanding for the suffering we all face including myself. Fighting, judging, anger is like fuel in a fire. It creates such a blaze and it burns everything down and that is not endurance. Endurance is more subtle and clam and gently and long lasting and time taking.

What is the meaning of life?

Almost 10 years ago I asked Ajahn Vayama what is the meaning of life. Her answer was so very simple. She said “it is to be a bit more beautiful each day”. I don’t think I understood her answer and 10 years later I am unsure that I do so either. 

I have tried to give my best and be my best as much as I can. I am sure we all do to the degree that is possible. But yet there is no end to it. When I say an end it it I mean there is never a quietening of the noise that’s constantly present. It’s like a roaring thundering fall. Is that what life is? A constant roaring thundering waterfall? Or does it have those times when it’s quiet and slow and gentle?

As I’m typing this I find answer to my own question. Yes it has all. Like the mighty Victoria falls has its peaks and lows so does life. Then why am I feel unease, maybe even confused or perhaps I am tightened?! Of what I ask? I wonder

Am I scare of the roaring thunderous flow of life? Or is it the never ending seasons of highs and lows. Why do u seem to struggle with it? What am I not seeing over and over agin?

There are times it feels so overwhelming and today feels like that for whatever the reason. I am 35000 feet above ground on a plane flying from Florida to Chicago and I am in pain? Confusion? Fear? Or perhaps a a mixture of all of that?! And I don’t know why...

Maybe I will never know or maybe it’s not to be figured. Maybe it’s this flux that I have to learn to comfortable with?!...the very thing that puts me at dis-lease over and over again. I don’t know how....

Every time I get on a plane it makes me think of life. At some level I relate a plane journey to life journey. Once you are onboard you are in for the ride no matter what. It might be smooth, it might be turbulent, it might be short or long or comfortable or uncomfortable...nevertheless you are in it and you move forward.

Somehow I see life to be like that. You have to move forward and onwards. I find that in life exhausting at times. I find plane journeys exhausting at times too. What do I do? How do I respond to it? I don’t seem to have an answer....somehow that is scary?! Is that what I feel?!

Is it the not knowing and not knowing how to respond or how to face things that’s making it all so overwhelming?! I wonder...I think there is some truth there. What am I scare of? The finalities, what ifs, how tos....what’s the point anyways...don’t things happen whether you like them or not or whether you want them or not? So then why worry?

I remember Ajahn Brahm saying no matter what you can be kind. Am I lacking in that department? Don’t I have the cushioning to withstand the bumps of the ride of life? Is that it? Or is it that I don’t have sufficient understanding? Or perhaps it’s a mixture of both?! Or is it my wanting to control? Is it my controlling nature that’s pushing me and egging me to have these fears because I cannot control enough or long enough to make things as smooth as I want it to me. Or am I controlling because I don’t have the understanding and the kindness to withstand and face me accept all that is different and changing...the ebbs and flows? The constant flux of life...

I hope for clarification. I yearn for clarification or some form of illumination within me....

Is life fair?

Good question. I am not sure. What do you think? 

Over the years I used to moan and grumble about things as being unfair or life as being unfair to me or even as being unfair to me when things don't go my way or they don't work out or go wrong...for me. But I don't remember complaining or grumbling when things work out for me, or when people are good to me or when things work out for me...do you do that as well? Probably! But I know I do and I know great many people do as well. 

So then is it the thing that is happening to us in a way that we perceive to be unfair, unjust, awful that makes us feel lousy or is it our perception/experience of it and vice versa? I think its more of the latter. I think it's a hard one to digest. Even for me as someone who has a strong inclination towards Karma and its forces, I still find it hard to accept things as they are. 

I mean look at a simple thing like the weather. It's winter here and it's been long one and harsh one to some degree. So last weekend we met this couple and the woman was not happy that winter had lasted this long. She's waiting for the spring. Now on the other hand I had a great winter. Now was that because 'winter' was different to each one of us or was it because our experiences and perceptions of winter was different? I think the latter. I mean winter is winter no matter which way we slice it right?

Then I look at the relationship I have with my mother-in-law. Very sour...I don't like her and she doesn't like me. Now my husband is the only common thread between us...if not we probably won't even cross each others paths or even if we did, we might steer clear from each other. But my husband loves both of us tremendously. He love his mom and I know he loves me much too. So Is it that she is bad or I am bad? Or we aren't lovable people? No its the perception and the experiences. At least that's my explanation of it for now at least. 

Isn't that crazy?

Sometimes we use these experiences, especially the negative ones, to say that life is unfair. Life in unfair because winter happens to be so long and harsh for someone of; life is unfair because I have a mother-in-law that I don't get along with, life is unfair because I don't have the job I like or the boss who is good, life is unfair because I have chronic pain, cancer, illness, life is unfair cause I have stupid children, or abusive husband or a cheating wife and it goes on and on and on.....I mean isn't that the case for all of us at some points in our lives. 

I used to watch quite a few wildlife movies and it's sad to see how animals are killed as prey by their predators. Then there was a scene a baby elephant died because of drought and it was hard to watch. In another one emperor penguins got stuck in a valley after a winter storm and they had to leave their chicks to die to save themselves and those who didn't died, until humans intervened to same the remaining. I said 'unfair'...or is it? I mean after all that's how things are supposed to be...circle of life and survival of the fittest, right? 

Then I watch trees and leaves and lakes and oceans change from season to season...the transformations are stark. Trees grown flourish in spring and summer, only to wither and shed and enter a long hibernation in winter months...then lakes freeze or dry out in some parts of the world. Some species go extinct only for us to discover brand new ones in the depth of the ocean or in a deep tropical forest....but they don't complain. No one says that's unfair. It seems there is an acceptance that, that's how it is. 

Perhaps this is the missing part in our lives. Humans by nature are willful and want to control, change and adjust their lives, surroundings to the way they see fit. It's great if we can do that all the time. But we can't. Time and time again we are shown how much we are not in control. Yet some how we forget it or we fail to accept it. We want to assert ourselves over things. Invariable this brings us discomfort...along with that thoughts of 'life is unfair'....

I think we need to change our way of perceiving and experiencing things. I mean my teacher Ajahn Brahm says change the attitude. He says that about all most all things, I should say. There was a time it used to sound crazy to me. But there was also a time I was desperate. So I listened to him cause he was a wise old monk. And as I changed I realized that life because an easier experience for me. It wasn't that things changed all of a sudden. They are for the most part very much the same. 

I mean my mother-in-law hasn't changed. She is who she is. I don't meet her. But there was a time even the thought of her drove me insane and my blood rushed through my veins and if I heard her voice I'd get an anxiety attack. But it's much better now. So I must have changed somewhere, even if it's an only a small change. 

I think we can all change how we perceive and experience things. I feel that life would start to fee like less of a burden and gruesome space if we do so. I must say this transformation hasn't come about easily and there are great many things I have to change my attitude about but it's a start. It's a movie the right direction. 

So I think in somewhere in my mind and hear I feel that life is fair. It is what it is...there are somethings that we cannot change no matter how much we want to. But what we can change is our perception, experience of it by changing our views of it. I think that's an easier thing to deal with than trying to change the world. One might say, why should I change myself? Why can't others? I used to say that and ask that too...but over the last couple of years I feel that I waste a lot of energy in asking others to change themselves..it also gets me angry and mad and makes me lose my happiness and peace of mind. But whenever I have been able to change my attitude and know that things are what they are no matter what my personal feelings and views are, then I feel I get to a better place. I don't have to constantly pull and push to keep things and manourver things. Instead I can sit-in peace and be happy.