My friend Cecily recently lost her brother to illness. He had just turned 50 the week before he died. She is devastated.
Cecily is one of my best friends from college. We’ve known each other for 32 years. It’s that rare kind of friendship where even if months pass without connecting, we still pick right up where we left off. We’ve never lived anywhere near each other since graduation, but we’ve stayed in touch through all our ups and downs. It’s a friendship I treasure.
When she came to visit after her loss, there was something very poignant about it. It turned into something of a wake up call for me.
I’ve written here many times about my busy-holic tendencies. It turns out I’m in one of my legitimately busiest periods in years. I recently took on a new part-time job, on top of working to build my coaching practice, and teach meditation and dharma. This week, I start attending a training program one day a week. My husband wants to start some home renovations to prepare our townhouse for sale. And I’m keeping up with my singing engagements and voice lessons. I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again. Everything I’m doing is very important to me. I have a hard time seeing what to cut.
But sometimes I take things too seriously. I get so driven and sucked into my vision of where I want to go that I forget to live my life right now. And Cecily’s visit reminded me of that.
At my sangha group this week, it was timely that we discussed the traditional Buddhist teaching on the Four Reminders. Here’s one presentation of them, in verse form:
This human birth is precious,
our opportunity to awaken.
The body is impermanent,
and time of death is uncertain.
The cause and effect of karma
shapes the course of our lives.
Life has inevitable difficulties,
no one can control it all.This life we must know
As the tiny splash of a raindrop.
A thing of beauty that disappears
Even as it comes into being.Therefore I recall
My inspiration and aspiration
And resolve to make use
Of every day and night to realize it.– Tsongkhapa (14th century Tibetan master)
What this teaching says to me is this. Of all the millions of different circumstances that I might have been born into, I was given this fortunate human birth. I have everything I need, and the freedom to choose how to live. How foolish it is to spend my life like a hungry ghost — constantly grasping after some elusive future.
Right Now is a good time to appreciate what precious gifts I’ve been given. And make the best use of them, both for my own benefit and for everyone else’s. When else could I do that? Besides, I don’t know how long my good fortune will last. Things could change tomorrow. I don’t know. And the opportunity might not come again.
For now, I’m not in a position to change my overloaded schedule. But I can change my mindset. For one, I realize how precious Cecily’s friendship is to me. Even though we’ve been friends for 32 years, there have been big chunks of time when we weren’t connecting. Now that we’re both in our 50s, I’m seeing more clearly how the time ahead of us is finite.
Seeing her and reflecting on the Four Reminders have given me my wake up call. There really is no time to lose.
The image above is the Holstee Manifesto Poster, available for sale here.
Dear Sunada,
This is so lovely! The right words in response are elusive. “I am deeply moved” comes close, but I am not relocated so much as re-grounded, and I thank you for that. I marvel at the cumulative effect of our friendship and the ripple effects of my brother’s life and death with a child’s sense of what is important: friendship, love, compassion, wonder, gratitude, and this moment, right now. Of course Tom’s death stirs up memories of the past but they make the present intensely poignant, sometimes painful, but sometimes cleared of all distraction so that I am overcome by ordinary miracles like sunsets, flowers, and eye contact with those I love. These are not the giddy joys of romantic comedy, but the peace that comes from encounters with truth. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This John Keats quotation takes on new meaning.
This is also a well-timed reminder, as it is Easter Sunday, and I will probably hear a traditional message of the forgiven past, the eternal future, and encouragement to let that define the present. In the spirit of Samuel Johnson’s line, “Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging,” I am hyperalert to the present, or perhaps the immediate future, i.e. whatever time I have remaining (which, in the context of eternity, is “short term”). Many homilists address the present with a spirit much closer to yours but since our clergy have not historically been among them, I will hold your message in my heart today and as long as I need it. Thank you!
I love you, too, Sunada! Peace to you and all your readers.
Thank you so much, Cecily. I love you too. Peace be with you on this Easter Day!
Greetings, Sunada, from one your online meditation students… although it’s been a couple years since you have heard from me, I have followed your blog and your writings are often helpful. Thanks for this heartfelt reminder in your post and for the link to Holstee. I have never heard of the The Holstee Manifesto and it has re-energized me: as I read the manifesto, I felt integrity for choices already made in line with it as well as feeling motivation for choices I need to make.
Hey Neil,
Great to hear from you, and thanks for your vote of confidence. I hope you’re still enjoying those great solitary lighthouse stays!
much metta to you,
Sunada
‘This life we must know
As the tiny splash of a raindrop.
A thing of beauty that disappears
Even as it comes into being.’
That is really nicely put. Each day I try to spend as much time as I can being mindful. It isnt easy. My ego takes over and before I know it an hour or so has passed where I wasn’t really there. I am a work in progess….as we all are 🙂
Beverley — so true, so true. I can relate.
I agree with Beverly above…I particularly like the image of life as a tiny splash of a raindrop. When someone dies, I often think of of the concentric circles made by their being. Sadly, I’ve been to too many funerals lately…I see the mourners gathered in these circles formed by their memories and their love. It is amazing how far and wide the waves reach by who we are. Thanks!
Great post, Sunada. How fortunate we are when we recognize and hold dear those we have loved and traveled with in the past (lives). Thanks for the link to The Holstee Manifesto; I’d not heard of it. Love to you my friend.
Sunada this was a beautiful post, as are most of your writings but this one was such a valuable reminder to stay present and live life fully in every moment right now! I so appreciate your grace and kindness. Thank you for including the Four Reminders–a wonderful and powerful reminder! Blessings to you.
I’m sorry to hear of Cecily’s loss of her brother and I wish her well.
Wow, you’re a busy bee Sunada! What resonated with me in what you wrote about all your activities is that they’re all very important to you. I recently had a health scare which gave me reason to reflect on home I spend my life. I’m rather project-driven (such as crafts, studying new subjects, learning news skills … always into something!) and can suddenly find I have too many things on the go at once. On reflection I realised all this skitishness takes time and mind away from more meaningful things. I have ideas about what these things are but before I leap into action and turn these infant ideas into just another PROJECT, I have a strong need to just STOP and be really still. From the stillness I have a feeling I will learn more about what is really, deeply important to me. And based on how good this stillness feels so far and the amazingly positive effect it is having on my work, it would seem that time and space for stillness is, in fact, one those things important to me.
Thanks, as always, for your lovely newsletter.
Mandy
Carolyn, Lesley, Stephanie, and Mandy,
A belated thanks for your comments. You are 4 people from 4 different spheres of my life, all coming together in this one place. There’s something very grounded and wholesome feeling about that.
I just returned from being with family after the sudden death of my mother-in-law last Thursday (and that’s why it’s taken me several days to comment back). My father-in-law is also hanging on the edge of life. I keep being reminded very day of this very message.
O Sunada, so sorry to hear of your loss and your continuing worries about your father-in-law. My thoughts are with you.
Love, Mandy
Thank you Mandy!
“Right Now is a good time to appreciate what precious gifts I’ve been given.”
Totally agree. Unfortunately this is something most of us forget in our everyday busy lives (including me).
Beverly’s post is very special. I like the analogy of life as a splash of raindrop – I will add that to my daily meditation.