My therapist is, I think, worried that I keep going back to this theme: the way to be OK in this life, is to accept it just as it is. Resigning myself to my circumstances is not an original idea, and I have just co-opted the concept. I first heard it from reading about the teachings of the Buddha. Buddha taught The Four Noble Truths:
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
I could discuss all four of these noble truths, but that would get my off track. I want to focus on the third noble truth that says the cessation of suffering is attainable. Who wouldn’t want to eliminate suffering from your life? The point of the third noble truth was that suffering can be overcome through human activity. All we humans need to do to eliminate suffering is simply remove the cause of suffering. In elementary school I learned this joke:
Why did the little moron hit himself in the head with a hammer?
ANSWER? Because it felt so good when he stopped.
It sounds so simple. If you are unhappy, if you suffer, if you are depressed by hardships of traumas from your past all you have to do is remove the sources of your pain. For Buddhists attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana is not the same thing as the Christian concept of heaven. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. This sounds great. This sounds like what I want.
So Buddha points out that when we crave something and don’t get it we suffer. If we abhor something and yet that something comes into our life and grows roots, well, you guessed it, we suffer. To reach a state of contentment, a life free of worry, troubles, complexes, fabrications and pestering ideas, I need to want nothing and to accept whatever is. Buddha was not a believer in god. The Buddha said that if you want God to exist and he doesn’t you are frustrated. If you don’t want god to exist and he does exist, you’re frustrated. So theologically, if you want to not be frustrated you need to believe and not believe in god, or you need to not care about the topic at all.
So when I talk to my shrink I tell her that my messed up life is what I have. I tell her that I am trying to just resign myself to the way things are. Wanting my life to be different doesn’t fix anything but it does pick the scab off of my psychological wounds.
Now I am reminded of the The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Maybe what I need to work on with my shrink is develop the strength and skills , and courage to change what needs to be changed, to just be resigned to what I need to be resigned to, and the wisdom to know when to work to change stuff, and when to just accept what is.
I wonder what the Buddha would have thought of the serenity prayer?
There are memories that stay with me and continue to hurt. I crave a better childhood, but what happened is what happened and it can’t be changed. Here is a poem I wrote about an incident that happened just prior to my brother Tim’s birth:
You Killed the Baby
Walking down the hall I saw them there—
my mother sitting in a rocking chair—
my father standing by the bed. His voice
was hard and sharp like chips of flint.
I want to sit inside my mama’s arms,
to rest within her warming grasp. and then
to lean into her chest and listen for
the rhythmic beating of her heart that seemed
always to say: you’re Good, you’re Good, you’re Good.
I spread my elbows far apart so she
can easily encircle me, but she
does not reach out to pull me in. Instead,
my father thumps me on the head. It feels
a little like a stone thrown from that Texas
Tower. “No!” my father said, “you stay
away from her. Stay off your mama, boy.
She’s got a baby in her tummy now,
and when you make your mama pick you up
it hurts the child inside her. The last time
you did something like this, did you know
you killed the baby? That’s right, little Mister,
that’s exactly what you did.. You killed
the baby. Yes. You made that baby die.”
What happened, is what happened, and I can’t change that. If I can’t change it, then doesn’t it make sense to just accept it?
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
I could discuss all four of these noble truths, but that would get my off track. I want to focus on the third noble truth that says the cessation of suffering is attainable. Who wouldn’t want to eliminate suffering from your life? The point of the third noble truth was that suffering can be overcome through human activity. All we humans need to do to eliminate suffering is simply remove the cause of suffering. In elementary school I learned this joke:
Why did the little moron hit himself in the head with a hammer?
ANSWER? Because it felt so good when he stopped.
It sounds so simple. If you are unhappy, if you suffer, if you are depressed by hardships of traumas from your past all you have to do is remove the sources of your pain. For Buddhists attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana is not the same thing as the Christian concept of heaven. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. This sounds great. This sounds like what I want.
So Buddha points out that when we crave something and don’t get it we suffer. If we abhor something and yet that something comes into our life and grows roots, well, you guessed it, we suffer. To reach a state of contentment, a life free of worry, troubles, complexes, fabrications and pestering ideas, I need to want nothing and to accept whatever is. Buddha was not a believer in god. The Buddha said that if you want God to exist and he doesn’t you are frustrated. If you don’t want god to exist and he does exist, you’re frustrated. So theologically, if you want to not be frustrated you need to believe and not believe in god, or you need to not care about the topic at all.
So when I talk to my shrink I tell her that my messed up life is what I have. I tell her that I am trying to just resign myself to the way things are. Wanting my life to be different doesn’t fix anything but it does pick the scab off of my psychological wounds.
Now I am reminded of the The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Maybe what I need to work on with my shrink is develop the strength and skills , and courage to change what needs to be changed, to just be resigned to what I need to be resigned to, and the wisdom to know when to work to change stuff, and when to just accept what is.
I wonder what the Buddha would have thought of the serenity prayer?
There are memories that stay with me and continue to hurt. I crave a better childhood, but what happened is what happened and it can’t be changed. Here is a poem I wrote about an incident that happened just prior to my brother Tim’s birth:
You Killed the Baby
Walking down the hall I saw them there—
my mother sitting in a rocking chair—
my father standing by the bed. His voice
was hard and sharp like chips of flint.
I want to sit inside my mama’s arms,
to rest within her warming grasp. and then
to lean into her chest and listen for
the rhythmic beating of her heart that seemed
always to say: you’re Good, you’re Good, you’re Good.
I spread my elbows far apart so she
can easily encircle me, but she
does not reach out to pull me in. Instead,
my father thumps me on the head. It feels
a little like a stone thrown from that Texas
Tower. “No!” my father said, “you stay
away from her. Stay off your mama, boy.
She’s got a baby in her tummy now,
and when you make your mama pick you up
it hurts the child inside her. The last time
you did something like this, did you know
you killed the baby? That’s right, little Mister,
that’s exactly what you did.. You killed
the baby. Yes. You made that baby die.”
What happened, is what happened, and I can’t change that. If I can’t change it, then doesn’t it make sense to just accept it?
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