sitting in shadow part one 

sitting in shadow part one

speaking of happiness, and sadness--

i've been thinking about the american preoccupation with happiness. a number of blogs on this server concur with the idea that while we have more than ever, we are also more dissatisfied than ever. could be a sampling error, but a number of studies back it up. a book i picked up at the library, "the progress paradox" (i may have that title wrong) posits that despite material wealth rising yearly in the past several decades, happiness ratings have had a corresponding decline.

we all know money can't buy happiness, yet a number of people continue to chase it as if it could. another interesting study showed that folks' perceptions of how a given purchase-- a new home, new car, really cute pair of heels-- would change their life for the better were WAY off-- and that the perceived lift from it lasted a much shorter time than even the researchers expected. worse, there seemed to be a crash effect. which explains the addictive nature of consumerism-- we're chasing the high, and it becomes more and more elusive.

back to happiness. our bill of rights guarantees its pursuit, not its attainment. but that promise out there, mirrored and amplified by advertisements that suggest you are the only one not getting it, but hey you could, for only 19.95 plus S&H-- it's an overwhelming backdrop to our daily drama. we begin to assume it is possible to have it all. to live free of suffering, with the exception of the occasional and inconvienent grief of somebody else's death.

except these are false promises. there is no escape from suffering, unless you are numb or deluded. siddartha found that out when he escaped the artifically happy prison his parents had created to protect him from sights of sadness, disease, and aging. and realising we shared this common blanket of suffering opened his heart to compassion.

maybe it's not our job to be happy as an end result. maybe happy is the lovely, albeit intermittant, side effect of having eyes that are all the way open-- to the beauty and the pain, to life and to death. maybe we can only truly experience it against the relief of its soul twin, pain.
and maybe the best way to see it is by changing our sights from me me me, to we.

pema chodrin (again, i may have name wrong-- i'm not a great speller, or re-memberer) is an american buddhist nun who writes extensively on the idea of living in shadow instead of running from it. she recognizes our desire to be free from suffering and our very american way of trying to attain it-- by frantically changing our circumstance, pursuing alteration of our environment, love life, finances. the cure becomes the dis-ease. pema speaks on the value of learning to sit with not-knowing, with our dis-comfort and listening to what it has to say to us. or just accepting that this is what is.

emotions are so temporary. i read an article a few weeks ago in which christopher reeves was asked what he had learned in the past years. he said "i am learning to pay less attention to my moods".

today i wake up and i am happy. i see the chickadees searching seed from the dead sunflowers and i smile. tomorrow, same house, same circumstance i may feel great sorrow. i can listen to it, i can watch it. i don't have to react to it, or organize my life around it. i can appreciate the changes, which give rythym and release and shape to my days.