Life Sucks, but enjoy the ride

This has been a crazy week. There is the obvious..the trip to Thailand, travelling, being in a new place, getting things done. But there has been a lot of internal dialogue going on in my head as well.

This is not the easiest time for me, it's one of those rocky patches we all go through. Thoughts of home, or at least going back to the solitute of the Monastery have been running through my mind and I just feel a little irked and irritated about things I have already wrote about on here.

But on the flip side of that, when I calm down enough to think about it, are some very simple truths which I have a tendency to forget over and over again. When this guy a few thousand years ago woke up and became "the Buddha" he was asked to teach. And the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Life sucks." It's full of heartache, sickness, sorrow, pain and death just to name a few.

To continue and paraphrase he said "Life sucks, don't be attached to it. There's an end to that, achieved by correct living and not getting attached to life." And that was enough for those 5 disciples who heard this to awaken... just that!! The whole cannon of Theraveda Buddhism (which is practiced in Thailand, Burma, etc.) is based on this profound teaching.

And when better to remember all this on a trip to Thailand, in the midst of a lot of frustration and anxiety. Yes because non attachment doesnt just mean you go live in a cave with no possesions (well you might do that but you might also be sitting in a cave thinking about a large pepperoni pizza and watching Monday Night Football). No it also means not getting upset when you don't get what you want, or when you get what you don't want. And I experienced alot of that in the last week.

So really in the aftermath I am very grateful for going through those (small) hardships in Thailand because it gave me a chance to practice patience and compassion, and when that failed because of my own shortcomings it was a potent reminder of that foundation on which the Dharma is based...Life sucks.

I think it's human nature to have to learn this way sometimes...we are better at learning from mistakes than we are at just learning. And that's the irony of the human condition, as well as Buddhism. There is a story often cited in different versions of a beggar sleeping on gold that he's too blind to see. There is also one of my favorite books The Alchemist which has a similar twist, a boy searching all over the world and going through a lot of experiences both good and bad only to discover the treasure he was looking for was right under his nose the whole time.

And that's the rub right? One of those elusive little secrets, that you should forget the destination and pay attention to the journey.