The urge to escape seems almost automatic, even with small things. A moment’s discomfort, and attention wants distraction, wants to get away and make things other than how they are. Yet if we’re willing to stop for only a moment and let the feeling be, without doing anything about it, our experience changes. When we stop fighting against what is, the pain or discomfort may still be there, but the context in which it sits is larger, quieter. This doesn’t mean we can’t do something about the pain, but a large proportion of our day-to-day discomfort with the ins and outs of life is due to our reactions, not the things themselves. That’s one reason such practices as stopping and taking a few deep breaths or counting to ten are so effective, compared to the time and effort it takes to do them. In those few moments, the fighting diminishes. We return closer to a settled position.
Life is full of ups and downs. There is no such thing as a life without pain or difficulty. If we really accept this fully, then we’re not so shocked or upset when things don’t go as planned or problems come up. If we expect everything to go smoothly every day, if we expect somehow we’ll find a way where traffic is never worse than we thought, where no one ever makes an unkind remark, where we always get things the way we want them, then life is confusing and upsetting. Although intellectually we know better, we actually tend to think, if not consciously then unconsciously, that things should go the way we’d prefer them to go. But the word “should” is a clue that we are putting unrealistic expectations on life. Perhaps there is a better way, a more intelligent way, but recognizing that is not the same as believing that if something goes wrong it’s some kind of betrayal of how things should be.
So when we are resolved from the beginning, when we understand that things happen and we don’t control life, we can calm down. We can take a different position instead of reacting to every little thing. We can pause and keep ourselves within our own sovereignty, not swayed like a leaf in the wind by every passing breeze, not shocked and upset by every sudden shower. As Tsunetomo Yamamoto says, there is much to be learned from a rainstorm:
Much to Be Learned from a Rainstorm
There is something to be learned from a rainstorm.
When meeting with a sudden shower,
you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road.
But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses,
you still get wet.
When you are resolved from the beginning,
you will not be perplexed,
though you will still get the same soaking.
This understanding extends to everything.
– Tsunetomo Yamamoto
Rain on Izumi Bridge, by Hiroaki Takahashi (1871–1945)
