Back in the day (way back, when the world was still dark and scary) I read an interesting statement. That people if given two equally valid intepretations of the facts to hand, most of the time, most of the people will choose the story that was worse. Interesting yes ? Which begs the question, how true are the intepretations or stories we tell ourselves ? Do we even have all the facts ? What if it were impossible to see the whole truth ?
I am reminded of one of my favourite buddhist stories (this is my version of it 🙂 ). There was a poor farmer who laboured all day in the fields. He and his wife finally had a son who grew up and helped his Dad in the fields and so the family was a little richer. Everyone said what a good thing that was. Then the son had an accident and lost his leg. Everyone said what a bad and sad thing that was. A few months later a war broke out and all the sons in the village were sent off to fight, few returning…. except for the son who had lost is leg….. so was him losing his leg good or bad ?
As always, this has come up for me based on my last two weeks, one funeral and one really sick boyfriend and a whole lot of emotions, stress and strain. I found myself creating one singular intepretation of what I was experiencing…it was hard not to because how can loss not be bad ? But what if the situation I was witnessing and experiencing, what if they were the lesser of two evils….. crap though they both were ?
And what if I look back at the ‘horrid’ events of my life, the one’s were I barely knew how to get from hour to hour never mind day to day…. what if they were too filled with God’s Grace and what happened was the lesser of two evils ?
I am not sure I can rescript my entire life to work this ‘what if’ into it.
Indeed, these last two weeks have seen me doing something I hardly ever do….seek refuge. It is a Budhist thing that I have found gives me space to breathe….you seek refuge in Budha (or Jesus, any deity that works for you really) and in doing so you hand all the worry and stress and doubt over. You stop trying to work out what will happen and what you should be doing, what is best. You just let go and TRUST that it will work out for the best…and all you have to do is be the best you can be in that moment…not worrying about the next, just the one you are living now.
So I have a new what if, What if I do not have all the facts ? What if I am not supposed to ? What if the secret to peace and calm and a life without suffering is to not question or label things good or bad…but rather to hand it all over and focus on who I want to be in that moment ? What if it really were that simple ?