I recently returned from a trip to Montana to visit my daughter and her family. One of the most poignant parts of being with my 3-year old grandson is that I can’t help but wonder how much of his life I will be alive for.
Though the question barely feels conscious, I feel the power of impermanence and a deep sense of appreciation and joy for the time I spend with him, and for this time that I’m alive on Earth.
In Shunryu Suzuki’s talk – Enjoy Your Life – he says: “The evanescence of things is the reason why you enjoy your life.”
Evanescence means the quality of things disappearing. Right now, as I write this, another beautiful March afternoon is disappearing. In fact, everything is in the process of appearing and disappearing, and this is both a very ordinary human reality and a powerful Zen lesson.
Somehow human beings have been given the gift of being able to measure time, and it’s something we seem to do rather incessantly. We’re capable of seeing, feeling, and living our lives with the ability to embody that everything is disappearing.
We can practice and train ourselves to embrace this fact. It can provide us with the courage to be our full selves, to appreciate every aspect of our lives, and to work for a world of greater acceptance and greater peace.
Shunryu Suzuki goes on to say: “The only way is to enjoy your life. That is why we practice meditation. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things.”
At work, regardless of your role, and at home with your family, the point is to try to enjoy what you do. Enjoy how you can have a positive influence. Enjoy your life – even when things are really challenging and messed up. Your life is a gift, and it’s impermanent.
Of course, enjoying our lives, doesn’t mean to ignore wars, injustices, and the climate crisis. We will continue to face challenges and painful situations at work, in our families, and in all aspects of life. Enjoying our lives doesn’t suggest that you need not grieve, or see and feel the pain of what is, and what could be. Enjoying your life does not mean living in denial, including about the fact that there will be hard times. But perhaps it could be interpreted to mean that we should relish every precious moment and consider the lesson we’re being offered when times are hard.
I certainly plan to continue enjoying spending time with my grandson. He likes reading and hearing stories from my past. A story he particularly enjoys happened when I lived at Green Gulch Farm and took care of the horses while developing a horse farming program. While working there one day, someone approached me, shouting, “There’s a horse stuck in the mud!” “Impossible!” I responded. “Horses don’t get stuck in mud.” Well, it actually did happen. A large Percheron draft horse wanted some water from a pond that was surrounded by mud and got stuck. After a lot of work, we managed to get her out, with the help of fire hoses and a community of people.
I guess my grandson likes that story because it has a happy ending. And here’s a happy ending to this newsletter – a poem about enjoying our lives:
Inner History of a Day
by John O’Donohue
No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.
The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.