When one of Sunada’s best friends from college lost her brother recently, it served as a wake up call for her. It was a reminder that life is short, and there really is no time to lose.
My friend Cecily recently lost her brother to illness. He had just turned 50 the week before he died. She is devastated.
Cecily is one of my best friends from college. We’ve known each other for 32 years. It’s that rare kind of friendship where even if months pass without connecting, we still pick right up where we left off. We’ve never lived anywhere near each other since graduation, but we’ve stayed in touch through all our ups and downs. It’s a friendship I treasure.
When she came to visit after her loss, there was something very poignant about it. It turned into something of a wake up call for me.
I’ve written here many times about my busy-holic tendencies. It turns out I’m in one of my legitimately busiest periods in years. I recently took on a new part-time job, on top of working to build my coaching practice, and teach meditation and dharma. This week, I start attending a training program one day a week. My husband wants to start some home renovations to prepare our townhouse for sale. And I’m keeping up with my singing engagements and voice lessons. I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again. Everything I’m doing is very important to me. I have a hard time seeing what to cut.
But sometimes I take things too seriously. I get so driven and sucked into my vision of where I want to go that I forget to live my life right now. And Cecily’s visit reminded me of that.
At my sangha group this week, it was timely that we discussed the traditional Buddhist teaching on the Four Reminders. Here’s one presentation of them, in verse form:
This human birth is precious,
our opportunity to awaken.
The body is impermanent,
and time of death is uncertain.
The cause and effect of karma
shapes the course of our lives.
Life has inevitable difficulties,
no one can control it all.This life we must know
As the tiny splash of a raindrop.
A thing of beauty that disappears
Even as it comes into being.Therefore I recall
My inspiration and aspiration
And resolve to make use
Of every day and night to realize it.– Compiled by Viveka Chen, based on verses by Tsongkhapa (14th century Tibetan master)
What this teaching says to me is this. Of all the millions of different circumstances that I might have been born into, I was given this fortunate human birth. I have everything I need, and the freedom to choose how to live. How foolish it is to spend my life like a hungry ghost — constantly grasping after some elusive future.
Right Now is a good time to appreciate what precious gifts I’ve been given. And make the best use of them, both for my own benefit and for everyone else’s. When else could I do that? Besides, I don’t know how long my good fortune will last. Things could change tomorrow. I don’t know. And the opportunity might not come again.
For now, I’m not in a position to change my overloaded schedule. But I can change my mindset. For one, I realize how precious Cecily’s friendship is to me. Even though we’ve been friends for 32 years, there have been big chunks of time when we weren’t connecting. Now that we’re both in our 50s, I’m seeing more clearly how the time ahead of us is finite.
Seeing her and reflecting on the Four Reminders have given me my wake up call. There really is no time to lose.
The image above is the Holstee Manifesto Poster, available for sale here.
4 Comments. Leave new
Dear Sunada,
This is so lovely! The right words in response are elusive. “I am deeply moved” comes close, but I am not relocated so much as re-grounded, and I thank you for that. I marvel at the cumulative effect of our friendship and the ripple effects of my brother’s life and death with a child’s sense of what is important: friendship, love, compassion, wonder, gratitude, and this moment, right now. Of course Tom’s death stirs up memories of the past but they make the present intensely poignant, sometimes painful, but sometimes cleared of all distraction so that I am overcome by ordinary miracles like sunsets, flowers, and eye contact with those I love. These are not the giddy joys of romantic comedy, but the peace that comes from encounters with truth. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This John Keats quotation takes on new meaning.
This is also a well-timed reminder, as it was just Easter Sunday, and heard a traditional message of the forgiven past, the eternal future, and encouragement to let that define the present. In the spirit of Samuel Johnson’s line, “Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging,” I am hyperalert to the present, or perhaps the immediate future, i.e. whatever time I have remaining (which, in the context of eternity, is “short term”). Many homilists address the present with a spirit much closer to yours but since our clergy have not historically been among them, I will hold your message in my heart today and as long as I need it. Thank you!
I love you, too, Sunada! Peace to you and all your readers.
A belated thank you, Cecily, for this comment. I love you too!
[…] – Also read Sunada’s inspiring post which makes the important point regarding living in the moment! (via Gaurav. Thanks!) It also […]
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