Do you?
When we say someone got everything, what do they have?
Let's get generous :
A fixed income and an amount of saving that will last until you die, or better still, until three generations below.
A functioning family.
A lifetime partner, loving and all.
A bunch of good friends that are there to have fun and to support.
A good career
A job that fulfills your passion.
Good health.
A nice house, a nice car(s), a closet of the latest fashion, that artwork, that garden, etc
Quarterly vacation to your favorite places.
A fulfilling spiritual practice.
... (insert your version here)
I do not enter happiness in the list above, let alone contentment, because at a point in anyone's life, happiness became like a piece of contemporary art that people say it is great, and yes you want to think it is great, but you can't really grasp it.
I have most of what is in the list above, but overtime I negotiated with myself on the necessity and the definition of each of them.
Only recently, there was a period of my life where I held titles like Vice President and Director in some of big government company as well as established international company. Good income that paid for my nice car and all. Great bosses, amazing teams, supportive colleagues and all. From an office in the most prestigious complex in CBD, to the one walking distance to a white sand beach. Didn't I almost have it all?
I quit them, for a cliché no. 6 reason.
But not just because of that. No, I won't tell you the usual stories of difficult clients or bad bosses, I am sure all of you have had that, somehow my soul chose to have a more dramatic version in this lifetime.
Behind my shiny business cards, and a very feminine look, in my job I had to negotiate with street mafias banging on my desk, threatening me. Also a boss that pulled out a gun in my presence, telling me if anyone threaten me, he would break their ribs. An irony of masculinity. At the same time my health condition has been misdiagnosed a few times,
(I had been in pain for awhile, was not sure why, only until mid 2021 I finally had a correct diagnosis of Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder with suspect of EDS).
Numerous small accidents and injuries due to weaken joints. My knee slid off its socket twice in a year, a frozen hip, a dislocated shoulder and a subluxation one on the other side while sleeping, as well as a neck whiplash from driving pass a common speed bump.
The series of events ended up with a trip home in a wheel chair, unable to walk for two weeks, and a doctor's instruction for18 day full bedrest, while on the 5th day, as I just literally crawled from the bathroom to my bed, my ex fiancé (my partner for many many years) called me up just to say :
"I am glad I don't have to take care of you anymore."
That's when I knew, I had to, must to, find anyway to recover and stand up in my own strong feet.
For real, I am smiling as I am writing this.
Because I have learnt that the past can actually pass. And it is such a relieve.
And when you let go, things actually fall into place. No cliché on this one.
May 2023, I held a replica of Thay's calligraphy above, it says 'You Have Enough'. I was having lunch with Sr. Tin Yeu and Sr. Phuong Nam from Plum Village France. Their presence evoked calmness and slowed down my usual anxious adrenal.
It followed me - You Have Enough.
It follows me still.
I learned that I have experienced most of the things that human beings need to experience.
I have experienced great sadness of lost, but more that than, it came from an experience of epic great love.
I have experienced insult and betrayal, but more than that, it taught me of humility, strategy, politics, honesty, forgiveness, kindness, unconditional love.
I have experienced weakness and pain, but more than that, it trained me to gain strength and to help others gain their strength, it taught me how to self heal and now I get to teach others that.
It taught me the beauty of surrender, as much as it gave me the power and the fun of fighting for recovery. 싸움.
Looking back, I thought, what is it if I am not so lucky, to have been able to experience so much in just half of my age?
Therefore, I do think I am entitled to say : I have enough.
Contemplating on Thay's teaching on inter-being, everything that I had experienced soften me at where it should soften, as much as it strengthen me at where it should be strong. Everything is indeed inter-be. No darkness comes without light. Emptiness is no different than fullness.
I am the reason for pain, I am the reason for happiness.
So now, if I am to shuffle and edit the list above, I would put them this way :
A fulfilling spiritual practice.
A purpose driven life (that is inline with the number 1)
... and the rest of the list can adapt and be fulfilled based on the teaching of inter-being from the number 1 above.
I learned that contentment is a negotiation with yourself, once you choose to be enough, that is it. That is enough.
Jakarta, 5 October 2023.
Komentar