Celebrating Life by Reflecting on the Worst
In the Upajjhatthana Sutra, which you can read here if you’re interested, the Buddha talks about a few topics meant for daily reflection that leads to a happier, calmer life. I like these topics quite a lot and I use them with my advanced students all the time, as topics for meditation and discussion. However, as I was re-reading this sutra a few days ago, preparing to start teaching another 3 month advanced mindfulness group, I remembered a weird building I came across in Miami about a decade ago, as I was aimlessly wandering around the city one day – try aimlessly wandering around, it’s always a wonderful adventure!
Tossing a coin to decide if I should go left or right, I came across a building that reminded me of a gas station, only there was a sign above the entrance: Center for Celebration of Life. It seemed strange, but if you’ve ever lived in Miami, you know that strange is pretty commonplace there, so I continued walking, looking around and soaking up the atmosphere and the always unusual Floridians, but this name kept lingering in the back of my mind, maybe because I’m just a morose European no matter how much time I spend under the Miami sun. Is it a cult? Is it some strange prosperity gospel church? Is it an anti-abortion organization? Is it a New Age manifesting – chakra opening – space cleansing – astral traveling meditation place? Is it a furniture store? As I was going back to my house in Coral Gables, I couldn’t get that strange name out of my head and I kept weaving these different stories about what it could be, so I ended up finding their number online and calling them. The best way to get it out of my system is to find out what I need, right?
A cheerful woman answered my call: “Center for Celebration of life, how may I help you?”
“I want to know exactly what is it that you do here”, I asked. After a few moments of silence, she responded with a slightly different tone: “We’re a funeral home, sir.”
“A funeral home”, I replied, confused. She confirmed. I insisted: “Your name says you’re celebrating life, not death.” And there, she knew exactly how to respond. There was a pre-defined cultural template that she could spew without a lot of consideration. In an even more cheerful voice, she said: “Here, at the Center, we focus on the positive, on a person’s achievements and how amazing their life was, all the great things they’ve done.”
I gave that some thought and then I replied with what I thought was obvious, considering how unremarkable most of our lives are: “What if they didn’t do anything awesome worth celebrating?”
“Everyone is awesome, sir… in their own way.”
“Thank you”, I said, “I won’t be needing your services after all.”
Somehow, I wish this conversation was made up. Reality is so much stranger than fiction.
*
We live in a culture that’s averse to difficult subjects. The truth of the matter is, when someone dies, they are dead and gone. We can – and many do – believe that there is life after death, but that is, at the end of the day, only a comforting belief, one that doesn’t change the fact that when someone is gone, they are gone forever in the way in which we knew them once. But our culture mandates that we are happy, optimistic, full of faith. We have to make lemonade when we get lemons. We have to look on the bright side of life. We don’t die, we move on to a better place. We don’t end relationships, we consciously uncouple. We also don’t kill innocent civilians, instead we have collateral damage.
Because we have to celebrate life, we don’t mourn losses, so we never grow. When we avoid pain, we avoid change. When we avoid change, we avoid life. That very life we’re supposedly celebrating. Life, then, becomes a kind of fantasy that we must maintain by performing great feats of self-delusion.
Philosophies that I like are the opposite: they don’t feed into our delusions even when these delusions are beautiful. Philosophies like pragmatism, constructivism and Buddhism cut through all that nonsense with a sharp and swift blade. Their clarity provides comfort and we don’t have to bury ourselves – pun intended – in our delusional celebration of life.
Here’s what the Buddha says: “These are the five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?”
These five:
I am subject to aging
I am subject to illness
I am subject to death
I will lose everyone I care about
I am the owner of my own actions.
Sounds fun, huh?
You may wonder, why would anyone spend their time, day after day, thinking about aging, illness, death and loss. Well, because of the last item on the list: I am the owner of my own actions.
If I’m acutely aware of impermanence of all things, I’ll enjoy them while they last.
If I’m acutely aware that my body is subject to decay and illness, I’ll take good care of it.
If I’m acutely aware that I’m subject to death without notice, I will appreciate my life fully.
If I know I will lose everyone I care about, their company will be that much more precious.
And lastly, to quote the sutra:
Now, based on what line of reasoning should one often reflect... that 'I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir'? There are beings who conduct themselves in a bad way in body... in speech... and in mind. But when they often reflect on that fact, that bad conduct in body, speech, and mind will either be entirely abandoned or grow weaker...
When I know I am the owner of my own actions, those are the only actions I take responsibility for. I don’t own what’s not mine to own, and I carefully make decisions, knowing that I will own their consequences. This makes life simpler and easier, because things have a kind of clarity about to them. They either are or are not mine to own.
The fifth reflection is not only the core of mindfulness practice as I teach it, of Buddhist philosophy, but of psychotherapy as well. Without taking responsibility for our actions, both the conscious and the unconscious actions, there is no change in therapy. Reflecting on these seemingly unpleasant topics, we reinforce our agency, our ability to choose, that creative force that gives meaning to our life. Not so that others can celebrate it once we’re dead, but so that we can enjoy it while we’re alive.
