Maybe So, Maybe Not

there's a zen parable about a chinese farmer. he was just your average farmer in china a few hundred years ago, but he developed a reputation for being the wisest man in his village. one day, his prized water buffalo ran away. his friends and neighbors said to him "oh, that's terrible, such bad luck!" to this he calmly replied, "maybe so, maybe not." a few days later, the water buffalo came back, and with it, was a female water buffalo. his friends said "wow, such good luck!" again, he replied "maybe so, maybe not." they were puzzled. a few days later, his son was riding the new female water buffalo in the rice fields and fell off and broke his leg. his friends came calling again "oh, that's such a terrible thing to happen." he calmly spoke again, "maybe so, maybe not." the next day, the local milita chief came by and rounded up all teenage boys to recruit for a war, but because his son had a broken leg, they let him stay. "hurray, such good luck!" the townspeople said.

"maybe so, maybe not," said the farmer.

when life happens, as it does to us all, i sometimes say to myself "oh, this is BAD" and want to run away from it. or i'll say "this is GREAT" and want to either prolong it or pile more good stuff on top of it. but both of these attitudes prevent me from living in the moment. according to buddhist philosophy, they form the root of suffering... attatchment. my instinct is to run away from pain and seek more pleasure and comfort. surely, this is a natural desire. we all want happiness and don't want pain. but by categorizing the events and things and people in my life, i'm assuming i know what's best for me and that i how the world works. and if i know anything, it's that i don't.

i've realized that i see the world through a very clouded, selfish lens. my "natural" instinct of self-preservation and self-seeking is productive to an extent. but when it causes me to miss out on what is real, then i'm in trouble.

my father passed away 7 weeks ago today. a few months before he died, he had given me a necklace of the buddha of compassion which was given to him from his own father. i've worn it almost every day since then. well, today, as i was getting dressed, i realized that i hadn't worn it in a few days (i don't wear it to work usually). but when i tried to find it, it wasn't in it's usual spot.

i started getting frantic and feeling a panic build in my chest. then i remembered the story of the zen farmer and his attitude towards life. i began to calm. with a more purposeful and steady state of mind, i systematically began looking for my father's necklace and after a little while, i found it, at the bottem of a napsack that i had used just a few days prior on a trip.

finding the necklace certainly was important to me. but i know in my heart that, even if i hadn't found that necklace, it was only a symbol. that not finding it would not have meant that i cared for my father any less. nor would it have been "bad." finding the necklace wasn't inherantly "good" either. it simply "was."

so i stayed in the present, neither running away nor towards. just doing what was in front of me. just doing and being. one breath and motion at a time.