We need to talk about all the things You have repeated in your Life (A companion piece to Death Meditation)
Some time ago I talked about Marananussathi which can be roughly translated as Death meditation. You can visit the link for more reading. As for today I want to talk about repetition. Thinking about death and understanding death can greatly transform a person's life. repetition too has similar effect. Maybe not to the same extent as death. But most hours of a person's life is spent in a repetitive cycle.
The Natural cycles
Every day could be a new adventure. But every day is just another day of 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.0916 seconds followed by another 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.0916 seconds which we conveniently call 24 hours. Then there are seasons like Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (which are different for those who live close to the equator) and there are larger cycles like Astrological ages which are time periods that take over thousands of years. Even the universe we live in will stop expanding and eventually start contracting only to be blasted away in another big bang into a newer expanding universe. These cycles are all around us. There isn't really much we can do about them. In some cases like the birth and death of the universe, there is nothing we can do about it. At the end of the day it is nature.
The Cycles We Create
Instead of starting with my descriptions, I'm going to ask you to list the stuff you did in every single day of the last month. It could be just a mental list. Take your time and make it up. Writing would actually be more effective at getting my point across.
Each day you take 3 meals and maybe some snacks in between. You may have your morning/evening tea/coffe and most people sleep 6-8 hours every single day. Then what do you do after getting up? Do you check E-mail, Steemit, other social media, mobile phone??? I'm sure you do few of those. You might even read/watch content from few creators each day. STEEM blockchain is a great place for that. https://www.zerohedge.com https://mises.org http://www.internationalman.com are some great sites I know. There is also our beloved https://coinmarketcap.com
Now take some time to think about how repetitive your adventures and explorations are.You probably have some days where you eat out and watch movies. Maybe you play exciting video games in the week ends. Maybe you are a writer or make video essays. After all that I have one more question to ask.
Which were the parts that were most difficult to list properly? Did you mess up chronology?
The more we repeat something, the less we remember it. We maybe able to count days but hours; not so much. Years; well that's not tough at all. I have hard time remembering the things I ate yesterday. When it comes to posts and comments I made on steemit and the movies I watched this week and the articles I read these few days, it's hard to figure out the chronology. I ca manage but t's not easy.Each day there are only few things that are easy to remember clearly. During the time I went to school each passing day almost seemed like a loop. Nothing worth remembering happened.
If it isn't remembered, did it really happen?
the obvious answer is: Yes it happened. But my follow up question would be: Does it matter that it did happen? No need to get philosophical or even historical. Just look back in your life and tell me how many things happened in your life that didn't matter. How many such things happen today? What's the point of them happening today?
You may live 100-120 over even more years to tell the tale but what wold really be in that tale? How much of your life is going to be in that vague puddle of existence here you can't tell one day apart fro the other. Most of our lives have been spent on repetitive tasks and therefor forgotten. I remember something that happened in my life while I was 3 years old (even while typing this post). But I barely remember anything about my school days.
Where am I going with all this?
So what's my conclusion? I'm normally the guy who give clear conclusions to things I write. But this post was for introspection. This post was meant for you to become brain food and an object of meditation. I'm not going to push into some drive, passion and success nor I'm going to feed you some YOLO pep talk. I'm showing you the fact that most things you do in your life are not worth remembering and are not remembered. Most of the hours you spent doing stuff in your life really didn't matter much. now what do you think about that mostly inconsequential life you lived? Here is another question to ponder:
What if you have forgotten entire lifetimes like this? What if you ever learnt from history and was doomed to repeat the same inconsequential cycle?
The next time you start working on your project or job or whatever, ask yourself how it's going to matter. Even drugs matter for the next few hours. That's not what I'm talking about. Think about the spiritual aspects in a cosmic scale. My friends who safely fit in the system are repeating cycles while I enjoy relatively better freedom and peace in my mind. In fact I've never regretted any decision I made for the freedom, liberty, individuality and peace in mind and I can tell you that those decisions mattered.
Contemplating on the repetitions of life lead me to realize more and more about the nature of reality and universe. I wasn't going to die as dumb as I was born and I certainly value my spiritual development above all else. Everything in that all else is transitory. They disappear and stop being important or simply get forgotten into oblivion. Contemplating death can allow us to live our lives to the fullest. Contemplating repetitions and cycles of life can lead us to properly value and prioritize things in life. I mean what's the point in living a life that even you yourself wouldn't remember!
Have you heard the song "In the End"? by linking park. after i heard that song i really don't understand what it means, until i repeated the song 100 times and there you go, it wakes the hell out of me about life, consciousness, enlightenment, whatever we call it, Though it made me miserable thinking about life in a higher perspective, and it made me became more curious about life, until i learned to a point that the reality around us is just the ideas and influence of the people that makes the world, now i'm thinking what kind of idea i could plant before i die, because our idea itself is immortal.
You nailed it. We all have our time to do our acts. But after an act is done nobody can change the fact that it happened. At best a person could undo the effects of an action. A great idea to spread is,
Do no harm
Do good when you can
Get smart. Get really really smart to know which is good and which isn't.
Thanks for commenting :-)
More and more people are beginning to comprehend the wisdom of Buddhism and change their attitude to life and to themselves. Interesting article, enjoyed reading.Great to know about how studying this Eastern religion and everything related to it can make your life better.
This comment has received a 0.28 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @mike11.
Serious brain food. In a way I think you should be writing some Anime. Ever given it a try?
Set me up with an anime studio and I'll write. Maybe steemit could help me get noticed. Let's see. Thanks for the complement.
Hello to you,
I jump right into some aspects of your topic:
Even though what you describe sounds quite boring (not remembering what happened the day, the week, the years before) I would call it leading a normal life.
People remember certain events, like when something was extremely welcomed or extremely unwelcomed to them. They also remember physical events much more than contents of dialogues or thoughts or texts. I remember vividly rafting down the river with my colleagues back then compared to our verbal exchanges. I memorize their faces and expressions more than their words. Also, I remember events of deep sadness and that a day after my mom died, I lost a tooth of mine. I would call that "good enough".
Memories didn't happen when I spent my days merely thinking or reading. I neither can remember what I thought nor what I read (to books I only catch the overall meaning but not the exact content). But those plant I got twenty something years ago from a friend, is still alive and I can see that my caring for this plant over such a long course of time was worth the effort. Also, I can see that my connection to people lived through the times and how they engage with me and vice versa tells me the that we were interested in staying in touch. I trust that we will care for each other if I give them a call today or within the next minutes.
I see what your message is: when you spent your life with happenings fading as quick away as they were perceived and lived through living itself makes not much sense. It's wasted.
I miss your personal examples of where exactly you decided for what you call freedom, liberty, and peace. To decide for individuality, on the other hand, is quite common as we modern, technology-oriented people lead very individualized lives and tend to use an individual perspective. I would appreciate your examples a lot because I think personal examples deliver hope and confidence. Where did you take a risk in losing your freedom (instead of obeyed in order to not lose status or finances or having been beaten up) by standing up for yourself and where you were able to keep it without having produced a loser in the course of a conflict but maintained to find consensus with the involved party - or at least a healthy distance? Where can you give practical examples of the notion you state? Do you have some events to tell, where you sacrificed or let go of things or status in order to stay free?
I asked myself as I saw you commenting on my latest article without talking to me personally why you visited me.
You poked exactly in the same hole again as those put focus on I have some debates about "caring". I remember that you were in disagreement by my repetition of the Dalai Lamas words about the Chinese emperor that he is his "best friend". To me, it seems that you deliberately got it wrong and after having seen that you deeply dug into Buddhism and their doctrines I was even more irritated by the fact that you don't acknowledge this statement as another shaking teaching. For me, it's really simple: I don't love the enemy for his brutal actions but I do love him for the great message he delivers to me in this regard as I can take him as a reminder that life can catch me with the exact same feelings of hatred as the dictator is showing the world. Therefore, he is my friend as he is a very strong example of how not to act in this world (using the terms "love" and "friend" is only a method of irritating to leave the comfort zone of interaction). If I weren't able to recognize feelings of great anxiety in me (and what else is it other to be anxious to oppose violence on others?) I wouldn't recognize a hater.
The description of the Buddha who doesn't care if there are killing and suffering in front of him is - in my eyes - a purposely chosen exaggeration, not an evidence of his great carelessness but of his fearlessness to not jump in and kill or condemn the aggressors but to stay present. What that picture leaves out is what the Buddha would indeed do when he faces suffering in front of him by the people he encounters at that very moment physically. Of course, he would help and support the involved. How ridiculous otherwise to even take the Buddha as the ideal role model.
So your comment on Alex example of the careless Buddha made the impression that you give him great credit for his objection to my topic of attachment. I felt impatient about this. So I asked myself about your deeper motives. I haven't visited you after our last encounter. I saw that you voted comments or articles of mine once in a while.
If there is anything you'd like to tell me, feel free to do so. I don't hold a grudge against you but preferred to care not so much about our disagreement and take my time out. What about you?
I think that although our time in this earthly plane is ephemeral, and our humanity is only a flicker before the constant expansion and the presence of planets in the universe itself, our existence is linked to our actions in this life ... the imprint that let us leave in others and the experiences that make us better, as integral people in a society ... as an example to future generations that will fulfill the same role in a cycle, also of life and death
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Wow. This is phenomenal.
This sentence was really powerful: "How much of your life is going to be in that vague puddle of existence here you can't tell one day apart from the other."
I'm definitely keeping an eye out for more of this kind of stuff.
Amazing post! I love it. Hey UPVOTE my post: https://steemit.com/life/@cryptopaparazzi/chapter-one-let-there-be-the-man-and-there-was-a-man-let-there-be-a-woman-and-there-was-sex and FOLLOW ME and I ll do the same :)