Being with the Way Things Are by Distinguishing

The only way to find happiness is to accept that the way things are is the way things are.The way things are stinks!Presumably, the cow will go like a lamb to the slaughter, while the duck will look for means of escape.But what if there is no apparent way out?Will the duck spend what he conceives to be his last days in misery, flapping against the walls of his cage?It is to be present to the way things are, including our feelings about the way things are.This practice can help us clarify the next step that will take us in the direction we say we want to go.Why hang around and feel like a sucker? it asks.What is here now? it asks, and then,What else is here now?Being present to the way things are is not the same as accepting things as they are in the resigned way of the cow.It doesn’t mean you should drown out your negative feelings or pretend you like what you really can’t stand.Say, for instance, you are on your annual winter vacation in Florida, and rain is pouring down steadily.Surely you won’t like it.You came here expecting sun and warmth, rounds of golf, and lots of time on the beach.The question is, can you be with the whole thing, the rain and your feelings about the rain?If you cannot, you might spend entire days bracing against the truth, complaining how unfair it is, how nobody warned you about the weather patterns, how the hotel ought to refund your money because the brochure showed sunny skies, how wrong your spouse was not to take your advice to go to the resort in Tucson.You might find yourself railing at the heavens, asking why you, personally, are being punished.You would be stuck—and unable to go on from there.If we wanted rain at this time of year, we would have visited our friends in Seattle.Indeed, the capacity to be present to everything that is happening, without resistance, creates possibility.At last you can see.You can leave behind the struggle to come to terms with what is in front of you, and move on.On my first run down the mountain, I slipped and fell on a patch of ice.From then on I became vigilant, tensing up in resistance whenever I spotted ice, and, unfortunately, there was plenty of it.I was about to abandon the project and come back some other time when real skiing was to be had, when suddenly it occurred to me that I had been operating under the assumption that real skiing is skiing on snow.I laughed with what Ben often refers to as cosmic laughter, the laughter that comes from the surprise and delight of seeing the obvious.If I was going to be a New England skier, I had better include ice in my definition of skiing!I redrew the box in my mind, so that now I had it that skiing is skiing on snow and ice.As I started down the next run, my physical self coordinated easily with my new way of thinking.As every skier knows, resistance to ice can take you on quite a painful downward slide, whereas traversing ice as though it is a friendly surface will usually deliver you gracefully to the other side.If we resist them, we may keep on slipping into a posture of defeat.If we include mistakes in our definition of performance, we are likely to glide through them and appreciate the beauty of the longer run.I’ll never forget my surprise when the first horn player of the Boston Philharmonic came to me after a performance of one of the most taxing of Mahler’s symphonies in which he had played a magnificent rendition of the incredibly demanding solo horn part.I’m so sorry, he said.For a moment I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.I was struck that his whole appearance seemed dejected and apologetic.Finally I registered that what had caused his deflation was the fact that he had flubbed two admittedly very exposed high notes in the course of one of his big solo passages.Perhaps his mistake might have seemed an irritant to some in a recording heard over and over again, but in the context of an impassioned performance lasting nearly ninety minutes, it was hardly significant.The level of playing of the average orchestral player is much higher than it used to be in Mahler’s day.For the orchestra and the conductor, playing Mahler’s symphonies means taking huge risks with ensemble, expression, and technique.We will not convey the sense of the music if we are in perfect technical control, so in a sense a very good player has to try harder in these passages than someone for whom they would be a strain, technically.Stravinsky, a composer whom we tend to think of as rather objective and cool, once turned down a bassoon player because he was too good to render the perilous opening to The Rite of Spring.A bassoon player for whom it was easy would miss the expressive point.I don’t want the sound of someone playing this passage, I want the sound of someone trying to play it!This attitude is difficult to maintain in our competitive culture where so much attention is given to mistakes and criticism that the voice of the soul is literally interrupted.The risk the music invites us to take becomes a joyous adventure only when we stretch beyond our known capacities, while gladly affirming that we may fail.And if we make a mistake, we can mentally raise our arms and say, How fascinating! and reroute our attention to the higher purpose at hand.These are not easy distinctions to make considering the ongoing inventive power of perception.The following are applications of the practice in some contexts where we may have difficulty distinguishing our thoughts and feelings about events from the events themselves.Being with the Way Things Are by Clearing ShouldsWhen we dislike a situation, we tend to put all our attention on how things should be rather than how they are.The stakes really go up when the issue is not rain or a child’s whine, but hunger, tyranny, or global warming.When our attention is primarily directed to how wrong things are, we lose our power to act effectively.We may have difficulty understanding the total context, discussing what to do next, or overlooking the people who should not have done what they did as we think about a solution.Escape, Denial, and BlameSome feelings are just plain unpleasant, like being too cold or having a stomachache.Others, like grief or anguish or rage, seem so intense they threaten to overwhelm us, and we look for an exit.We resist the feelings, or turn our backs on the situation, or foist the blame and the responsibility onto others.Closing the exits means staying with the feelings, whatever they are.It means letting them run their course, as a storm sweeps overhead showering rain and thunder, only to be followed by clear patches of blue.Sometimes the capacity to be present without resistance eludes even the most loving parents when their children are troubled.They may not be able to bear their children’s pain, stand close enough to comfort them, or even listen to their words.But feelings can be likened to muscles—the more intensively you stay with the exercise, closing the door on escape, the more emotional heavy lifting you can do.Then you become that much more of a player in your field of endeavor.Being with the Way Things Are by Clearing JudgmentsThe rain in Florida may be bad for us and good for the citrus crop.A canceled flight may wreck our schedule and bring us face to face with our future spouse in the airport lounge.A forest fire may seem to destroy an ecosystem in the short term, yet renew it with vigor for the long term.When a splendid osprey eats a beautiful fish, it is neither good nor bad.Or, it’s good for the osprey and bad for the fish.Nature makes no judgment.And while our willingness to distinguish good and evil may be one of our most enhancing attributes, it is important to realize that good and bad are categories we impose on the world—they are not of the world itself.A young man goes to see his rabbi.But Rabbi, how do you actually know which is the good news and which is the bad news? The rabbi smiles.You are wise, my son.So just to be on the safe side, always thank the Lord.