Leaves on a Flowing Stream

Sometimes, the things we gripe about are the things that keep us safe, but we don't realize it. It's the classic glass-half-full, glass-half-empty scenario. Everything that affects our feelings is founded on perception. I can say about a situation: This thing is very annoying; it is driving me crazy. Or I can say about the same situation: This is keeping me safe, and without it I'd be truly lost. Life is only as hard as we make it. Think of the worst situation you think you could be in. Do you realize there are probably a hundred people that already passed through the same situation? Plus, many of these situations we actually create for ourselves unconsciously through our mental processes. Remember all we said about the power of positive thinking and how our thoughts shape our reality. 

Perception is so powerful that it literally determines exactly what and how you feel at every point in time. Perception gives us the way to negotiate the emotions we feel in such a way as to select from a menu of them what we would like to feel. It reminds me of the prophet telling the Israelites: I have set before you death and life. Please, choose life (Deut 30:19). Another image of what I'm talking about is watching a situation comedy in another language; not knowing what's funny owing to not being able to hear anything said, but going ahead to laugh each time the laugh track is inserted into the routine. We can choose to be happy in spite of situations that threaten to make us sad, and vice versa. Sometimes I think of the slaves in the bottom chambers of the ships sailing from Africa to the new world. How did they survive such unimaginable pain? Or I think of the Jews in those concentration camps in Auschwitz. How on earth did they survive! Who can know the power of the human spirit? 

We must never shortchange ourselves by imagining that we are powerless to respond positively to the situations around us. We must rather choose to smile and laugh at every seeming discomfort. As a child, we used to chant: "Smile, Jesus loves you." It is true there are trials and tribulations, but Jesus says concerning these situations we experience: "In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33b). So, in spite of all the troubles we face; indeed, because of them - since we don't know how the things we gripe about are actually keeping us safe - we should rejoice and be glad. Jesus repeatedly urges us to do this. He talks about our emulating the sparrows who do not work for food; our copying the example of the field lilies that do not toil or spin; the hairs on our head having been counted by God, and so forth. We are looked after by Divine Providence, and so we need never worry a bit about whatever it is we find distressing or challenging. God is in charge. 

Certain psychologists have come up with a practice known as the leaves on a flowing stream meditation. To practice it, you just close your eyes and picture yourself at the bank of a stream. The water is flowing past you. You may not see where the stream originates or where it ends, but you see the segment of it directly before you, in your vision range. There are leaves on the stream. These leaves represent our negative emotions, such as: fear, anxiety, sadness, insecurity and so on. Sometimes we observe the leaves flow past, or flow and return, or not seem to flow at all. We may be detached from the entire process. We can notice the leaves very closely and critically; we can inspect the progress of the stream. We can allow the progress of the stream represent the progress of our emotions as they journey from our heart to our head so we can think about them, and then speak words of reason to them and watch them flow quickly away, inspired by our speech. We can also insert ourselves into the stream and be with the leaves there, because the Buddha wants us to stay in our feelings and find salvation from what is. We can see how we are sometimes our own worst enemy; how we sometimes get in our own way. We can see the stream carry our old self away with the leaves; we can then see a new self sitting at the side of the stream.

The valence for most of the negative emotions we have come from our past, from the origin of the stream and the leaves, both of which we may not see because of our limited vision. but remember that we don't need to see the beginning or the end to be able to make progress with our healing. We just have to see what is obtainable in our vision range. For me, my greatest negative emotion is insecurity. I fear that good things in my life may not last; that things might happen to upset, change or take away anything good happening in my life. This state of insecurity is not good. I know its valence. It is my father's suicide when I was 5. A father is a boy's salvation. He is the one that gives a son the latter's place in life. A father teaches the son how to be a man; how to understand himself and negotiate all the nuances in life. When a father takes himself away from his son's life, when the latter is but 5 - imagine the loss for the son! The firm foundation; the solid rock; the pillar of strength the son should otherwise have leaned on is removed and the son is left suffering the consequences. Especially because it was the father that removed himself, and not any other person. He committed the ultimate betrayal, and nothing can excuse the act.

But no worries. The son himself grows up and has to decide what it is that he himself will do with his own life. He cannot change the past. He must forgive. He must "let go of the hope that the past could have been any different." Having done this, he must sit at that stream and watch the leaves of insecurity and fear and anger flow on by. The leaves will flow away as he lets go of the hurt within. The first law of thermodynamics says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but converted from one form to another. The hurt within may be converted to joy and passion for industry. In public speaking we tell our students that nervousness is good, because it can be converted to adrenalin and used to make a good speech. In the same way, the fear and insecurity could be converted to scruples and ambition and be used in diverse quantities to achieve laudable goals. So it is a question of both quality and quantity: quality in the sense that the nature of the energy is sometimes changed, and quantity because the amount of it used differs depending on the situation that calls for its use. The bottom line in any case is that the negative emotions are driven far away from the individual heart, like the leaves, which ideally should flow on by and past.

Slowly but surely, when the leaves have flown on by, the water becomes clearer and brighter. The stream becomes purer and cleaner. The sun glistens on its surface; birds chirp about, and all is calm and well. In the same way, when we've let go of all the negative emotions that torment us, we begin to feel cleaner and purer and happier. Situations around us are joyful; our perception of reality is better, and we live fuller and richer lives. We find it easier to choose happy and hopeful situations. We embrace the healing montage of joyful progress and bliss. Our song resembles this: "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down here in my heart, down here in my heart, today!" It all feels good. We feel very glad, and close to God. Life feels good; is good - and we rejoice in such a blessed reality. We trust indeed then that life will remain victorious.