I’m writing this after my 3rd day in New Port Richey, Florida where I’m staying at a lovely house called The Mermaid’s Cove. There are dozens of statues of mermaids throughout the house of all sizes including a 10ft metal sculpture of a mermaid holding a pearl and her tail full of glass beads. There are many other artworks—paintings, carvings, mirrors even pillows in this theme. The best part of the house is actually outside where a canal runs behind the house and there is a boat dock. There are Adirondack chairs, a rocker, 2 captain chairs and a comfortable table and chairs where I’ve meditated and had breakfast every morning enjoying the sun and warm air.
When we took the paddleboat out through the canals to the Gulf of Mexico we saw a very large turtle swimming by our boat. One morning we saw 3 dolphins swimming in the canal. I hear birds of all kinds and see raptors circling high in the clear blue skies. It’s heaven, paradise really. I felt suffused with gratitude. How lucky can I be to stay here in this beautiful home rather than in Michigan in the snow and ice? I feel so lucky to be at this house. Even recalling all the events in the world—wars, elections, and school shootings—it doesn’t seem to color the enjoyment I feel.
I’m going to go off on a tangent now for a bit but I’ll connect it all in the end. In my meditation group, we were talking about a teaching in the Buddhist literature about the two arrows. Basically, the first arrow is what happens to us, an event which we often have no control over. It could be anything that is hurtful, scary, upsetting, or disappointing for example. The second arrow is what we add on to the first arrow. It’s what we say to ourselves or feel about the first arrow. This often leads to more hurt, pain, anger, and frustration. This is a very important teaching about our conditioning and how it affects us today.
The second arrow often arises so quickly and automatically that we don’t immediately recognize it. Sometimes, we’re lost in the second arrow for quite a while. Our conditioning is at play, and if it taps some of our well-engrained patterns, it can feel familiar.
In RM after we meditate, we take the time to reflect and journal about our meditation; and it’s in that time that we can see how the second arrow arises out of our conditioning and how we end up hurting more. We can become clearer in how our conditioning creates more discomfort and hurt. Over time as we explore these patterns of conditioning we begin to see how they start, how they build, how we maintain them and how they fade away or disappear. It takes time to see the details, the subtleties and nuances of our conditioning.
How did we “add on”? When did it start? What thoughts did we have? How did we feel? How did we maintain it? All good avenues of exploration.
I call the time I’m experiencing the second arrow as “going off into LaLa Land.” A woman in my meditation group describes it as “extraneous entanglements and assumptions, mostly erroneous, not clean and not based in reality.” I love that description because it’s so apt. RM helps us untangle our conditioning. When I wake up from LaLa Land, I’m no longer reacting. I’m thinking more clearly, I have choices then. I wonder how did I go from arrow 1 to arrow 2 and how long have I been in LaLa Land.
After talking about the second arrow with negative events we wondered if it happens with positive events such as my being in New Port Richey. It hasn’t happened yet but I can imagine as we get nearer to leaving, I could bemoan that we can’t stay longer, why do we have to go home so soon and face the cold and ice, it’ll be a whole year before I can come back and so on. Isn’t that the second arrow?
So I invite you to kindly explore your arrows.
This article is also available as a podcast episode from Sati Sangha.
“Mermaid memories” by limberlostt is marked with CC0 1.0 
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I love the mermaid photo and description of the paradise you are breathing in down south. I’ll be visiting my brother in NPR for his birthday at the end of the month and hope to see the heavenly critters that you have described near mermaid cove. How magical! Enjoy your stay!