As I’ve been sitting in my air-conditioned house and driving in my air-conditioned car and shopping in an air-conditioned store, I was struck by how hot it’s been. Every year, it gets hotter and hotter.
“hot landscape” by Mario A. P. is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
I remember in the not-too-distant past, when I had my AC on maybe 2 weeks the entire summer. I can’t remember when that was, but it wasn’t that long ago. Now my AC has been on for a few weeks, constantly, and the summer is just getting started. Climate change is here, just as they predicted.
I thought we had a little more time. The future is here, now, and I feel unprepared. I realized I’ve been fighting this realization and the future on many issues. The future of our economy, our schools, health care, and our democracy. I’ve been walking around wound up tight like I have my finger in the dike, holding back the onslaught of water rushing at me.
One of the many meditation teachers I’ve been listening to and reading over the past few months said that we take our meditation too seriously. We should relax. Just relax. ‘If you’re trying too hard, you need to relax. If you want something, relax. If you’re avoiding something, relax. Just relax. You shouldn’t be tired at the end of a mediation. If you are, you trying too hard, relax.’ This is something we say to ourselves, not what others tell us. Also, it’s not meant as an admonition, criticism or judgment. It’s more lighthearted.
That surprised me. Here is a teacher I respect saying I should relax? On the spectrum of right effort from being indifferent to obsessing, this was a way to find the middle path.
Right effort is part of the Eightfold Path. A certain amount of effort is needed to meditate, as well as doing almost anything else in life. Effort is needed to change habit patterns, to swim against the tide, to avoid what is harmful, and to fix dinner. Skillful effort rescues us from mindlessness and passivity. Without skillful effort, we’ll find ourselves in the same patterns that create dukkha. Effort takes us out of wishful thinking of ‘what if’ or ‘if only’.
With effort, we can know what is valuable, kind, and compassionate. We can determine what states lead us to happiness or unhappiness, peace or agitation, freedom or limitations, harm or well-being.
I realized that I’d been fighting the future, today, all the things that are happening that I have no control over, and I disagree with so much. (Like I’m holding back the horror).
Suddenly, I just let it wash over me. That’s literally what it felt like. Like a wave in the Gulf of Mexico. I just let it all wash over me, past me, through me. I felt sadness, but the tightness in my body relaxed.
You may have other words to help you relax. Let it be, let it go, let it wash past you, step back. What words come to mind for you?
This doesn’t mean I won’t be going on any marches, or supporting organizations that share my beliefs, or sending money to help feed people. It’s painful to fight. I will find a way to fight tomorrow. But for now, I’ll let it wash over me.