When these events come (and my how often they do come!), the balance of our worlds often tilt off their axis. For a period of time anyway, life seems unworkable – even undesirable. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Personally, to help me stabilize, to find true North again, here is a statement I find myself frequently repeating: “the happiness or unhappiness of people is often based upon what happens… not realizing that ‘what happens’ is the most unstable thing in the universe.”

The point is that our lives cannot ebb and flow with the ‘events’ that occur in them. Our good days cannot be good because things went well and our bad days cannot be bad simply because they didn’t.  Does that sound idealistic? Something easy to say, but impossible to live? Something a person might post on their blog but not stamp on their heart?

It’s a deep teaching, for sure – but it’s also one of the most wonderful spiritual disciplines to meditate upon and then make a practice of implementing that I have found – especially on the most challenging of days. I find it restores a substantive beauty to life.

Presently my wife Gwynne and I are dealing with the news that her brother, only 57 years old, has terminal cancer and it appears the time he has left in this dimension is tragically brief.  How are we to receive and cope with such news? Does life stop? Can our grief find compatibility with our joy or must we choose between the two? Can we not rejoice and grieve in the joyous reality of Presence in our life, his life, and in the lives of everyone else inhabiting this planet? Does the depth of this thing we call death not, for us, deepen the value we hold for all human life? Does this pain not carve out a deeper space within in which to experience Love and Presence in the time each of us has left?

While the events of our days are topsy-turvy indeed, the anchors we hold onto don’t have to be. We have choices. And perhaps, for me, the best choice is to repeat this mantra often: “the happiness or unhappiness of people is often based upon what happens… not realizing that ‘what happens’ is the most unstable thing in the universe.”

My encouragement to you is to not rise and fall with the tides of life. Instead, keep an eye out for your reaction to events you may be tempted to define as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and how your emotional outlook is affected. Then purposefully repeat the mantra and opt for stability – in all things opt for joy and authenticity. There is a time to rejoice and a time to weep. There is a time for mourning (deeply) and a time for celebration. But in both, in all things, are we not filled with Life, Presence, and the constant energy of the Unnameable?

And knowing ‘that’ is beyond anything that can ‘happen’ today.

In all your days – I wish you deep peace.