On Being Human…

On Being Human…

In many eastern Philosophies, especially those that believe in reincarnation, such as the transference of energy into another life form after death whether it is a stone, tree, or dog…human existence is the most envied of all existences.

Especially for systems that see that human life is the life of lessons and evolution…and for those that can adhere to the notion of the soul, the evolution of one’s soul.

I once heard the story of Buddhist monks who welcomed struggle and tragedy into their lives. Every time something went wrong, these individuals were thankful. Sort of the attitude of “Bring it on!” Those who welcomed every penchant of Murphy’s Laws!

Smaller examples, for those who are students or graduate students…you have been diligently working on a paper and you are on a roll. Your computer crashes and your paper half lost, because it was not completely saved. Could you even imagine, calmly saying to your computer, “Thank you for crashing and losing all of my hard work, so I have to start over again”?

Yeah right.

In this spiritual practice that I heard of, the effort to accept any of life’s challenges is to say “thank you.” Thank you for this accident, this diagnosis, this loss, this set back, this suffering, because only in human life with the capacity of the intellect and spirit, can I either challenge my potential and get better and get through this, or somehow let this shrivel my soul and cause me to destroy myself. Back to the paper example, I am smart enough to start this paper over and do it even better…thank you for this fuckin’ challenge (although quite irritatingly annoying).

Great examples are of escape…. life gets hard, things we are challenged to face, and if our first reaction is to escape into addictions, obsessions, ego satisfying actions, and superficial pleasures then we have acted cowardly. Not extending our capacity as a human being. Other life forms, even devis or gods, ghosts, super natural existences envied the human life form. Only as a human, can material, “reality” as it is, challenge us with this seemingly sufferance of life…almost like an obstacle course for the soul. We obviously, don’t see life’s challenges especially when the human drama deals with death, loss of love, unrequited love, failures, attachment, abandonment, violence, betrayal, and etc. As something that we say, “Bring it on!”

This idea of saying, “Bring it on,” which I know keeps making you think of the movie with those cheerleaders, is not more of an invite to allow more pain into life. But, to almost say, this struggle is before me because I am capable of getting through it. The challenge is there. It’s like those standardized tests that as you continue to answer the tough questions, and get them right, the level gets harder. I am sure I have lost half of you already that are reading this. But for those who get what I am saying…You know where you are. You get the harder questions ‘cause you are just too damn smart, don’t give up. Keep answering.