The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them
192
The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them
192eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Why is it that, despite our best efforts, many of us remain fundamentally unhappy and unfulfilled in our lives? In this provocative and inspiring book, David Richo distills thirty years of experience as a therapist to explain the underlying roots of unhappiness—and the surprising secret to finding freedom and fulfillment.
There are certain facts of life that we cannot change—the unavoidable “givens” of human existence: (1) everything changes and ends, (2) things do not always go according to plan, (3) life is not always fair, (4) pain is a part of life, and (5) people are not loving and loyal all the time. Richo shows us that by dropping our deep-seated resistance to these givens, we can find liberation and discover the true richness that life has to offer.
Blending Western psychology and Eastern spirituality, and including practical exercises, Richo shows us how to open up to our lives—including what is frightening, painful, or disappointing—and discover our greatest gifts.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780834822269 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Shambhala |
| Publication date: | 06/13/2006 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Sales rank: | 433,484 |
| File size: | 676 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
There are some things in life over which we have no control, probably most things. We discover in the course of our lives that reality refuses to bow to our commands. Another force, sometimes with a sense of humor, usually comes into play with different plans. We are forced to let go when we want so much to hold on, and to hold on when we want so much to let go. Our lives—all our lives—include unexpected twists, unwanted endings, and challenges of every puzzling kind.
Reinhold Niebuhr, an American Protestant theologian, composed a prayer that has become the cornerstone of the recovery movement: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." This is a profound aspiration. But what are the things we cannot change? Are they unique to each of us, or are there some things that all of us must acknowledge and accept in order to find peace in our lives?
As a psychotherapist working with clients—and in my own life—I have seen the same questions and struggles arise again and again. There are five unavoidable givens, five immutable facts that come to visit all of us many times over:
1. Everything changes and ends.
2. Things do not always go according to plan.
3. Life is not always fair.
4. Pain is part of life.
5. People are not loving and loyal all the time.
These are the core challenges that we all face. But too often we live in denial of these facts. We behave as if somehow these givens aren't always in effect, or not applicable to all of us. But when we oppose these five basic truths we resist reality, and life then becomes an endless series of disappointments, frustrations, and sorrows.
In this book, I propose the somewhat radical idea that the five givens are not actually the bad news that they appear to be. In reality, our fear of and struggle against the givens are the real sources of our troubles. Once we learn to accept and embrace these fundamental, down-to-earth facts, we come to realize that they are exactly what we need to gain courage, compassion, and wisdom—in short, to find real happiness.
A given is a fact of life over which we are powerless. It is something we cannot change, something built into the very nature of things. From one point of view, there are many givens. In addition to the five disturbing givens stated above, there are also delightful givens: we experience bliss, our hopes are sometimes exceeded, we discover unique inner gifts, things have a way of working out, luck comes our way, miracles of healing happen.
There are also givens that apply only to us as individuals: our body shape and personality, our unique psychological and spiritual gifts or limitations, our temperament, our genetic makeup, our IQ, our conventional or unconventional lifestyle, whether we are introverted or extraverted, and so forth.
There are in fact, givens in every thing we do and in every place we enter. A given of having a job is that we might advance or we might be fired—as well as any number of possibilities between. A given of a relationship is that it may last a lifetime or it may end with the next phone call.
I have found that anything that crosses swords with our entitled ego is a powerful source of transformation and inner evolution. The five simple facts of life defy and terrorize the mighty ego that insists on full control. Life happens to us in its own way, no matter how much we may protest or seek to dodge it. No one is or has ever been exempt from life's uncompromising givens. If we cannot tolerate them, we add stress to our lives by fighting a losing game.
In this book I will explain why we need not feel despair in the face of the givens of our lives. We can learn to accept life on its own terms. We can even find its terms satisfactory. We do not have to shake our fist at heaven. We do not have to demand an exemption or take refuge in a belief system that muffles the wallop of the givens by promising a paradise without them. We can craft a sane and authentic life by saying yes to life just as it is. Indeed, our path is "what is."
The story of Buddha's enlightenment illustrates that the givens of life are the basis of our growth and transformation. The Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince. His father tried to protect him from encountering pain or displeasure. The king created a life of utter perfection for Siddhartha, providing him every possible satisfaction and shielding him from all unpleasantness. But one day the young prince wanted to see what lay beyond palace walls. When he ventured out, he soon encountered sickness, old age, and death—the natural conditions of every life—for the first time. These sights moved him deeply and set him on a spiritual journey that ultimately led to his enlightenment. His legendary transformation began by facing the laws of life with curiosity and courage.
From ancient times, the five givens have puzzled and chagrined humanity. Religions offer responses to mysteries like these. Throughout this book I will draw on teachings from Buddhism and other world religions. Spiritual traditions offer us valuable resources, models, and inspiration for facing the givens of life openly and with equanimity. I rely most heavily on the Buddhist tradition because that spiritual tradition emphasizes the importance of seeing through our illusions and facing up to life's givens in order to become more fully who we are meant to be.
The Unconditional Yes
Each of the givens or conditions of existence evokes a question about our destiny. Are we here to get our way or to dance with the flow of life? Are we here to make sure everything goes according to our plans or to trust the surprises and synchronicities that lead us to new vistas? Are we here to make sure we get a fair deal or are we here to be upright and loving? Are we here to avoid pain or to deal with it, grow from it, and learn to be compassionate through it? Are we here to be loyally loved by everyone or to love with all our might?
The ancient Romans spoke of amor fati, the virtue of loving one's fate. Some of us find it hard to handle the anxiety aroused by the conditions of our existence; we fight against our human situation. The method for handling the givens and gearing them to our destiny is stated most clearly by Carl Jung: "Givens can be embraced with an unconditional yes to that which is, without subjective protests, an acceptance of the conditions of existence . . . an acceptance of my own nature as I happen to be." Such a yes is a willingness to land on concrete reality without a pillow to buffer us. Such a yes makes us flexible, attuning us to a shifting world, opening us to whatever life brings. Such a yes is not a stoic surrender to the status quo but a courageous one—an alignment to reality. Once we trust reality more than our hopes and expectations, our yes becomes an "open sesame" to spiritual surprises. In this book, I will suggest how to discover the spiritual riches that lie within our most challenging experiences.
Yes is the brave ally of serenity; no is the scared accomplice of anxiety. We find help in saying yes and in facing the givens through mindfulness—that is, through fearless and patient attention of the present moment. We also gain support from nature, from psychology, from religious traditions, and from spiritual practices. These are the resources and tools presented in the pages that follow.
Hamlet speaks of "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," a poetic definition of the givens of life. When something happens to us that echoes with the painful thud of any of the unalterable conditions of existence, we can ask, "What can I learn here? How does this serve?" We can learn to trust the givens of life as having transformative or evolutionary potential. We can trust that the laws of existence somehow help us to achieve our destiny.
The givens of life may seem like cruel jokes perpetrated upon us by vindictive universe. They could seem like penalties for a waywardness we inherited but did not cause. They may even seem like spiteful tricks to make our lives miserable. In an antiquated theological view, they are considered the punishments enacted by a vengeful God upon us exiles from Eden for an original sin. The unconditional with its implicit trust of the givens' usefulness to our growth, cuts through that fear-based view of life. Saying yes to reality—to the things we cannot change—is like choosing to turn around and sit in the saddle in the direction the horse is going. Sitting that way is mindfulness, an honoring of the here and now without the distractions of fear or desire. Mindfulness is an unconditional yes to what is as it is. We face our issues in the here and now without protest or blame. Such a yes is unconditional because it is free of conditioning by the neurotic ego: fear, desire, control, judgment, complaint, expectation. When we are mindful, we meet each moment with openness, curiosity, fear, and kindness. Mindfulness is both a state of being and a daily spiritual practice, a form of meditation.
Why Me?
When faced with one of life's givens, we might ask: "Why did such a terrible thing happen to a good person like me? I deserve better." The mindful version of that question is: "Yes this happened. Now what?" We will notice we are happier when we accept what we do not like about life as a given of life. Our mindful yes is an entry into this sheltering paradox.
When we make an unreserved consent to the things we cannot change, we are saying yes to ourselves, as we are, in our ever unfolding autobiography. The conditions of existence are our personal experiences, not alien forces or hurdles to avoid. They are also the universal experiences of all people. Every human who ever lived faced the five major givens. This makes them part of being human, so they must be a necessary part. When we finally embrace the givens as extensions of our human selves, we say yes to them not in resignation or acquiescence. We say yes to the ingredients of our own humanity.
All the givens of life are based on one underlying fact: Anything can happen to anyone. This is the given of givens. Most of us have a hard time really believing this applies to us. We imagine that very good luck or very bad luck is supposed to happen to other people but never to us. To believe, finally and fully, that anything can happen to us is an enormously adult accomplishment, and it grants us two wonderful gifts. First, we let go of our ego's privileged view of itself as entitled to special treatment; we let go of the childlike belief that a rescuer, otherworldly or this-worldly, will come through just for us and grant us an exemption from life's hard knocks. Second, believing that anything can happen to us helps us become humble and helps us feel our comradeship with our fellow humans. "Nothing human is alien from me," the Roman poet Terence wrote in the second century BCE. There is something so consoling about a sense of belonging, of being in it with everyone else, no matter how difficult life may become.
The givens of life are a code to our personal evolution. An unconditional yes to the givens is how the code is broken or, rather, opened. In the traditional Buddhist view, birth as a human is a great boon. In the human realm there is said to be just the right mix of suffering and joy for us to awaken, to become enlightened. In other words, the givens of life help provide us with the perfect, awakening blend of experiences.
All things have a natural, irrepressible tendency to evolve, that is, to reach their full potential within the changing conditions of the environment. Therefore the hope we often feel so comforted by is not a foolish pipe dream. Hope is an authentic response to life's inherent, irrepressible inclination toward fulfillment. An unconditional—that is, mindful—yes to the givens, without debate or complaint, is all it takes.
Givens as Gifts
The word given has two meanings. It is a condition that cannot be changed, but it is also something that has been granted to us. Once we say yes, the givens of life are suddenly revealed as gifts, the skillful means to evolution. The givens are relentless but also rich with wisdom. Only amid such exacting and challenging conditions could we evolve. The givens of life are gifts because they are the ingredients of character, depth, and compassion.
What does it take to find the gift dimension in life's many challenges? First and foremost, we must cease our attempts to control or head them off. Then life's puzzling givens turn into doors to liberation. But we humans have a long tradition of reacting with defensiveness and resistance in the face of life's challenges. Indeed, our resistance to discomfort is part of our human inheritance. How ironic that we try so desperately to fend off what is unalterably our human condition and the conditions that can ultimately promote our growth.
The phrase "accepting the things we cannot change" makes it seem that we accept things only because we cannot change them. Actually, once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution. Serenity comes not only from accepting what we cannot change but from giving up trying to be in control. There is meaning in events that happen and this meaning is multileveled, so we will address this subject often throughout the book.
The unconditional yes makes us ready for joy or pain. Accepting the world on its terms is living a heroic life. In the classical hero myths there is always a struggle phase when the hero must confront the conditions of existence. A hero is someone who has lived through pain, been transformed by it, and uses it to help others. As Shakespeare says in King Lear:
A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows,
Who by the art of known and feeling sorrows
Am pregnant to good pity.
The givens of his life equip Lear to have compassion toward others. Our spiritual work is not merely personal. We individuals are continually being ignited with a fiery urge to activate the evolutionary possibilities of the collective human spirit. Ultimately, we engage in spiritual practice so we can bring all humanity along with us to enlightenment. Indeed, it is a built-in feature of goodness to give of itself: as Aristotle says, "Goodness cannot help but diffuse itself."
Beings as complex and creative as we are could not be satisfied in a world without soul-stretching givens. Shakespeare, Mozart, and Einstein would not have appeared in a world in which things did not change and end, things were fully predictable, life did not include pain, and everyone loyally loved us. That world would be superficial and ultimately "dull, flat, stale, and unprofitable," as Hamlet says of his limited world.
Creative people appreciate the conditions of existence as having meaning beyond the meanings society may impose. They refashion the givens of life as works of art. This is because the givens are wellsprings of creativity and of new possibilities. Our own and the world's imperfections become the raw material for a masterpiece. The artist takes it in and digests it into something useful to and edifying for others, like a bird that feeds its young with food it has swallowed.
Givens as Graces
To find real happiness in life takes developing ourselves emotionally and spiritually. Spiritual consciousness breaks through dualism, through our simplistic notions of good and bad. An unconditional yes is a yes to the paradoxes of life. A paradox combines apparent opposites. For instance, we say yes unconditionally to an existence conditioned by changes and endings. We can make commitments even though plans fall through. We can maintain our compassion no matter how unjust the world may be to us. We can be loving toward others no matter how cruelly they act toward us. Nothing that happens to us has to dismount us from the horse called Yes. We can recognize people's dark side and yet we do not give up on them, another feature of spiritual maturity.
Here are other examples of the paradoxes we can joyously embrace as we recognize the value of the givens:
- Although everything changes and ends, things renew themselves and move through cycles that further evolution.
- Although things do not always go according to plan, we sometimes sense a larger plan at work through synchronicity that opens startling possibilities.
- Although suffering is not always fair, something in us remains committed to fairness and refuses to be unjust or retaliatory.
- Although suffering is part of life, we have ways of dealing with it and thereby we expand our powers to handle future pain and help others in their pain.
- Although people are not loving and loyal all the time, nothing has to get in the way of our acting with loving-kindness and not giving up on others. No human action can take away another human being's capacity to love.
The givens are stated in ways that may seem negative but each has a positive side. The paradoxes above show the positive dimension in each of the conditions of existence. Every time a given is answered with a yes, we develop emotionally and spiritually: we advance in patience, forbearance, forgiveness, generosity, wisdom, appreciation, perseverance, and unconditional love.
Yet ultimately, the fact that there is much in life that we cannot control means that we may need a special boost, something our ego cannot provide, something our limited mind cannot conceive, something our frail will cannot effect. This is the assisting force of grace, the spiritual complement to effort. Something kicks in that is bigger than us and makes our path easier to tread.
The Upanishads, sacred texts of Hinduism, refer to grace this way: "The Self [truth] cannot be gained by the Vedas [scriptures], nor by understanding, nor by learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him the Self is gained." Grace is a gift of the higher Self to the ego. A source beyond ego grants us the gift of transcending our ordinary limits. Grace means that we are not alone; we are always accompanied:
- When we are sure we can't get through another minute and we do, that is the grace of a Creator life in us.
- When we are sure we can't find the light and we do, that is the grace of the Light of the World in us.
- When we are sure we can't take one more breath and we do, that is the grace of the Spirit breathing through us.
Our hearts were hewn by light. The unconditional yes helps our heart let its light through. Graces are those special gifts that break through our limits of mind, will, and heart. Grace expands our intellect by endowing us with intuitive wisdom. We suddenly become inspired by something we did not find through logic. Grace expands our will by giving us a strength or courage we did not have before. Grace expands our hearts by making it possible to love rather than hate, to reconcile rather than retaliate, to show humility rather than hubris. We could not do all that on our own; our self-centered ego would find no motivation for such virtue. Grace is the inner ally and guide, the motivating force of our spiritual practice.
As givens become graces, an unconditional thanks stands beside our unconditional yes. When we accept the good with the bad, the easy with the difficult, gratitude arises automatically. Hamlet said to Horatio:
Thou hast been as one . . . that fortune's
buffets and rewards
Hast taken with equal thanks.
Each given of life comes to us trailing many graces. The fact that things change and end means that we may find in impermanence the grace of flowing with life. Health, both psychologically and spiritually, means going with the flow of events, rather than being stopped or devastated by them. The fact that things do not always go according to plan means that many powers beyond ego are at work in our lives—powers that lead us to our destiny by a path we might have neglected. Once we understand that we are supported by powers beyond our ego, we see that having to be in control may not be in our best interest: we might upset mighty plans that are afoot on our behalf.
The fact that life is not always fair even though we know instinctively what would be fair means that we are all called to create the conditions of justice in the world. When we say yes to such a call, we find our courage. Then we find ways of balancing ourselves and assisting the world in balancing itself.
The fact that pain is part of life yields the graces of endurance, patience, and compassion. We are affected by others' pain and less likely to be sources of pain to others.
The fact that others are not always loyal or loving inflicts the wounds that make us people of depth and character. Perhaps such wounds are graces since the holes in us can be openings to wholeness. And, most of all, we are thereby challenged to show an unconditional love.
Grace is not soporific; it arrives bugle-in-hand. Each grace is a reveille to rouse our effort. In this book I hope to show how graces are offered to us in the form of the givens. In addition, if we have the courage to face life's unavoidable truths, we will find the grace to love no matter what happens to us. Love is always unconditional in the sense that it is not stymied or stifled by any of the conditions of existence. Neither changes, endings, altered plans, unfairness, suffering, disloyalty, or lack of love can stop us from loving. Our yes to such a stunning grace is what our ego always wants to say, since it means the end of being afraid and the beginning of being free.
Table of Contents
Introduction xi
PART ONE
THE GIVENS OF LIFE
1. Everything Changes and Ends 3
How We Avoid or Accept 4
Attracted or Repelled 5
A Changing Image in the Mirror 8
What Makes Us So Controlling 10
Nothing Separate 13
A Two-Handed Practice 15
Death and Renewal 16
2. Things Do Not Always Go According to Plan 20
Nature's Design 23
Our Calling 27
The Larger Life 29
It All Balances in Love 32
3. Life Is Not Always Fair
Revenge or Reconcile 35
Why Does Harm Come to the Innocent? 39
The Art of Taming Ego 41
Commitments beyond Ego 43
A Mindful Reply to Unfairness 45
4. Pain is Part of Life 47
Are We Victims? 51
A Yes to the Pain Nature Brings 53
Being With the Suffering of Others 55
When Cheer Doesn't Work 59
The Fertile Void 60
5. People Are Not Loving and Loyal All the Time 65
The Lifelong Influences of Childhood 68
Taking Care of Yourself As You Open to Others 70
Givens of Adult Relating 73
A Checklist on the Boundaries in Our Relationships 76
Egoless Love 79
6. Refuges from the Givens 82
Religion as a Refuge 82
Religion and Refuge in Nature 86
Three Refuges 89
Distraction or Resources? 91
Magical Thinking 92
Backstreet Refuges 94
Safety in No Refuge 96
Wisdom within Us 97
PART TWO
AN UNCONDITIONAL YES
TO OUR CONDITIONED EXISTENCE
7. How to Become Yes 101
Loving-Kindness 104
Tonglen Practice 108
No Outside 111
Nature Practices Yes 112
8. Yes to Feelings 116
Our Gifts from Nature 118
How Feelings Become SAFE 120
Love Liberates 122
How Fear Holds Us Back 124
The Life Span of a Feeling 127
How Do We Receive the Feelings of Others? 129
Tracking Our Feelings 130
What Feelings Are Not 132
Feelings Are Three-Dimensional 135
9. A Yes To Who I Am 137
Psychologically 138
Spirituality 140
Mystically 142
Self or No-Self? 144
A Stable Sense of Myself 146
EPILOGUE 155
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 161
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
Explore More Items
