Sundays With Buddha

 

 

Week 22




There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.

                                                                                       --Buddha

I've been thinking a lot lately about the events affecting my family over the last year and a half. Though I have lost two of my own, my mother and very recently my brother, my husband’s mother has really been on my mind. I wrote a piece following her passing about all the peaceful feelings of love and closeness everyone had, even after being rocked to the core as everyone was by the awfulness of what happened.

I haven’t revisited my stance on the situation since then, but now that a full year has passed, it’s easier to get honest with myself about what I’m feeling. The shock of what has happened is all but gone and all that remains are raw thoughts and feelings that have had the time to be processed and evaluated. I can tell you, I spent a lot of time not thinking about what happened because I was afraid I would have different feelings about it than I originally had. I didn’t want to feel angry, or cheated, or saddened by the state of this world and what happened because, truthfully, there was a lot that I could feel angry about, cheated out of, and saddened by. But ignoring these feelings doesn’t help. Feeling them, recognizing them, allowing them and then accepting them is what helps you through.

I'm not sure if I was actually doing that as best I could. I know this because I have let myself 'go'...farther than I thought I would revert to, but not as far as I could have, thank God. I've just now started to realize the effect this has had on me, and, like I wrote in this post, it's time to get it together and prove the "purity above all."

Noah and I, from the start, though we had calm feelings about the events, had many questions, as well. Why did this have to happen? What is the purpose? Is there a purpose? And we didn't just have these questions about our own tragedies. There has been so much that has happened in our world, our country alone, that everyone has questions regarding their faith, the state of the world, our future as a society and as the human race . It's a hard thing to swallow, accepting that there must be evil in order for good to prove it's purity above all. But, if you think about it, we've all come together at our best after major events. We stand together at our strongest in our darkest hours. The most touched I have ever been was watching people pull together to help make things right.

I don't know all the answers to why things happen as they do...I'm sure I don't know any answers to why they do. But it brings me peace to think that there may be some reason for it. Some great, perfect, cosmic reason for all that happens to us. That, even though we may not understand all that does, we are free to have all the faith we need to believe that all of our trials are to better us as a race and that the sacrifices that the fallen have made were, indeed, not in vain.


May you find your own peace and comfort in your days.

As always, thank you for reading.

Namaste,

Nanette