Soulful Sundays: Granted

"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." -Dale Carnegie

Maranasati is a form of daily meditation practice employed by Tibetan Buddhist monks. It involves visualizing with gruesome detail every possible step involved in the death of their bodies, down to the actual process of decomposition and decay. After they spend time imagining all of the ways that they could die, the monks shift their attention to all of the unsavory thoughts and habits that they have not yet changed. While this practice may seem rather macabre to an outsider, the desired effect is a renewed appreciation and vigor for life and a sense of calm in the face of mortality. Nothing is taken for granted.

Sigmund Freud believed that people do not actually fear death itself because they do not believe in their own death. For most, death is an abstract idea that happens to others, but never to us. From the perspective of our ego, life has no end as long as its authority remains unquestioned. However, our ego fears desperately its own loss of control. Death of the ego would mean the destruction of all of the stories we have constructed to keep ourselves separate from reality--to protect us from needing to change. This is the type of death that, if embraced, has the power to set us free.

Becoming free is easier said than done. Freedom works in the opposite direction of entropy and can only be maintained with continued effort and attention. Our egos will forever want to pull us back into bondage--bondage to our suffering, our accomplishments, our possessions, and our relationships. Even the most enlightened beings from history (Jesus, the Buddha, various saints, etc.) still had an ego--an individual history and identity. They all struggled with the frailty of their humanity in the face of the power of the divine. They all chose freedom over fear. They were all granted a pathway to union.

All of us have been granted the opportunity of life. The chances of human consciousness existing are so astronomically small that it might as well be zero, yet here we are. Every second of every day is an invitation to open up to the miracle that is around us in a new way. Anyone who has had a near death experience, survived some tragedy, or witnessed death knows how close the veil truly is. But we don't have to wait for misfortune in order to count our blessings. We have the ability to visualize what we fear so that our thoughts can die instead of ourselves, to paraphrase Alfred Whitehead.

The degree to which we can become free is inversely linked to what we are unwilling to face in our lives. We so often become trapped by our ego's desires--

To be right, instead of kind.

To be hurt, instead of whole.

To be in control, instead of trust.

To be strong, instead of vulnerable.

To fear, instead of love.

Everything that is necessary for happiness already lies inside of us. We need only grant ourselves the permission to change.