July 20, 2006
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Sadness
Most of us don’t look at our sadness closely. We try to avoid seeing it in many ways. If we feel sad, we either hang out with our friends, instant messaging on the computer, playing games, watching TV, read, and so on. We start doing something so that we do not have to see the sadness.
The spiritual teachings say that this is not the right approach. The teachings say that when we are sad, it is a momentous phenomenon. It is sacred. Sadness is a great blessing. It is authentic. It is silence. It is there because we are alone. It is giving us a chance to go deeper into our aloneness rather than jumping from one shallow happiness to another shallow happiness and wasting our lives. It is better to use sadness as a means for meditation. Witness it. It is a friend! It opens the door of our eternal aloneness. And being alone is ultimately our natural state. There is no way not to be alone. Alone we are born and alone we will die. We can deceive ourselves that we are not alone, that we have a wife, a husband, children, friends, jobs, money, and power. These things are there to keep us engaged so that we don’t become aware of our aloneness.
So the next time you feel sad, sit silently and be sad. There is nothing wrong with being sad. Sadness has its own beauties. Don’t escape from it. Get acquainted with the sadness, go deeper into it, and you will be surprised. It is a great relaxation, a great rest, and you come out of it rejuvenated, refreshed, and livelier. And once you have tasted it, you will seek those beautiful moments of sadness again and again. You will welcome them and they will open new doors of your aloneness….
Do you look at your sadness closely?
Comments (10)
What a beautfiul entry! *smiles* I really appreciate it. And what a delicious question… do you look at your sadness closely?
Personally, when i feel sad. You can see it through my playing. I start getting into the blues and grinding the tune of my heart out onto the keys. I sit there with words, and i feel the energy of each one resonate… cause you feel it so deep. They say that playing the blues is a sad thing. I don’t think so, it’s a way of acknowledging things for the way they are, the situation, your feelings, everything. And it’s a way of transforming the experience into an uplifting one. I often find that i feel the most joy when it’s coupled with sorrow. That’s when you really feel.
Yet another quote by khalil gibran i’d like to share:
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?”
My sadness is a well that courses with cool spring water. Sometimes it is just so dark and heavy and cold– and I know it is, because it dwells in a dark sealed up lonely place. That is where it lives. You can bring the bucket up into the sunlight, but in the end, it goes back down where it belongs.The well.
When the water feels extra cold, I climb the rope if I have to, and get into the sunlight. I know I serve a purpose, but it can feel lonely, yes.
Me and sadness are good friends. So good that sometimes it just stopped by for a cup of coffee on a rainy afternoon unannouncing. And I’m never too busy to greet it.
I can relate to this, given my recent events.
I think if we gently allow the sadness to flow through us, it eventually brings us peace. What interrupts this peace is if we give it energy by allowing our ego–or that obnoxious inner voice–to feed it. It will create vicious worlds, breeding anger and revenge. It creates assumptions and masks our eyes over what is really the truth. We therefore fail to see things as they really are.
I’m still having moments of sadness, but I allow it to come into my heart and don’t feed it with those voices of panic. Then it passes, and I feel much stronger.
I’m not sad often. When I was younger I was sad a lot more. My method was to allow myself to lean into it and feel it. I would think the forbidden thoughts, even if they were selfish. I would cry. Write poetry. Walk. Look at the sky. Try to picture myself and the event, whatever it was, as part of a greater universe of happenings. It was never a pleasent experience, but still better (I think) then attempting to avoid the feelings and mask them.
“There is no way not to be alone. Alone we are born and alone we will die.”
i don’t like this idea. It strongly re-enforces the principles of the fully automatic model of the universe and the individual ego. We are constantly surrounded and a part of life. The reality is that we are never truly alone. We can only feel alone through repeated bad thinking that we manage to isolate some illusionary fragment of ourselves.
what an enlightening post…so much to think about. i do wish to come back and savor all your writings…
I remember a time when I was a girl in the late 1050′s when nearly every song on the radio was sad, and movies were what we back then called tear jerkers. In all honesty it was a rather affluent time for the country so it seemed people created sad things simply to feel a passionate emotion. Dwelling on whatever is making you sad, I think is unhealthy, but facing it, accepting it, grieving if need be is necessary to putting it in it’s proper perspective so that you can continue your life as you should.
~ mom
You always have deep food for thought. Interesting! MOVING through it instead of repressing or stuffing it with a nice plate of hot mashed potatoes and gravy! <G> Hmmmm I think I am hungry…..
I’m hardly sad any more ….:)