31/05/2013

Good morning.

A few weeks ago my husband and I were looking forward to a special weekend in the country. We were encouraged by a good weather forecast – it’s going to be sunny and gorgeous, they said. So my heart sank on the Saturday morning as I woke up to that particularly British sensation of grey light around the edges of the curtains, soon to be followed by the pit-pat of rain. The fact that we’d been led to expect sunshine made it even worse.

“Less desire means less pain” says one of my Tibetan Buddhist teachers. When I first heard this, I found it startling. Desire is part of pleasure, right? Yet now I wonder if much of the time we’re simply setting ourselves up for a fall. However convinced I am that a frothy cappuccino, a new piece of clothing or the latest gizmo will make me happy – when I observe more closely, how long does my happiness and satisfaction actually last?

Desire also creates a kind of blindness to what’s actually happening around us right now. For example, we might miss out on the simple pleasure of a morning cuddle in bed on a rainy morning, in the place of that bracing walk that we’d originally had in mind. Desire can also make us so caught up in ourselves that we fail to notice what we can do for the people around us – which is often a much more direct source of happiness and satisfaction than anything else. 

The weather is like the government” said Jerome K Jerome “it’s always in the wrong.” Maybe the 24-hour weather channel isn’t the main story. Let’s pray that we can all find happiness, and be open to the needs of others, regardless of whether the sun is shining this weekend.