10,
000 Joys and 10,
000 Sorrows An essay by Maggie Stephens Sometimes life just chugs along.
We get up and go about our routines,
While a day or a week slides into the next.
We may have small grievances.
The store is out of our favorite food.
Someone cuts us off in traffic.
Our spouse still can't remember to close the kitchen cabinets.
Sometimes we have little wins.
All the traffic lights are green.
Our blood work came back within normal limits.
Or we got wordle in two.
We can be lulled into thinking that this is our life,
Relatively smooth sailing,
Until it isn't.
Our lives are comprised of 10,
000 joys and 10,
000 sorrows.
We welcome the joys,
The births,
The weddings,
The promotions.
And yet,
We are blindsided by the sorrows.
Not only did we not see them coming.
We also don't want to see them when they're here.
I've known women hoping that their magical thinking would make the lump in their breasts disappear.
It is part of the human condition to armor up our hearts rather than to let the fear or sorrow in.
This strategy is stopgap at best.
We lock sorrow out the front door,
And it's opening the back door.
We pull the shade down on fear,
And it's coming up the cellar steps.
We can run,
But we can't hide.
So what's a human to do?
Thich Nhat Hanh,
The Buddhist teacher and writer,
Shared,
Don't throw away your suffering.
Touch your suffering.
Face it directly.
Why would you do that,
You may ask?
By sitting down with our sorrow or fear,
We are reminded that change is the constant that makes the world go round.
Suffering rises and passes away,
Including this feeling,
Our loved ones,
And even ourselves.
This universal truth of impermanence can open our hearts to recognize the preciousness of every moment,
Even the annoying ones.
It is in that preciousness that we find our joy and our common humanity.
We only figure this out by sitting with our feelings and seeing what they have to show us.
This is the reason why we call it our practice.
I'm sitting with sorrow that at times wells up and spills out my eyes.
I don't like it.
And yet,
It has allowed memories to bubble up from the deep well in my brain.
Memories of family dinners with my parents and sisters where the conversations lasted far longer than the meal.
Memories of my dad asking me French words to complete his New York Times crossword puzzles.
Memories of my younger sister and I sharing whispered late-night conversations and giggles in a room we shared for over a decade.
These memories are precious and only present because the sorrow stirred them and brought them to the surface.
We humans are fragile beings,
But our hearts are strong and generous.
We can't fix most of the world.
We can recognize the impermanence of everything and everyone.
We can let our hearts be open,
Resting place for our emotions.
In that open space,
We may find solace and our connection to everything else in the universe.
