In today’s fast paced world, a lot of emphasis is put on achievements, goals, and accomplishments. Since I am not a globetrotter and have limited travels in the United States as well, I will utilize my personal experiences in an attempt to formulate a Taoism/Zen response to such stresses. Just to see what I was up against, I Googled a few of the words from the previous sentence and this is what I found; 44,500,000 sights for achievements,
142,000,000 for goals,
20,700,000 for accomplishments, and
177,000,000 for stress
Rather over whelming numbers.
On the flip side there are only 25,900 for meditation.
Honestly, I have read very little about Taoism, Zen, or Buddhism prior to taking an Asian Thought philosophy course at MTSU. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my thought about “what is” is so similar, if not the same as these Eastern philosophies. Life is not a “destination” it’s a journey. One in which we get to choose the path or paths we wish to travel. Unfortunately, many people seem to spend the adventure taking pictures and collecting souvenirs and not actually having the experience of the very thing they are attempting to capture.
Most humans are confronted with the stress of attainment of goals, achievements, and accomplishments before they are even old enough to pronounce them. As parents, we are told that we must push our children to strive for excellence in their and achievements. We send them to preschool so they can get a head start on the pack. We encourage them to become active in sports, strive for better than “good” grades, and join organizations, because it will set them in better favor on a college application. And it doesn’t stop there, college is more of the same with an emphasis on becoming “something” that will produce for society, and afford all the comforts money can buy. Where we as parents fall short, there is a barrage of movies, songs, videos, books, articles, television programs, and self help gurus ready to help them achieve more.
There’s the rub, the ever elusive “more”. I have seen my children, friends and other family members spending so much of their journey striving for, and stressing over getting more that will make them more comfortable, more satisfied, more fulfilled, more generous, more content, more happy; the list goes on and on. However, once they attained “more” not only was it not enough of more, but now they must also figure out how to hold onto more.
The need for achievement seems to be more of a challenge to be better than the pack, not for personal inner growth. As young adults it usually, but not always, starts out with educational goal, where to get this education and the type of training needed. Career goals; what jobs will give them more opportunities, more benefits, and/or more money. They even plan how long they should wait before requesting or expecting a raise or advancement in the company. People have family goals as well, such as when/if they will get married, have children and/or how many children they will have. Career and family goals are tied into their monetary goals about cars, houses, and other possessions, which in turn lead to retirement goals. Meanwhile, some where in between all the preparation, with many multiple short term goals that hopefully will lead them to achieve the illusive long-term goals of fulfillment and happiness, people spend much time feeling anxious about aging, and do all they can to allude the feared state of death.
Although I am enjoying life and do not wish to prematurely end the adventure I do not understand this fear of death. Lao Zi stated, “We enter (our lives) through being born, and we exit through death”. [1] This describes the natural course of nature, which submits all humans, all creatures, and all affairs to the ceaseless transformation of the world. Death is a normal part of life, and we should accept it as natural ordinance, a factual event we can do nothing about but accept. The less we think about our own fear of death, the more we can touch the real nature of life. Thus we can surpass the limitation and anxiety of both death and life.
I don’t generally watch television, but once I saw an ad that actually had a good line. The purpose for the ad was to sell insurance. Two older women filled the screen and one stated something akin to, "You know, I hate it when people tell me I don't look my age! It only reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with growing old!"
We live in a society that prizes youth. Be young! Look young! Act young! Hey, why do you think there are so many Viagra-like commercials? Far too many men have been convinced that they need the ability to steam up the bedroom like they were twenty-five again!
Try as we might, we can't forestall the aging process. It's an inherent part of our world. The moment we're each born, the aging process begins and the ONLY thing that can stop it is our biological death.
Unlike many of my contemporaries, I don't fear growing old. Besides, why try to stand in the way of the inevitable? No matter what each of us does (or tries to do), the aging process will exact its toll. Rather than fight a losing battle, it makes far more sense to go with the flow and enjoy the ride.
The 'goods' in life that people are really seeking are spiritual - goods like peace, wisdom, happiness, confidence, contentment, certainty, security, courage, patience, truth, love, joy etc. But they think that they can get these 'goods' through indirect, external means, which is to say through material possessions. I find nothing wrong with earning money or wanting to live comfortably. As a matter of fact I whole-heartedly encourage it. I am quite fond of our home and enjoy decorating it with soft pillows, warm colors, and art that we find pleasing to see and touch. I like our car, it drives wonderfully, and I think we could pack a small herd of caribou in it (if we ever needed to). However I am not “attached” to these things, they do not define me nor are they the source of my comfort and happiness. I could walk away from all of it and maintain my joy and contentment. I like to be surrounded with things that make me smile and bring a sense of joy to my life. It is difficult to feel stress when you are experiencing joy, yes? So it would seem that joy is the way out of stress. You already have everything you need. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you!”[2] You already innately possess the perfection of Tao. All you have to do is realize this by looking within.
I am currenently attending university. One might think it is in search of a particular form of knowledge that I would not otherwise be privy to (this is true); and in obtaining such knowledge it would afford me the opportunities to gain social status, financial stability, and a modicum of success and happiness (this is not true). Although these assumptions may very well be the case for many people, they are not goals that I have. I have no real goal to speak of other than to attend classes and listen, learn,ponder new ideas,enjoy the people, conversations and experiences as they occur with no preconceived expectations. The greatest knowledge I have ever attained occurred when I was just being “present”.
Having six children and working with very young children for over twenty-seven years has been a delight. They have shown me more about myself, life in general, and the moment-to-moment experience of joy than I ever could have gleaned in several life times of searching on my own. I have expressed to the parents of these children that they should not force their child to live in their “adult world” but step in and experience the world from the child’s perspective.
The ability to first liberate ourselves from our own premeditated expectations toward our children and then helping to show our children the outcome of the various expectations that they and/or others may have for them, are two sides of the same coin, two halves of the same whole. They are the gateways into the profound mysteries and the wonders of both parenthood and childhood, which are themselves two aspects of the same human experience. As a mother, I expressed to my children the need to be true to one’s self at all times, while the world around them encouraged them to “fit in”. I told them that winning isn’t everything, and that they didn’t have to be the best, just be their own personal best, but the message they seemed to hear was, “You won’t ever be good enough, so just get use to it”. I allowed them to be who they were and let them make choices for themselves; after all there are no bad choices, there is always something to gain in any experience. However, if they did not get the result they thought was due them, they said it was my fault because, “Everyone else’s parent would have helped them make the right choice”. I wanted to teach them that the joy you get out of anything you do (including life itself) is proportionate to the joy you bring to it. Even these words are twisted by them to mean something more like, “The more you have, the happier you are”.
I have found that we cannot teach anyone how to experience the “inner peace” any more than it can be learned. To rid oneself of goals, do away with achieving anything and forget about all accomplishments would not ease one’s stress and bring inner peace. The lack of peace and joy comes from the misguided belief that any object or deed outside of oneself can in any way have such a profound affect on ones inner being. “Happiness is the absents of striving for happiness”[3] Chuang Tzu
Sources:
1.Lao Zi. Daodejejing, chapter 50
2.Bible. Luck 17:21
3.Andy Zubko, Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom (pg 227)
*In most cases by the word “joy” I am referring to the inner sense of comfort, peace, that which cannot be named.
