Be the puppeteer, not the puppet.
If everything in life is temporary, why am I working so hard on my vision?
On the last day of the retreat, everyone had to bring food they had personally cooked for a group lunch. It was a chilly winter six years back, and I was part of a meditative group. I was searching for peace, but mostly, it was an excuse to step away from work that my conscience allowed. We were all seated in a big circle, passing food bowls. Bowls of all sizes, wooden, round, oval, metallic, each having its flavour, brimming with love and the mouth-watering food it contained. I could pick whatever I liked out of the 30+ dishes. Whatever!
The fruit custard that speckled with pomegranate reminded me of my mother. She poured all her love into them whenever I asked her to cook something I liked, and my stomach on those evenings used to turn into Santa's magic sack. In front of me, in a wooden tray, was a crispy, shiny lettuce salad topped with my favourite herbs. I've found salads topped with the right herbs to be the best addiction. The plate felt so small, and I decided what to serve myself based on precarious rationale. Just when my tummy was grumbling and my eyes watering from the yellow and the green bounty on my plate, boom, "Now pass your food to a person next to you", was the Guru's instruction. Ouch. In that instance, I felt like a baby whose ice cream was snatched away.
What just happened? An explanation followed from the Guru. Attachment brings pain —any form of Attachment. The one you have with your loved ones, the one you have with your material possessions, and even the one you have with your self-portrait. I WAS IN MISERY, looking at the plate in front of me and then at the plate that was no longer mine. Every shiny leaf, those shiny, juicy grains of pomegranate that I had decorated on my plate, now pinched. I was in misery because I got attached to the food I had served for myself. I was a puppet dancing to the tune of my thoughts.
Look inwards to look outwards. A seasoned meditator would immediately grasp how this sentence summarizes Buddha's enlightenment. Our body is ultimately an amalgamation of vibrating cells, and everything is temporary. Vibrations result in every feeling we have, and every cell in our body vibrates billions of times in a second! But even if you have little of a meditative background, I have some questions for you.
What am I working towards? Making my company successful? Realizing my vision of a better world? Fame? Freedom? Money? Or, Future? What happens when I reach there? Why do some of the wealthiest people live isolating lives? Is that monk on the mountain in Tibet with nothing to his name rich in what truly matters in life? Why is it that those dying never really talk about the success they achieved but instead about the smiles they shared? Why is it that when we reflect on life, all our stress in the past seems trivial?
Have you heard of the billionaire who gave it all? That Duty-Free Shop, which we all are guilty of flirting with, is an empire founded by Chuck Feeney, who died last week at 92. Feeney secretly amassed an empire worth billions, starting with selling liquor to naval ships to building one of the most luxurious brands. He gave it all away, over 8 billion! Secretly, without broadcasting. Why?
Three years back, these questions were precisely what I was thinking about. I was practising Vipassana.
"Today, we will practice Adhitthana" - I froze. I was at Bodh Gaya, where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment. During Vipassana, it is expected to meditate for 15 hours a day. Ten days of absolute silence, no communication and inward reflection. With Adhitthana, you're not allowed to move even an inch in your folded legs position because it's a state of extreme determination - 'Come what may, I will not flinch'. Because of my height, I have a relatively stiffer back. Three days of 15-hour-long meditation had added a flavour to the stiffness. I was determined. On regular days, pain would appear about an hour after sitting. This day, however, pain appeared within minutes. And it tested everything I had.
"Keep looking at the pain, observe it, and notice how it rises and falls". These instructions kept on repeating. For the first 2 hours, I could barely focus on my breath, let alone observe the vibrations in my body. My eyes were fighting to get a sneak peek at those around me. If I saw them also struggling, I would feel less bad. My mind tempted my heart with the proposition of an emergency bathroom break, but my heart kept resisting. Given the perfection I chased back then, I kicked myself in my head for not acing my meditation. I wanted to meditate like sages from the very start, and here I was, doing everything with my thoughts other than meditating. I had reached higher stages of mediation over the previous days, and I knew it because of how observant I had become of my bodily vibrations. However, on the fourth day, because of Adhitthana, all my progress had melted away. But What could I do? I carried on observing the pain, trying to focus, crying a thousand times in a second and still not moving. Then, suddenly, the never-ending pain disappeared! For the first time, I felt I was in control of my reaction. In this case, what also happened was that I embraced how it goes out every time the pain appears. The vibrations that cause the sensation of pain die and rise again. And again. And again.
I felt wise. All those years of wondering why people meditate for a whole lifetime now became clearer.
Pleasure or pain is just a result of temporary in-time cellular vibrations. Vibrations that I associate with the feeling. Vibrations that I draw an attachment to. Vibrations that kickstart a sequence of events that ultimately make me the puppet.
So, how do I become the puppeteer?
Buddha was a learned man. He mastered the craft of inward reflection so well that he could zoom out and get a bird's eye view of everything. He said we're all in a cycle of rebirth. And if Buddha is correct, we're all a mass of cells vibrating repeatedly, resetting itself continually, and running the same race in different lives.
Is everything temporary? Yes. As per Buddha, the person who started reading this article and the person who is reading now are two different people. You're being destroyed billions of times every second. And Buddha could foresee this through experience some 20 centuries before our science reached the same conclusion.
Will all our success ultimately become irrelevant in time? Yes. Think of a great empire like the Roman Empire or maybe Amazon today. Would people really care about Amazon 500 years later? No! It would look trivial.
So are we doomed and supposed to not enjoy? No! Everything is temporary, so just acknowledging the same is good enough. The person you love so profoundly today will not be with you someday; if you accept that, you're not hiding away from the truth. You're preparing yourself for the inevitable.
Zoom out with me for a second. In this universe, our galaxy is a small one. In our galaxy, the solar system, the earth, the country, our city, and then the building where you're reading this right now are all so small. However, in that small home lives me, who is a big, big, big man. Let that sink in.
Cherishing things, shooting for the moon and enjoying life is never bad. After all, in the grand scheme of things, we are supposed to be innocent, laugh, hug and roll over, just like dogs. We're supposed to help others and live like good beings. It's completely okay to crave the newest model of the iPhone or, in my case, the plate of food as long as you know that it's temporary, just like our life. As long as you have the control. As long as you resist being a puppet and choose to be a puppeteer.
Don't be a puppet. Be the puppeteer.
This is such an insightful read, Vikram. Read this at a timely manner, too, as I'm contemplating the purpose of the things I'm pursuing. I feel like I'll be thinking about the concept of vibrations as I move forward.