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"Everything is as it should be."....?
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
This discussion was created from comments split from: Everything is as it should be?.
The other discussion was 5 years old, so I updated the posts and began a new thread.
The other discussion was 5 years old, so I updated the posts and began a new thread.
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I googled that statement to see if it was used anywhere. It was something i had been telling myself when things got tough. I came up with it after reflecting on what the "here and now" really was. I concluded that all that is perceived, is in the past, as not even light travels instantaneously. So the moment is "history" by the time we perceive it and history can not be changed. Therefore it is exactly as it should be. There are unknown forces as work, working in ways I can never fathom to understand.
I am really a self proclaimed "Evolutionist" maybe with Buddhist tendencies. In a recent meditation, I realized that when the Neanderthals were either wiped out or assimilated by modern Homo Sapiens, they probably didn't want to become extinct after existing for about 300,000 years. But even extinction is as it should be.
All I really know is how the thought helps me to feel calm when I am feeling anxious or discontent. It is a way of accepting all that is, that I have no direct power over.
I prefer "Everything is as it is". The "should" gives the impression of a value judgement, like there's a right or a wrong way for things to be.
A phrase like this could also be wrongly interpreted as one of those trite cliches people use to make themselves feel better, like "everything happens for a reason".
Here's a good teaching on "The way it is":
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Ajahn_Sumedho_The_Way_it_is.htm
The only chance of saving the world is if we stop trying to save it - Alan Watts
So I don't have to join the Green party?
My first Dharma teacher used to say, "We are all perfect just as we are, and we could all stand a little improvement."
As @SpinyNorman points out, on the surface it seems to be a value judgement. I think it speaks to a deeper truth, that somewhere in your spiritual path you have to make peace with life and the world. The tide goes in, the tide goes out, and you don't curse the tide or stand yelling at it to stop being what it is. That also doesn't mean you stop preparing for the storm that is on its way. Hard to explain, accepting the world and people are they are, without condoning the suffering of the world.
Given the nature of the world and the nature of the intelligent upright squabbling tribes of monkeys living on it, the world is as it should be. But the world is also constantly changing. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. Next year the world will be different, and then it will also be as it should be. And it will need a bit of improvement at the same time. If nothing else, maybe we can help pile the sandbags a little higher before the storm.
The world is as it should be, and it could do with a bit of improvement.
Good one. Very useful saying. Thanks for that
.
Here's something I wrote recently on another forum which might be of interest here:
I think another way of looking at this is to say that what we really want is a constant and continuing state of contentment, fullfilment, comfort, health etc, but of course impermanence always denies us this. Or to put it another way, aversion is frustrated craving.
So for example an episode of physical pain is unpleasant because it "interrupts" what I really want, ie a continuing state of physical comfort. So I feel aversion towards the pain because it frustrates my craving for comfort.
"Everything is as it should be."....?
Otherwise it would not have happened the way that it did.
Even if you are able to prevent "bad" things from happening, that is also as it should be.
Try arguing with that.
This is suchness. When one lives in suchness, live flows with ease. No more struggling against reality. No more "Whys?".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tathatā
"Everything is as it should be."
Why? Is there a way things should be?
Rather, for whatever reason, things happen the way they had to happen.
Here is a Buddha quote that says the same thing:
“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” – Buddha
I pulled it out of another thread.
So when they say everything is as it should be, is the message accept things as they are without attempting to change them?
I don't know about this "everything is as it should be", but I've heard things more along the lines of "nothing is missing" and "you have all that you need".
Nothing to grasp. Nothing else needed (than non-grasping).
It is what it is.
http://www.fakebuddhaquotes.com/fake-buddha-quote-197
Is it really a fake?
Sorry for the quote. Did not know it first appeared on the internet in the early 2000s. Not intentional, I assure you.
In reading those fake quotes, it becomes obvious Buddha never did not ever think things were perfect. His thinking was that life is suffering.
No, his thinking was that Life is Dukkha. "Suffering" is both simplistic and to an extent, inaccurate. Many Scholars now give alternatives, such as 'difficult', or 'challenging', all of which also try to grasp at the notion of dukkha, but miss, somewhat.
In other words, it's lost in translation, but I'm drawn to the wonky wheel analogy, which apparently is also an etymological aspect of the pali word....
My constant current line of thought is,
"There is not better place than 'Here',
There is no better time than 'Now'.
You are where you are, when you are where you are.
Deal with it.
Yes, they should have put better suspension on those chariots.
I kinda disagree with that on some level. I've beat myself up with guilt before, over the stuff I've done in the past, and I know plenty of alcoholics in recovery that struggle to stay sober because of their pasts and the baggage they carry from it. I know folk who were sexually abused as children, or who have done some fairly terrible stuff (a truck driver I know killed a cyclist; I've even posted about a guy who beat his ex-girlfriend) and the guilt they've carried has harmed them.
And it's pretty hard to stay in the now when we're dragging around 20 years worth of baggage with us.
So okay, we can't change the past, but we certainly can change the relationship we have with our past.
Even the most polluted river on earth, the Ganges in India found a way to continue to flourish by increasing the amount of pathogen consuming bacteria thus providing additional oxygen and nutrients.
Karma/baggage is a drag (to put it mildly). Forgiving or letting go of perpetuators including ourselves is something requiring skill.
Can we be kind? Can we loosen?
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-forgive-when-you-dont-really-want-to/
two monks who encounter each other some years after being released from prison where they had been tortured by their captors. "Have you forgiven them?" asks the first. "I will never forgive them! Never!" replies the second. "Well, I guess they still have you in prison, don't they?" the first says. - See more at: http://dharmawisdom.org/teachings/articles/forgiving-unforgivable#sthash.UuXZJNzi.dpuf
I know it is easy for me to say. You will have to forgive me . . . :wave: .
Kia Ora,
"The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preference !
When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.”
Sengcan, Hsin Hsin Ming
Metta Shoshin .
..
@Tosh,
As someone who was sexually, mentally and physically abused as a child and is probably still carrying around a lot of baggage I know how easy it is to reach for a joint, a beer and a line of speed to switch off those feelings.
It becomes a lot easier to deal with when you realise the people who have hurt you are suffering as much in their own way as you are. One can even feel some metta for them.
I had a minor argument with my GF the other night and my first instinct was to reach for a can of lager to switch off the pain. Instead I just at with it and it passed.
Aslobster said as long as you hold onto the pain they still have you in their snare, let go and you begin to see the path to freedom.
Speaking of which time to for an appointment with @lobster's favourite resident psychiatrist Mr Cushion.
I don't know if everything is as it should be because that implies a plan.
Everything is according to conditions which we affect even as we are according to conditions.
Let's not pass on while wishing things were different... It just doesn't seem like a favorable condition.
..and a truly spontaneous being, being as it is spontaneously, lets everything be without attachment or aversion, even when aspects of itself criticise itself?
... \ lol / ...
I prefer to just say, "Everything is okay".
Or "It's all good."
My sister and I used to call Buddhism "the great Whatever" ... because whatever it is, it is okay. It just IS.
Isn't that a denial of the first Noble Truth?
Seems that way, doesn't it? One of those paradoxes that drive the analytical mind bonkers.
I bleedin' well 'ate them paradoxes..
Have realised now that certain comments have to be within certain bandwidths - Yes I am trying to be banned - ta da
Everything is as it should be!
hallelujah!
:bawl: .
oh boy, life sure can be 'hard as is' which is NT1
gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
or to put it another way
go, go, Go Beyond beyond, go thoroughly beyond, and Still Be
:orange: .
@lobster
My fave is
Going, going, always going on, always becoming........ Buddha.
Kia Ora,
"Everything is as it should be !" No matter how one tries, one can't change what is-It can't be any other way....(The other way would also be what is )
Metta Shoshin .
..