The coronavirus has dealt the world a very harsh blow. Six months into the pandemic, we are again seeing cases rise rapidly, especially in the United States, and there is no vaccine in sight. Globally, there are 12 million cases and counting, with more than 545,000 deaths. While economies are sinking, politicians and the public remain deeply divided on how to respond for the common good.
From a spiritual perspective, you could say that we have been given an “existential slap.” This is a phrase coined by palliative care nurse Nessa Coyle to describe the experiences she witnessed among patients who received a terminal diagnosis (“The Existential Slap: A Crisis of Disclosure,” 2004). It is the sudden jolt of recognition that all things change, diminish and disappear – including you.
With this slap, “everything that once provided a sense of stability, familiarity, and security is called into question,” says Coyle.
Sound familiar? Do you find yourself on shaky ground? Do you feel angry, anxious, helpless or depressed because of the pandemic? There is another way to respond to these uncertain times. Instead of fearing, denying or resisting what’s happening, we could open ourselves up to the natural course of things, however it unfolds.
The process requires a shift in our usual thought processes. Toward this end, I offer the following affirmations, informed by ancient spiritual truths. If you repeat them often and contemplate their meaning, they will help you find peace of mind, even during hard times.
(1) Everything is always changing. Nothing lasts. This is good.
Most of us already know this, but we don’t live like we do. Usually we go about our daily lives as if everything is supposed to stay the same. So we suffer from even minor changes and losses – disruptions in our daily routine, the dying of our computer, the closing of our favorite restaurant, the dent we just put in the car.
Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön explains that most of us “habitually ward off any sense of problem. We’re always trying to deny that it’s a natural occurrence that things change, that the sand is slipping through our fingers. Time is passing. It’s as natural as the seasons changing and day turning into night” (When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, 20th anniversary edition, 2016).
As a result of these habitual ways, says Chödrön, “getting old, getting sick, losing what we love – we don’t see those events as natural occurrences. We want to ward off that sense of death, no matter what.”
If we lived daily as if change was natural and to be expected, we would be better prepared for the really BIG changes, and they would not throw us into crisis.
Buddhists call this dharma or “the way.” It is the practice of appreciating change and impermanence. We understand that all things come and go, and this is as it should be. Good times pass, but so do hard times. With change comes the opportunity for rebirth and growth.
The awareness of constant change also helps us cherish life. If we do not develop respect for impermanence, says Chödrön, “we lose our sense of the sacredness of life.”
And we waste a lot of time. The Dalai Lama teaches, “If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger and stronger” (Advice on Dying: And Living a Better Life, 2002). Wise use of time includes meditating, overcoming negative thought patterns and “afflictive” emotions (anger, hatred, jealousy, resentment) and serving others.
(2) There is good and bad in everything. This is the way things are.
It is easy to focus our attention on problems and lament what is bad in the world, because there is plenty of it. But there is also plenty of good. As the Dalai Lama says, “The best is being done by humans, and the worst is being done by humans.”
To maintain peace of mind, we must accept that good and bad complement each other.
Says Chödrön, “If there is beauty, there must be ugliness. If there is right, there is wrong. Wisdom and ignorance cannot be separated. This is an old truth – one that men and women like ourselves have been discovering for a long time.”
What makes classic works of art “great” is this play of opposites. Donald Hall, former poet laureate of the United States, uses the ancient Greek word “enantiodromia” to explain this enduring quality of great literature.
In these works, says Hall, “the emotional intricacy and urgency of human life expresses itself most fiercely in contradiction. . . . In any apparatus of art, there is no north that is not also south . . . . Paradiso validates Inferno. Yes no. No yes. . .. Only the wrenching apart permits the wholeness. Enantiodromia. Up and down. Down and up. Way way down. Way way up. A carnival of losses” (A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety, 2018).
This interplay of loss and gain, happy and sad, down and up, good and bad, need not be cause for despair. In revealing the full range of humanity, it is what makes art – and all of life – so poignant and precious.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t work to change the negative things we see in the world and ourselves, only that we look for what is also good to balance out the bad. This is how we maintain equilibrium in the midst of negative influences.
Many Others Have Passed This Way Before
Most patients with a terminal diagnosis not only learn to accept their own impermanence, but also come to see how the ultimate opposites — life and death — are complementary. They are therefore great teachers for living through hard times, especially life-threatening ones.
At first, for many patients, the terminal diagnosis precipitates an existential crisis, and their “sense of anxiety can be close to intolerable. That’s because [they] are confronting a loss of identity and meaning” (Jennie Dear, What Does it Feel Like to Die? Inspiring New Insights into the Experience of Dying, 2019).
This phase usually subsides after two or three months and is followed by a period of vacillation between denial and acceptance called “middle knowledge.” Eventually, most patients reach the phase of “double awareness” where they are conscious of their condition yet still able to participate fully in life.
As it turns out, living with the awareness of death makes life richer and more meaningful. When we live with the knowledge that death is just around the corner, we are more likely to make good use of the life we still have.
For this reason, the Dalai Lama advises that we gently remind ourselves each day to be grateful and to use our time wisely. If the two affirmations I have given you don’t work, just repeat the words of the Dalai Lama. They will keep you on track in good times and bad:
“Be careful, be earnest, another day is passing.”
Written by: Ruth Ray Karpen
Ruth Ray Karpen is a researcher, writer and retired English professor. She has published many books and articles on aging and old age, life story writing, and retirement. (See Beyond Nostalgia: Aging and Lifestory Writing, 2000 and Endnotes: An Intimate Look at the End of Life, 2008). Most recently, as a hospice volunteer whose 100-year-old mother is a hospice patient, she has been exploring the meaning of death and dying. In our series on “Heart and Soul,” she will consider how later life, including the end of life, offers unique opportunities for emotional and spiritual growth.
On behalf of Smart Strategies for Successful Living, our sincerest appreciation goes to Ruth Ray Karpen for her contribution to the heart and soul of living and aging.