How is your day?
What is the first thing people say when they meet? I guess it is the usual "How are you? How is your day?" I get this question every day, every single morning from almost everyone I meet. To a certain degree, I get pissed off by it. “Do you really want to know how I am, how my day is?” I feel miserable most of the time and my day sucks. If I tell you that, do you really care? Out of politeness, I always reply "I am fine."
I've never asked what actually lies behind "How are you? How is your day?" until one day, after all the busyness, I went to the washroom to freshen up, and I asked myself "How are you, Stephanie?" Tiredness, don't feel good are the usual mood. “How long more do I need to go through this experience?” I thought. When the word "experience" was heard, it dawned on me that "How are you? How's your day?" actually refers to the experiences I am going through. When the experiences are good, I feel great, I have a great day. When the experiences are not good and disappointing, I have a terrible day. But don't you notice? You are totally identified with the experiences. You let the experiences define you. You become those experiences. You are those experiences and no wonder I feel sucks, my day is terrible, and I don't feel good at all. Right View is totally absent from my mind, and I am in the soup of suffering.
Secondly, if intention brings forth a moment rather than intention is in a moment, it can then mean that experiences make up life, rather than there are many experiences in life. The day I see as sucky and terrible is nothing else but unpleasant experiences put together, making up a terrible day and I want it to be otherwise. In other words, the day itself has no meaning of good or bad, great or terrible. It is just made up of a bunch of experiences in which the experiences themselves are neither good nor bad, great nor terrible. Due to the wrong attitude, the experiences are given meaning as good, bad, fun, exciting, and depressing, which are all meanings and judgments seen from the lens of greed and aversion.
When this was noticed, it means that I have been looking for happiness at the wrong place. I have been looking for happiness in experiences. It is no wonder we are reminded again and again not to go to the object (experiences), and to stay with the meditating mind, your job is not to do anything to the experience, your job is not to make the experience other than what it already is, your job is to check how the mind responds to the experience with Right View that these experiences are nature, they are resultant of causes and conditions, they do nothing to you, for you, and against you. It is due to the wrong attitude (delusion, greed, and aversion) that wants the experiences to be in a certain way. Can I then learn to see these experiences without hierarchy? Can I check my attitude towards the experiences?
Hence, it is true that there really is no happiness in the world because the world is but experience after experience and happiness cannot be found in experiences. Is getting good experiences happiness? They turn out to be pleasures, not happiness. If things don't turn out the way I wanted, there is displeasure instead. There really is no happiness in the world. And that is really good news because that saves me from playing the endless game of liking and disliking, toggling between pleasures and displeasures. When this is seen, stress becomes unnecessary. What matters and triggers me so much doesn’t matter that much anymore, unless Right Understanding is absent from my mind again.
This then leads me to inquire about this information - the "I" is also an experience. This little crack helped me to investigate further the sense-of-I-is-also-another-experience. And I'm really keen and interested now to explore that information. Until then, I aspire that no matter how many times I fall, may my mind never give up and never waver from the Path. May I always be guided by the Truth. And may all of us be led to nothing else but the Truth. On a side note, when people asked me "How is your day?" I answered "As it is," and now they get pissed.
In grace,
Stephanie Chua
25 Oct 2022