I’m not a déjà vu kind of guy, someone who believes in serendipity, black cat crossings, and so on, but I need to tell this story. I was driving with my son to check out a college, and we were talking a bit of ‘philosophy’ (basically what I call it when we start throwing ideas around). One of the things that came up was ‘staying in the middle’ of our emotions. He said he doesn’t try and lean into just seeing and being attached emotionally to one side of a situation, but acknowledges both sides, not choosing one over the other. He said that way he isn’t too disappointed when a positive situation leads into one that may be more difficult, or vice versa.
I thought that was an awesome way of realizing the impermanence of his emotions and the situations that brought them about, and tried desperately to remember this old Zen Buddhist story that I read ages ago. “Something about this guy and a horse,” I said. His eyebrows raise while I ramble on. “The horse comes, the horse goes… I can’t seem to remember what trials he faced, but the old farmer gets back together with him, and takes it all in stride…” – My son nods politely, both of us realizing that I basically said nothing.
I dropped him off for his campus visit, then went and saw the new Thor movie (great flick). Afterwards, I headed to Whole Foods to grab some dinner. On the way over I saw an Amazon store. “Huh,” I thought to myself. “Thought this was just an on-line thing.” I decided to go in. (Not the norm… I usually don’t just walk into book stores without a purpose… not really a browser.) As always, I headed over to the philosophy/religion section. Thich Nhat Hanh had a new book out: “The Art of Living.” Imagine that. I picked it up off the shelf, cracked the book open…
“We’ll See, We’ll See” stood out in bold print for a chapter title… This was the very story I had searched my memory for earlier. I have to admit, I looked around, wondering if I was being ‘punked.’ “What are odds,” I thought. After shaking off the chills, I read the story…
Mr. Ly, a rural villager whose livelihood depended on his horse. One day his horse ran away, and all his neighbors took pity on him: “How unlucky you are! What misfortune!” But Mr. Ly was not anxious. “We’ll see.“ he said. “We’ll see.” A few days later his horse returned, bringing several wild horses back with it. Mr. Ly and his family were suddenly very wealthy. “How lucky you are!” exclaimed the other villagers. “We’ll see,” replied Mr. Ly. “We’ll see.”
As you can imagine, this turning of events for Mr. Ly went on a good while, and every time it did, his reply and calm emotional demeanor was the same. We’ll see.
Thich Nhat Hanh, explanation of why this was:
“Impermanence is just as capable of bringing about happiness as it is of bringing about suffering; thanks to impermanence, anything can change and transform in a more positive direction.”
I bought the book. Of course I did. For one, my son was heading off to school soon. As I had watched my movie and walked around the city a bit to fill my time while I waited for him, I realized I was feeling the changes that were already taking place in our relationship and how many more changes were to come. I also didn’t think it was coincidence that I went into that store, tonight of all nights, pulled that particular book off the shelf, and opened to the exact story I was trying to come up with just hours ago.
Tomorrow, when I go to pick him up, I figure I’ll show my son the book, tell him the story of how I came across it, we’ll laugh. I’ll get to hear all about how his night went with the guys who may possibly become his future teammates. I really can’t wait. It will be exciting to hear how well he connected with those college runners. At the same time, it will be a bit sad for me, realizing that his world is about to get that much bigger and I will have to share him. How will I deal with these different emotions as they come up? We’ll see, we’ll see…
