The Peace of The Temporary

Spring is coming.  The ice in my driveway from almost two months of below freezing temperatures was largely melted last evening.  Winter can seem forever, but it ends.

The other night my partner and I watched the first episode of Orange Is the New Black.  It is a series about an upper middle class bisexual woman who once carried a suitcase of money for her lesbian lover who was a drug dealer.  As a result she has been sentenced to 15 months in a women's prison in New York.  It is based on a true story.

There is a character in the prison nicknamed Yoga Jones.  She is an older woman who teaches yoga and seems to follow a Buddhist or at least yogic tradition.  The main character, Piper Chapman, is in shock at being in prison, and Yoga Jones gives her this interesting piece of advice:

Yoga Jones: Do you know what a mandala is?
Piper Chapman: Um, those are those round Buddhist art things.
Yoga Jones: The Tibetan monks make then out of dark sand laid out into big beautiful designs. And when they're done, after days or weeks of work, they wipe it all away.
Piper Chapman: Wow, that's, that's a lot.
Yoga Jones: Try to look at your experience here as a mandala, Chapman. Work hard to make something as meaningful and beautiful as you can. And when your done, pack it in and know it was all temporary.

I found this exchange really meaningful.  I am preparing for an important job interview, and I am finding preparing my job talk a rather anxiety-filled endevour.  This morning as I meditated I came back to this dialogue from the show.

One could look at the work of the monks on the mandala as futile or as a depressing analogy to death and mortality.  Nevertheless, I think the message is about happiness.

The joy of living is giving your heart and attention -your love if you will- to the present moment without worry about the future.  The future will always -ALWAYS- sweep away the past.  Religions die.  Cities crumble.  Professors retire.  Servers crash.  Heaven and happiness are found in the moment.  Placing each bit of colored sand and revelling in the beauty is important.  That broom will come whether the mandala is perfect or not.   Dye your sand.  Place it with care.  Relish the puzzle.  Laugh.