Life Dancing

If all your actions are based on the pursuit of happiness, why is it that so many things you do yield anything but happiness?

By Phillip Moffitt

A few years ago Forbes magazine quoted the real estate developer Donald Trump referring to Conrad Hilton as "just a member of the lucky sperm club" because Hilton's father owned the successful hotel chain. It was a classic statement of someone whose ego clings to winning and trembles in fear of losing. Trump is himself a member of the lucky sperm club; some would say having a wealthy, supportive father and personal good health makes him the result of particularly lucky sperm. But you and I are also members of the lucky sperm club. Life danced and you were the result. Likewise, when death comes, it will come of its own bidding; life will dance, and you will be gone. The Buddha taught that there is nothing you can successfully cling to in between the moment of conception and the moment of death.

Certainly it is possible to affect the course of your life. Hard work, discipline, and development of your talents enable you to be a better partner when life comes to dance, just as you can learn to be a better swimmer in the ocean. But in life, like swimming in the ocean, when the strong currents and big waves come, they overwhelm all human action. Is it not your experience that every human being is swimming in the ocean of life?

The second objection to nonclinging comes from people who say it's a passive or negative approach to life. This objection comes from confusing words and actions, which you have control over, with results, which you do not. How you hold yourself when dancing with life involves a balancing process. If you hold too tight, you squeeze the life out of the moment. If you hold too loosely, you are not really engaging in the moment, and you offer life a mere rag doll with whom to dance.

Clinging occurs not just in regard to what you want now; you may also cling to memories of something bad that happened to you or cling to regret over some action you took. Bad memories or deep sorrow do not have to lead to clinging. In his book, The Art of Happiness (Riverhead Books, 1998), the Dalai Lama speaks of a regret from his own life: "It's still there. But even though that feeling of regret is still there, it isn't associated with a feeling of heaviness or a quality of pulling me back." When you experience that quality of heaviness or being pulled back, it is a symptom indicating that you are clinging to something in the past. Living life in the spiritual dimension means letting go equally of past and future and being present for each moment as it arises. It serves no purpose to judge yourself or to wish to undo that which has been written in the sands of time.

Herein lies the paradox common to mystical teachings in most spiritual traditions: In order to be fully alive, you also have to die. When you cling to the past or future, believing you are holding onto something precious, you are denying what is sacred about life. Your life, with its unique pains and joys, can only be reconciled in your surrender to the truth of your experiences as they arise one moment after another, never fixed, always moving. A beautiful sunrise, a baby's smile, a broken heart, cancer, the loss of love—open fully to the experiences of your life in all their mysterious manifestations. Meet each of these moments with compassion, loving-kindness, and your very best response. Then let loose of each in turn, for however beguiling in their beauty or their horror, they are truly only life dancing.

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