Learning From the Ups

 After the meditation group sitting this morning, I shared from a book from Master Sheng Yen, the 108 Adages, which reads, "All the ups and downs of life are nourishing experiences for our growth".  I puzzled with the group over what it truly means to learn from life's "ups". Initially, my feeling was that we learn more from life's "downs" than the "ups", especially since it seems that people are nurturing their character through suffering. However, as one of the participants in the group had remarked, we often have a lot tolearn from gaining as much as from losing.
    For one, having a great gain or promotion in life teaches a person the idea of impermanence. It's so temping to thing that when things are going well, one is going to have those very same things indefinitely, and there will be no changes. But one of the most challenging things one can ever do is to not hold on too tightly to the things that they consider to have gained "forever". For example, a person might strive for many years to work and pay off their mortgage on a house, only to realize later that there are other challenges they have to face. Being able to pay off a mortgage is not the end of all suffering: it might be the beginning of other challenges, such as clinging too tightly to the notion of owning a house. In fact, nothing one has lasts forever. Even the cherished body is not something that a person can have indefinitely.
    In living with "gains" or "success", one has to cope with the drawback of recognizing that success has its own hazards. For instance, being promoted to a higher station in a corporate ladder can bring a person a lot of prestige, but it can also incite jealousy in others, thus nurturing feelings of insecurity. I have this job in one instant, but is having that job a guarantee that I am now going to go on this way unchallenged? Actually, everything is always changing, so in that sense, there is hardly any success that is going to guarantee one a life's sense of security. What can be painful about situations of "gain" is letting go of the idea that gain means one needn't struggle anymore. In fact, many apparent "gains" are accompanied by still more struggles and more complex situations to go with it. A person who gets promoted to a manager has many more challenges to face as a leader in an organization. Even though they certainly gain the opportunity to take on more roles or make decisions that affect the whole company, they are subsequently under much more scrutiny. In other words, there is no reason to necessarily "rejoice" over one's gains, but one should also learn to be humble in every situation they are in, since nothing is ever gained entirely through one's own personality or efforts.