The Art of Well-Wishing

  In the Distillery District, people now pay $5 to get into the Christmas Market. After a long line, I am met with many large crowds, coming from many parts of the world to enjoy a sort of "night market" of chocolate, barbecue foods, poutine, and beer. I guess this is a season of well-wishing, judging from people's faces and the general atmosphere of conviviality. And we are entreated to little trinket shops where there are ancient bygones of toys: something called 'tinker toy' from the 1950s, as well as a book which pokes fun at the 'ease' of parenting. There is an element of bittersweet when one strolls through a 'toy shop for adults', marvelling at one's childhood and realizing it is long gone. I wonder, as 2015 comes to a close, do people here think about their loved ones, or do they just come to enjoy the paraphernalia?

    For myself, wishing others well is not such an easy practice. I think that oftentimes, it's because Western cultures in particular place a value on commitment, and this often takes the form of owning something for a long period of time. Having to 'give away' something without expecting a return is often unheard of. I read a facetious quote about the monk Ajahn Braun, from a book by Sarah Naphthali called Buddhism for Couples which defines non-attachment and 'true love' as "your best friend and your partner fall in love and run away together and you feel glad that two people you love so much have managed to achieve greater happiness." (p.145) Can people imagine doing this, I wonder?
  
   I think that life itself is a process of coming to realize that one only has things for a limited time. It's not easy to grasp that point, but the process is easier if a person learns to let go and take in the fact that they are no less for doing so. Well-wishing is the art of wishing others well, even when you may never see that person enjoy the tangible benefits of the wish itself. When a person is so free that she or he is not even attached to another person's coming or going, their heart is big enough to accommodate giving away their time, without necessarily expecting a tangible gain from it.

   But I also want to add a caveat here: I think that the only way this well-wishing is done gracefully is when a person fully acknowledges a tangible sense of loss as a part of  one's life. Simply denying feelings of loss doesn't quite cut it. If I try to suppress my feelings of wanting others to be around when they cannot be, I am missing the rich vulnerability of desire. And that desire furnishes something quite educative. It is this 'bittersweet' that is the real source of compassion, because it asks that one truly 'give away' to others what is deepest and most real to someone's heart. If someone is my source of happiness, real love would be wanting to give that other person the happiness that I wish were mine.

Napththali, Sarah (2014), Buddhism for Couples. New York: Penguin