During our Sunday meditation sharing, we explored what it means when some sitting meditation goes smoothly whereas other periods do not. In no other practice am I more aware of the fickleness of conditions. Just when I think I have figured out what ails me or what conditions make for a 'good practice', those same conditions elude my grasp in the next sitting. In a sense, it is similar to what Buddha said about the skeptic philosophers during his day, namely that they were 'eel wrigglers' (see Ling, p.101) always evading a final answer or position. I suppose that the experience of always losing the 'ideal conditions' in practice can foster a kind of humility.
At the same time, I have been noticing recently that there is a certain kind of acceptance in myself that can lead to resignation or passivity. I think it's sometimes important not to confuse accepting our conditions with passive resignation, because the latter is almost like putting distance between oneself and one's personal issues or challenges. Just because conditions are always changing, doesn't mean that we don't take our challenges seriously. For instance, it would be nihilistic to say, "well, things are always changing and we are going to suffer anyway, so there is no point trying to improve our conditions." This way is too resigned, even though it may contain a seed of wisdom.
If causes and conditions are always changing, what attitude can I adopt to face challenges? I think one can embrace challenges and suffering with compassion, a mind that truly does take suffering seriously and addresses issues. But it would be a compassion without any object. For example, if I had a child whom I cared about, my care doesn't need to get fixated on the idea that the child can only be well by going to a specific school or pursuing a certain kind of career. This kind of attitude would lead both the parent and the child to feel a certain kind of vexation, because they would no longer be examining closely what the child really needs in the moment. An alternative attitude would be to be always curious about what is going on with the child from moment to moment, to see what they need. This moment-to-moment attention is more constructive, because it responds to conditions in a caring way rather than trying to fix a person to a specific line of action. But at the same time, this open attitude is not to be confused with a resigned approach of just letting the child do what she or he wants and not being concerned for the child's welfare. It's a tricky balance, I think, to have a concern which doesn't have a specific objective in mind. But I do think that meditation can help foster that gentle care, by allowing a person to inhabit their body with gentle awareness.
Another way of looking at this might be to say that one has to be honest about one's conditions and reactions to those conditions, rather than trying to sidestep them. Since forms aren't separate from emptiness, we can say that all these emotions and situations are the material we need to work with to learn and grow, so there is no accident that we suffer one ailment and not another. But even if this approach does not help me solve difficulties, it can change the way I look at them and allow me to adopt a variety of perspectives and approaches to dealing with it. Again, it is like a relationship with a loved one: it is multidimensional, and we can never reduce a loved one to a set of factors or fixed qualities. So in a sense, we need to keep experimenting with different ways of seeing the same person or situation. Pain and suffering are calls to look at situations and dilemmas with an open heart that explores, without getting attached to a single method or solution.
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