Ruminating Rumi

ISUBSCRIBE to Buddha Doodles on Instagram. I love it. I like the way multimedia artist Molly Hahn showcases meaningful quotes through her illustrations. It lifts me up that I often share it on my social media wall to hopefully, encourage, cheer up and inspire friends and family to have a great day. I am always amazed how words and thoughts can make someone’s day and so I have always made it a point to do a good deed by sharing what makes my day happy and sunny.

This past week, I was unbelievably busy I hardly had time to share any doodles. There are times like this, right? We have all come across moments in our lives when we barely had time to breathe. Not that I am complaining, it is good to be busy, but well, we also want time to catch our breath and just admire the things around us. I think it is imperative that we set aside time to appreciate what we have and realize how blessed we are despite the trials because when we do, our faith in what is good and most important in life is continuously renewed.

So I made time to breathe and deliberately stopped to smell the flowers and feel the sun shine on my face (in a manner of speaking). I went through my Buddha Doodles emails and found one doodle that totally captivated my prevailing emotional state for the past week. It said: “Be like a tree. Let the dead leaves drop.”

Did you have an “Aha!” moment like I did? Or maybe you’re presently going “Hmmm..” These are the words of the great 13th century Persian poet, Rumi. You have probably heard of him or even read his poems and quotes. I find him amazing. I am flabbergasted by how he captures complex human truths and emotions and explains them eloquently using simple metaphors. I just keep thinking that he must have spent so much time thinking about life and emotions to come up with such insight.

I have been quite open about my “difficulties” these past few weeks. What can I say? Adulting is hard (but I have to be an adult because I am 46!). Life really can throw mean punches and although most of the time we are able to take them, we all have our moments of weakness and vulnerability. We all get tired fighting the good fight and I guess with all the things that has been happening, I was in that hurdle. When faced with a problem, we sometimes get overwhelmed that crying would seem like a good idea. Well, it did not work for me. I had come to the point that I would rather spend time thinking things through rather than tearfully lamenting how the universe is unfair to me! Hehe.

Seriously, we all learn to bear and grin challenges, painful as they are because we need to be strong. Like a tree that has weathered many storms, our roots have dug deep and we take pride in the fact that we have yet to fall from all the challenges that we meet. We refuse to stand down and give in to weakness because we have learned so much and it would feel like a betrayal to not be brave in the face of another trial. From these lessons too, we have built our own ideas and beliefs in life. From these we have become who we are now and continue to strive to become better people not only for ourselves but also for others. Yup. We’ve worked hard to become “trees.” We put in a lot of time, effort, laughter and tears to get to where we are now. Some are happy with what they have achieved and there are those who continuously aspire to become even better than what they have already become. To become the tree that we want to be takes a lot of work, humility and sacrifice, correct. Since we have so spent so much updating ourselves, we gain a good sense of who we are and what we can still become.

Which may be the reason why it is hard to move on and let go sometimes. Yep. It is difficult certain truths especially if we have worked so hard for it. In this case, “letting dead leaves drop” is not as easy as real tree would have it. Most of us try to keep any leaf, dead or otherwise, from dropping because it is a part of us. We hold to it for as much as we can, risking pain and regret. For us to let the dead leaves drop to the ground, we need to acknowledge the fact that they are, in fact, dead. Some of us choose to look the other way. We pretend that nothing is wrong. And that, is where the stress lies.

We need to learn to accept that things need to change and be brave enough to make that change because that is the only way for us to move forward. Yes it is easier said than done. Runi just makes it look so effortless for us to become like trees! But with perseverance and persistence we can make that change and taking that first step will allow us to start anew experience better things in life that will make us happy and appreciate what we have even more! Happy Sunday Folks! :)