The Gift of Tragedy

On Monday I was a guest artist at an NYU tv writing class. I spoke about my career and gave advice. The professor and my New Dramatists playwright friend, Kate Cortesi, said 'tell them what you said about tragedy.' I looked at her. What?

"Tell them what you said about tragedy last semester."

I didn't really know what she was talking about so I asked for my clues. 

"You said that tragedy is good and it makes you grow."

I nodded. Okay, that sounds good. Go forth with that knowledge, students! But Kate persisted and I really couldn't remember the details. There was some vague memory of me talking about it, but...nothing. 

I thought about it some more and the next day I was doing a podcast with Kevin Kautzmann titled GET THIS. (you can listen to it hear: https://getthispodcast.com/cutting-diamonds-feat-aurin-squire/?fbclid=IwAR0KBFRIqfQ4Aks444RhAdtDo0WMeZiOQUl6dOB9nAF5C7cEu9ovlQvUK0g

The idea is from several Buddhist texts, but the one I know the best is lojong: good heart training. In some of the famous lojong text it talks about enemies being gifts, and tragedies being great opportunities. And it's not Polly Anna-ish positive thinking: it's essential. 

I've been taught a lot of cool techniques and psychological strategies from Buddhism, A Course in Miracles, Wayne Dyer, and a hodgepodge of other sources. Some times I feel like I'm bathing in goodness and information. But I don't really change my principles...unless I'm forced to by circumstances. 

Tragedy and misfortune are the best circumstances for changing a wrong worldview. A live without tragedy is the true misfortune because we coast. Humans love to coast. It's our nature to patch stuff together, get along well enough, and coast mindlessly. Some people led very pleasant lives and coast from womb to tomb without a thought about wisdom or compassion. These tend to be very dull people, unsharpened, misshapen lumps of humanity. 

So a tragedy happens: bad health, death, family loss, losing a partner, getting fired, etc because it's really a set list of things that we dread. And then a crack opens up in our view of things. We can't coast. In fact, we are jolted awake. The light is harsh, the noise is loud, we are awake and dealing with the full dimensions of being a human. We start remembering the lessons our parents taught us, what society instilled in us, how we would be rewarded according to certain exterior factors and we slowly start to realize...it's complete bullshit. And that is a wonderful and necessary epiphany. 99% of the ethics and values society teaches are just meant to keep us coasting. They're not meant for deep reflection of growth. These rules are meant for numb obedience and an unexamined life. But now we are very observant: something bad has happened and it viscerally hurts. The pain won't let us go back to sleep. The crack in the facade of everyday life appears. There's something moving behind the fissure: it's an entirely different hidden world. A deeper world where things are actually happening and not just exterior appearances of change. From this tragedy and crack, we get our first wake up: like Neo in the first 10 minutes of THE MATRIX. We realize 'this is not what I thought it was.' 

The dharma talks about tragedy, but really the average person needs several tragedies to happen one after the other. We need a continual series of cracks and fissures in the facade. Eventually it falls down if you chip away at it enough with wisdom and love. But the tragedies help. 

So they say spiritual growth happens like this...

-we hear something. It sounds cool and logic, but we're not going to change ourselves...and then...

-TRAGEDY! Something truly bad or unexpected catches us off-guard. We momentarily question everything in life. A crack forms in the mural of life.

-but eventually 'normal thinking' seals the crack back up and we go back to sleep. And then...

-tragedy, misfortune, calamity...happen in a short series of bursts. A weaker or more ignorant person would sink into despair, but you've had an inkling of wisdom. You've had a taste that there's something underneath the painted life. Now, these little tests of tragedy almost seem like you're being tested. Challenged and called to rise up. More cracks open up.

- more tragedies and now you know for sure that this is not a coincidence. This is an opportunity. This is a way out of this painful cycle. The cracks take off entire pieces of the mural. We begin to see something behind it...a reality that has been cemented over and painted on top of that writhes beneath every moment. 

- you go back to normal. You see the mural...but now you know that it's not real. You move and operate like you're in a movie that's being created on the spot. You react differently because this is just a simulation. 

-and finally enough cracks appear, that the mural falls apart completely. It shatters to the ground. True reality is finally here. 

This is the 5 step path...leaving the home, studying, direct perception of emptiness (part of the painting falls away), return to seeing the mural again but knowing it's not real, and finally the mural is no longer there: total enlightenment.

Artist follow the same path. At a certain point in our life, we are shaken up. The usual party and bullshit is unsatisfying. The usual 9-5, work, and weekend brunch is not enough. Something is missing. Once you know that truth you only have two choices: either you become a coward who ignores the calling and tries to suppress it, or you become a warrior on a mission.