Eight vicissitudes

Pleasure and pain,
gain and loss,
praise and blame,
fame and disrepute.

We think we should have only pleasure, gain, praise and fame in our lives. Our advertising, our culture promotes this unrealistic thinking. Buddha's teachings remind us that in the full experience of living, pain, loss, unpleasant experiences are also valid. Day follows night, the tides come in and then go out, we sleep, we wake. Breathing in. Breathing out. How incomprehensible to only breathe in, to only have day, to only have high tide, to only wake, to only have white, no black, to only be full, never empty, to laugh, never cry. Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I am calm.