Good morning,
Over breakfast a couple months ago, a friend who recently experienced profound loss gifted me a crisp hardcover titled Life is Hard by MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya. She’d read the book and it soothed her while grieving a tragic experience. I appreciated the gesture: that someone going through a devastating time would think of someone else and get them a gift. Little did she know I’d been cruising for a new self-help/memoir type book and that I had wanted to read this one after coming across a book review and writing about some of the review’s snippets in a previous letter from last December.
Part memoir, part philosophy lecture, part self-help, Setiya’s book is divided into seven sections: Infirmity, Loneliness, Grief, Failure, Injustice, Absurdity and Hope. Each part includes glimpses into his personal experiences and works by renowned philosophers and authors—he invokes Virginia Woolf a great deal—that he then infuses into professorial yet digestible takeaways.
Setiya is a youngish man who has chronic health problems. On page 19 in the Infirmity chapter, he quotes a book by Jon J. Muth, titled Zen Shorts. Of all the references in Life is Hard, this is the one that resonated with me the most. Setiya writes:
“If physical disability is a category of overt bodily malfunctions, it’s not akin to illness but disease. Bodily malfunction is biological; its effects on lived experience are contingent, subject to circumstance. That means there is a sense in which physical disability cannot be bad for you in itself. If it makes life worse, that’s because it affects how you actually live. A wider moral is drawn in the Daoist parable of the farmer’s luck, which I learned from Jon J. Muth’s picture book Zen Shorts. When the farmer’s horse runs away, his neighbors sympathize: ‘Such bad luck!’ ‘Maybe,’ the farmer replies. His horse returns with two more: ‘Such good luck!’ ‘Maybe,’ the farmer replies. The farmer’s son tries to ride one of the untamed horses and breaks his leg: ‘Such bad luck!’ ‘Maybe,’ the farmer replies. With his broken leg, the son cannot be drafted to fight in a war: ‘Such good luck!’ ‘Maybe,’ the farmer replies . . .”
Last week I went to the library to find Zen Shorts. Even though Setiya called it a picture book, I’d forgotten that part and was surprised when the library computer system directed me to the children’s section. When I asked the librarian about it, she of course knew of the book and its sequels and its Apple TV+ show.
For those not familiar with this book, the story revolves around three children who encounter a panda bear named Stillwater in their neighborhood. Stillwater tells a Zen parable to each of the three children; the pages include beautiful illustrations and the stories are simple enough where young children can understand and powerful enough for adults to appreciate. There’s a helpful Author’s Note page at the back of the book where Muth answers the question: What is Zen? He writes:
“Zen is a Japanese word that simply means meditation.
The Buddha’s method of meditation was to sit very still, yet remain completely alert, allowing first one thought and then another to rise and pass away, holding onto none of them. When you look into a pool of water, if that water is still, you can see the moon reflected. If the water is agitated, the moon is fragmented and scattered. It is harder to see the true moon. Our minds are like that. When our minds are agitated, we cannot see the true world.
‘Zen shorts’ are short meditations–ideas to puzzle over–tools which hone our ability to act with intuition. They have no goal, but they often challenge us to reexamine our habits, desires, concepts and fears.
There are many versions of these stories. I have chosen the ones that I feel speak best to the youngest audience.”
Lately I’ve been trying to differentiate better when I’m engaging in healthy detachment versus apathy. The farmer's story reminded me that I do not always know what’s best for me and that, though it’s like the most human plight ever, to not be too attached to external circumstances, for I really have no clue how things are going to pan out.
When I was going through a very challenging period, I turned to my Daily Tao app every day, essentially Zen shorts for adults. (Sadly I do not see it in the app store anymore, but you can read the ones included in the app / translations by Stephen Mitchell here.)
One reflection that I continuously return to reminds me that good/bad or success/failure are judgments that my mind makes. That if/when I can love and appreciate what actually is with minimal judgment, I get along much better and feel way more peace. This Tao translation by Mitchell reminds me of the farmer’s story:
“Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.
What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?
See the world as yourself.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as yourself;
then you can care for all things.”
What’s something you can love right now as it is? What’s something in which you can have faith that it’s going the Right way?
Thank you for being a loyal newsletter reader via my personal email. I am going to migrate all of you to a free Substack subscription starting in 2024. I appreciate you staying with me and my writings.
Until next time,
Matt
P.S. Thank you to those who respond to my weekly letters. If you’d like to turn your personal message to me into a public comment here, I would be very grateful!
P.P.S. I’m adding episodes of my podcast/audiocast to Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Please have a listen!
I know the story of Stillwater the Panda Bear and the 3 children from Nannying. It is a beautiful story to help shape the young mind of children to be thoughtful thinkers. It is all a matter of how you choose to look at things that affects the outcome of any given situation
"good/bad or success/failure are judgments that my mind makes"
that is powerful 🤌🏻