Fortunate Times || By Beth Hinnen, Certified Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher
“May you live in fortunate times.”
As I went through Yoga teacher training, I heard lots of different aphorisms and sayings, attributed to this and that culture, or this or that spiritual teaching. With the world on fire this year, what with multiple wars, economic chaos, political strife, assassination attempts, this saying keeps coming back to me.
When I first heard it decades ago, I was told it was a “ancient Chinese” curse. And I didn’t believe it. Why would it be a curse to live in fortunate times? Isn’t that what we are all hoping for, wishing for, working toward? To live in a beautiful house with a beautiful family, beautiful possessions and a bank account to support such things? Fortune means comfort and safety and good times. Wasn’t that the whole point of being put on this crazy earth in the first place? After all, even Job, post all his doubt and misfortune, got back his wealth once he was made an example.
Not so, in Eastern philosophy. To me, all the scriptures I’ve read point to one thing: wealth, true wealth, wealth that cannot be taken away, destroyed, or stolen, is the understanding, the recognition that what animates me, animates the Universe. This animation, this being-ness, is the only thing that is truly valuable. And lucky us, that is what we are. When we recognize that, we suddenly want to do anything and everything to maintain that awareness. For without this being, all the “valuables” in the world have no value at all.
Back to the saying. Why would it be a curse to live in fortunate times? Because fortunate times often result in sloth, gluttony, indulgence (think, height of Roman Empire, or the 1980s), which breeds unconsciousness and suffering. The focus in such times is away from being and awareness and instead, is glommed onto the external, possessions, grasping, greed. Which brings what the internet is batting about as the “ancient Chinese” curse, “May you live in interesting times.” And while I agree we are living in interesting times (and have been since at least the pandemic); I choose not to see it as a curse, and hold it instead as a blessing.
Take for instance, nature. It is how it works. The autumn leaves on trees are most colorful after a drier summer; grapes for wine develop much more robust and complex flavors when the weather fluctuates more widely. And from Anais Nin, “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful that the risk it took to blossom.” Pain, or suffering, is the most compelling way nature, the universe, Life, gives us to risk blossoming.
And so, these interesting times call on us to be our best. These times require courage, honesty, integrity, faith, charity, and selflessness. They call for us to dig deep, to find out that, what we truly are — awareness, being-ness — can not be destroyed, lost, or forgotten. In these interesting times, we don’t have to do something, rather, we allow ourselves to be, and in being we will seamlessly receive the wisdom, love and compassion needed to act in each moment appropriately. This is what happens when we stop focusing on external and come home to the internal wonder of our True Nature of Being. And how Being acts, is through love.
So take a moment, right now, and turn away from the news cycle; take a deep breath; and say “I love you” to the nearest living, breathing being, especially if that Being, is you.
About the Author: Beth Hinnen came to the spiritual path from the corporate world. After experiencing impermanence and greed, she left to study Yoga and has over 1,000 hours in Yoga teacher training, and ended up specializing in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, spiritual scripture that closely aligns with Buddhism. From there, she studied Zen Buddhism for over ten years, including in-person, month-long monastic retreats, until she earned certification, in January, 2023, as a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Currently, Beth is a co-leader of the IMCD Council, and on the Teachers Collective, as administrator. She hosts a Meetup group called Yoga Meets Buddhism, and for the past three years, has held an online Dharma Wednesdays class that discusses the Yoga Sutras while also bringing in Buddhist teachings, along with Sufi poets, Christianity, Judaism and other spiritual paths that reinforce the words of Sri Swami Satchidananda, the founder of Integral Yoga where Beth studied. “The truth is one, the paths are many.” More information about Beth is at www.samayaco.org.
