Need cheering up after a terrible year?!

Someone sent me an article this morning with this title, which I have shamelessly stolen, and the byline:

 A single act of kindness reminded me that, despite so much evidence to the contrary, the better angels of our nature are not necessarily doomed.

My mother’s overnight carer Joanne Marie woke me early on Christmas Day to say that Sally was struggling to breathe. She seemed to be breathing, but also choking, so I took a video, tried to soothe her, and wondered aloud, “What am I supposed to do now?” To which JM replied, “You can ring 111.” I’ve never heard of 111! But they picked up immediately, asked a bunch of questions, and, to my surprise, got 999 to dispatch an ambulance. Having just returned from the States I was a bit nervous about all this as it didn’t look like she was about to die; but of course ambulances are free here, so “Let them come, they can check Sally!” is the advice I followed from JM.

The moment they dispatched the ambulance, my mother naturally started to recover. (She does that, lol). So I tried to cancel the ambulance, but they were already here!

The better angels of our nature

Rachel and another twenty-something woman, rookies in their first year, stayed almost an hour. They couldn’t have been nicer. Having checked Sally thoroughly, and while waiting for their next call, they told me what it’s like being a first year paramedic – a steep learning curve from their training because although the job description may still say “stroke or seizure”, for example, “in real life” the patient may now be stuck in the toilet or locked out of the house. And now the paramedics are on their own, no mentor, just their own resources, the buck stops here. Rachel described how she is accident prone, while her friend said she courted disaster – not ideal qualities in a paramedic, one would think, but they say it’s given them empathy. And would make a good reality TV show.

Who we are versus what we struggle with

Along with my mother’s first carer of the day, Ruki, who arrived in the midst of all this and calmly got on with things, we had four Tara angels on Christmas Day, all in green scrubs, all cherishing my mom. Not sure why I’m telling you all this other than out of awe at how good people can be and how much everything depends upon the kindness of others. We may not realize it till something goes wrong and other people swoop in to help, but whenever we focus on it, even when things are going right, we develop love and gratitude and the whole day goes better.

Yeah, the world is a hot mess due to our uncontrolled negative thoughts (aka delusions) and karma. But the Buddha nature in all of us is not going anywhere. When we keep our eye on that – in ourself, in others – the inspiration to keep helping stays alive.

As I had already written this story down, I was pleasantly surprised by the synchronicity of this article, which was basically saying the same thing. The journalist, Martin Kettle, left his wallet on a rush-hour train and panicked, only to have it delivered to his office by a stranger named Natalya. It moved him. As he says:

Of course, in the wider scheme of things, my wallet story was trivial.

As is the story about the young paramedics. Except insofar as these kindnesses point to a far deeper and more enduring truth about us than the daily goings on reported in the news — the truth of who we are, as opposed to what we are struggling with. We struggle with our delusions, such as anger, pride, and selfishness; and we inadvertently create a lot of negativity through our delusions. These delusions and negative karma cause us incredible mental and physical pain, in life after life. However, we are not our delusions. Who we are is naturally peaceful, with a good heart.

Renunciation versus pessimism

This is worth focusing on and contemplating every day, otherwise we could be forgiven for thinking that we’re all doomed forever to dysfunction and suffering. Which indeed, we are, if we don’t escape from samsara. However, there is a huge difference between renunciation for samsara and the pessimism we are fed hour by hour by the media. As Kettle put it:

There is no way around the fact that the media – traditional and social alike – are sleepless drivers of our reflexive collective pessimism. We live in a country where failure, risk and danger are deemed ever present and on the increase.

Renunciation is utterly different to pessimism. Here is one definition of pessimism:

A tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen.

And another, from a philosophical angle:

A belief that this world is as bad as it could be or that evil will ultimately prevail over good.

Renunciation believes basically the opposite — that good will ultimately prevail over bad because it is our nature, it is who we really are. (See this article for more about that: The Wheel of Sharp Weapons.)

But the media makes us pessimistic about each other, attuned only to threats and failures. This is not renunciation, and it also cannot engender compassion. Genuine compassion is the wish to liberate others permanently from their delusions and suffering, and it is necessarily based on the understanding that this is perfectly possible. That indeed good will triumph.

Kettle uses an example of reflexive pessimism that has direct bearing on the story above, as well as all the other good experiences my parents have had with the NHS. (Put it down to their merit or their post code, but the NHS has so far been consistently good to them.)

“The polling showed public expectations of the NHS were getting lower, driven largely by repeated news of healthcare crises. At the same time, however, the public’s own personal experiences of the NHS, and the experience of their closest relatives, remained almost uniformly excellent.”

Not saying there aren’t NHS horror stories, because they are, and both the journalist and myself have heard some. But on a macro level, depending on whether we want to sink into blame or remain inspired, we get to choose our focus – are people doing their utterly incompetent worst or, despite their struggles, still trying to do their best? As Kettle put it:

“In essence, this is the same possibility that is posed by Natalya’s single act of kindness. You can put it in various ways. Maybe all of us, and our media and our politicians in particular, are too quick to believe the worst. Maybe our social and moral norms are more decent and resilient than we assume. Maybe we live in a better country than we all seem to think. Maybe we should be less angry.”

Something to think about. This may be samsara, but there is still – and always will be – a seam of decency and kindness running through the hearts of living beings, along with the potential for lasting freedom and happiness. I will let Martin Kettle have the last word as he so decently allowed me to borrow (ahem, steal) his title:

“If even some of this is true, the questions that follow from Natalya’s decency are ones such as these. What can we get beyond the belief, fired by so much political and media exaggeration, that we all inhabit a howling wilderness of incivility, misbehaviour and ineffectiveness from which our only refuge is either fear or repression? What can we do to help ourselves see that individual experiences of kindness, politeness and decency are not random oases of good fortune in a desert of general nastiness?

The answers are obviously not easy. But they are out there, and they are worth nurturing. Natalya’s kindness reminded me that, in spite of so much evidence to the contrary, the better angels of our nature are not necessarily dead or doomed.”

And on that positive note, I wish you all a very Happy New Year!!!