What must we do when it is our turn?

Learning Points No 417

As human beings, we ago through the same phases of life whatever and however varied and different our life fortunes may be. 

We are born, will be the children, then go to school or learning of some form, become adults and take on jobs, then reach the top of careers, only to come down and level off into the sunset of life. 

At every turn and corner, there are joys that come and do not stay for long even if we want to cling on to them for dear life. There are also the headaches and issues we rather not have but could not avoid. 

We will not be spared and we must face every turn and corner of life. It is a matter of time. Our turn will surely come and so what must we do?

The sages of old refer to these turns and corners with their inevitable issues as the woes and wows of life. Woes are bad but wows are no better as when they fade, they give rise to emptiness and even more woes that are not only more numerically but more intense. 

But to live as humans, we go through the same phases and face the same destiny of issues going from cradle to grave. Even the greatest of statesmen cannot stay on top for long and when they do come down, the descent can be precipitous and all hell may break lose. Their descent into the pits is even more pronounced

We have to embark on life and cannot let go of life the moment we see the light of the sun at birth till the time the sun literally set on us for good unless on earth we are reborn again. 

Lord Bo Tien re-introduce this description of life. We climb and come down high mountains of life to cross seas and oceans of life, sometimes calm and at times stormy. Then though victorious we will still have to face the merciless heat of the sun  to finally face drought of desert of life where the end is nigh and all that thrills and fill life no longer matter and seem to come to nothing substantive. 

This aptly describes the phases of life all of us will undergo, regardless of who we are. There is no giving up the moment we see the light at birth and no stopping till the sun sets on us at the end of life, only to be reborn for the next journey of life. 

Mountain phase 
-This includes birth, childhood, education, job, marriage and advancement in job or success in business enterprise.

Sea phase
This refers to middle age when things appear calm and plateau or level off but interrupted by storms / problems.

Scotching sun and desert phase
This encompasses late middle to early old age when we are dehydrated and drained by the strains of age and want a slower pace but could not. This is the last phase when life is drying up and does not seem to be as exciting, more so for those who are better endowed. 

Sages too walk the same road but they stay calm and at peace in the various phases and come what may. 

They run not from life. At one extreme, they deny not life. 

At the other extreme, they do not cling to more and more in life so that they do not end up ever the more in pain, not from not having life but having too much of life. Unlike others, they do not suffer as they do not cling to them though they value them. 

Others who have too much of life could not stomach life. Life issues will give pain when they cannot have what they want. They want too much out of life. They suffer when they envy what others have that they cannot have. Also what they have will cause sheer pain when these are no longer there. 

The wise ones and the sages tread life and balance the host of vicissitudes and contingencies of life, experiencing them like any other men but always not disturbed or ruffled in any way. 

They convert them into positive experiences as though the whole of life is the living gospel for them to learn and be wiser and more stronger from the learning. They are at peace despite the ups and downs - the yin and yang. 

This is the way of the saints which we must tread so that when our turn comes, we are at peace and  not suffer from the varied many trepidations of life. 

We will then not make issues into big issues and issues however big will at most be small issues even if they cannot be no issues. Issues big and small will be no issues. This the great saints do say is possible.

For many of us who are new to this Way or Tao of saints, we do need the shelter of the great saints like Jesus the Messiah, Ji Gong the Living Buddha and Lord Bo Tien the Messenger of God The Jade Emperor. 

Omitofo.