How To See The Bigger Picture Behind Life's Pain

When something painful happens, it's easy to conclude that life made a mistake. This talk is for anyone trying to make sense of a loss or hardship that still feels senseless from where they're standing.

Tiger walks through why the mind's verdict of "mistake" is usually a sign of a picture too small, and what becomes possible when you can finally see the larger pattern something difficult was always part of.

Transcript

In all of our assumptions. About life, Ourselves, And others. Look at how much our mind wants to declare that things are not perfect. And ask yourself, Do you really know that? Like for example, And this is, I speak in this way a lot where I try and simplify this so you can access the principle behind what I'm saying. And see how the principle applies to more complex situations. But look at it through this illustration. Imagine you watch lightning strike a tree and you see the tree engulfed in fire. And it dies. Do you see how in a way, It's logical to conclude life made a mistake. Therefore, Life is not perfect because there's something called lightning. And do you see that assumption of a mistake? Is only because you do not see the bigger picture. You do not see the necessity of this thing called lightning, Which is part of a brilliantly designed ecosystem that requires this thing called lightning in order for life to be life. Therefore, The system is perfect. Our declaration of things not being perfect is evidence of not seeing the bigger picture. And again, It's not an expectation that says, Oh, Therefore you should always see things as perfect, Because I can say that when you don't see things as perfect, That's perfect. It's part of the bigger picture. And the more you see this, My goodness, The heart just fundamentally relaxes. You know, It's so funny. And again, I understand it. It's fine. You know, When human beings say, You know, We're human, We're not perfect. It's like, OK, I get what you're saying, But there's a whole different other way to look at this. Or we say life is imperfect and that's OK. Well, OK, But that just means it's not how you want it to be. That's true. But to fundamentally decide that God has made a mistake is interesting to me. And again, Using God as a word to point to something much larger. But the premise being, You know, If we play with this. Is God perfect? And from a religious pointing, Like ancient wisdom that points towards God, That particular path, It would say God is perfect. OK, Did God create everything? Yes, God created everything. Okay, If God is perfect and God created everything, Is it possible for that which is perfect to create something that's imperfect? That doesn't compute. If God is perfect and God created everything, Therefore everything that was created must be perfect. And I'm telling you, The more you see, The bigger picture. That is what is seen. And you can see this in your own life, Where you've traveled through so many difficult experiences that in the moment you thought were mistakes. And then upon seeing the bigger picture, You'd be like, Oh, Wow, That was actually really helpful. That's actually what I needed. Wow, I learned so much. Wow, That really broke down my ego. Wow, That really opened my heart. I can love so much better now. If it wasn't for that suffering. If it wasn't for that difficult experience. I wouldn't be with more love in my heart today. And since the point of life in some way is opening up to the reality of love, Then what you went through is perfect. Therefore, You forgive what you went through. You stop resisting it. You stop judging it. You stop blaming it. You integrate it into your experience as perfect in some way. And therefore you don't have to carry that resistance. It's all forgiven. And it's all forgiven because it's seen as perfect. And again, I'm speaking so directly towards it. And if I'm talking to somebody that's going through a difficult time, I wouldn't talk like this. I would help them see the perfection through a different lens without even using the word, It was perfect. What a terrible thing to say to someone. Given a certain circumstance. Peter asks, Do you think the lightning strike in the tree was meant to be for the tree to create something new, Or is it just what it is? You know, That's a great question. Everything in life, Every aspect of life. Is birthed from life and therefore has to give itself back to life. But furthermore, Everything that is birth from life is not separate from life. It is life. You might call it a tree. It doesn't mean it's a tree separate from life. It is life tree, Like it's life in the form of a tree. So when it does something that the human mind says die, It simply goes home. It's not the human mind's fearful story of what death is. That's not real. The tree simply returns. And this cycle, Right? Everything goes through this cycle, Which we call birth and death, But it's not death in the way that the human thinks death is something to be feared. It's just breathing. It's in, Out, In, Out. To express, To return. To contract and expand. It's just energy moving in a way that allows the miracle to be the miracle. And so when the lightning does what it does, It's not the lightning doing it. It's the whole thing doing the thing called lightning. Which is so funny about the human mind because lightning strikes the tree and then the human being says, Oh, It's the lightning's fault. The lightning set the tree on fire. No, Life set the tree on fire. Furthermore, More accurately, Life set itself on fire. And it's the fire. So it's like nothing's really happening. Again, We're looking at it through the lens of separation, Where the mind looks at all of these different things and the mind thinks it's different things. It's just one thing breathing. It's kind of like all the cells in your body that make up the body. All of those trillions of cells look like they're moving independently. But it's the body. It's like, It's all the same thing. And whatever is going on inside the body is going on so that the body can be the body. All of those little cells are their own separate thing. It's all one thing expressing itself in different ways so that experience can be experienced. Like for the ocean to be the ocean, There has to be something that is the expression of high tide and low tide for the ocean to be the ocean. The ocean is the high tide and it is low tide. There's no separation there. And this is part of the difficulty, Like, As we try and access the truth of life. Understandably, We try and access it through the mind. But the mind believes in its own content. It believes its ideas are reality. And it's not. They're just pointers. Like we call it a tree so that we as human beings can communicate with each other. The word points in that direction of form. But what it really is, Is God. We couldn't communicate if we just called everything God. So in order for us to play, We give these names like we give each other names, Even though what you are is not your name, Just so that we can play. Your name isn't serious. It's not what you really are. Oh, That's great, Peter. It's so interesting that we are talking about it. When I spend time in nature, I see a bird catching the fish. The fish is wiggling while being eaten. Sometimes within, I'm conflicted if I feel for the fish or happy for the bird, For getting food. That is a beautiful contradiction that can melt itself into the most beautiful unity. I encourage you to. Sit with that conflict. Because there isn't a conflict at all. And there's a truth behind the conflict, Which essentially, And again, Using silly words, Shows you that there's not a fish and there's not a bird. But what is there is gratitude for life. Gratitude that life feeds life. Gratitude that things are the way that they are so that life can continue on. So that we can all be here. Swimming in this mirror. Life is life. And again, We can tell a story about what it means to eat. It's like, No, Beyond all the story. Life is self-nourishing, And it's extraordinarily beautiful. But if you start separating everything into different identities, And those identities are your projection of things that don't really exist, We get so lost, And we get all these conflicts. But they're beautiful.

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Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order, rhythm and harmony. (Thomas Merton)

As humans we seek happiness. But that is found amongst balance...