As I wrote in a previous post, Covid 19 isolation has me cleaning out closets. I found a clipped article from Shambhala Sun, a Buddhist magazine, from November, 2000, written by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, who in the 2000 magazine is listed as a clinical professor at UCSF School of Medicine and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She has written a very entertaining book called "My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging, published by Riverhead. In this article she talks about the strange coincidences that occur in our lives that seem as though they have some outside guiding hand and often serve to awaken us or guide us in some fashion. In this time of great travail, I was moved again by rereading this article. I especially found her opening moving and reproduce it here for your edification.
"Glimpse of a Deeper Order: According to the Buddhist understanding of auspicious coincidence, all circumstances can be brought to the spiritual path. Everything that happens in our lives, whether positive or negative, can serve to awaken us to the nature of the world. But occasionally, events cluster in particular ways that give us a glimpse of the deeper structures of reality, and suggest that time and linear causality may not be the ultimate way in which the world is ordered..
"There are many possible responses to such happenings, which Jung called synchronicity. Some people give them a highly individualized meaning, finding guidance in a personal decision they are facing or confirmation of a direction they have already chosen. But perhaps the real meaning of synchronicity is more universal than personal, with every instance simply pointing to the possibility of a hidden pattern underlying the events of this world.
"Either way, these events offer us a certain reassurance, and they also have the power to awaken us. A common response to such an acausal happening is a sharpening of attention, a sense of the closeness of something unseen. Startled awake, we may listen for the direction in which the universe is moving, and discover a wish to participate in it.
"Synchronicity often takes us unaware and may restore us to ourselves."
The author goes on to tell about an experience during the Christmas season when she was so busy with her work that she had no time to prepare for the holiday and especially to do one thing she always did which was add an angel to her many years of collecting angels to honor those who had died that year in her medical practice. She dealt with End of Life care and thus was often placed inside another human being's crossing into whatever lies beyond. She met a lady on an airplane who sensed her troubled state of mind and gave her an angel which that fellow traveler's grandmother had just given to her. What a coincidence or was this occurance the definition of a synchronicity?
Dr. Remen writes further "I suppose one might call this coincidence and perhaps it is. But it felt as if whatever it is that we really serve when we serve others had reached out and shaken me awake, saying 'You get on with the work...I'l take care of the small stuff.'
"This is the sort of event which Jung meant by synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence which thumbs its nose at linear causality. At a certain level, synchronicity suggests there is more to life than we realize, and that we and all others may not be alone, I regard such a happening as a blessing. Such things may happen at any time, but in the years I have worked with people facing death and those who survive them I have heard many such stories. Perhaps such things are either more frequent at these times, or perhaps in some way every death is a bridge between worlds, and allows us to see things differently for a little while.
"Synchronicity is always an experience of the unknown. Events such as these do not really prove anything. They are simply a reminder to wake up and pay attention because the mystery at the heart of life can speak to you at any time."
When I reread this little article, I felt a few moments of expansiveness which some people of the Buddhist bent have called "kensho." As a physician, I have certainly experienced what Dr. Remen is talking about and these episodes certainly do seem to occur around death. Many of my patients have told me stories of "coincidences" or "synchronicity" that happened around the time of a death in their family. Some of these stories also seem to involve a "ghost" or "seeing" the deceased again in a very life like way. I will tell a little story about just such an experience in a later post.
Curious about synchronicity. Here's a starting reference:
https://lonerwolf.com/synchronicity/https://lonerwolf.com/synchronicity/
"Glimpse of a Deeper Order: According to the Buddhist understanding of auspicious coincidence, all circumstances can be brought to the spiritual path. Everything that happens in our lives, whether positive or negative, can serve to awaken us to the nature of the world. But occasionally, events cluster in particular ways that give us a glimpse of the deeper structures of reality, and suggest that time and linear causality may not be the ultimate way in which the world is ordered..
"There are many possible responses to such happenings, which Jung called synchronicity. Some people give them a highly individualized meaning, finding guidance in a personal decision they are facing or confirmation of a direction they have already chosen. But perhaps the real meaning of synchronicity is more universal than personal, with every instance simply pointing to the possibility of a hidden pattern underlying the events of this world.
"Either way, these events offer us a certain reassurance, and they also have the power to awaken us. A common response to such an acausal happening is a sharpening of attention, a sense of the closeness of something unseen. Startled awake, we may listen for the direction in which the universe is moving, and discover a wish to participate in it.
"Synchronicity often takes us unaware and may restore us to ourselves."
The author goes on to tell about an experience during the Christmas season when she was so busy with her work that she had no time to prepare for the holiday and especially to do one thing she always did which was add an angel to her many years of collecting angels to honor those who had died that year in her medical practice. She dealt with End of Life care and thus was often placed inside another human being's crossing into whatever lies beyond. She met a lady on an airplane who sensed her troubled state of mind and gave her an angel which that fellow traveler's grandmother had just given to her. What a coincidence or was this occurance the definition of a synchronicity?
Dr. Remen writes further "I suppose one might call this coincidence and perhaps it is. But it felt as if whatever it is that we really serve when we serve others had reached out and shaken me awake, saying 'You get on with the work...I'l take care of the small stuff.'
"This is the sort of event which Jung meant by synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence which thumbs its nose at linear causality. At a certain level, synchronicity suggests there is more to life than we realize, and that we and all others may not be alone, I regard such a happening as a blessing. Such things may happen at any time, but in the years I have worked with people facing death and those who survive them I have heard many such stories. Perhaps such things are either more frequent at these times, or perhaps in some way every death is a bridge between worlds, and allows us to see things differently for a little while.
"Synchronicity is always an experience of the unknown. Events such as these do not really prove anything. They are simply a reminder to wake up and pay attention because the mystery at the heart of life can speak to you at any time."
When I reread this little article, I felt a few moments of expansiveness which some people of the Buddhist bent have called "kensho." As a physician, I have certainly experienced what Dr. Remen is talking about and these episodes certainly do seem to occur around death. Many of my patients have told me stories of "coincidences" or "synchronicity" that happened around the time of a death in their family. Some of these stories also seem to involve a "ghost" or "seeing" the deceased again in a very life like way. I will tell a little story about just such an experience in a later post.
Curious about synchronicity. Here's a starting reference:
https://lonerwolf.com/synchronicity/https://lonerwolf.com/synchronicity/
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