The Arrows That I Pierced Myself With

And the newsletter continues...

Author

Shirisha Nagendran
December 27, 2024

I’ve received such a warm response to my last week's edition, “Should this newsletter continue?” I’ve also had the time to reflect on what it was I was truly looking for with this newsletter. 

I’ve decided to continue writing the newsletter, but with a different approach next year. Normally, I’d write the newsletter in advance, at least 4 weeks in advance. It takes time to read and process a book, think and write the newsletters. That effort is concentrated in two weeks, and this happens every two months. I realised that the concentrated effort during the two weeks was making the process stressful for me. This is getting challenging as my coaching practice grows, and I have not been able to dedicate the two weeks necessary to write the newsletter. 

I took this opportunity to step back and look inwards. I realised I do want to continue writing this newsletter. This helps me in my path of working with myself. I just needed to manage the additional suffering I was causing myself. This reminded me of one of Buddha’s important teachings on the first and second arrows in the Sallatha Sutta. 

“Mendicants, an unlearned ordinary person feels pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. A learned noble disciple also feels pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. What, then, is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an ordinary unlearned person?”

[…]

“When an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings they sorrow and wail and lament, beating their breast and falling into confusion. They experience two feelings: physical and mental.

It’s like a person who is struck with an arrow, only to be struck with a second arrow. That person experiences the feeling of two arrows.

In the same way, when an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings they sorrow and wail and lament, beating their breast and falling into confusion. They experience two feelings: physical and mental.

When they’re touched by painful feeling, they resist it. The underlying tendency for repulsion towards painful feeling underlies that.

[…]

“This is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an unlearned ordinary person.

A wise and learned person isn’t affected

by feelings of pleasure and pain.

This is the great difference in skill

between the wise and the ordinary.

A learned person who has appraised the teaching

discerns this world and the next.

Desirable things don’t disturb their mind,

nor are they repelled by the undesirable.

Both favoring and opposing

are cleared and ended, they are no more.

Knowing the stainless, sorrowless state,

they who have gone beyond rebirth

understand rightly.”

I realised that my stress was coming from the second and third arrows that I was piercing myself with. This newsletter goes out every Friday. I could be flexible about the frequency. I could be flexible about the content, format and the approach. The intention is to work with myself, and in a small way contribute to others through my writings. If that is the intention, then I could be flexible about my strategies. My readers have not imposed any constraints on me, but it is I who have done so and thus caused myself a lot of stress! 

This was reinforced by the emails I received from you, on varying the frequency and listening to my heart. I decided I would change how I write these emails. I will not write them too much in advance but will write them in the present moment. That may mean some weeks, I might not be able to send the emails on a few Fridays(like in January, when I will be with family for two weeks and will not be working). 

As my teacher says, “There is enough time to do everything.”

I do hope my writing process will evolve to be closer to my intention in writing this newsletter. Thank you for responding, and it helped me to get closer to what I truly want with this newsletter. 

Best wishes for 2025! Sending you all love, warmth and light. I’ll see you next Friday. As it has become the norm, we will conclude the last edition of 2024 with a story. 

The Begging Bowl

The great Buddhist saint Nagarjuna moved around naked except for a loincloth and, incongruously, a golden begging bowl gifted to him by the King, who was his disciple.

One night he was about to lie down to sleep among the ruins of an ancient monastery when he noticed a thief lurking behind one of the columns. “Here, take this”, said Nagarjuna, holding out the begging bowl. “That way you won’t disturb me once I have fallen asleep.”

The thief eagerly grabbed the bowl and made off - only to return the next morning with the bowl and a request.

He said, “When you gave away this bowl so freely last night, you made me feel very poor. Teach me how to acquire the riches that make this kind of light-hearted detachment possible.”

💌Love, Siri