When things get routine, we wish for the non-routine.
When things get routinely non-routine, we wish for the routine.
A friend has an interesting take on Groundhog Day the movie. You can read her review at http://tinyurl.com/77gqk9d As she was free from work for a few months after her previous job, she enjoyed the break of non-routine everyday life. Every day was the direct opposite of Groundhog Day – it was different, not desk bound at work; she could do whatever she wanted.
However, after some time, she began to yearn for a more routine life instead. As she put it, ‘当每天不一样时，它本身也是一种重复性’ – ‘When every day is not the same, this itself is a kind of repetition.’ This is also a form of Groundhog Day! Perhaps we are fickle in what we want.
Perhaps we want a mix of routine and non-routine, to be purposeful yet free to be so? Sounds like the Bodhisattva path, where one works towards Buddhahood via systematic practice, while using as many skilful means as possible in the moment to guide others to the same goal. This is definitely not repetitive but requires one to be creative, as many different beings are come across, while it requires discipline to work steadily towards Buddhahood. A good ‘Middle Path’ mix of the non-routine and routine!
“When things get routine, we wish for the non-routine.
When things get routinely non-routine, we wish for the routine.”
sounds like going in circles, which is samsara…
Ya!
Be we stuck in the movie’s version of Groundhog Day, or the non-movie version of routine-and-non-routine, as long as our lives are cyclical and without breakthroughs, it’s still Samsara.
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