A Birthday Letter From a Man Who’s Seen It All

                                                  Alvaro Serrano via Unsplash

I asked my closest friends to send me a letter for my birthday this past year. All of them, but one, forgot. But I got permission to share that one with you as I think it’s full of gems.

Context: he’s a 51-year-old ex-corporate high-ass marketing executive who’s met them all and seen it all (the big bucks & high-profile people) and exchanged that for a quiet life in Bali where we met.

I don’t know how he got into my friend circle, but he did. He thought I was crazy and eccentric at first (still does but in a different way), and I don’t think he thought we’d end up being friends, but we did. Anyway, without further ado, here’s his letter to me on my 29th bday.

Dear Rima,

Wishing you a Content & Calm & Joyful Birthday. Every day.

I wish I could astonish you, like Sergei Diaghilev telling Jean Cocteau, ‘Astonish me,’ or give you answers and wisdom.

I wish I could come up with advice like the Princeton writing professor gave to his students (on having doubts and not knowing what to do after graduating in their early twenties): “Doubt will follow you into any decade. Just persevere.”

I wish I could make you smile with a tongue twister whose meaning goes deeper and beyond the ever faster warm up exercise a teacher made us commence acting classes:

Whether the weather be fine

Or whether the weather be not

Whether the weather be cold

Or whether the weather be hot

We'll weather the weather

Whatever the weather

Whether we like it or not.

I wish I could be dishing it out like the eleventh-century Buddhist monk Atisha who wrote: the best scholar is one who has realized the meaning of no-self. The best monk is the one who has tamed his own mind. The best quality is a great desire to benefit others. The best instruction is always to watch the mind. The best accomplishment is a steady lessening of negative emotions. The best generosity is non-attachment. The best discipline is a peaceful mind. The best wisdom is not to grasp anything at all.

I like the above. Yet there’s nothing new under the sun, so let me simply write to you l “far from the eye, close to the heart.” I feel lucky we became friends and shared moments (fun, painful, awkward) together, and I am curious about what the future has in store in that department. Yes, I care for your well-being.

One of my close friends gave me the following advice when we were still kids and which served me well over time. “Be here, not there. Be involved, not attached.”

Otherwise, you’re good to go. Happy to let you lose another year. Obviously, never lose your weirdness. Enjoy the fall, and don’t forget to get up and never give up.

You can’t outrun your pain, not catch up with your happiness, as much as you can’t outrun your shadow., or catch up with it. All seem to come in combo packs.

As you might be surprised to discover, I’m no master of life (jk, I’m a Bali Buddha in waiting). I have no answers and nothing to say (despite a charming off-season verbal diarrhea or ranting against this and that). I’m not particularly qualified to teach others (yet I do with relish) how to cope with life. There’s no truth, and that’s the truth and the true lie.

Better you tell me:

Who are you?

What is your problem?

Show me you!

In Zen, the master usually would ask questions like: Before your mother and father conceived you, what was your original nature?

My advice: practice 'sitting meditation'’ Be alone. Be by yourself. Be present. Pay attention to your breath, to the sounds around you, to your bodily sensations. Watch how everything arises and passes. Don’t sweat minutiae. The crazy one day will look sane, and the sane turns out to be crazy, given enough time.

And to beat a dead horse: keep learning how to train your mind, the single greatest investment you can make in life (not only to Sam Harris).

My bday wish for you?

Get your ass up and out and do a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat—learn the skills and techniques of mindfulness practice & the practice of meditation.

There’s no meaning (as you heard in your last course and eloquently and passionately transmitted). So you gotta give meaning to life yourself. Be good. Be kind. Be compassionate. Adjust, adapt, accommodate. Serve. Love. Give. Wisdom will follow (or not, it’s all the same. Nobody will remember you in a hundred years, and that’s a generous estimate).

Let me sing and sign off with a hug and kiss & a Buddhist sutra: “A man who judges himself superior, inferior, or even equal to another does not understand reality.”

Yours, come rain or shine.

O

Final Thoughts

It was a letter I read quite a few times throughout the year and found solace in it. I’ve always wondered why most people my age don’t seek mentors - there’s so much wisdom to be gained. It’s like piggybacking off of someone’s time to make yours more meaningful.

Also published here.