A Celebration of Life — A Personal Story

Sharing Our Lives

Life is a Celebration

Life is not simply about moving through life alone; it is about sharing and caring for each other. It is about community.

I think we all get to choose our life stories because life is about choices, and we are always making choices. That is not to say that life is easy; it is not.

Ultimately, whether we are happy or not comes back to how we think about ourselves and the world we live in and are part of.

We don’t have a lot of choices when we are wiped away by a tidal wave, but we chose to be where we were and who we were when that tsunami struck.

The Simple Celebration of My Life

Last Sunday, my wife and I attended the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations that were held on the lawn of our Parliament House.

Life is all about choices, and we choose to become the person that we are. I have chosen to live my life believing that we are spiritual beings and that our humanity comes from this shared spiritual reality. I have made my choices. I live a life where the well-being of others is just as important as concerns about my life. We are our creations, and we choose who we want to be. Sometimes, the universe helps by creating conditions so that it is easier for us to become the people that we were always meant to be.

For myself, I was blessed, as I was born in a rich country such as Australia, and so I have not had to struggle in the same way that many others do. So, my choices have been greater, the opportunities greater, and, as a consequence, the missed opportunities of my life are all down to me.

But I have been truly blessed. I have found a way of life that brings greater meaning and joy to my life. I have a spiritual teacher, a father, who guides me through life when my inadequate wisdom fails me, and I am blown by the raging winds of life. I have a loving wife who keeps me on my toes and manages to make me smile, even when I am in trouble, as I often am. My wife is Chinese, and she assures me that it is a long-standing Chinese custom to pull the ears of wayward husbands.

After some years of marriage, my left ear, in particular, is now somewhat longer than my right ear. To compensate, I now walk slanting my body to the right so that my ears seem to be the same distance from the ground.

As a Buddhist, I am blessed to be able to take part in community events. This is very important to me because it is a chance to share with and help others. We often take part as a Buddhist community, do live performances, and run a free stall where children have the opportunity to get lollies—you might call it the Chopstick Challenge, as young children are allowed to take as many lollies as they can using chopsticks in a certain time. People can have their names written in Chinese on bookmarks that they can take away with them. These small things are part of sharing and community, and I know from personal experience how deeply people are moved and happy by doing such simple things.

On Sunday, hundreds queued up to have their pictures taken with our large dragon head.

Chinese Lunar New Year

Hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year.

This year was the year of the Dragon.

These pictures were taken earlier in the morning, as we were setting up for the day. Later, it was lovely to see so many different people, and members of different communities attending. There were a lot of people from the Middle East this year, and after all their suffering and life difficulties, it was nice to see them all having a great time. There were people from places like India, and a rich blending of different religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

Life is a celebration — it is not about our differences; it is about all those things we have and share in common.

The celebrations included performances from different cultural groups, and it was nice to be part of this wonderful day.

This year, we performed the Lion and Dragon Dances. Many people turned up to view these performances, and they were enjoyed by everyone who attended the celebrations.

For something like 10 to 15 years I carried the Dragon Head during many different community events, such as the different Christmas Pageants in Tasmania. I loved running through the streets of Hobart, moving the Dragon’s head as part of the Dragon Dance and was enchanted by how the young children lining the streets squealed and shouted with joy as the Dragon and Lions moved near them. I carried the Dragon Head for the longest Dragon ever seen in Tasmania — I think 200 people helped carry the Dragon, and some of the streets of Hobart were closed for us, as we carried the Dragon through town as part of our celebrations for the World Buddhist Sangha Youth Convention held in Hobart in the early 2000's.

Human Life is a Shared Experience and is Necessary for Human Happiness

It is profoundly important, as a global community, that we learn how to truly be with others and share in community.

Today, many people interact online socially, and there is some concern that we are losing the natural societal bonding that has made us one broader community. It is questionable, whether we can truly satisfy our innate need for social bonding, purely, in a digital world. There is nothing, like physical human interaction, and it is doubtful that our digital lives can ever replace the immediacy of physical contact. The simple act of touching another human being is profoundly moving and satisfying.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle famously believed that human beings are inherently social creatures, and if one wanted to live a virtuous life, then it was essential to achieve eudaimonia (happiness or flourishing), as this was fundamental to human well-being.

Martin Seligman developed the PERMA model—in his book Flourish, he outlined five elements that are essential to human well-being and happiness. These are:

1. Positive Emotions 2. Engagement 3. Relationships 4. Meaning 5. Accomplishments

Robert D. Putnam discussed how a decline in communal activities and social bonding correlated with a reduction in overall societal well-being, highlighting the importance of social networks and shared experiences.

Baumeister and Leary argued in “The Need to Belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments, as a fundamental human motivation” (1995), that we need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships, that this is fundamental to human motivation, and that this is deeply rooted in human evolutionary history.

Ed Diener and Martin E.P. Seligman researched happiness and social connections and found that there were strong correlations between personal well-being and the quality of an individual’s social relationships, and they argued that happiness is significantly influenced by the strength of one’s social connections.

Any superficial research into human psychology quickly highlights how important this shared community is to all of us. It should not be undervalued, nor should it be casually ignored, as we lose ourselves, sometimes blindly, in our digital worlds.

Conclusion:

Much of the happiness in my own life comes from working in the world to make it a better place for others. I am not a great social mover, as I am a simple man, doing simple things that can at times bring smiles of happiness to others, simply because we share and live the essence of our humanity that makes us and shapes us as one greater community that truly spans the whole world now.

Copyright ©️ 2024 Philip Temple. All Rights Reserved.

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