Birth and Rebirth

Jim Tarran

This is the time of year where darkness no longer dominates light and the balance, grain by grain, is being redressed and even tipped over to favour the light. It is essentially an optimistic time with all the promise of the forthcoming months ahead.

More songs are sung about the month of April than any other month, with the possible exception of September. This points to the poignancy of the month and its importance in people’s psyches. It is one of the year’s pivotal points. April begins tipping the scales in favour of growth and warmth and so one can call it the true beginning of the season of birth, youth, awakening, expansion and of outward-flowing energy.

It is also quite apparent that we are part of this birthing season both on the physical and psychological level. There seems to be a veritable glut of people born at this time of year and the newborn have the growing warmth and increasing abundance that the year brings to look forward to and to use to build up strength to make it through the first winter at the end of the year.

With youth comes enthusiasm, and from enthusiasm energy – it is energy that makes any kind of growth possible. Indeed according to Buddhism, it is one of the three qualities necessary for the spiritual life along with wisdom and compassion.

The enthusiasm of the young lamb as it frolics, the outward energetic thrust of the new shoots and the early joy of the daffodils and tulips all express this unbridled energy. Words like doubt, uncertainty and restrain are hardly part of nature’s vocabulary at this time of year.

So what does this mean for us?

It means that this is not a time for excessive restrain, that the cynical mind can rest while allow this arising energy to come forth. Letting it be guided through the channels that have been created in the more introverted reflective months of winter so that now our resolves can be tested. If you build a kite, you take care with your design and construction – at some point you’re going to have to test it out to just let it go. If you are going to be able to make any further improvements you have to find out what is working and what is not.

For true rebirth, we have to surrender our constructs to life so it can purify them by establishing and affirming as well as exposing weak spots. But this is all par for the course, for now it is enough to go with the enthusiasm and energy and to join the excitement of life. Seeing this in one another can be a great source of joy or Mudhita (pali) as we celebrate one another’s passion for life. It can also be a source of compassion or Karuna (pali) as we recognise this will to live even in those whose life force is weakened, as in the sick or the elderly. Even watching someone eat their food can give rise to such compassion as we see people reaching out for life through this most basic act.

The energy is there and can be guided without being dissipated by letting the yamas act like a river bank within the confines of which the water can splash and tumble without losing its strength through dissipation. It is for this reason that we live within the yamas either recalling them specifically or living by their spirit, so that our energy can stay united and not to somehow dampen it or take the wind out of it’s sails.

Quotes

‘Sufism is that you should not possess anything nor should anything possess you.’

— Samnun