Firsts and Lasts

Episode 149 of the Secular Buddhism Podcast

Hello. You are listening to the Secular Buddhism podcast, and this is episode number 149. I'm your host, Noah Rasheta. Today I'm talking about firsts and lasts. So let's get started.

Welcome

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A Shift in Perspective

As I jump into the topic I want to share in today's podcast episode, I want to start out by bringing up something that has emerged as one of my favorite things from my personal study and practice of Buddhist concepts, teachings, and ideas. It's the shift I've had in my personal relationship with time—or perhaps better yet, with moments in time.

There was a time when I used to value moments based on the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the moment. Moments that were pleasant were more worthwhile than unpleasant moments. And I think this is a common way of thinking for all of us, perhaps especially in the way we've been conditioned to view things in our society. I was always looking forward to the next pleasant moment, the next fun moment, the next happy moment, and dreading the next sad moment, the next unpleasant moment, or painful moment.

But something has shifted. I've come to understand—perhaps a little more clearly—the true uniqueness of each moment. And with that understanding comes a recognition of the preciousness of each moment due to its uniqueness rather than to how I feel during that moment. This is something that has been on my mind heavily in the last months, especially with my dad. My dad has cancer, and he's been battling it, undergoing all the treatments necessary to prolong his time.

We knew early on that this wasn't going to be a battle about winning or beating cancer. It was a battle about how much time he had left. He's recently transitioned from the strategy of fighting and prolonging to changing course toward hospice care, where the main goal is quality of life for whatever remainder of time he has left.

This has been weighing heavily on me with this notion of first and last. A couple weeks ago, I decided to take my family—my wife and kids—with me to visit my dad. I've been going there frequently over the past year whenever I have the chance, even if it's just for a couple of days over the weekend. But knowing that time is of the essence, we decided to go as a family.

Recognizing Firsts and Lasts

During the trip, I was thinking a lot about this notion of the uniqueness of moments and the concept of firsts and lasts. This has kind of evolved into somewhat of an inside joke with my kids. I'll mention things like, "This is the first time and the last time that this is going to happen," or "that is going to happen," with little mundane things, right? Going to the bathroom at the airport. The doorknob you might have to touch to open the next door. It's like, "This is the first time and the last time I'm going to have to touch this."

Jokingly, lightheartedly, it's a friendly way of reminding myself of the true nature of time. Everything I experience is happening simultaneously for the first time and also for the last time. That recognition—that uniqueness of that moment—because it's never happened before and it will never happen again, makes that moment precious. It makes it precious regardless of whether it's a pleasant moment or an unpleasant moment. Because the recognition of the uniqueness of the moment seems to be the key.

This is something I've been practicing quite a bit since I first started studying these concepts. I'm trying to see the uniqueness of moments and the preciousness of moments due to that uniqueness rather than due to pleasantness or unpleasantness.

Having said that, I've had this in mind for weeks now as I think of every interaction I have with my parents and with my dad specifically. These are firsts and lasts. I don't know when the very last time will happen. But I know that every time I answer a call or call to say hi, that conversation is a first and a last. This has been weighing heavily on me for quite some time now.

And then last week, it shifted to a whole new level.

The Unexpected Tetris Piece

I talk often about this notion of life being like a game of Tetris, and we just don't know what pieces are around the corner. Well, I had an experience last week that was very difficult and very traumatizing. This was actually over the weekend on Saturday.

As many of you know, I teach paragliding—paramotoring specifically. I had a course where I was teaching new students. Very often at these courses, I have former students who show up. They're no longer under my tutelage, but they come join us to participate in the camaraderie and the spirit of community that is so prevalent in the sport we practice. We had six new students and several former students showed up. One of them has become a really good friend of mine.

I trained him last year, and he has rapidly risen through the ranks in terms of skill and knowledge. He's put in more hours into flying than anyone I think I've ever met, and certainly more than anyone typically does in the sport. On average, people who fly tend to fly 50 to maybe 100 hours per year. Well, Dustin wasn't like the average person.

He jumped into this coming from the motorcycle racing world, where he had risen to the top racing motorcycles—street bikes on racetracks. He was famous for doing helmet drag. You know, if you've seen those motorcycles that get in a really tight turn and their knees and elbows are touching or kind of scraping along the ground as they turn? Well, he added the helmet to that same equation and was well known for it. I guess he did it once in a ghillie suit, and that was kind of his claim to fame.

So that's the kind of guy he was. He lived life in the fast lane, if we want to call it that. Well, he did the same with paramotoring. He got into paramotoring and built up his skills rapidly. In five to six months, he had already flown nearly 300 hours, which is just insane for the average person. Three hundred hours is usually someone who's been flying four to five years. His skill was on par with the amount of hours he had flown.

Well, Dustin had been learning a series of more advanced maneuvers. Now I noticed early on that it was a little dangerous with how his style of flying was going, and I had warned him to take things slow. I told him to take a maneuvers clinic and learn how to be an even safer pilot. He was on track to do that. He'd already been under the wing of other tutors who were giving him advice—people who do more advanced aerobatic maneuvers. They had warned him the same thing: throttle it, take it slow, build up your skills, and then try these hard maneuvers.

Well, he had mastered one of those maneuvers called a wingover. When you fly a wingover, you typically do them up high. It's almost like you're doing a swing set where you swing way up high on the left and then swing down and way up high on the right. If you time it right, you come out of that with so much energy you can go into a barrel roll or into a spiral.

He had done those up high, but he started doing them down low. If you keep them really gradual, it's not that dangerous, but that wasn't Dustin's style. He was doing them quite aggressively, building a lot of energy and a lot of speed in these maneuvers. And unfortunately, on Saturday morning, he miscalculated the energy and the speed and the altitude he had while he was executing one of these maneuvers. He impacted the ground and was killed instantly.

I was on the ground when it happened. I had a new student in the air. It happened right in front of me. I myself and several others who were there ran to him. I knew right away there was very little chance he could have possibly survived that impact. But we still did all the life-saving techniques—CPR and all that—as we waited for paramedics to arrive. And unfortunately, just as we suspected, they called it. He didn't survive the crash.

Processing the Loss

This was a very difficult and emotional experience for me from two perspectives. One was losing a good friend. We spoke almost every day from the day he first learned to fly. I was there for his first flight. I taught him how to fly. And I was there for his last flight.

The difficulty of losing a friend, combined with the trauma of experiencing such a harsh accident right before your eyes, holding someone in your arms as they pass away, realizing there's nothing you can do for them—it was quite the traumatic experience. This only happened a few days ago, and it left me once again with this strong notion of the recognition of things happening for the first time and for the last time.

Every moment that we're experiencing—that moment in the morning with Dustin when I flew with him, the interactions I had the night before at our campsite—those were all firsts and lasts. None of us knowing what was right around the corner waiting to happen the next morning.

These things have been weighing heavily on me. The recognition of first and last, combined with the fact that I haven't done a podcast episode in a while, and I really do have the goal of doing these regularly. There's this part of me that doesn't want to speak until I feel like I've prepared something worthwhile to say. But then I'm reminded that the whole point of this podcast—at least the way it's evolved—is that I like to share my thoughts, especially thoughts around things that are difficult to talk about.

We don't talk about difficult things often in life. We tend to avoid difficult topics. We want things to be pleasant. We want to say what's going to sound right, what's going to be received the right way. But I feel that perhaps one of the things I can do to help both myself as I process these strong emotions and that I can do for our society as an example is to be here and share and honor whatever it is I'm feeling in the moment.

Come As You Are

It doesn't have to be scripted. It doesn't have to be prepared. It doesn't have to come across in any particular way. This is me showing up just as I am and expressing what's on my mind in this specific moment as I talk into the microphone.

And I think if I tie this into Buddhist concepts and teachings, this notion of first and last is happening right now. This is the first time I've ever recorded a podcast while experiencing the strong emotions that I'm experiencing. It would have been easy to put this off for a week or two, but I didn't want to do that.

Second, I wanted to share in a way that may be beneficial to someone listening who's also going through difficult things. Because I think another title that would have been appropriate for this podcast episode would be "Come As You Are."

When I first visited a Buddhist congregation, the person leading the meeting started out by reminding everyone in the group that their specific congregation's motto is "Come as you are." I thought that was a neat idea as he elaborated a little bit more on the notion behind it. The idea was that if you're not feeling a certain way, you're still welcome. Come as you are. If you're happy, angry, stressed, under duress, or under any circumstances that you may be experiencing, there's no right way that you need to be before showing up here to practice.

That was very welcoming, and over time I've come to understand that this is the way—the proper way—to approach Buddhist teachings and perhaps Buddhist practice in the same way. Come as you are. You don't just sit and meditate when you feel like sitting and meditating. You meditate however you're feeling.

When I sit and take a few moments, I may very well be thinking, "I don't want to sit here and take a few moments." But it's part of why I practice. It's what I do. In the same way that if I want to go for a walk, I might not feel like going for a walk, but going for a walk could be beneficial, whether I wanted to or didn't want to, or if it's raining or snowing or sunny. You know, going for a walk has its own benefits regardless of the conditions when we do it.

That's how I feel about Buddhist practice. With that said, I've been thinking about this notion for quite a while in anticipation of an event that hasn't occurred yet with my dad. And what ended up happening is here I am processing all these strong emotions for an event I wasn't expecting—the unexpected Tetris piece.

Allowing It All

I thought it would be fun for me to recognize that there is a sense of peace that arises in me by allowing each moment to be as it is. And it's not just the moments. It's also the thoughts. I'm allowing each thought, each feeling, each emotion that I'm experiencing in my day-to-day life to be as it is.

Since this incident happened, I've had these moments. Moments of gratitude and joy as I think about the memories and friendship. Moments of distress and sadness. Moments of uncontrollable crying. Moments of everything in between those ranges. Moments of laughter and humor. It's been quite the interesting experience.

What's been fascinating for me is to recognize that I don't sense in myself an aversion to the unpleasant ones or a clinging to the pleasant ones. When I smile and I laugh, I enjoy it. When I cry and I'm sad, there's a sense of contentment that arises because I'm allowing myself to experience the full range of emotions.

That's been quite therapeutic, and I think that's part of why I wanted to attempt to record this and express this in the midst of all these strong feelings and emotions. Because that's life, isn't it? We go through our day-to-day experiences with a mixture of laughing and a mixture of crying.

Sometimes we don't want the world to hear us speak or to perceive what we're feeling until we have curated that image. "I only want you to see me happy." "Okay, well then I'll only record this when I'm happy." Or things like that.

But here I had the opportunity to ask myself, "What's gonna happen if I sit and hit record on this microphone and I just start sharing my thoughts about first and last?" And that's where I am now. That's what's happening.

And it feels good. It feels really good.

The Beauty of Uniqueness

It mirrors the way I'm trying to live my life—showing up just as I am, encountering every experience just as it unfolds, however intense, however happy, however sad that experience or that set of circumstances might be. Because I recognize that it's a unique moment in time. Something that's happening for the first time and also for the last time. But right now, it's the only moment I have.

And I do feel a sense of gratitude and joy for being the witness of that experience.

I guess that's what I wanted to echo in this episode. As I experience these moments—first and last—yeah, they may be unpleasant. Yeah, they may be uncomfortable. But they certainly are unique. And I'm grateful that I get to experience these unique moments.

So I wanted to share that with you in the hopes that some of these concepts, some of these ideas, may be beneficial to you as the listener. As you may currently be encountering difficulties, or will at some point encounter these difficulties as life throws you the unexpected Tetris pieces, my hope and wish is that you will see the uniqueness and the beauty of each moment because it's a unique moment.

Not because it's pleasant or ugly because it's unpleasant. But you may see it as beautiful because it's unique. It's the only moment there is. It's happening, and it's simultaneously the first and the last time that you'll be thinking, feeling, or experiencing whatever it is that you're experiencing in your life, just as I am now with the set of circumstances that I'm experiencing.

That's all I have. That's all I wanted to share with you today. Again, thank you for taking the time to listen. I hope that these concepts and ideas prove to be beneficial to you as they have to me, and I look forward to recording and sharing more thoughts in the future about other topics and other concepts.

Thanks again for listening. Until next time.

For more about the Secular Buddhism podcast and Noah Rasheta's work, visit SecularBuddhism.com