Yesterday, a friend shared advice that Pascual Olivera, an internationally renowned flamenco dancer, once gave. Olivera said, “Everyone is an actor performing the play of life. It is we who write the scenario and who perform the script of our own lives—neither fate, chance, nor a divine being writes this script. We write it, and we act it out. This is what Buddhism teaches. And as such, we have the power to change our lives!”
“How to live” is the question we are pondering as I was recently inspired by the title of Kevin Toolis’ book, In My Father’s Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die.
In our last post we considered Abraham Lincoln’s feeling that he was at times in his life, “controlled by some other power than my own will, that I cannot doubt that this power comes from above.”
Olivera offers another alternative on “how to live” – we can write the script of our lives and its specific scenarios. No one else has that power. We might not realize it, or choose not to write that script or a scenario, but the opportunity always is there waiting for us to choose to act, to be the cause that creates an effect.
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