Don't Fight the Sirens

I live near several hospitals, so my neighborhood is often full of ambulances. When I’m trying to focus, the sirens can get to me, and I sometimes think, “Really? Why so loud? WHY?” But the reason is obvious: if sirens weren’t loud, no one would heed them.

This applies to all of life. The migraine that flares up when you take on a duty you resent. The knot in your stomach when you silence your intuition. The call that cuts out just as the conversation turns tense. Why? we think. Why is this happening to me? Because if your experience weren’t loud, you’d keep ignoring it.

The Buddha actually warned against asking “why” questions. For one thing, they’re rarely genuine inquiries. Usually they’re forms of self-punishment. “Why am I so bad with money?” “Why can’t I find a partner?” These aren’t questions so much as ways of wallowing in self-hatred, like a dog rolling around in a dead squirrel.

Furthermore, “why” questions turn our gaze away from what life is asking us to see. They help us escape into explanations we can control. But the loud parts of life aren’t asking to be explained. They’re asking to be noticed, honored, and felt — especially in the body.

So the next time life turns dissonant, pause and acknowledge the dissonance. What is it like? Does it have a shape, a texture, an intensity? As Ajaan Sumedho says: “It’s like this. It feels like this.” In other words: when we simply let it be “this”, rather than a problem to solve, we find the space and strength to be with it.

There’s an old folktale about a magical drum that wouldn’t stop beating. People started to go insane from all the noise. Then they realized the point wasn’t to stop the drumbeat but to dance to it. Don’t fight the sirens. Don’t object to the chaos. As Rumi says, “If you complain about every rub, how will you be polished?”