What Condition I’m In
This post is a condensation of an article I wrote last July for the Horizon, the Buddhist newsletter I publish.
If you’re pretty old, you’ll remember a song from 1968 by Kenny Rogers and The First Edition called “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” One verse goes like this:
I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in
I watched myself crawlin’ out as I was a-crawlin’ in
I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind
I saw so much I broke my mind
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
(yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in)
(Mickey Newbury)
The song was considered to be kind of psychedelic with veiled drug references, but those enigmatic lyrics bring up a vital issue—is your condition passive or active? According to the above description of hell, this character is seriously messed up. But his solution seems to be not to take responsibility, but to remain in a hellish state, dropping in once in awhile to see if anything has changed. Bad approach. If you have to drop in to check up on your condition, who’s minding your condition when you’re not there?
There’s a world of difference between observing and taking action. One is to hope things will change, the other is to be creative and do something. Oh dear, I fell in a ditch. What a bummer. Maybe I’ll get out someday. That’s observing a situation. Observing can be useful, but to be effective, it should lead to action. I choose not to stay in the ditch. I will climb out! That’s the creative mode, taking the appropriate action based on the discovery “I fell in a ditch.” One of humanity’s great delusions is that we’re not responsible for our lives, that there’s some committee out there, or that God fellow, that determines everyone’s circumstances. Buddhism says, I am completely and utterly responsible for everything in my life. That’s always been the good news and the bad news. But it is empowering news.
Being passive takes no effort. Life will happen no matter what, so why not just lethargically watch it go by? Some (been there) go the opposite extreme—catastrophizing about everything while feeling helpless and paralyzed. But if I’m just idly letting things happen, or worse, freaking out all the time, then I’m not at the helm of my ship, and anyone or anything could take over my life condition. The most likely suspect? Of course—devilish functions. Devilish functions are those little weasley things that sit around waiting for you to take a coffee break from your life—then they take over and turn you into a pod person.
Stuff happens. Everyone arrives on planet Earth with a personalized load of karma—some loads bigger than others. Having judgments about our karma is useless. We all have to deal with the stuff—but the way we deal with it is entirely up to us.
