Living with the wild cards of fortune and misfortune.
In card games, wild cards trump everything. They come out of the blue and change the course of the game. Wild cards are fortune or misfortune, depending on whose hand they are in.
Wild Cards of Wisdom
Fortune and misfortune are threads in all lives. They intertwine and are the creative parents for much of our myth, religion, folklore, hopes, dreams, resignation, victimhood, and more.
We practice because we want to live fully, we want to be free, we want to discover the mysteries of existence, we want our life to fulfill its purpose. We can see our motivation in many ways. It’s a natural process. The journey commences for some sooner than for others, and for some more intensely than for others. We are fortunate if it has commenced at all. We are lucky that we are willing to dedicate so much energy and effort to it. – A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery , ch. 1
The Two Faces of Grace
Our hearts are lifted with the intervention of good fortune, while misfortune often brings trials and tribulations that bring suffering.
Fortune and misfortune are two faces of grace, the two wild cards in life, the one-eyed jacks in our poker game with reality – a poker game where bluffing always fails and playing the hand you’re dealt is always the best course of action.
Most of us, in retrospect, often find good fortune in what was initially experienced as misfortune.
How far back in memory do you have to go to find an example of misfortune being fortunate in the long run? Has the wild card of grace beset your life with only one of her faces? Only in the dual world does she present two faces.
Is it not a blessing to know, discriminate, and inquire?
Becoming a mature human being doesn’t happen easily or instantly. Although there is grace and there is blessing, it is only to help you confront and deal with your situation. Grace won’t do the whole thing for you. It will give you more confidence, more trust, but you will still have to deal with yourself. The help of the school, the teaching, and the teacher are small things compared with what you need to do yourself. This is part of the educational process of the inner path. The path requires the clarification and the transparency of all that determines your experience and perception of yourself and of the world. – A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery, ch. 3
The one-eyed jacks
The Jack of Spades (swords) and the Jack of Hearts (cups) are the one-eyed jacks (pages/servants of royalty).
The Page of Cups invites you to have an open and curious mind. The Page of Cups suggests a new idea or opportunity has come to you out of the blue.
The Page of Swords often emerges when you explore a new way of thinking – a new idea, perspective, knowledge, or technique. You have a curious mind and a thirst for knowledge. – Biddy Tarot Meanings
Our Good Fortune
Buddhists believe a human life, even with its suffering and impermanence, is good fortune, a blessing. We are blessed to incarnate as human beings and have the potential and possibility to wake up. Here is an excerpt from a talk by A. H. Almaas on Our Good Fortune (full talk here)