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Hope and expectation abound at the beginning of the year. It’s natural when we have a new start to get into a hopeful mood even if it’s just an arbitrary trick of the calendar. Hope is an important part of human experience, its considered an essential onward drive.
Carol Graham, an economist, in her book The Power of Hope says feelings of well-being are critical metrics that predict future life outcomes and argues for the importance of hope. She points to empirical evidence demonstrating that hope can improve people’s life outcomes and that despair. Graham asks how and why the wealthiest country in the world has such despair? She found people in despair don’t take up incentives which she equates with having no hope. Is she confusing aspiration with hope I wonder?
In Buddhist terms hope is a tricky concept. Hope can be seen as making our present moment more bearable. Pema Chodron says hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. They both come from a feeling that we lack something, that all is not well, that things are precarious.
Every alarming situation involves an oscillation between a hope and a terror… Peace of mind doesn’t come from hoping for the best; it comes from close-up attention to the very worst – and from the sure knowledge that we can, with the strength we have inside us already, endure whatever fate might assign us. (The School of Life)
Pema Chodron suggests hope in its efforts to look forward can rob us of the present moment. Hope is tied to craving for things to be other than they are. Hope is an expectation based on some desired future. It is holding onto promises for a reality which has not happened yet, and which might possibly never even happen at all.
Hope and optimism can be different, almost opposing, forces. Hope rises out of known suffering and is the defiant and dissenting spark that refuses to be extinguished. Optimism, on the other hand, can be the denial of that suffering, a fear of facing the darkness, a lack of awareness, a kind of blindness to the actual. Hope is wised-up and disobedient. Optimism can be fearful and false. However, there exists another form of optimism, a kind of radical optimism. This optimism has experienced the suffering of the world, believes in the insubordinate nature of hope and is forever at war with banal pessimism, cynicism and nihilism. - Nick Cave, Red Hand Files, Dec 2021
Suffering is normal. The artist Mark Rothko called it the ‘tragedy of being human’. Hope does not lend our difficulties all the dignity they deserve. It waves orange banners and sunny colours at us and tells us to cheer up. We have been bamboozled by the assumption that life will be a jolly journey which lays riches at our feet. But the first noble truth in Buddhism is that there is discontent and suffering this is at the heart of what it means to be human. Life breaks its promises to us. But acknowledging this truth is also the doorway to freedom and the glimmer of a wiser hope lies there. We can build solidarity around life’s shared tragedies large and small. And this in itself a reason to be hopeful. We recognise we are not alone in this experience.
The School of Life says there are two types of responses to this - bitterness and melancholy. The bitter person is restless with agitation and their fury is inexhaustible. The melancholy person is serene, they realise there is no one to be angry at, this is how things are. We need emotional perspective, to recollect things have been bad before, know that things are uncertain, things will change, and in the bigger picture this is not the totality of who we are. ‘A great many things are not in our power to control and we needn’t feel the need to change them’1
Hope has sent us a postcard. On the back of this postcard it reads: Wish you were here! Wait you already are here!
Roshi Joan Halifax calls it wise hope.
Wise hope is not seeing things unrealistically but rather seeing things as they are, including the truth of suffering—both its existence and our capacity to transform it. It’s when we realize we don’t know what will happen that this kind of hope comes alive; in that spaciousness of uncertainty is the very space we need to act.
Wise hope is about facing our realities and recognising that what we do matters.
Václav Havel said hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism is the conviction that things will turn out well. Hope is the certainty that something will make sense regardless of how things turn out. Whatever happens there will be change.
Hope can also be an act of resilience for ourselves and others. Buddhism does have a hopeful outlook on the world. It acknowledges there is suffering, discontent, dissatisfaction, but also lays a path to liberate ourselves from these things. We can channel our longing for harmony in a skilful way.
Hope acquired through direct experience gives us insight into change, rather than just the wanting of change - Sister Clear Grace.
So we can have a more insightful approach to hope and hold it lightly. Wise hope can be contagious.
There is hope when we know things will change, there is hope in community, there is hope when people respond to injustice. Hope can be an expression of care and community.
In the Anguttara Nikaya 3:13, the Buddha teaches us that there are three kinds of people in the world: The hopeful, the hopeless, and the one who has done away with hope.
For the first four or five years [of practice] hope and belief are necessary. After that, hope and belief are not so necessary- Kyudo Nakagawa
We begin to realise life is constantly shifting, we expect change, we anticipate the weather will fail and people will let us down. This is a state of being not dependent on outcomes. By abandoning hope and fear we discover clarity in the immediate moment, energy in the here and now. It isn’t outcomes that matter. What matters is each other because we are all in this together.
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting - T. S. Eliot
Life is rich with meaning, purpose, ordinary and everyday beauty, small and large acts of kindness, courage and bravery, human connection and humour. We just need to turn our attention to them. What conditions we create for ourselves, what actions we take to turn towards the world with wise hope is where promise lies. In both acceptance of this hopeless human condition and in celebration of it we can embrace life with all its broken beauty.
Next week: for paid subscribers a meditation on wise hope
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About me: I am a western Buddhist in the Triratna tradition and have been practising since 1986. I have a love and admiration for the simplicity and beauty of Japanese culture and aesthetics which appeals to my zen minded being. I am also a mindfulness and movement teacher, writer, and creative health professional.
https://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/reasons-to-be-hopeful/
I have a post-zen friend who for years has advocated a Hope Free ™ stance - this marvelously elucidates her stance. Personally, I'm very impressed by your evolution as a writer and practitioner over the last few years on substack. Thank You for all you do! And the best in 2024
Thank you, Dr Con, for this lovely, warm piece. And I'm gratified to know that my long HopeFree(tm) view has a long pedigree. I am largely retired from the discussion now, but may return, one never knows! In all these years, nothing has shaken my stand, despite relentless assaults by hope fiends and toxic positivists. I do find it somewhat enigmatic that when presented with pessimistic views, I am likely to take a very positive stand. Wabi sabi!