I have been taught in my education and in my earlier professional career to be goal and result oriented. It has served its purpose up until now but lately I have discovered another approach that brings results in my life. There are many interpretations to the 18th century poet Thomas Gray phrase ‘Ignorance is bliss’. I’ll share mine. As I have changed my area of interest and focus, I found myself in a territory of new learnings. I restarted from scratch and could no longer count on the years of previous experiences of my old comfort zone.
One day I got attracted to Emeishan, the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China located in Sichuan province. When I started the research on it, I just found out the elevation was only 3100 m high and surrounded by stunning natural sceneries from the Chinese ancient style movies. The top could be reached by bus and a cable car at the top. Or there is an alternative to hike it up. My motivation was naturally fuelled by my Buddhist culture. I embarked on the hiking route. There was not much information in English online. At the start, there were many stairs, leading to the first of the 30 temples, which sounded totally normal. I visited the temple and assumed I had to climb down the stairs to continue the route. I counted 300 stairs down. Mumbling a few Chinese words combined with English and lots of sign languages, all the fingers were pointing up to the same temple to continue the path. I was disappointed thinking I just wasted climbing down 300 stairs, and now having to climb them up again. At the temple, more mumbling, then I found out one set of other stairs leading higher on the hill. Next thing I found out was more and more stairs, there was no end to it. I could see one line of stairs up, and had no other choice but to climb them. Then there is a turn, and after a few repetitions, I was scared to look up to discover what was next. The overwhelming discovery was that each next section was simply a new section of stairs. The humidity of the air was attacking the contour of my body to try to shrink it. The exasperation to find a somehow flat section, or even a slope, but without stairs. The first day was around 7 hours and I took refuge in a temple for the night. The next day, I was full of positivity, thinking a new day starts and I was convinced the trail would offer more diverse sections. The second day was another 6 to 7 hours of stairs. Besides disappointment I was invaded by frustration. I would cross mothers bringing their young children for a Buddhist pilgrimage. I noticed that children were taking the hike as a game, without tiredness and were pulling parents forward. I learned from them and realized they had no idea, no expectations and were taking the day ‘one step at a time’. That was the new approach I adopted for the third and last day of the hike to the top. Reaching the Golden Temple at the top was rewarding, despite the noise from large groups of Chinese pilgrims who had taken the cable. I felt privileged to have experienced stunning views and sceneries on the way up, and staying away from crowds. Privileged to have used just my own feet, legs, and body to reach this place, and facing this type of hike which I had never experienced anywhere else in the world. I thought about the Chinese monks who have built these stairs stone by stone and how much hard work, patience, and perseverance they must have put into it to allow for others to access this sacred temple. I felt grateful to them. It also made me think about the hands of the people who have built the great wall.
The new approach consisted of not relying only on the intellectual learning and measuring it in quantity of the information or knowledge acquired. Instead, it was more about living the process, fuelled by passion and the initial motivation. I relaxed by allowing myself to take a ride on a boat without paddling against the current. If I had known this hike was composed of so many stairs, I probably wouldn’t have gone for it. My ignorance of the nature of the hike facilitated my adventuring into it, and despite emotions of despair, frustration invading me for few days, I ended up learning a precious lesson for facing unpredicted situations in life: just take one step at a time, and use all your capacity and potential for the step instead of worrying about how to reach the top. That’s my way of understanding that sometimes, Ignorance is Bliss. And it is in a certain level of ignorance in a situation that we can see and observe a Potential’, in ourselves or in our surroundings that we wouldn’t see otherwise..