| | I experienced quite a few sychronicity in high-equanimity. Here are a few:
On one occasion, I was having lunch with my uncle, who is a Catholic priest, at his retirement home. I was leaving in the following days for a retreat in Thailand and it was clear that my uncle was worried that I was going on the wrong path (Away from Jesus, in his conception of spirituality). It's worth nothing that beside being in high-equanimity, I had a bit of lsd in my system. Another catholic priest, that I never meet before, show up at our table and start to make interesting comments. He look me in the eye and says: "You look like a guy of knowledge and wisdom, spiritual wisdom, am I right?"
I look again in his eyes and there is a moment of mutual understanding but I am still somewhat perplexed. He add: "Sometimes, the young have more wisdom than the old".
I perceive this to be a reference to the spiritual confusion of my uncle, so I wink at him to acknowledge that I get the reference. The priest start laughing at this point, as we are both "on the joke" at that point. The priest keep talking in a way quite aligned with the Dharma, and out-of-the blue make reference to Buddhist monks (not even knowing about my plan to go on a Buddhist retreat), underlining the universal nature of spirituality and we exchange a few "dharma jokes". Sadly, my uncle never got the point, but the encounter allowed me to be more at ease in the face of my uncle anxiety. I went to meet the priest a few days later to discuss about spirituality. He feel like someone who has completed a part of the path but since he didn't have much guidance in the Catholic church, didn't get to the end of it.
Later that day, my uncle made the comment that "Rien n'arrive au hasard" (nothing happens by chance). It really struck me and the thought stayed in my mind and was constantly coming back. A bit later, we are looking at books in my uncle library. My uncle open a book "randomly", and the title of the chapter at that page is "Rien n'arrive au hasard"! My uncle is all excited and keep telling me "Isn't that a fantastic coincidence, we talked earlier that nothing happens by chance, and I just open this book by chance and there it says it!"
Earlier, my mind was stuck with doubt about the idea, but at that instant, I totally believed that "nothing happen by chance". So, I look my uncle in the eye and tell "So, you didn't open the book by chance, since nothing happens by chance", feeling that some sort of fundamental confusion was to be resolved, a feeling enhanced by the lsd, but my uncle didn't notice the contradiction in his statement. It was an opportunity to see that the things that happens to us and the things that we do are one of the same, that our dualistic view of the world lead to contradictions in our language, but I was left alone with that reflexion.
The almost same things happened again a few weeks later. I was harassed by the same confusion, simply worded differently. This time, it was "Everything happens for a reason". My mind was obsessed with making sense of that statement (I can't remember how it got into my mind, maybe something my wife said to me). I had a Christian mystic healing book with me that I hadn't read, and I purposefully opened it "randomly" in hope of some answer. There was the first sentence: Everything happens for a reason.
A few weeks later, my wife and I stopped by a temple somewhat randomly. We had the choice of driving to the top, or climbing the stairs. I suggest the stairs, feeling that it's the noble thing to do. It was a very hot day and a tedious stair to climb and the thought that I kept having during the climb where of this kind: there must be a reward for those willing to make an effort. At the top of the stair, a bhikkuni is swiping the floor with a traditional broom. My wife and the bhikkuni barely exchange a few words and the bhikkuni instruct us to go to a temple not far where a group of bhikkuni are living together. My wife knew that bhikkuni by reputation, as she is believed to be an arahant but live a very recluse life. My wife noted later that we would not have meet her if we had use the car to get to the top.
The temple the bhikkuni directed us to ended up being a very nice discovery. They are a group of about twelve bhikkunis, they ordain in Myanmar or Sri Lanka (it's against the law to ordain as a bhikkuni in Thailand), one was from Tibet and they were all highly educated and speaking very good English (a rare thing in Thailand). I had a lenghly conversation with the bhikkuni that teach the Abhidhamma and Pali, and she really knew her stuff (but she isn't an arahant by her own admission). My wife go on retreats form time to time at this temple.
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