On Teaching: Not Minding What Happens

A famous spiritual teacher once said that the secret to his happiness was that he “doesn’t mind what happens” – meaning, I think, that he was always willing to accept the present moment exactly as it was. He knew that the present moment was all he ever had, and that therefore it was useless to resist it. He had seen the truth that resistance to the present moment is what causes all the problems in life, and he had made up his mind to avoid problems by simply relaxing and “not minding what happens”. He would willingly accept, and even embrace, whatever came his way, and look for the hidden good in it. I could certainly make use of this truth in my teaching, because, as it stands now, I do a lot more rejecting of the present moment than accepting. In fact, I seem to be almost constantly rejecting what’s happening in my classroom, from the behavior of my students to the way my lesson is going. I spend my days in the classroom picking and choosing – accepting this moment, rejecting this one, accepting these two moments, rejecting those four. This is insane behavior, because if the present moment is all I ever have, to reject it is as foolish as trying to make Monday instantly become Friday. If this moment in my classroom, when the lesson seems to be lagging and a student has just talked out of turn, is the only moment I have, then it must somehow be right, correct, fitting, good. My job as a teacher is not to reject that moment, but to humbly accept it and feel the power inside it. There’s something utterly perfect in every moment in my classroom, and I can discover it if, like the spiritual teacher, I simply relax and “don’t mind what happens”.