Read time 6 minutes. Triumph and Disaster is a stand alone article in our Blocked Energy series.
Right now, some people feel as though the world is ending. Others feel on top of it. Every so often I find the need to have what I playfully call a come to Buddha conversation. This lesson is for those committed to the realization of lasting peace. And that realization cannot come with compromise—even in the face of triumph and disaster.
Hard truths
Let’s take a moment to get serious. Every once in a while the kid gloves come off. If you are truly practicing these teachings, today is one of those days. Growth sometimes feels smooth, its benefits immediate. But the real work comes in the moments when we feel like everything might be lost. In those moments, we must remember what is real—or else suffering deepens.
There is one source behind everything we call existence. Call it what you like; here it goes by Tao. If Tao is the first cause, then it includes both good and bad, triumph and disaster, and all the shades between. Why does this matter? Because awareness itself—the true self—is the closest we come to experiencing Tao.
We are not the self-concerned egos we think we are. We are the awareness in which ego arises. And that awareness, like everything else, is Tao. So who is responsible for the world’s problems? Each of us. That is hard truth #1.
Your role in creating your enemy
Consider a teaching I’ve heard from Eckhart Tolle. Perhaps you see yourself as a caretaker. Seems harmless. But in order to sustain this identity, you require an endless supply of people who need taking care of.
Our labels and preferences create the other. Grievances empower what we hate. Demonizing others helps to create demons. The other defines and defends itself in response, and the cycle tightens.
The way forward is the middle way. Tao never rests in extremes. Like a pendulum, it always swings back to the center. When our starting point is the middle, we emulate Tao. Should we come across someone in need, Tao’s clarity and calm will be available to act through us.
Seeing from both sides
Sports give us an easy illustration. A random play swings the outcome. One person feels blessed, another forsaken. Your team loses, and someone else is overjoyed. Can you consider their perspective, even briefly? This isn’t ultimate truth, but it’s a step: the loosening of ego’s tight grip.
Some people resist any suggestion that they share responsibility for the world’s pain. That resistance is ego’s shield. Without openness to oneness, there can be no true realization. That oneness transcends right and wrong, good and bad, triumph and disaster. That is hard truth #2.
Why a world with triumph and disaster?
Why would Tao create a world with evil? The answer is simple: it’s the only way to create any world at all. Duality is the binary code of existence. Through contrast, we experience love and joy.
Is it worth it? Is it just a cruel game? The teachings say only experience can answer. And that experience comes at the other end of realization.
Still, there is a bright side. When we accept this truth, we can reverse engineer our sense of self. Triumph and disaster become alerts—reminders that it’s time to seek genuine truth. They can point us to awakening, but only if we are willing to release the egoic self.
The danger of indulging triumph
There are those who feel they’ve won the world. They know nothing of the teachings and may not care. But delusion has consequences. It blinds us to growth hidden in every loss, every failure.
Triumph and disaster both tempt us to define enemies. Both fuel ignorance. If you are hurt or scared, why compound it with hate? Who do you hurt? Drinking poison does not punish your enemy—it poisons you.
Justice may feel absent, but serving justice is not your task. Awakening is. Your realization may be the most helpful thing you ever bring to this society.
Triumph and disaster do not play favorites
No one escapes the absence of truth. Ignorance of self is the greatest source of suffering. Heaven and hell are not later—they are here. Hell is distance from the true self. The farther away you are, the greater the loneliness and insecurity.
That is punishment enough. Many are trapped in their own heads, restless, angry, sleepless, endlessly typing online. Their misery is not a victory for you to gloat in. It is evidence of the prison of ignorance. Our role is not to add to it, but to recommit—again and again—to practice.
Getting real with triumph and disaster
So here it is. How serious are you? How committed? What are you willing to sacrifice? You must be willing to sacrifice everything: grievances, opinions, even your cherished sense of what is fair.
If you follow the teachings, the sacrifice will hardly feel like loss. Truth and peace quickly rush in to fill the space, but only if you empty the vessel. That emptiness is useful. Knowledge and opinion fall away; wisdom arises.
If it feels risky, then you lack faith—in Tao, in truth, in reality itself. That is the first hurdle. Can you meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same?
That is the uncompromising truth.
Explore more:
In this article on PerformanceXtra, Anthony Pellegrino recommends a practice of negative visualization in order to invite some balance and perspective into our lives. He also offers a warning to those who feel compelled to gloat or bask too heavily in their perceived victories.
“Negative visualization is a way for us to keep our optimism bias in check. By thinking deeply about a negative outcome that is surely uncomfortable will disarm that negative outcome if it comes to pass.
Disaster will then not feel so devastating if it shall occur.
Similarly, we have to keep our emotions in check in victory. While it always feels great to come out on top, we can’t let ourselves become overly celebratory.
Paradoxically, if we aren’t careful, regular victory and successes can actually make us worse competitors in the long term.
As Bane tells Batman in The Dark Knight Rises:
Victory has defeated you.”
Karma’s a bitch? Well that can’t be good karma.
🌀 From the GZM Archives – Polished, Preserved, Still Relevant.
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