We should be cautious of mistaking the ebb and flow of life for its general trajectory. It is inevitable that as we go through life we will experience ups and downs. The Buddha described these ups and downs in Pali using the words “Loka Dhamma.” Directly translated these words mean “worldly conditions.” In particular, the Buddha described four pairs: gain & loss, fame & obscurity, pleasure & pain and praise & blame. I am sure that we have all experienced these eight conditions at one time or another in our lives.
If we are practicing mindfulness correctly, we do not eliminate these conditions. They will continue to arise and cease because change is a fundamental nature of the world and the universe. What will change is the general trend. This is a very simple and practical equation. If we know what we’re doing more often then we are going to have more success than if we are just acting heedlessly. As a result, over time we will have more good than bad and so the bad becomes less and less significant.
As we gain more confidence in the nature of cause and effect (the universal law that good causes have good effects), we can learn to recognize worldly challenges as just temporary fluctuations in the nature of things not really worth much of our emotional attention. We will certainly need to carefully observe what is happening moment to moment but not so that we can become obsessed with whether we’re experiencing good or bad at any particular time. Rather, we observe what is happening so that we can make important course corrections or adjustments in our actions. By doing so we can ensure that we always remain on the path to happiness.