When I first read the picture book which inspired the movie, about a year ago, I laughed at it. Despite being a girl, it felt like an overly romantic lovey-dovey fairy-tale idea, even though it was credible. It was a happily ever after tale of two people seemingly destined for each other, who continually let chances of meeting slip by unwittingly. It was a tale of love not found, love found, love lost and love refound.
Ironically, months later, I met my significant other in a similar way. The "joke" was on me for real. He lives in the west and I live in the east. It's our version of "left and right." The movie guy and girl lived only next "door", and I had lived in the block next to him for more than 10 years, with windows almost facing each other directly, before moving to the other side of the country. We had definitely passed each other by, time and again, so close, yet so far away. We even went to the same school. Even our mothers knew each other! What's more? We could list common interest after common interest- it felt absolutely magical. I never had such a strong sense of "meant to be" and "made for each other" in my life- we had been unconsciously missing each other all our lives! The movie characters were separated for 13 years, and we were "separate" for more than 20 years. The movie characters exchanged phone numbers on scraps of papers, each having 4 digits smudged by the rain, leaving them a cruel lottery of trying to dial the right number among 10,000 possibilities. They had one chance in 10,000 to find each other... Recently, we did an online personality test- and the results revealed that he was a "rare" one statistically- 1 in 10,000! Some karmic "coincidence" indeed. Am I glad this "joke" happened? I have to thank karma it did. It is incredible how karma works in seeking people out, just as water from the mountain top surely seeks the sea. Life is full of surprises indeed, pleasant ones and painful ones. But how we choose to intepret them determines how we experience them. Are you braced for all kinds of surprises?
A line from the movie poem reads, "They'd be greatly astonished to learn that for a long time, chance had been playing with them." But no, chance does not play with us. We karmically deserve what we experience- even if we keep passing by those we later fall in love with. Do we meet the people we do by chance? No, there is a cause for everything. Even the results of rolling dice are not left to random chance. It all depends on conditioning factors, such as how and where they were thrown. Nothing is left to chance at all. Everyone who strikes the lottery deserves it. They must have planted the seed of generosity in this or a previous life, to deserve the fruit of abundance. Likewise, the truly loving will be loved truly. Before we lament our "bad luck" for our lack of love, before we take the precious people in our life for granted, let us remember that though we deserve we we have, they can change, for better or worse. Are you squandering your good karmic blessings? What new seeds should you sow?
"Beautiful is such a certainty, but uncertainty is more beautiful." was uttered in the poem. It was referring to so-called "chance" meetings and departures. Yes, a romantic idea indeed... the uncertainty of love, but isn't it suffering (Dukkha)? Uncertainty is Anicca (truth of constant change of mind and matter) and Anatta (truth of no enduring personality due to Anicca). In wanting to experience only the beautiful, we suffer, as we crave and cling to what we do not have, and refuse to let go what we have clung to, forgetting that everything and everyone changes. How then do we love people who change? How do we hold on without holding on too tightly? By accepting change, by making sure our love itself changes, for the better, that it sets those we love free- not by abandoning them when in need, but by helping them to grow spiritually, by letting them go too, if they wish to.
Extracted from: http://www.moonpointer.com/movies/turn.htm
What do you think? I'd say I believe in fate.
Faith is light. The hearts of those with strong faith are filled with light. A radiance envelops their lives. People with unshakable conviction in faith enjoy a happiness that is as luminous as the full moon on a dark night, as dazzling as the sun on a clear day.
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