Creating Reality
question: are we really all the same? I can’t think of a time that I lied to, manipulated, robbed or poisoned another person in order to gain/provide protection, support or safety for myself or my children. I can’t think of a time when I felt so empty that I craved bigger houses, better or more cars, more technology and an endless cash flow and would stop at nothing to obtain these things.
These are the ways of the greedy and corrupt. And nothing in nature exhibits the greed and corruption of humans. I for one have a difficult time justifying this type of behavior by telling myself that these people are simply seeking protection, support or safety.
answer: I was reminded of a story, as I read your comment. I would like to share it with you, if I may.
In my early twenties, when I lived in Poland and practiced Zen, I used to attend Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreats. They happened every year. For five days people from all over the world, from all religions and spiritual traditions, would gather in the Concentration Camp to meditate, pray, sing, feel.
Being Polish, having grown up about an hour and a half away from the concentration camp, I wasn’t moved to tears just by being there. People would stare at photographs in horror, people would walk around crying, I wasn’t. I’ve been there before, a couple of times with school trips. Reading books, diaries, memories of the war survivors was a significant part of my school curriculum, I knew all of it already. I knew the stories.
I shared how I felt with another participant after a day or two. She told me that I am not doing this right. She said I should make myself cry, she said I should look at the photographs and imagine that it is me, my family. What she said didn’t make much sense to me and yet I was so firmly convinced of not being good enough, of being broken, wrong, insensitive, that her suggestion fitted right in and I believed it.
Every night, at the end of the day, all the participants would gather together to share their stories. That night I decided to listen very hard, to try to feel the pain, to make myself cry. I was going to do it right. I stared fixedly at each speaker. I was willing myself, forcing myself to feel, to experience their pain. After a while my eyes begun to hurt, but I kept pushing. But the more I pushed the less I could feel. It seemed that the more I strained my whole being to listen, the less I could hear. Gradually all the feelings receded and there was nothing in me, just a blank emptiness. I could feel nothing, I was moved by nothing, I cared about nothing. There was no pain, there was no being right or wrong, there was no striving or trying, there was nothing. I was absolutely empty.
As I walked to the hotel that night I thought about killing people. It seemed such a normal, ordinary thing to do. I couldn’t see why I would have any problem doing it. “If someone handed me a gun right now I would kill this person on the other side of the street” I thought. Why not?
The next morning I woke up utterly miserable, without having the least idea why. I went to my small group, about ten people, that would meet each morning. When my turn to share came I started telling them about last night, about how I wanted to feel, to do it right, about how I was pushing myself, trying as hard as I could. I started crying sometime in a middle of the story. Then I couldn’t stop crying, I was sobbing uncontrollably and words were coming out of my mouth that I didn’t know where there, that I had no intention of saying.
Those words said that we have to pray for the nazi, we have to pray for the SS-men and we have to pray for all the capos, because they were in such incredible pain. They were in so much pain that they couldn’t feel it anymore, they couldn’t feel anything anymore. They were dead, empty, and it hurts so much. I knew exactly how much it hurts.
I have learned that day that there is no justifying the greed and corruption. There is no justifying the horrendous suffering that people inflict upon people. There is no justifying the atrocious crimes that people commit against people.
I also learned that day that there can be an understanding. I learned that there can be a relationship. I learned that, ultimately, we are not so very different.
I walked in the mountains yesterday. There is a trail winding it’s way up a mountain side. It splits at one point, a path goes on, following the mountainside into a valley, another leads up to the very mountain top. I wanted to stand at the top of the world yesterday, so I climbed up. The way up is steep and I was out of breath in no time, paying attention to nothing but my burning legs, my hammering heart, my lungs that were about to burst, and the annoying little flies trying to dive into my eyes with great determination.
My dog did not like the path, she kept falling back, stopping, I had to drag her forward.
“There is a mountain lion here” I realized half way up the slope. I couldn’t see it but it’s presence was as clear and strong as if it was standing right next to me. I kept on climbing, I wanted to see the view from the top.
It took me few minutes to catch my breath. There were mountains stretching down below me towards the valley where the city lies, tinkling with lights, and the ocean beyond it. The sun had just set leaving the sky a luminous shade of lavender and pink.
I stood at the top of the mountain and felt the mountain lion’s presence. It was it’s territory, I knew. And what if it shows up? I thought of scaring it away, of yelling on top of my voice, weaving my hands, shaking sticks. I heard that this is the appropriate response in case of meeting a dangerous wild animal.
“Nonsense” it occurred to me “why should I attack the lion? this is it’s place, why would I challenge that? I have no quarrel with the lion. If it comes and wants me gone, I will leave”.
The lion didn’t come and I walked away after a while. The sky darkened, the mountain path was full of shadows, the night was falling. My dog was scarred, skittish, starting at the slightest noise, but I was not afraid. I belonged there, in the wild, in the mountains, with the trees and the birds, with rocks and mountain lions.
“I am nature, just like the trees, like the lion, like the birds” I realized. I could feel the life in my body, the air in my skin, the earth in my muscles. “The mountain lion and I are not so very different”, I thought, “we are both animals, we are both nature. The lion has a way of expressing who she is that is different than my way but, ultimately, we are not so very different at all”.
We are no so very different – humans, animals, trees, birds, rocks, oceans. We are nature. We don’t have nature, we don’t own nature. We are nature. And because we are nature, all of us, we can relate, there is a common ground, a space where we can understand one another. We can relate when we allow ourselves to open to the possibility of relationship.
“We are not so very different” I thought in the last few weeks, as the battle over health insurance raged on. “Why do republicans fight the change so desperately?”, I wondered. “Are they all evil psychopaths who wish to exterminate half of the population for the sake of profit? Or are they scarred and fighting for safety for themselves, for better life for their children, for care and support? Isn’t that what democrats want, what Obama wants? Safety, better life for children, care, support?”
Republicans way of organizing it, of expressing it, is different than that of democrats but, ultimately, they all want the same things. They strive and fight for the same reasons.
Are the CEOs of large corporations corrupt, greedy monsters, who care nothing for anyone or anything other than the number on their bank account statement? Are they willing, intentionally and with cold blood, to bankrupt nations and poison the earth, so that they can buy yet another house, yet another car? Or are they looking for safety, for protection that they believe comes from power? Are they striving to create empires that will provide for their families for generations, that will give safety and support to their children?
The corporate way of organizing it, of expressing it, is different than that of “regular” people’s with nine-to-five job and a mortgage but, ultimately, we all want the same things: protection, support, safety.
We are not so very different. And because we are not so very different, because we all strive for the same things, there is a common ground, a space where we can understand one another. We can relate when we allow ourselves to open to the possibility of relationship.
How would the world change? If all we did was to realize that we are nature – humans, lions, birds, trees, rocks, fishes in the ocean? If all we did was to realize that we are not so very different, that we all want the same things, that we strive and fight for the same reasons? How would the world change?
Without organizing, fixing, overthrowing governments and revolting against the powerful and wealthy, without creating new systems, new sets of rules, without imposing new, “better”, order, without inventing new technologies, without saving the earth and rescuing the planet, but only with the simple realization that we are all nature, that we are not so very different – how would the world change?
It might turn into a paradise, for everyone, overnight.
Everything is. There is a universe in the tiniest leaf, there is a whole of creation in me. I will see it, if I look.
I really enjoy my art class. The teacher begun her introduction, on the first day, by saying: drawing is not about putting shapes down on paper, it is not about what you can do with pencil and charcoal, it is not about technique and skill. Drawing is about looking. Everyone can draw, she said. If you can see it, you can draw it.
We had a homework exercise that made the point beautifully. The task was to draw a fruit or a vegetable, from memory. Then to take an actual fruit or vegetable and draw it again, this time from observation.
Drawing a pepper from memory took me about five minutes. It was a simple shape, elongated, grooved. It looked like a pepper, it was a pepper, everyone would recognize it as a pepper in an instant.
Then I took a pepper and placed it in front of me. Forty minutes later I was nowhere close to completing my drawing. There was so much detail, so many shadowy shapes, so many highlighted places. The longer I looked at the pepper the more details I noticed. Grooves, ridges, stumps, kinks, depressions, curves. They were endless. I could have drawn for hours, for days, for years, and never be “finished” with describing the pepper with my pencil. The pepper was endless, unlimited.
What a beautiful illustration of our relationship to reality that is, I thought as I drew. We see reality in symbols, simplifications, streamlined shapes. An elongated shape is a pepper, a round shape is an orange, a round shape with rays is a sun. Killing is bad, being nice is good, stealing is wrong, giving is right.
Our mind, being always on the defense, can not open to the wealth of shades, shapes, kinks, curves, stumps and depressions. The mind makes things simple so that we can “deal with them”, categorize them, judge them. So that we are safe, so that we understand, so that we are sure to be good, sure to “do the right thing”.
But what if we let go of mind? What if we look? Then we will see an entire universe in a small, red pepper. Then there will be an entire universe in a smallest leaf. If we ask a question and look, we will see an entire universe in ourselves.
Then every single pepper is perfectly complete and unique, no better or worse than other peppers, but perfect as itself. Then each one of us is complete and absolutely unique, perfect as who we are. Then everything is complete and absolutely unique, perfect as what it is.
Everything is the real question. Everything is the real answer. If we can see it.
Question: I stumbled upon your site and was struck by your post. This is me. Your writing hit my heart and I do feel that you are correct when you said that “as long as were lost in you my thoughts, lost in planning, managing, changing . . .” But I am afraid I don’t know what else to do. I have no idea how to find out how to step away from those things I feel I need to control . . . like securing a job with retirement, earning a living doing something I don’t love in order to send the kids to college and feed us, being the single mom 24/7. I have no idea how to step away from this life and be ‘open’ to what I could be. Any hints??
Answer: This is going to be a terribly long, and probably frustratingly unhelpful, response, but I don’t really have a short and simple answer to your question. Actually I don’t know that I have any answer at all. All I have is my experience, which I will be happy to share with you:
I know exactly what you mean when you say: “I don’t know what else to do”, and in saying so you hit the problem right on the head: we don’t know what else to do, because we, humans, don’t know who else we could be, how else we could be. Worrying, doing, striving, organizing, managing, is how we are trained to be, it is how we are taught to relate, to live.
It is my experience that it is our mind that creates all the noise and struggle, and that we, humans, believe that who we are is our mind. We believe that we are our thoughts, preferences, opinions, ideas, achievements.
It is also my experience that our mind is not who we are, that we are much more, much greater, that we are what is called God.
I found that I can choose who to be. I can choose to identify with my mind and lead the “normal” life with all it’s normal problems and tribulations, or I can choose to let go of my mind and be who I really am, be God. Boundless, unlimited, absolutely free to create my life however I want to.
I believe that this choice is the key, and it is my choice, my very personal choice. I don’t believe that anyone can tell me how to make this choice, nor do I feel that I can tell anyone how to make it. It will be very different for every single human on the planet because each of us is unique, and so each of us chooses who to be in a unique way.
There are, however, plenty of ways and practices that help in becoming present, help us experience who we are in a different way, from a different angle, from a different perspective than that of the mind.
I begun with zen buddhism, I practiced it for about 7 years before I met my current teacher, Brooks Greene-Barton. As I experienced, through my practice, who I can be other than what I was told, as I felt myself and the reality in a different way than the “normal” one, I became more and more present to who I really am, other than my mind, and so I was able to choose, consciously, to be myself only, more and more.
It is not an easy thing to do, though it is simple. It is hard to break any habit, and the habit of believing that our mind is who we are is a very persistent one, reinforced by society, reaching back thousands of years. It is a habit that we were trained in since birth.
It does take some time and practice to be present in a different way, to start seeing reality in a different way. Ultimately though, I believe that it is a simple matter of choosing to be who you are, God, not the mind.
It is not about making things happen. It is about being ready to allow things to happen.
This is a different way of being in a world, different from how mind operates. There is nothing to do. There is nowhere to go, there is nothing to achieve, there is nothing to change. But there is being, experiencing, expressing. Why? Why not? I am here. Why? … I am here.
“Who am I?” is much more fun question to ask than “Why am I?”
We, my husband and I, just moved to Santa Barbara from Ojai. We saw this house few weeks ago, it just wouldn’t work for us then. The house seemed great but we couldn’t see ourselves in it, couldn’t fit into it. Three weeks later, as we ate dinner in a restaurant in Santa Barbara, we realized that we are ready to move. Our Ojai adventure was completed, we were ready to go.
Two days later we saw the house we’ve seen few weeks previously, this time it was perfect, we moved in the following weekend. There was hardly anything for us to do. Granted, we worked for a day or two packing and unpacking, but that was it. The move happened so quickly, so easily, that I hardly noticed it.
We were ready and everything fell into place, we were ready, and everything happened. Easily, effortlessly, gently. We were ready, so there was nothing more to be done.
This doesn’t make any sense to the mind. Allowing things to organize, letting go of control, letting go of the need to know how, when, why, what for, doesn’t make sense to the mind. Mind needs to know, organize, understand, have a plan.
When I choose to open to who I am, who I really am, who I am as God, my mind needs to know what it means, needs to know why, what for, what will it do, how will I change. Will I really be God, or will I only imagine it? Will it be real?
But I don’t need to know that. I can just choose to open and allow it to happen.
Knowing how mind functions I can choose to let go of it. I may not know what it means “who I am as God”, but I know that mind needs to know, so I can let go of that need. I know that mind needs to control, so I can let go of that need. I know that mind needs to understand, so I can let go of that need.
My mind needs to make things happen, so I can let go of that need. Then the only thing that’s left will be … me.
