Our sense of vision, which is the lead sense for most of us, is kind of addictively tied to seeing separation: it breaks the panorama of stuff around us into distinct “things”. This activity relies on depth perception and takes some fairly sophisticated sensory and neural gymnastics to make all this separating work. (Our auditory and tactile senses are much more likely to perceive global waves of stimuli.)
But there are ways to get around this misperception of what is actually all connected. One is to briefly unplug our depth perception. You can look at what is around you as if it were a photograph or painting – flat, with everything connected on that two-dimensional surface. It’s a little tricky to do this and will usually only work for moments, but is a fun experiment.
The other work-around of this erroneous perceiving is more cognitive and is a perceptive skill that we actually can grow. In order to see everything around us as separate, self-contained objects – which is how we have learned to perceive things - we have needed to do two things:
1) We need to believe that this object we are looking at stays in one place and does not intermingle with the objects around it. That vase is separate from the table it is sitting on. But modern physics tells us that, on a subatomic level, each object has only a tendency to exist where we see it. In fact, most of that object is actually space, with its electrons moving around so fast that it looks solid. Secondly, these electrons don’t stay put within the edges we see around the object. The electrons of the vase actually do tend to intermingle with the electrons of the table. So what looks solid is mostly space and what looks like a clear separation is actually not. Things are neither as solid nor as separate as our visual sense would tell us. Remembering these two things – even momentarily, because the old habits of our visual sense will tend to reassert themselves – can help us take more lightly the separations that we think we see.
2) The other deceptive cognitive spin we tend to put on our visual sense is that we decode the space between things as being empty – that’s what allows things to stand alone, separate. But that empty space is anything but. In scientific terms, it’s loaded with particles. In energetic terms, it’s loaded with life energy, prana – aliveness. So then how does anything stay separate? If everything we see has in common this subatomic chaos, is actually made up of the same energetic structure, where each electron flashes back and forth between matter and energy – and this is equally true for what looks like empty space as it is true for what looks like solid objects – then what happens to what looks like solid boundaries?
Again, this shift in our perception relies on a cognitive process – our visual sense does not yet know how to perceive energy filing the space around us or the space that these super-fast electrons are always leaving all through that vase. I think that some mystics are able to literally see all these interconnections and mushy boundaries. And sometimes one can see it during or after deep meditation. LSD pretty surely induces this kind of perception, at least some of the time – no wonder that so many “seekers” have been attached to dropping acid, especially in the 70’s. Many martial arts, perhaps Tai Chi especially, rely on working with and moving around the chi or Qi – the life energy – around us. When you are doing a good Tai Chi push, you can feel or even see the energetic force that you are pushing in front of you.
If you have ever done the exercise where you rub your hands together fast, then hold them out just inches apart until you start to feel the ball of energy between them, you have had a glimpse of this. The more you play with this exercise, you can feel the ball of energy between your hands even as you move them further apart. During a ten-day silent meditation, I became able – with my hands out to my sides, my body and mind relaxed, and moving very slowly – to feel the energy boundary of a tree, which extends out way beyond what looks like a solid physical boundary. I even tried to teach my young nieces how to do this, which they found totally hysterical. (“Uncle John has always been a little odd – in a nice way – but this is the farthest out he’s ever been.”)
But, even without LSD or advanced martial arts or meditation-induced mystical perception, knowing that all this is true can actually shift the way we look at things. Especially in repose, we can look at the world in front of us as if it were all connected. Allowing our breathing to get deep and full, our body relaxed, and maybe our eyes soft and half-closed – all of this can help. And perhaps all of these ways of starting to see connectedness where we had before seen separation, perhaps all of them rely on not trying – letting our eyes and maybe even our minds get soft, receptive. The more receptive we get, the more we are available to life giving us glimpses of this connected reality – even when we are not looking for it.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
But I was so sure…
This morning I drove myself absolutely crazy looking for the little spiral notebook in which I keep some of my daily to-do’s (those I need for quick visual access) and other notes I make during the day. I tend to get pretty behind on transcribing those notes, which makes the pad more valuable for me, so I don’t lose all those bits of information.
I had a very clear memory, this morning, of putting that little notebook (3 inches by 5 inches) into my left front pocket (where I like to carry it), as I prepared to leave work last night (in the gift shop of the big downtown hotel). I kind of remembered, this morning, stopping somewhere along my 10 minute walk home, to make some kind of note about something that crossed my mind as I was walking. My little spiral notekeeper could possibly have fallen out of my pocket then – but that was not feasible, because I absolutely remembered putting at the end of my bed when I got home last night. That’s where I like to put it, in case I want to add a note to it or record a note from it – typically into my computer database.
I had a very clear image of tossing it on that end of the bed last night. I could not, however, remember putting it either on my dresser or the on the filing cabinet, the two places I tend to put it when I’m going to bed. So it might have gotten caught up in my blanket or bedspread – or fallen under or behind the bed.
I checked all those places thoroughly – three times. I checked the dresser probably four times – likewise the top of the filing cabinet. Both of these surfaces had lots of other clutter, but not really enough to conceal the notebook – especially the third or fourth time I moved everything around. Then I looked in places where it should not have been, where I never put it – some of those twice. I checked the wastebasket – sometimes I have found missing objects there.
The more I looked, the more frustrated and angry I got. I hate it when I lose these notebooks, and this would not be the first one I had lost – probably the third in the last year. And each time pisses me off no end. Why do even bother taking all these little notes – books or movies I want to remember, addresses, phone numbers, future to-do’s, etc. – if I’m going to just lose them?
I told myself a couple of times to just let go of it and to trust that it would eventually turn up. I knew that was good advice, but I couldn’t take it. I grew more and more intense and my language more and more obscene.
A couple of times I thought to call work, but that made really no sense, as I knew I had had it at home last night. I was working again tonight and could look for it then, but was sure that I would not find it there. Finally, when I could not shake my frustration and upset, I kind of gave up and called the gift shop. I knew that would not help, but I could no longer think of anyplace else to look – and still could not take my advice of letting it go.
Andrew, my boss, was working the a.m. shift. He said, brightly, “Yes, sir, I’ve got it right here. I put it in the drawer with the work shift calendar.”
But how? How could it possibly be there when I had such clear memories of putting it into my pocket before leaving and then of taking it out of my pocket at home? This made no sense.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master, likes to ask people (sometimes in very large groups, at one of his public talks), “Are you sure?” After time for people to think about this question, he likes, then, to ask, “Which way is up?” He then will point towards the sky and say, “Probably most of you said this way. But are you sure?” (Long, dramatic pause…) “Our friends in China would not agree with you.”
Oops. When we say, “He doesn’t know which end is up”, this is such a classic put-down. And here it is true of most all of us in this crowd of hundreds – or thousands.
Well, if I don’t know which way is up, then just what am I sure of? I could say that this is a rock I am holding, and be pretty confident of that one. But I will probably also assume that what I am holding is “solid as a rock”. But atomic physicists tell us that this rock is mostly space – with its electrons moving around so fast that it seems solid. Hmmm.
I was sooo sure about that notebook this morning, but I was wrong. How many other times that I think I am sure, is this also the case?
But, aside from maybe being wrong a lot of the time, what’s so wrong about feeling sure about things? Going around questioning everything does not seem such a useful state.
When I tell myself that I know something for sure, I tighten. I build a rigid wall around that piece of knowing, which resists any information to the contrary. So I may become more and more out of touch with reality. I am responding to my own internal belief, rather than the concrete details of what is actually in front of me in the here and now.
When I was looking for my notebook, the evidence of my senses said that it was not in my room. But I would not believe this – I couldn’t believe it. Why was I so sure of things – putting it in my pocket at work, taking it out of my pocket at home – which had not happened?
Us humans like structure. We live actually in a world where there is so much we don’t know – what that person in front of us is thinking or is about to do, what is around that next corner, what’s going to happen tomorrow. Buddhists like to remind us that we don’t know even if we are going to make it to tomorrow. “The only thing we know for sure is that we are going to die – and we don’t know when. How then shall we live?”
Oh, man, we don’t like that one. If there is one thing we want to be ble to count on, it is that we have at least a little more time. If we didn’t know that, then what would we do? Quit our jobs? Spend our money? Have an affair? Have it out with a friend? It looks like chaos, just ready to break out. I want to know that I have tomorrow, that I will go to work tomorrow, that my partner will come home tomorrow, etc., etc., etc.
The truth, though, is that each of these items is unpredictable. When I make myself sure of them, I build a brick wall where right now there is open space.
What actually could happen, were I to release my clinging to these things, is that I could experience life as flow, not solidity. I could experience myself as fluid, rather than rigid. I could stay open and receptive to how this person in front of me is going to turn up – or how I am going to turn up. I might learn to relax more and to trust the process of my life, rather than trusting in things. Another Thich Nhat Hanh quote: “Science is now showing that the whole of the cosmos is reflected in this speck of dust – and we think we know the person in the passenger seat of our car.”
In some ways, this kind of humility about the life around us might seem more challenging. But, actually, building up and holding on to these rigid structures is very hard work – it uses up most of our energy. To stay open, maybe confused sometimes, available to surprise, is actually lots less work – and way more fun.
I had a very clear memory, this morning, of putting that little notebook (3 inches by 5 inches) into my left front pocket (where I like to carry it), as I prepared to leave work last night (in the gift shop of the big downtown hotel). I kind of remembered, this morning, stopping somewhere along my 10 minute walk home, to make some kind of note about something that crossed my mind as I was walking. My little spiral notekeeper could possibly have fallen out of my pocket then – but that was not feasible, because I absolutely remembered putting at the end of my bed when I got home last night. That’s where I like to put it, in case I want to add a note to it or record a note from it – typically into my computer database.
I had a very clear image of tossing it on that end of the bed last night. I could not, however, remember putting it either on my dresser or the on the filing cabinet, the two places I tend to put it when I’m going to bed. So it might have gotten caught up in my blanket or bedspread – or fallen under or behind the bed.
I checked all those places thoroughly – three times. I checked the dresser probably four times – likewise the top of the filing cabinet. Both of these surfaces had lots of other clutter, but not really enough to conceal the notebook – especially the third or fourth time I moved everything around. Then I looked in places where it should not have been, where I never put it – some of those twice. I checked the wastebasket – sometimes I have found missing objects there.
The more I looked, the more frustrated and angry I got. I hate it when I lose these notebooks, and this would not be the first one I had lost – probably the third in the last year. And each time pisses me off no end. Why do even bother taking all these little notes – books or movies I want to remember, addresses, phone numbers, future to-do’s, etc. – if I’m going to just lose them?
I told myself a couple of times to just let go of it and to trust that it would eventually turn up. I knew that was good advice, but I couldn’t take it. I grew more and more intense and my language more and more obscene.
A couple of times I thought to call work, but that made really no sense, as I knew I had had it at home last night. I was working again tonight and could look for it then, but was sure that I would not find it there. Finally, when I could not shake my frustration and upset, I kind of gave up and called the gift shop. I knew that would not help, but I could no longer think of anyplace else to look – and still could not take my advice of letting it go.
Andrew, my boss, was working the a.m. shift. He said, brightly, “Yes, sir, I’ve got it right here. I put it in the drawer with the work shift calendar.”
But how? How could it possibly be there when I had such clear memories of putting it into my pocket before leaving and then of taking it out of my pocket at home? This made no sense.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master, likes to ask people (sometimes in very large groups, at one of his public talks), “Are you sure?” After time for people to think about this question, he likes, then, to ask, “Which way is up?” He then will point towards the sky and say, “Probably most of you said this way. But are you sure?” (Long, dramatic pause…) “Our friends in China would not agree with you.”
Oops. When we say, “He doesn’t know which end is up”, this is such a classic put-down. And here it is true of most all of us in this crowd of hundreds – or thousands.
Well, if I don’t know which way is up, then just what am I sure of? I could say that this is a rock I am holding, and be pretty confident of that one. But I will probably also assume that what I am holding is “solid as a rock”. But atomic physicists tell us that this rock is mostly space – with its electrons moving around so fast that it seems solid. Hmmm.
I was sooo sure about that notebook this morning, but I was wrong. How many other times that I think I am sure, is this also the case?
But, aside from maybe being wrong a lot of the time, what’s so wrong about feeling sure about things? Going around questioning everything does not seem such a useful state.
When I tell myself that I know something for sure, I tighten. I build a rigid wall around that piece of knowing, which resists any information to the contrary. So I may become more and more out of touch with reality. I am responding to my own internal belief, rather than the concrete details of what is actually in front of me in the here and now.
When I was looking for my notebook, the evidence of my senses said that it was not in my room. But I would not believe this – I couldn’t believe it. Why was I so sure of things – putting it in my pocket at work, taking it out of my pocket at home – which had not happened?
Us humans like structure. We live actually in a world where there is so much we don’t know – what that person in front of us is thinking or is about to do, what is around that next corner, what’s going to happen tomorrow. Buddhists like to remind us that we don’t know even if we are going to make it to tomorrow. “The only thing we know for sure is that we are going to die – and we don’t know when. How then shall we live?”
Oh, man, we don’t like that one. If there is one thing we want to be ble to count on, it is that we have at least a little more time. If we didn’t know that, then what would we do? Quit our jobs? Spend our money? Have an affair? Have it out with a friend? It looks like chaos, just ready to break out. I want to know that I have tomorrow, that I will go to work tomorrow, that my partner will come home tomorrow, etc., etc., etc.
The truth, though, is that each of these items is unpredictable. When I make myself sure of them, I build a brick wall where right now there is open space.
What actually could happen, were I to release my clinging to these things, is that I could experience life as flow, not solidity. I could experience myself as fluid, rather than rigid. I could stay open and receptive to how this person in front of me is going to turn up – or how I am going to turn up. I might learn to relax more and to trust the process of my life, rather than trusting in things. Another Thich Nhat Hanh quote: “Science is now showing that the whole of the cosmos is reflected in this speck of dust – and we think we know the person in the passenger seat of our car.”
In some ways, this kind of humility about the life around us might seem more challenging. But, actually, building up and holding on to these rigid structures is very hard work – it uses up most of our energy. To stay open, maybe confused sometimes, available to surprise, is actually lots less work – and way more fun.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Second-guessing
To second-guess ourselves – to criticize what we have done, to wish we had done differently, etc. - is so human, so natural, and so not helpful. But, since we are not likely to completely stop second-guessing ourselves in this lifetime (ok, some of may become fully enlightened in this lifetime, but just in case not), the thing to do is to not second-guess (criticize) ourselves over just having indulged in some second-guessing.
If we don’t succeed there, it’s just turtles from there on down. We really just tumble down through infinite levels of second-guessing – almost simultaneous and mostly unconscious. At some point, grace may reach out to us and we finally accept the whole parade of second-guesses – all of it. We then can see how human all of it is, breathe a big sigh of relief and be full of empathy for how hard it is being a human being (not knowing who we really are).
If we don’t succeed there, it’s just turtles from there on down. We really just tumble down through infinite levels of second-guessing – almost simultaneous and mostly unconscious. At some point, grace may reach out to us and we finally accept the whole parade of second-guesses – all of it. We then can see how human all of it is, breathe a big sigh of relief and be full of empathy for how hard it is being a human being (not knowing who we really are).
Sunday, March 18, 2007
A Good Story
“You can play the game, you can act your part – I know it isn’t easy to do.” James Taylor
“Who is playing out this drama? Who decides if it is a comedy or a tragedy?” Carlos Lopez
“It’s not just something I made up – It’s something I know. It’s something I read.” (Overheard in passing, as I was thinking about this piece)
My mom, when she heard somebody acknowledge that they weren’t really sure that they were remembering something accurately, liked to say, “Well, it makes a good story, anyway.” And it was clear that she considered a “good story” to be every bit as important as the literal truth – maybe even more so. (This may have partially been the Irish in her.)
What makes a good story? Is it drama? A happy ending? Good laughs?
What is the punch line of the story, the final act, the curtain coming down?
It’s clear that there are stories within stories – including shorter, self-contained segments within our life stories. Some stories chronicle many generations – and show the linkages among several successive life stories. Or a really good storyteller (novelist, film-maker, even sometimes a historian or biographer) can weave together many stories simultaneously – even those that are geographically, demographically and/or socioeconomically very separate.
So who decides what chunk of a person’s life makes up a separate story? Who sees the linkages among two or more life stories? Whether the decider or seer is a protagonist in the story or an outside storyteller, it’s clear that there is lots of room for subjectivity in creating most any story.
So it’s subjective – so what? What’s the difference? Maybe lots.
If I tell myself a story in which I am a victim, I may succumb to helplessness – or fight back. These situations can lead to paranoia – and/or domestic tragedies. (A few days ago in our area, a jealous husband killed the 18-year-old student with whom his 30-year-old wife/teacher was sleeping. This husband, as contrasted to the ever more common legal action against teachers, picked the kid as the villain in this story.)
So who/what/how determines a “true story”?
- The guy I quoted at the beginning of this piece believes that the story must be true because he read it somewhere. Others might put faith in what they hear on the TV or radio news.
- Most of us tend to pick and choose our sources – some will give more credence to the New York Times, others to Fox TV.
- Most of us tend to believe the stories we tell ourselves.
I really like a bumper sticker I’ve been seeing around town that says, “You don’t have to believe everything you think.” For me this gets to the heart of the story I am creating now as I write this. In the story I’m telling myself, right here and now (though I have thought these same thoughts many times in the past), there is tremendous subjectivity in the stories we tell, see, believe – even in the ones we tell about ourselves about our own lives. Maybe these especially.
So what? What if we concede this subjectivity in our own stories about ourselves? And not everybody will concede this about his or her own story. This area, the stories we tell ourselves – and sometimes others – about our own lives, are often the stories we will most resolutely defend.
In another post, I quote Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen master, as encouraging people to ask themselves, “Am I sure?” That previous post refers to which perceptions are accurate in the here and now. But the same principle can be applied to our stories. Am I sure about the veracity of this story?
As I described in that piece about here-and-now accuracy, holding on to certainty about our stories tends to create tension and rigidity. We fight to defend our version of the story. This can lead to shooting 18 year old kids, or even to full-scale wars.
But what is the advantage of staying looser with our stories?
- We make ourselves less defensive, less tense – more open.
- We need less distance from others. We don’t compete for whose story is more accurate, but see a bigger story that contains all these sub-stories. It then becomes not my story vs. your story, but “our story”, which contains all our various versions of the truth.
- If we accept that we are always, at every moment, making up stories – which may hold some specific accuracies, but never manage to include all important elements of the truth, including the stories of the other characters in our story – this gives us a lot of room to get more creative with the stories we tell.
A story that I am telling myself these days is that any time I make myself the hero of my story (or any of my sub-stories) – or even make myself causal, even the protagonist – I am missing the boat. If I were to trace the antecedents of this story fully enough, I would find that my current behavior has been shaped by so many previous scenarios, so many other people, that it is in no way separate at all – I am in no way separate at all.
Some would say that this perspective is limiting, that it keeps us from being proactive, from acting heroically. I would say that when we are telling ourselves a story in which we are the hero, it is just as subjective as when we tell a story where we are the victim.
It seems to me that the only even-close-to-accurate story is the story of the human race, imbedded in the much bigger story of the planet earth, within the even bigger story of the universe. I tend to call this big, big story, “life”. We sit within a bigger context – life. We are not truly causal, but life is. Or maybe (and I am definitely leaning more and more this way), causal stories are just one genre of story. Maybe the whole notion of one thing causing another is simply one way of looking at things.
Yeah, the story I’m most liking these days is one where nothing is separate from anything else, which leaves no “things” - and no “thing” to cause any other thing. Some quantum physicists these days are telling similar stories, but they may be equally locked into the particular lens they are looking through. I am seeing quantum physics and mechanistic physics as not in competition with each other, but as part of a still larger story – in which neither camp is “right” or “wrong”.
Because “right and wrong” is just one more kind of story.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Why?
“Why” is a lie. “Why” lives in the world of mechanics, of cause and effect, of billiard balls bouncing endlessly off each other. The true nature of reality is much more quantum than that - more holistic, more interconnected, more holographic.
Every bit of our behavior is an outgrowth of everything that has gone before. It is our path – every bit of it. Ours uniquely, as no other. And it all hangs together – it fits together as our own little jigsaw puzzle, or a rare vase that has fallen and shattered, and which we spend our lives piecing back together.
Courses on “Interviewing Skills” teach people to not use the “Why?” question, because it makes people defensive. These courses might say that people get defensive because this question pries into their motivations, their inner states. That’s all true, but there’s more: the question “Why?” has no valid answer. We might not be able to verbalize this truth, but some part of us knows it.
When we try to answer the “Why?” question, we just go back and make up a story. The story might be interesting – it might even disclose some meaningful information about us. But it doesn’t answer the question.
We might get into ballpark answers if we said things like:
- Because I’m me, having had all the experiences I have had in this life.
- Because, in that particular moment in time, that was all I could possibly have done.
- I have no real answer for why I did it. I can glimpse pieces of what was going on in me just before I did it, but I don’t know how those pieces got there. It’s all way too big, too complex for me. And it will make me crazy trying to figure it out. So I’ll let it go. It was what it was, this moment is as it is – and the next moment will be exactly what it will be. And it will surprise me.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Waiting for a “Yes”
Aliyah, one of my favorite Jubilee poets, performed a piece this morning (jamming with this two-time Grammy winner on acoustic base – very exciting) with no title (Aliyah doesn’t do titles), but loosely about her recently-developed process of waiting to act until she gets a clear Yes about a particular course of action. Obviously, she is not totally consistent about this. I bet she doesn’t apply it to brushing her teeth, crossing the street – or even many activities where it might actually be more appropriate or useful. But I liked the idea of it. It’s actually not a new idea – my friend Monty has spoken and written eloquently and persuasively about the ways he applies this principle. But it was good to be reminded of it.
Sitting outside in the sun just now, smoking a cigarette, across the street from a coffee shop where some friends were gathered – a couple of them expecting me – I just could find no “Yes” in me about going into the coffee shop. So I sat there in the sun, at first judging myself for this lack of action. I actually was feeling somewhat shy and awkward this morning, so I started (so drably predictable) by criticizing myself. But the self-criticism dropped away with relative ease, as I let myself rather just pay attention to the uncomfortable feelings. Then I got a very distinct “Yes” about capturing this moment in writing. I spent about 15 minutes getting this down on paper, really kinda having fun, considering the squeamishness of the topic.
Then I got a “Yes” for going into the coffee shop – not a totally enthusiastic Yes, but a Yes nonetheless. I was moving slow. I got my coffee, then didn’t sit down right away. There were about eight folks, all of whom I knew, around a fairly big circle – and I didn’t sit down right away. I didn’t know really where I wanted to sit – what spot called to me – and I waited, again, for a Yes. I finally got one and sat down between Jeff and Richard.
Then I had some great little eye contact and non-verbal greetings with Robin, with whom I feel lots more connection (based on actually very few words ever exchanged, much more on eye contact, smiles, and occasional hugs). And it was totally spontaneous and enthusiastic for me to go around the table and sit just behind her (no room around this side of the table).
Then a few minutes later, Robin left, leaving me maybe ten feet outside the circle – with now a clear open spot, Robin’s spot. I checked inside myself about moving up. I wasn’t really asking myself, “Do I want to move up?” I was much more scanning my insides for some attraction, some leaning towards moving up. I could find none, so I sat where I was. Not particularly gregarious, that – but I still was not feeling gregarious. Not really so shy and awkward, after my writing outside (ah, the miracle of surrendering to the muse), but also not gregarious.
I also recognized that I was not the least bit interested in the conversation and was more enjoying simply listening to all the interesting sounds in the café. Then I got the impulse to write something down – about this very process of waiting for a Yes. I had a really nice little notebook, which I had just used outside, in my backpack on the other side of the table. Shall I go get it? Nothing in myself that I could identify wanted to get up and go over there. I did want the notebook – if I could have somehow teleported it from my pack to my hands, I would have done so. But I didn’t want it enough to go around the table for it. And, choosing to not get it, I breathed a little sigh of relief. Some part of my mind and/or body was grateful that I had simply stood my ground (or sat it, I guess). Then I pulled out a business card and filled the entire back side (and all the white space on the front) with a fun little note about Yes’s. Not a napkin (of which there were none on the table), but just about as cool.
Am I going to spend the rest of my life waiting for Yes’s before I act? Hardly. The whole notion mostly went out of my head in the two hours since then, emerging just a few minutes ago. Sometimes my Yes will not come from that actual word, but from observing what my body is pulled towards or literally from watching where my feet lead me. Sometimes I will learn as much from good, clear No’s. No’s seem (and I guess are) more negative than Yes’s, but I think just as important. Our Yes’s get their power and integrity from the clarity of our No’s.
Do I have more to write about this topic right now? I’m not getting a “Yes”. Do I want to stop now? A clear “Yes”. Bye.
Sitting outside in the sun just now, smoking a cigarette, across the street from a coffee shop where some friends were gathered – a couple of them expecting me – I just could find no “Yes” in me about going into the coffee shop. So I sat there in the sun, at first judging myself for this lack of action. I actually was feeling somewhat shy and awkward this morning, so I started (so drably predictable) by criticizing myself. But the self-criticism dropped away with relative ease, as I let myself rather just pay attention to the uncomfortable feelings. Then I got a very distinct “Yes” about capturing this moment in writing. I spent about 15 minutes getting this down on paper, really kinda having fun, considering the squeamishness of the topic.
Then I got a “Yes” for going into the coffee shop – not a totally enthusiastic Yes, but a Yes nonetheless. I was moving slow. I got my coffee, then didn’t sit down right away. There were about eight folks, all of whom I knew, around a fairly big circle – and I didn’t sit down right away. I didn’t know really where I wanted to sit – what spot called to me – and I waited, again, for a Yes. I finally got one and sat down between Jeff and Richard.
Then I had some great little eye contact and non-verbal greetings with Robin, with whom I feel lots more connection (based on actually very few words ever exchanged, much more on eye contact, smiles, and occasional hugs). And it was totally spontaneous and enthusiastic for me to go around the table and sit just behind her (no room around this side of the table).
Then a few minutes later, Robin left, leaving me maybe ten feet outside the circle – with now a clear open spot, Robin’s spot. I checked inside myself about moving up. I wasn’t really asking myself, “Do I want to move up?” I was much more scanning my insides for some attraction, some leaning towards moving up. I could find none, so I sat where I was. Not particularly gregarious, that – but I still was not feeling gregarious. Not really so shy and awkward, after my writing outside (ah, the miracle of surrendering to the muse), but also not gregarious.
I also recognized that I was not the least bit interested in the conversation and was more enjoying simply listening to all the interesting sounds in the café. Then I got the impulse to write something down – about this very process of waiting for a Yes. I had a really nice little notebook, which I had just used outside, in my backpack on the other side of the table. Shall I go get it? Nothing in myself that I could identify wanted to get up and go over there. I did want the notebook – if I could have somehow teleported it from my pack to my hands, I would have done so. But I didn’t want it enough to go around the table for it. And, choosing to not get it, I breathed a little sigh of relief. Some part of my mind and/or body was grateful that I had simply stood my ground (or sat it, I guess). Then I pulled out a business card and filled the entire back side (and all the white space on the front) with a fun little note about Yes’s. Not a napkin (of which there were none on the table), but just about as cool.
Am I going to spend the rest of my life waiting for Yes’s before I act? Hardly. The whole notion mostly went out of my head in the two hours since then, emerging just a few minutes ago. Sometimes my Yes will not come from that actual word, but from observing what my body is pulled towards or literally from watching where my feet lead me. Sometimes I will learn as much from good, clear No’s. No’s seem (and I guess are) more negative than Yes’s, but I think just as important. Our Yes’s get their power and integrity from the clarity of our No’s.
Do I have more to write about this topic right now? I’m not getting a “Yes”. Do I want to stop now? A clear “Yes”. Bye.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Non-resistance
This morning I was waiting in line outside a government office that opens at 9 a.m. The handful of other people who were also standing there at 8:30 a.m. probably knew, as did I, that this was the way to get at the head of the line, which can grow exponentially by 9 o’clock.
The 50ish guy in front of me seemed harmless. In his good old boy southern accent, he turned to me and the folks behind me and commented on how a few more warm days like this one in early March and the still-brown grass would “come on like crazy”. Talking about the oncoming spring felt very comfortable to me.
Then, from some connection known only to the speaker, he shifted to how much colder the winters used to be, how he had to walk through the snow to get to school because “they didn’t cancel school like they do today”. Pretty classic – almost archetypal – stuff about “When I was a kid” (“When I was your age”, etc.). I started then to only half-listen, because these stories can get a bit tedious.
Then another shift in the trajectory of this guy’s (so far unencouraged) soliloquy, which I had not predicted: “They used to give us whippin’s, too. If you got out of line, that paddle came out. Nowadays, if you even look at ‘em wrong, they sue you…. And then they wonder why kids come into school shooting people.” I felt the tension start to build in my body.
“They believed in the Ten Commandments back then. Now they’re getting rid of those, too.”
“Now that’s the real problem.” This last had obviously hit a nerve for the 70ish lady behind me. Now I was no longer just face-to-face with this guy who held beliefs very different from my own – and who, as he warmed to the task, was expressing them with a growing level of belligerency. Now I was trapped in the middle of some reactionary call-and-response, with no place to go unless I wanted to give up my place in the line.
Before things “got all pear-shaped” (I loved that expression from a Brit colleague I had worked with a few years before, to describe a situation that had suddenly become problematic), I had been feeling kind of nice and relaxed, if maybe not fully awake yet - no time for coffee before heading to this office.
I had even, as I stood in line, been practicing the “body awareness” exercise I describe in another post. Noticing my breathing and the various sensations in my body, I had even been a little bit peaceful.
But not now. The hairs were standing up on the back of my neck. I had an impulse to say something, to not let all this oppressive (by my standards) shit just sit. “Speak up for yourself.” I was right in the middle – in the middle – of the kind of attitudes that I hate about living in the South.
Then I heard a little whisper from somewhere in me, just ever-so-lightly inserting itself whenever my angry protestations took a moment to breathe:
“What if you didn’t resist this?”
I knew immediately to what this inner voice was referring. It was reminding me of a principle in which I deeply believe and occasionally even practice – if not at all in this particular moment.
What if I were to remember – and even feel in my body – that nothing was going wrong here? What if I did not shift from peace to alarm bells, based simply on some stuff people said – which was not in any way aimed at me, but I just happened to be standing in the middle of? Sure, getting accidentally in the middle of a drive-by shooting would be very bad – but these were words, for Pete’s sake. Maybe kind of angry, negative words. Maybe words with which I strongly disagree, but still just words.
I started in that last sentence to say, “with which I violently disagree”. Ah, here is a lead for me; here is something I can work with. The problem here was really not in any of the words I was hearing, but rather some violence within me – the part of me that feels it needs to “fight back”.
What if I did not need to fight back?
What if I reassured myself that, in the here and now, no one was in any danger? There weren’t any kids about to be paddled, etc.
There was no way for me to change anybody’s mind – and really no need to. In this moment, it really did not make any difference what these people thought and believed.
There are so many stimuli around me that I have the impulse to resist. A little later in the morning, I saw a guy walk by who was way overweight. Something in me tensed up from just watching him. I didn’t want to be seeing this. But why? I’m not him, carrying around all that extra weight. I have no idea what it is like for him to be so heavy – for all I know, it does not bother him at all. But it bothered me.
How many other things do I see, hear, read, etc., in the course of a day that lead me to tighten inside? I started in that sentence to say, “make me tighten”. But these stimuli obviously don’t make me tighten – they don’t make me do anything. It’s me that does it.
I think it’s safe to say that at least some of my tightness is an expression of disapproval. I don’t approve of what these people say, of how heavy that guy is, etc. But whether I approve or not is certainly not going to make any difference in what I see, now is it? My approval or lack of it has no impact on anything in the outside world, unless I feel compelled to mess with it – which will almost certainly just create more mess. No, my disapproval affects nothing out there – only in here. I get tense when I disapprove of some part of my world. I may get irritated, self-righteous, angry, defensive – all manner of lesser or greater discomfort. I make myself unhappy.
It obviously doesn’t have to go that way. It would be totally possible to remind myself of something else I deeply believe, no matter how often I forget it: nothing is going wrong. It is all as it is meant to be. There is a wisdom operating here that’s a lot smarter than my little mind. I don’t have to be the traffic cop or babysitter for how other people, think, feel, or speak. I don’t need in any way to get in the middle of how much or badly they eat, whether they work out, etc., etc., etc.
No, if I let go of patrolling the rest of the world, but just walk my own beat, that’s really plenty to keep my hands full. And, when I’m lucky, I will apply some of these same insights to what I see, hear, feel inside of me. I don’t have to disapprove of any of it, try to change it – I don’t have to go on alarm at all. Trying to mess with what I find in myself will most likely be as little effective as if I had waded into the reactionary deep water on line in front of that office this morning.
I’ve really got better things to do, like noticing my breathing.
The 50ish guy in front of me seemed harmless. In his good old boy southern accent, he turned to me and the folks behind me and commented on how a few more warm days like this one in early March and the still-brown grass would “come on like crazy”. Talking about the oncoming spring felt very comfortable to me.
Then, from some connection known only to the speaker, he shifted to how much colder the winters used to be, how he had to walk through the snow to get to school because “they didn’t cancel school like they do today”. Pretty classic – almost archetypal – stuff about “When I was a kid” (“When I was your age”, etc.). I started then to only half-listen, because these stories can get a bit tedious.
Then another shift in the trajectory of this guy’s (so far unencouraged) soliloquy, which I had not predicted: “They used to give us whippin’s, too. If you got out of line, that paddle came out. Nowadays, if you even look at ‘em wrong, they sue you…. And then they wonder why kids come into school shooting people.” I felt the tension start to build in my body.
“They believed in the Ten Commandments back then. Now they’re getting rid of those, too.”
“Now that’s the real problem.” This last had obviously hit a nerve for the 70ish lady behind me. Now I was no longer just face-to-face with this guy who held beliefs very different from my own – and who, as he warmed to the task, was expressing them with a growing level of belligerency. Now I was trapped in the middle of some reactionary call-and-response, with no place to go unless I wanted to give up my place in the line.
Before things “got all pear-shaped” (I loved that expression from a Brit colleague I had worked with a few years before, to describe a situation that had suddenly become problematic), I had been feeling kind of nice and relaxed, if maybe not fully awake yet - no time for coffee before heading to this office.
I had even, as I stood in line, been practicing the “body awareness” exercise I describe in another post. Noticing my breathing and the various sensations in my body, I had even been a little bit peaceful.
But not now. The hairs were standing up on the back of my neck. I had an impulse to say something, to not let all this oppressive (by my standards) shit just sit. “Speak up for yourself.” I was right in the middle – in the middle – of the kind of attitudes that I hate about living in the South.
Then I heard a little whisper from somewhere in me, just ever-so-lightly inserting itself whenever my angry protestations took a moment to breathe:
“What if you didn’t resist this?”
I knew immediately to what this inner voice was referring. It was reminding me of a principle in which I deeply believe and occasionally even practice – if not at all in this particular moment.
What if I were to remember – and even feel in my body – that nothing was going wrong here? What if I did not shift from peace to alarm bells, based simply on some stuff people said – which was not in any way aimed at me, but I just happened to be standing in the middle of? Sure, getting accidentally in the middle of a drive-by shooting would be very bad – but these were words, for Pete’s sake. Maybe kind of angry, negative words. Maybe words with which I strongly disagree, but still just words.
I started in that last sentence to say, “with which I violently disagree”. Ah, here is a lead for me; here is something I can work with. The problem here was really not in any of the words I was hearing, but rather some violence within me – the part of me that feels it needs to “fight back”.
What if I did not need to fight back?
What if I reassured myself that, in the here and now, no one was in any danger? There weren’t any kids about to be paddled, etc.
There was no way for me to change anybody’s mind – and really no need to. In this moment, it really did not make any difference what these people thought and believed.
There are so many stimuli around me that I have the impulse to resist. A little later in the morning, I saw a guy walk by who was way overweight. Something in me tensed up from just watching him. I didn’t want to be seeing this. But why? I’m not him, carrying around all that extra weight. I have no idea what it is like for him to be so heavy – for all I know, it does not bother him at all. But it bothered me.
How many other things do I see, hear, read, etc., in the course of a day that lead me to tighten inside? I started in that sentence to say, “make me tighten”. But these stimuli obviously don’t make me tighten – they don’t make me do anything. It’s me that does it.
I think it’s safe to say that at least some of my tightness is an expression of disapproval. I don’t approve of what these people say, of how heavy that guy is, etc. But whether I approve or not is certainly not going to make any difference in what I see, now is it? My approval or lack of it has no impact on anything in the outside world, unless I feel compelled to mess with it – which will almost certainly just create more mess. No, my disapproval affects nothing out there – only in here. I get tense when I disapprove of some part of my world. I may get irritated, self-righteous, angry, defensive – all manner of lesser or greater discomfort. I make myself unhappy.
It obviously doesn’t have to go that way. It would be totally possible to remind myself of something else I deeply believe, no matter how often I forget it: nothing is going wrong. It is all as it is meant to be. There is a wisdom operating here that’s a lot smarter than my little mind. I don’t have to be the traffic cop or babysitter for how other people, think, feel, or speak. I don’t need in any way to get in the middle of how much or badly they eat, whether they work out, etc., etc., etc.
No, if I let go of patrolling the rest of the world, but just walk my own beat, that’s really plenty to keep my hands full. And, when I’m lucky, I will apply some of these same insights to what I see, hear, feel inside of me. I don’t have to disapprove of any of it, try to change it – I don’t have to go on alarm at all. Trying to mess with what I find in myself will most likely be as little effective as if I had waded into the reactionary deep water on line in front of that office this morning.
I’ve really got better things to do, like noticing my breathing.
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