I See You

 Almost a decade ago I was writing a blog titled "Read, Relax, Recognize," and then somehow I fell out of it and moved to other things, but these present times are so fraught with conflict and confusion---it's time to get back to work!

And so, with that short introduction, here we go again!

                                                                  "I See You"

Many years ago I was on the adventure of my life, driving in a VW van with friends across the Alps, through northern Italy and into southern France. On the Saturday night before Easter, we arrived in the beautiful ancient city of Arles. We parked the van and quickly found a seat in a café in the main square, close to the ancient Roman amphitheater, very eager to observe the holiday crowd doing all the interesting things that crowds do.

Many of the local men had been drinking heavily throughout the evening, and all around us was noise and mayhem. Suddenly, two guys began shouting at one another, and as they grew angrier and angrier the conflict escalated into a right violent fight with lots of flying fists. As they were too drunk to land many blows, they ended up grabbing one another’s shirts and continued the struggle that way.

Both of the men were completely lost in their anger, and this sad episode was surely not meant to have a peaceful outcome, but then something quite extraordinary happened. One of the men happened to glance into the eyes of the other, and then amidst the struggling, he kept looking. His opponent could sense that the other man was actually seeing him for the first time---not as an enemy but as another person. At once both men looked deeply at each other, they held their gaze, smiled, gave up their struggle and began to dance together in one another's arms. Yes, they danced together in one another's arms!! How amazing and unexpected a change of attitude it was. 

In the whole of my life I will never forget this, and it is not only because we were saved one bloody fistfight on an Easter evening, but also because this is such a grand metaphor of how life can be. When we actually SEE one another as fellow human beings, our apparent differences look a lot different. We can have wildly divergent opinions, be of different ethnicities, have opposite views of politics and have no language or culture in common, but we can surely see one another despite all of that.

There is a beautiful greeting in the Zulu language: “Sawubona.” It means “I see you,” but this lovely phrase is not meant only in the common way of, “Oh, there is a body standing there,” but rather, “I see you in all your humanness and in our commonality as people.” When we see another in this way, we are seeing the essence, and we are not being distracted by all the labels and distinctions. When we have this clear vision, we allow our recognition of the oneness of all things to be sustained. We hold this truth to be self-evident---that there is only One thing here, and when we see, that One-ness is what we are seeing.

“Namaste” is another lovely greeting that exemplifies what I am pointing to. This is a greeting used in India; the word comes from Sanskrit and is a combination of “nama” and “te.” "Nama" means to bow, make reverential salutation or have adoration for, and “te” means “to you.” Its deeper meaning is “the god in me bows to the god in you,” and the greeting is done with the two palms brought together in front of one’s heart to symbolize the oneness. How wonderful a way to greet and be greeted, and how brilliant a reflection of the way things really are! 

As noble and as inspiring as these customs are, it is so easy to forget this practie of clear seeing, isn't it? Surely we need reminders as we move through our day-to-day existence. We are constantly coming into contact with people with whom we wildly disagree, people who we feel are getting it totally wrong, and we sense the need in ourselves to make them see their wrong-ness. It may well be that at some level, yes, they are getting it horribly wrong, but where is our attention directed? Are we seeing only our disagreements and their wrong-ness, or are we truly able to SEE them as essentially non-different from ourselves?

When we observe a passenger at the airport shouting and cursing at the employee because the plane was late, we can be pretty sure that the passenger has lost sight of what really matters. If, however, we can bring forth loving support, respectful relating and gracious kindness---even in the midst of grand disagreement or upset---then we can be equally certain that the important things are being acknowledged.

I look at the present political landscape in the US and I observe people expressing points of view or supporting theories that seem to me, well, crazy. But I have to pause. My first reaction upon hearing these things was to resist and make the people wrong and to get angry that they could think and behave in this way. Then, thank goodness, this practice of seeing somehow came to the rescue. I could still disagree with them, but I did not need to disdain them or make them "other." Instead, what I found myself doing was introspecting: "The things these folks support truly do seem crazy to me, but, BUT, what are the ways in which I am equally deluded?" Seen from the vantage of absolute clarity and wisdom, how many of my long held assumptions are crazy, that is, totally misaligned with reality? Humility is crucial; we should never assume that we have it absolutely right, for who knows how very much we don't know?  

When I first came to study, live and work in Germany, it was only a few decades after the war. The older Germans I was meeting who were so kind to me, what had they done in the war? Likely many of them had personal stories that they were not very proud of. The priest in the Catholic dormitory where I lived had been in the Wehrmacht and in an American internment camp. The administrator at the tennis courts where I taught tennis in Munich had been in the SS on the Eastern Front. What horrors had he seen, and committed? It was an education for me. I could condemn the actions and want them to take responsibility for what they had done, but I could not hate the person. 

And now for the most extreme example; please bear with me. This horrible war in Ukraine which Russia has unleashed not only on Ukraine, but in a sense, on the whole world. We see Russian soldiers committing atrocities; we see civilians dying in the streets, children blown apart by bombs, the grandmother of a friend of mine, 91 years-old, killed by shelling in Mariupol. I am struggling here; how can I make peace with the anger I feel for the Russian soldiers and their leaders who are doing these horrible things? 

A friend recently posted a YouTube video of 220 Russian musicians really rocking out to the song "The Final Countdown" in a park in Moscow last year, before the war began. Look at all of these beautiful young people and this gloriously happy scene, viewed 2.7 million times by people from all around the world. These young Russians are laughing, singing and playing their hearts out. We can all share their joy and feel the commonality with them. And yet, maybe some of these same young Russian musicians have been conscripted into the army, and they are the ones who are now raining death and destruction on civilians in Ukraine. I surely cannot justify or support their actions, but no, I can't hate them. In my mind's eye I see them there playing their instuments in the park in Moscow---living a human life with all its twists and turns. I know there are many ways to respond to the tragedy that they are participating in, but hatred is not the way.

As with all things, the decision to maginalize, or to include, is a choice we have. No outer circumstance can force us to forget our commonality; we decide that for ourselves. As for myself, I know for sure that I want a life that is filled with joy and peace and which aspires to find the end to conflict, both in the world and in myself. Only by each of us making that choice in each moment and in each encounter will the war-ravaged world we live in be transformed. 

Hmm, better to dance than hate, wouldn’t you say!

So Dear, So Precious—So Near

The sun is just disappearing behind the mountains, and the orange light is reflected on the revered river as the mothers with their children, the sadhus and the cows walk past. What wonders...how did I get here?
At one level one could say, "Well, I got into an airplane, had a meal or two, watched a movie or two, slept some and then somehow a few hours later I ended up halfway around the world."
That is miracle enough in itself, and I don't ever want to take that for granted. We fly through the skies with a confidence unimaginable to our grandfathers. We arrive, set up shop in a place that looks completely different from the place we left. We sit for hours in front of a small electronic box that is a wonder world in itself: if we want to write blogs and send them out to people on every continent, it says "okay;" if we want to speak to anyone in the world who has their own small electronic box at no charge, it says "no problem, would you like to see them live on the screen too?;" if we want to create worlds of print, picture or film, it says "step right up." Things that were science fiction only 15 years ago are now commonplace. How did we get to that?
But as stunning as computers, Internet technology and global air travel are, that is not really the main subject of my wonderment here today. It is something much nearer and dearer than these things. The awe, the glory, the absolute thrill that have prompted this message are about something that can never be taken from us.
What possible phrase could I use to communicate this precious gift: awareness? consciousness? God? the peace that passes all understanding? the here-and-now? What?
When all things have settled and the mind is at complete rest and there is nothing to be accomplished and nothing to be feared, what is that? When death comes, and nothing changes, what is that?
But maybe these ideas are too big and too distant and not in the realm of the everyday for all of us. At a very simple level we can be with it: we feel in our hearts at times that we can be at ease with everything that appears, because we have done it before; we are able to remain unafraid, even when fear is very near; we can look at people and we don't see them as being our ideas about them or their ideas about themselves; we look out at a world that is for us new at every glance; we sense that wherever we go, there we are; we recognize that what's looking never changes — even if the face in the mirror ages over decades, what's looking never moves. So, what name is there for this?
Death can come at any second, at any second, at any second, and surely it will come. Life seems to be lived around a vague present that swiftly passes from past into future and then suddenly ends; but is it so?
The whole parade of life and death happens only RIGHT NOW. Nothing is ever outside of the here and now. It is that which I so want to cherish just now, thank you so much...this dear and precious instant of life that has no shape or measure. Ever new, ever unfolding, without limit. Joyfully, I want no other.

The Delightful Dance of Immediate Recognition

Over the past weeks we have been looking at each of the words in the title of this blog, "Read, Relax, Recognize," and today we come to the last of the three words.
It might be helpful to begin with a story that could help illustrate what "recognize" means. Some years ago, I was traveling in a VW bus through the south of France with a dear friend, and on the Saturday night before Easter we arrived in the city of Arles. We were sitting in a cafe on the square beside the ancient Roman amphitheater watching the people promenade along the main street. There were many drunken young men who were out and about, and as so often happens in a situation like this, two of them got into a violent fight. After they had thrown a few punches, they grabbed one another by the shoulders, and each struggled to subdue the other. But suddenly there was an instant when they looked into one another's eyes and held the gaze. There must have been a moment of recognition, of actually SEEING the other person for the first time. They at once relaxed, gave up struggling, let go their grip, put their arms around each other and begin to dance a waltz with great big smiles on their faces! Wow, now THAT is recognition!
So, what does that story have to do with us? We have been struggling with a lot of things in our own lives: "Who are I;" "What about all these thoughts and emotions I have;" "Will I be happy in life;" "Will I find someone to love me;" "Why do things go wrong;" "Will I be free of the pain I feel," and so many other things. We have things occur in life that we don't want; we struggle to make things better or make the wrong things go away, but then more things occur that we resist and resent that we need to deal with, and on and on it goes for a whole lifetime. Quietly (or not so quietly) we live a life without ongoing balance, peace, sustained joy or any resolution of the things that afflict us.
This battle with our experience may not be obvious to us much of the time, because when we feel afflicted we often turn to things like food, spending money, sex, entertainment and other distractions to paper over the negative feelings. We may present a brave front to our partners, friends, family and to ourselves, but often we struggle with deep dissatisfaction and doubt.
We want to make it better, but the solutions we find are not long-lasting. The freedom, stability and peace of mind we long for seem to be so distant. That is a pretty bleak picture, but for many, many of us, this is our lived experience on a moment-by-moment basis.
But wait a minute, is it in fact our lived experience moment-by-moment? Or is seeing things in this way only an acquired habit that has engulfed us because we didn't know any other way? Like the two drunken brawlers, could we be struggling with an enemy that is not really an enemy at all, but who is a friend who has merely gone unrecognized?
The fight that we have been in, maybe for our whole lives, can be swiftly ended. Nothing inside or outside of us needs to be changed; we only need to see clearly....we need to recognize what is already there. And what is already there? An as yet unrecognized clarity and wholeness that exists at the base of all this turmoil.
We could say that the moment of recognition that the two men felt when they truly saw one another occurs for us when we gaze into the "eyes" of our experience and recognize it for what it is. The labels we apply to the experience--good, bad, want this, don't want that--do not determine reality, unless we allow them to do so. If we choose to be caught up in these things, the stillness and ease that are at the basis will remain unrecognized.
We are introduced to this peace and clarity by not pursuing our thoughts and emotions and building a story around them. We rest in the peace that is already present by not seeking anything or wanting to change anything. In a very simple way, on a moment-by-moment basis, we rely on the clarity that is the basis of the thoughts and emotions.
"Recognize" as a word means simply "to see or acknowledge again." That is all we are doing...seeing again, acknowledging again...rather than being enthralled by all the confusion. We, like the two drunken brawlers, are only a moment away from a very beautiful and delightful dance.

That Place of Peace

I would like to pass on a quote from a marvelous little book with a very long title!!: “Short Moments of Clarity, Repeated Many Times, Become Continuous: The Most Powerful and Easy Way to Live”:

"Awareness, in the immediacy of the flow of thoughts, emotions and sensations is the source of profound insight, perfect clarity, complete mental and emotional stability, compassion and skillfulness in all situations. The innate ability to be at ease, wise, balanced and compassionate is discovered in the clarity of awareness."

The word that is used here is “awareness,” but another way to express that idea is: the place of peace and repose in ourselves that is present in us, no matter what. When we are searching around for satisfaction, this “place” is what we are actually searching for.
I know, for me, there was always a longing to experience freedom from all sorrow. Of course, at first glance that would seem to be a truly ridiculous endeavor, considering how much sorrow seems to pervade our lives. But still, damn, there was this feeling that there was something present in us that all those bitter things could not touch.

So, when I hear about having “profound insight, perfect clarity, complete mental and emotional stability, compassion and skillfulness, and being at ease, wise, balanced and compassionate,” then, whoa, sign me up, please! These are wondrous gifts I have always longed to receive. They are ambassadors of this place of peace that so many of us have sought. But, look again, no seeking is required. They are ever present as the loving expression of this place of peace. Bring me home…..