Seeing
“Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing worry you. Everything is passing away. Only God is changeless. God alone suffices.”
St. Teresa of Avila
The fifth pillar of spiritual practice is the gift of seeing reality as it is, and seeing ourselves without embellishment. It requires self-knowledge. It requires us to recognize and appreciate that we are among equals; no one is greater or lesser than anyone else. It gives us perspective and insight. Our way is not THE way; there are as many ‘right ways’ as there are human beings.
I have been guilty in my life of the delusion of self-importance. I have thought that I knew the way things ought to be and that people who thought differently were simply wrong-headed; misguided. Sometimes I still fall into this trap. Truth is, I cannot know what you should do in any given situation unless I have experienced your lifetime, walked your path, lived your story. I can only tell you how I see it from my perspective, based on my life’s trajectory.
Seeing includes the ability to perceive the transitory nature of all things; nothing lasts forever. When we are angry, it will pass, when we are sad, it will pass, when we are joyful, it will pass. All things change. Understanding this helps us to not overreact. A question I like to ask myself is, “In the ‘big scheme of things’, how important is this?”
To carry this Seeing to a wider field means that we acknowledge the ‘rightness’ of other perspectives—that other religions, ways of life, ways of governance, are right for the those who choose them. People who live and believe differently are not simply ignorant and backward, they have a different perspective, and they have a right to that perspective, hard as it may be for me to accept.
Seeing allows us to remain calm in tense situations, to have patience when things aren’t moving at the pace we would like. Believe me, I lose my cool from time to time, but when I work my practice, I lose it less. I am less judgmental, less reactive. Seeing myself as one among many, as e pluribus unun, clears the fog.
I hope you have a blue-sky day. It’s cold in Alabama
In the spirit,
Jane
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