Of course, seeing what is true is not so easy. Ignorance is our primary poison because it is so insidious. However, as we remove obscurations, as we develop our capacity to walk the path, we see more clearly, we deepen clarity and wisdom.
In our culture, perhaps the most pervasive blindness is that caused by being entranced by all our wealth and its benefits. It is easy to be comfortable, to be removed from the realities of life, from what is really true, from what is painful and uncomfortable, but also what is immediately precious – any moment of being really alive. Instead of seeing the beauty of being alive, we escape into all kinds of mindless pleasures, mind blurring use of mind-altering substances is only the most obvious. There are many other things.
Not to discount the chemical addictions (drugs and alcohol). Discontinuing mind altering substances is the most direct and immediate thing we can do to open to what is true - clearing the mind to be in direct contact with our experience and feelings. We can quit participating in our cultural addictions like redundant news that isn't really news, enticements to buy, buying to make up for what we are being taught to think of as missing.
It is shocking but helpful to be reminded by life of what is insubstantial - that is to say, everything.
- Loss of a family and dear friends to death
- Loss of life, health, and youth
- Losing what seems so evidently right
- Losing perspectives about who we think we are
- Getting what we want and realizing it doesn't hold our interest
- Betrayal
We will suffer loss of loved ones. And, ideally, recognize the potential in ourselves. My body, too, will be like this. This body, too, will die. The heart will stop beating. The breath no longer flow. This body, too, will get ill and age. The skin will wrinkle, discolor and lose its plasticity. Eventually, the whole body will disintegrate, returning to dust, to basic elements. There will be loss of dreams and desires and just rewards.
What we can all do is choose to be honest – radically honest. We can let ourselves see what it true. Of course, we don't drown in what is painful, but we can see things as they are. We choose to be interested in any experience.
A friend died of a sudden aggressive cancer that went to the brain. She lost one capacity after another in quite short order, including motor skills and capacity to speak. One of the last intelligible words to go was "interesting." She repeatedly referred to the disintegrating process as interesting.
Can we be interested enough in things as they are to be in touch with what is true? Can we look unflinchingly at current reality and have a certain sense of ease or integrity, of strength in just knowing we know, knowing we can see the truth and stand up to this moment and the next, at ease in just being.
