Читать книгу The Buddhist Path to Simplicity: Spiritual Practice in Everyday Life - Christina Feldman, Christina Feldman - Страница 9

Our personal story is rooted within the universal story, but we each bring to it different ways of experiencing and holding it. To each moment we bring our past memories, hopes, fears, and preferences, and the world reflects back to us the state of our minds. A traveler came to the gates of a new city and asked the gatekeeper, “What kind of people live here?” The gatekeeper answered with a question of his own, “What kind of people lived in the city you just came from?” The traveler replied, “They were mostly a cantankerous lot, greedy and self-centered.” The gatekeeper answered, “I expect you will find the people here just the same.” Soon after, another traveler met the gatekeeper and asked the same question. Again the gatekeeper asked, “How did you find the residents of the city you visited last?” The traveler answered enthusiastically, “They were warm and hospitable; truly a fine group of people.” The gatekeeper responded, “I expect you will find these folk just the same.”

Love and loss, frustration and contentment, intimacy and separation, praise and blame, beginnings and endings—this is the story of life. For each person who meets life with joy and ease, there is another who lives with fear and conflict. The story of life offers us possibilities of entanglement and intensity, or simplicity and ease. To discover the peace of simplicity we are asked to see through the layers of misunderstanding and confusion that camouflage the serenity that is possible for us. The Buddha said, “We carry in our eyes the dust of entanglement.” Entanglement comes with our historical resentments, images, and fears that distort our present. Again and again we find ourselves superimposing our experiences and stories from the past upon the present. Losing ourselves in the stories, we deny to ourselves the capacity to see fully the person in front of us, the moment we are experiencing, or ourselves.

Someone offends us. The next day we encounter them again. No sooner do we set eyes upon them than we find ourselves replaying our resentment, the story of yesterday, at the forefront of our mind. Can we see that person without the veils of the story? Can we see them as someone who may not even know that they have hurt us or as someone caught up in the same agitation we ourselves have experienced? Do we find ourselves already avoiding, rejecting, or judging? Can we learn to breathe out, to let go of the story, and find the generosity to be wholeheartedly present with that person?

Disentanglement comes with the calm patience and attention that illuminates those places and moments where we founder, learning to let go and establish ourselves in the simple truths of each moment. Being present does not imply that we erase our past and the impact it has had upon us. Being present invites us to allow the memories and the stories rooted in the past to be just whispers in our minds that we no longer solidify with unwise attention. We free ourselves to turn a wholehearted attention to this moment.

Calm simplicity and peace are not only reserved for those with fortunate lives, bulging spiritual portfolios, or for the karmically blessed. Serenity, compassion, and stillness are not accidents but consciously cultivated paths. They are possible for each of us, born of wisdom, dedication, and the willingness to clear the dust of entanglement. It is there for all, born of wisdom, dedication, and the willingness to see clearly.

If a group of people were taken to the foot of a mountain, each person intending to climb to the top, every individual would approach the ascent guided by their own personal story and by their inner sense of possibility or limitation. There would be the person who takes one look at the trail and retires in despair without even taking a single step. There would be the person equipped for every eventuality with parachute, pitons, rations, and a hot water bottle. There would be the person who throws away the map and attacks the hardest route, driven by the ambition to be first to the top. There would be the climber who manages to ascend halfway before getting lost in the pleasant views, quite forgetting the rest of the journey. There would be the climber who has spent countless hours rehearsing and planning each step of the journey. There might also be that rare person who sees how far there is to go, but remains unhurried, carefully placing each foot on the ground; who delights in the views and the sounds but never gets lost; whose journey is completed in every step.

This last is the path of simplicity—always available to us in each sight, step, event, and moment. It is a path of peace and completeness. The habits of our lives become solid and familiar with time through endless repetition. We see them in our relationships, work, speech, and choices. We learn where these habits lead to agitation, complexity, and entanglement. We also discover that just because these habits have a long history, this does not imply that they have a long future. The willingness to bring to these habits a calm, clear mindfulness has the power to open the door to new pathways of response, speech, choice, and ways of relating. The present, unencumbered by the past, becomes simpler, more accessible, and free.