414. Delusional Relationships

Firmly attached to a specific desire, my ability to see reality is occluded. My attention cannot reach what is happening in and around me, because I’m seeing everything through the lens of my desire and its possible satisfaction. I’m ignoring important information and putting too much emphasis on the evidence that supports my desire.

With my attention so heavily restricted, I can’t get an accurate picture of things, which means it’s easy for me to fall into delusion. This is especially true when the desire is intense and its object is present, which is often what happens when it involves another person. Sometimes these delusions are glaringly obvious, but often they are more subtle.

413. Getting Ahead

It’s just a phase she’s going through. That’s what they say about her. They need an explanation for her behaviour. They want to know why she has abandoned her former pursuits. They can’t seem to accept that she has actually changed.

But she knows she has changed. There’s no doubt in her mind. She sees her life in a totally different light than she used to. Before she worried endlessly about success. She wanted it all: the dream career, the dream family, the dream life. She had it all planned out and she was following her plan obsessively. It almost scares her now to think about how obsessed she was.

412. Collective Liberation

When we act from compassion, we do what is needed to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us better. By meeting the needs of ourselves and others, we eliminate suffering and we create joy. We meet needs directly and also indirectly, by helping others towards the awareness they need to overcome their suffering.

It might then seem like compassion is concerned only with improving individual lives. But it is by creating change in individuals that compassion also creates collective change. For a person who is aware does not restrict their compassion to specific others. Genuine compassion is never limited only to our own family, friends, or neighbours. It is always action to meet needs and eliminate suffering for all living beings.

411. Theoretical Burdens

We notice a pattern in some area of our experience, so we give that pattern a name. Then we discover similar patterns that relate to the first pattern and we name those too. Soon we have a whole theory of this domain of experience, which we also name. In doing so, we create for ourselves a new object to study. We can then deploy our reflective and analytical abilities to explore the categories and distinctions we’ve constructed in order to expand and refine them.

410. The Scope Of Suffering

As my awareness of self and world expands and deepens, I begin to better understand the sources and scope of my suffering. I gradually become more aware of the simple fact that much of my ordinary experience includes various forms of suffering.

When the world seems to contradict and oppose me, I suffer from frustration or anger. When I compare my life to the lives of those who seem to be doing better than me, I suffer from envy. When memories of what I’ve lost spring to mind, I suffer from grief. When my present circumstances feel stagnant and hopeless, I suffer from despair. When I feel overwhelmed by demands and obligations, I suffer from stress. When the dangers of an uncertain future are approaching, I suffer from anxiety.

409. A Blissful Secret

Once read, a poem cannot be escaped. Through nothing other than innocent reading, its spirit becomes lodged in you. The only way out is not to read, but when the words are right in front of you, so inviting and provocative, can you really stop yourself?

You read because that is what you always do when you encounter words. It’s a habit stronger than almost any other you’ve formed throughout your life. You will read what you see and you will be changed by it. This is your fate, the inevitable outcome you cannot escape.

408. The Sign

The sidewalk is busy with people. A man in the distance is holding a large sign, facing away from me. As people pass him, they quickly glance at the sign before looking away. They seem to regard it almost furtively, as though they’re seeing something they aren’t supposed to see. Afterwards, they appear lost in thought, and I almost detect a hint of guilt in them.

My curiosity is growing, but my shoelace has come undone. I stop to tie it and as I’m crouching down, one of the passers-by says to his companion: “Are you paying attention?” Not only is this a strange question, it is uttered with a tone so sardonic that it suggests distaste with the idea. But perhaps even stranger is that the companion begins to laugh as though the question were some kind of joke.

407. Not So Distinct

Language is made up of distinctions that we denote with words. Sometimes these distinctions seem perfectly clear, like the difference between red and blue. We cannot immediately imagine a situation where an entirely red object is also somehow blue. Any such object would seem contradictory to us.

But in many other cases, the distinction between categories is not as clear, and the words seem to blur into each other. What we thought was certainly sweet in taste might begin to seem sour before seeming sweet again. What once appeared square might now appear oblong or round, even though our perspective has not changed. What was once loneliness might suddenly become joyful solitude before transforming back into loneliness.

406. Growing Empathy

At some point during childhood, we first realize that the people around us have experiences just like ours. We notice that the same things that cause us pain also seem to cause them pain. In this way, we begin to develop empathy for the people closest to us, which means that when they suffer, we feel their suffering as if it were our own. We see them not as truly other, but as part of us.