Meditation is like walking backwards: Thoughts come, and you catch them as they come. Sensations pass in and out of your awareness. As you progress, you learn to release things more readily, and that is what allows you to move on. But the crux of the challenge is that, much like walking backwards, you can only really see where you’ve been; but you cannot see where you are going. You can note what thoughts and feelings have transpired, what has passed, what has been released. You can even see what is still holding you in place, if you are very sharp and aware of yourself. But by the very definition of it, you cannot anticipate what is coming next, or where your progress will lead you. Your greatest obstacle, then, is the fear of the unknown. In many ways, awakened souls are those who are comfortable with this fear. And your greatest ally - indeed your greatest weapon - is curiosity. Just simple, unassuming curiosity. The desire to see what will happen. The desire to learn.
I’ve had a lot of conversations in my life. We’ve all seen, I’m sure, that our tendency in conversations is to want to persuade: A conversation is a tournament of views, with each contestant throwing spears of facts and understanding at each other until - hopefully - someone caves in. But honestly, how often does that happen? How often does someone “convert”? Most often, both gladiators walk out of the arena with their hands in the air, or worse - their bodies mangled.
What strikes me more and more, when I talk to people, is not what they are saying, but what they are NOT saying: What do they dismiss, as they compete with words? What do they gloss over? What do they often forget to mention, or not notice altogether? What do they justify - which basically allows them to move on to “more important facts”, and what do they not justify - which allows them to place the weight where they want it to be?
Not too surprisingly, we tend to miss whatever gets in the way of our narrative. And as I’ve said before, the mind is not designed to get the facts straight; it’s designed to justify what our guts have already chosen.
How can you fight this tendency?
When you walk into the arena, are you capable of coming in to learn? Do you see a conversation as an opportunity to find the holes in your own understanding? Or are you busy looking for the holes in others'? Do you see it as an opportunity to change the world? Or to change yourself?
Which attitude will really help you get it?
Which attitude will really help you grow?
A real conversation is one in which both sides want to learn.
But if I cannot find a real conversation, let me at least be the learner.
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