A couple of weeks ago we started to think about the model of the world we have in our heads, how we don’t perceive actual reality but a simplified version through the lens of our experience and traumas. This filter creates a lot of our suffering but we can choose to set aside that model and focus our awareness on whats really happening in the world in front of you.
When I was a kid (and an adult if I’m honest) I liked to watch Westerns, just like my brothers and my father. One of my favourites was (and is) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a Clint Eastwood flick about three guys trying to get their hands on confederate gold. As the host of a mindfulness podcast I can’t really recommend that you watch a violent film. However, as a movie fan I would say its an absolute classic. The main characters are the legendary Man With No Name, the Good played by Clint Eastwood. Angel Eyes,The Bad guy played by Lee van Cleef and the crafty and cunning Tuco, the Ugly, played by Eli Wallach. Each of the characters is reduced down to one word, a label, that summarises their character.
You might think, well its a Clint Eastwood film, people are painted in broad strokes and you’re right of course - but we do that too. We label people and things in our mind in a very broad way to fit the simplified model of the world that we’ve created. I’ll bet if I asked you to think of someone good and someone bad one or two people would spring forward in your mind. Nothing to feel bad about - its the same for everyone, including me. We, as humans, are hard wired to think this way - but it creates much of our unhappiness to warp reality.
All that mindfulness is trying to do - and this podcast - is to show you the world as it really is, not the labelled, simplified version. Thich Nhat Hanh called this true reality signlessness. The Buddha said that where there is a sign, there is deception. What does this mean? Surely a rock is just a rock, a cloud is just a cloud?
The outer appearance of an object or a person is only one dimension of it. Yes, a rock is a rock but its also the earth. Its also a stone wall. Its also the minerals in your body. Things are inevitably more complex and more interconnected than they look - trying to grasp the entirety of the reality of everything we come across every day would be overwhelming but we can train ourselves to look deeply in small doses. By training ourselves to see the true nature of things we unlock and liberate ourselves.
But Shaun, I hear you say, this sounds complicated! I thought this was Mindfulness for Beginners! Well, don’t worry, we can start off with baby steps. When we see or meditate on a cloud, we can see the ocean and the sunlight that created it. We can see the rain that it becomes, the rivers that flow and the plants that grow. We can see ourselves in the cloud and the cloud in ourselves.
So by letting go of labels, we can let go of our attachments and see that we don’t lose people and things, they only transform from one state to another. We can also prevent ourselves from making judgements and categorising. When we think of people we can easily attach labels to them, labels that carry prejudices. We don’t have to - for example when we look at Will Smith’s attack on Chris Rock, we can label him as violent or a bad person. Or we can choose not to label it, look deeply and see the suffering that led to him committing the act of hurting another human being. The media is quick to label everyone involved - we don’t have to.
I mentioned at the start that the Good the Bad and The Ugly had three distinct characters and Tuco was labelled, “the Ugly” because of his crafty, selfish behaviour. But even within that film you find out that he had a very hard life, was ultimately a good person and just did what he could to make it through life, to survive. If a Clint Eastwood film can choose to look deeply, so can we.
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