Stumbling Toward Enlightenment
*Transcript of talk given by Rich Hayes at the Unitarian Church, Pittsfield, MA on Feb. 3, 2008
Sometimes, totally out of the blue, a scene from my past will pop into my mind. This can be a good thing-something wonderful. Like the first time I met my wife Jane, or maybe one of my kids when they were little.
But every so often it’s as if this "window" opens and I get to not only see, but actually re-experience how I once was; the way I thought and what I believed. And it is amazing...and at times, very humbling.
My birthday was this past week. That’s always a good time for a little reflection. That’s actually where I came up with this idea of “stumbling”. You see, as I reflected on things I could see that’s very much what I'd been doing a good deal of my life; stumbling along, doing what I thought to be my best most of the time. Even when I didn’t have a clue where I was headed! But I’ve more or less maintained this kind of "trajectory" in a certain direction. And the older I get, the more I see the dots connecting. And today as I look back, it almost seems as if I really did know where I was going all along. What once seemed random and unrelated in my life, no longer does.
Of course, I don’t think I’m unique...well, that’s not true. I am unique. BUT so are you!
What I'm saying is that I believe we all have had this experience of seeing what appeared random chance or luck as it was happening, to be something quite different when we've had the perspective of time. Of course that’s provided we’re willing to look, and to consider.
But we will never see what we’re not ready to see.
Last week, on my birthday, I saw myself so clearly at 27.
I’d just become a father for the first time. I had my own business and felt I was really on my way. I was so certain about some things. My beliefs were based mostly in the things I’d been taught and told, either at school or by the family I came from. And I was a product of the community I lived in.
Although, back then I would have told you otherwise.
At 27 I saw things in a very black and white sort of way and as I looked back I could see the fear I viewed the world with. I tended to vote conservative-I guess those two kind of go together, don’t they? Just to give you a little insight: I voted against a man, who today I’d vote for in a heartbeat: Jimmy Carter. I did this not once, but twice!
Social responsibility hadn’t yet hit my radar screen. I saw the world as a hard place where you had to watch your ass and make sure it was covered. While I truly believed in the golden rule-and tried to practice it-I also believed in an eye for an eye., and I could be a very hard judge both of others and of myself.
The transition from the “me” from back then to the me that stands before you here today did not happen overnight-or in a matter of a few years. It’s been a process...and hopefully it will continue.
And that’s good for me to remember when I look around at the world today.
Seeing myself at 27 and, more importantly, remembering what it was like to be me back then, it is absolutely clear to me that there is no way , no how that I would have- OR that I could have- understood what I understand today.
It’s not that I was less intelligent back then. If anything I probably had a few more brain cells.
But you shouldn’t expect apples in May. Or corn in June.
Remember that commercial, "we shall pour no wine before it’s time?"
At 27 it wasn’t yet time.
And that’s what I saw as I looked back.
That’s where this idea of “stumbling” came to me. I think we all stumble. There is no straight line that takes us from here to there.
It’s not a smooth ride. In my case a lot of things had to happen in my life first.
And it seems to me that, while I had the great good fortune to have had loving and good parents and many, many advantages; it’s not been all the good things, of which there are plenty. It’s been the really hard things: the losses, the so-called "failures"; all the tough stuff that’s happened along the way-the disasters and tragedies- these are what have taught me my greatest lessons.
While who I am today has much to do with all my good fortune, I think a greater part has to do with all the other stuff that’s happened. They have been my greatest teachers.
Through loss I learned to recognize how temporary everything is-including each and every moment. And in this recognition to see how the common or ordinary is really very, very precious.
This was the beginning of my seeing things differently. And it would not have happened without the pain of loss.
To me part of enlightenment is learning to see in new ways.
And this process is ever changing and always becoming. It’s never arriving, and that’s perfectly okay! The journey’s the thing! It’s exciting! Think about it: we are never quite the same person we were just a moment ago. That person resides in us. But it’s "in there" with all the other versions of who we were from all the other previous moments. That’s how I could go back and experience the me of 27. But I have to tell you that although it was nice to visit, it was even nicer to not have to stay!
Each and every experience changes us, with or without our consent. “Experience” is whatever it is that we are taking in-everything and anything: good, bad and neutral.
It all adds to the continual becoming of who we are.
Specifically, it’s our interpretation and assimilation that adds to this continual "becoming".
In other words, it’s what we make of it. But even more important, it is what we do with it.
And this should give us pause to consider what we do take in.
Thich Nhat Hanh said, “There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.”
Daily life is our greatest teacher.
In her autobiographical book “The Spiral Staircase” , theologian Karen Armstrong uses a spiral staircase as a metaphor for her own spiritual and psychological journey. She says that she felt herself stuck, as if she was making no progress and getting nowhere. Then she remembered the spiral staircase in the abbey she’d attended. It was as if a light went on! She saw that as you start up the stairway, it may appear that you’ve made little progress and are standing more or less in the same place. But you’re not. You’ve come around one time and are a little bit higher up. The view is ever so slightly different. And so it continues, as you climb higher.
A moment ago I said that it was good for me to remember this 27 year old version of myself as I look at our world today. You see, by remembering how I once was, I am able to have hope, despite things appearing so bleak and dark and so "un"enlightened out there.
In my own story I’m reminded that it’s been the really painful things that have given me the greatest gifts.
And I know had I had the option to choose at the time, I would have never chosen to go through them. I would have avoided these like the plagues I believed them to be. But without them where would I be today? Surely not here speaking with you.
These are very difficult times in our world, and it seems that collectively we are in trouble on practically all fronts.
I think that this world of ours is a macro of the micro. it is the human journey, the human struggle, the human adventure of “becoming” being carried out over and over and over again, amplified billions of times. In it is the best of what we each are, as well as the very worst of what we can be.
Jung said:“Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.”
Using Karen Armstrong’s analogy of the spiral staircase, although it may appear that humanity is still in the same spot, because we’re still doing so many of the same awful things, I believe we’ve come around once. Simply because, for the first time ever, there are millions of us who are seeing the darkness and making it conscious. And it is only in this that we can change. What we're not conscious of we have no power to change. Recognizing our own shadow is the way up and out.
And one of the greatest realizations coming to consciousness around the globe is this awareness that we are just one part of a vast interconnecting web of life. We are not separate from all the other creatures and the earth, we are It and It is us!!
Seeing all as part of the One, sounds an awful lot like the way enlightenment is described in many spiritual texts.
So maybe we’re closer than we think? I think we may be.
We certainly have gotten the stumbling part down pretty good, haven’t we?
But before it can happen "out there", it must start in here within you-within your heart.
Enlightenment is an inside job.
It begins with you.
It’s about opening, not closing.
How do you do this?
You make a conscious effort every day to open your heart so you can love more.
And love will allow your eyes to see familiar things in new ways, giving you new eyes to see with.
And possibly the greatest challenge of all, open your mind.
This is a tough one! My visit with the me of 27 showed me what a mind that is married to certainty looks like.
When I believed that I knew something, my mind closed to any other possibility.
And that certainty kept me trapped in a mindset.
When I was younger it was so important for me to know the “right” answer. I hated feeling unsure and I was scared of being wrong. Maybe it’s one of the gifts of age, but being “right” isn’t all that important to me. And as for answers? I’ve learned to love the questions!
The truth is that the older I get, the less I “know”. And that’s oddly comforting, and very exciting; because then I get to learn new things. Or see what I once thought I knew, in new ways.
So I enthusiastically recommend “not knowing”. Let your open mind process what is being seen with your new eyes.
And let your open heart take it all in.
As the writer of the Tao Te ching, Lao Tzu said, “There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take one with a heart.”