Discernment

I wonder how often on any given day I make a judgement that gives rise to my own suffering…. The garbage truck is too noisy, that driver didn’t signal before turning, the lanes at the swimming pool are all taken, it's June and it should be warmer, the book I want at the library is not in, we are out of eggs, my friend has not answered my email, today my hair is bad.  Wow!  Lots to suffer over! And that was just a quick 2 minute review of my thoughts!!  I read somewhere that humans are somewhat hard-wired to notice what is WRONG, rather than what us RIGHT.  Makes sense in light of survival strategy.  It’s wise to see the lion and to miss the mouse, after all.  But, so few of us, writing and reading this post, need to worry about surviving. Luckily.

While the following poem is not exactly what I am addressing here, still it seems that the writer, Mark Nepo, is addressing how we can change our perspective and understand things differently.  We have choices about how we see the world! And over ways large and small that we can create suffering for ourselves.

DISCERNMENT

The trouble with the mind

Is that it sees like a bird

But walks like a (hu)man.

And things at the surface

Move fast, needing to be

Gathered.  While things

At center move slow,

Needing to be

perceived.

What I mean is

If you want to see the

Many birds, you can

Gather them in a cage

And wonder why

They won’t fly.

Or you can go to

The wetlands, birding

In silence before

The sun comes up.

It’s the same

With the things

We love or think.

We can frame them

In pretty cages or follow

Them into the wild meadow

Till they stun us with the

Spread of their magnificent

wings.