On Perspective

I recently came upon two timely reminders that, oftentimes, when we are feeling emotional pain or deep sorrow, our perspective narrows. One of these reminders was a Hindu parable in The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo, and the other was a passage from Fear by Khalil Gibran. 

When our perspective narrows, so does our sense of choice and possibility. We can feel stuck or trapped. We may feel fearful that the huge dark cloud encircling us will accompany us for the rest of our days! "Catastrophizing" can be a useful indicator that our perspective has narrowed to the size of a pinprick! 

What to do? We can practice broadening our perspective. Here's a simple exercise. 

Look at the picture below? What do you see? There is no right or wrong answer. There are only differences in perspectives. One is broader than the other. 

Now, read the parable. 

An aging master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it taste?" the master asked.

"Bitter," spit the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?" "Fresh," remarked the apprentice. "Do you taste the salt?" asked the master. "No," said the young man.

At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in.

So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things .... stop being a glass. Become a lake.

Want to try again? What do you see now . . .?

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
Excerpted from Fear by Khalil Gibran

See the Lake.
Be the Lake.