i’m reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s new book The Art of Power. among the many topics and concepts in the book is the notion that power is not a thing you have over others, but over yourself. that in every moment, you have a choice as to what to give power and this applies to every aspect of living in the moment, but more than anything, it applies to what you allow your mind to nurture and nourish.
as is usual for buddhist writings, the focus is on learning how to be aware of what you’re doing in the moment you are doing it. then to make the choice of positivity and helpfulness or, at the very least, to minimize the degree to which you allow negative or hurtful things to linger and grow in your mind or in your life.
it is not an easy thing to do. between the ego-driven world in which we live and the sum total of a lifetime’s worth of struggle and ensnarement, often times one chooses negative or hurtful things simply because they are the most familiar, the least frightening. ‘better the devil you know’, eh?
as is often the case, whenever i’m reading or studying or thinking, i’m always on the lookout for ways to immediately apply the things i encounter; to find ways to lay the understanding or insight found into the soil of the mind and try to eek out a few more helpful things, maybe uproot and dispose of one or two hurtful or unhelpful ones. the idea, of course, is that in diligently doing this work with myself, i might become someone who is positive and helpful to others.
i often feel i fail more than i succeed. it is a frustrating thing and it is sometimes hard to remember myself as more than a snarled collection of flaws, faults, and ugliness.
buddhism holds, among other things, that the things you see around you, the things that anger or frustrate or upset you, these are more often reflections of flaws, faults and ugliness you believe exist in yourself. that the reason you get so angry at them is because you’re so despairing of uprooting them in yourself and so, whenever you see them in someone else, they are doubly maddening for how they remind you of yourself.
i’m not sure that most people are that aware, but as Hanh speaks of it, it is not always a matter of awareness. that the underlying foundations of the mind and how it interacts and reacts brings this about more often than not. the part of us that we do not acknowledge, sitting there observing and ticking off any number of things that may or may not rise later to the surface of conscious thought.
whenever i am upset or despairing, reading these kinds of books is both a comfort and a cruelty. i become morose for being so unable to manage better for myself or others, and i can see the differences so clearly; intellectualize them readily and concisely. there is a universe of difference between knowing a thing and being a thing. and when you cannot manage it, when you are trying and failing, repeatedly, it is almost overwhelmingly depressing.
were i more mindful, i could avoid nourishing anger and instead, be kind. but it doesn’t do much good to be willing after the fact. of course, it doesn’t help to kick yourself after the fact, either. but it is hard not to… very hard indeed.
the benefit of reading these things and keeping them in mind and working at it all is invariably rendered in the moment after the failure. the moment in which you have to decide if it is better to try again or to leave be. heavy consideration, such moments. it is hard to be fully honest when you’re ego and desires are gnawing on you.
at some point, being honest means admitting you can’t do it. that whatever it was you were so keen on managing, you’re just not at the place where you can do more than wish you could.
for me, this seems only to come when i’ve exhausted myself trying. or cut myself to pieces over it. or worse still, cut someone else up over it. and even then, i’m pretty consistent in my willingness to try, try again.
it seems i have much more tenacity and optimism than the average human being. in fact, my friends have coined the phrase ‘insanely hopeful’ to describe it. i begin to suspect the ‘insane’ part is much more applicable than i like to admit. particularly since the definition of ‘insanity’ is to undertake the same path that has resulted in failure again and again and expect a different outcome.
there are some things i simply cannot manage. and there are somethings it seems both unwise and impossible to ask others to manage. and since you cannot depend on others, only yourself, it seems more than a little foolish to lay one’s hopes upon others. or so it seems when i think upon it.
i have long suspected the weight of my hopes is much more than anyone but myself could possibly bear. and knowing their weight so intimately, it hardly seems rightful to as much as whisper to someone else to lend a shoulder. i try not to, but it would seem i fail in this just as regularly as i do anything else. and, inevitably, that failure winds up shattering things.
i really need to remember that when someone tells me i can depend on them, they really only mean so long as i don’t lean. and that this is not a ‘bad’ thing about ‘them’, it’s just the way humans are… and maybe i would be happier over all if i were not quite so willing to let everyone lean on me… that if i weren’t bearing up so much weight, i could remember that humans really aren’t built to shoulder this kind of weight…. who knows, maybe i could and should hand some of it back myself.
wide-ranging thoughts. and rolling along at fair speed. perhaps my vacation from study and deep practice is coming to an end. it does seem all i manage without it is to snarl the traces. and frankly, i’m tired of stumbling and stubbing myself on things.