This video that went viral a while back has a soft spot in my heart. It is not only because this 3-year-old kid is connected to his naturally compassionate heart, but because his mother was humble enough to listen to the wisdom of her child's truth.
Reflecting on this month's Jivamukti focus (What's the Use), isn't humility after all having a beginner's mind? We may think that just because we have lived several decades and learned some skills and picked up a few life lessons, we know how life is supposed to work. We may think we know better, we may cling to old ideas of how we have always done things, and insist we know what we are doing. Watching this video, I feel that someone with less humility would have reacted another way. The child might have been taught speciesism, that some animals are made for food. The child might have been lectured on tradition and so-called norms. The child might have been dismissed for being picky or immature. But because his mother has a humble heart, she was able to see how innately compassionate her son is. She was able to agree that yes, we indeed need to take care of animals and love them, instead of hurting them and eating them. Humility is to have that courage to see things from a fresh perspective, to listen and learn from the wisdom of another, to accept that others are also our teachers. Humility is not so much learning, but more of unlearning. We unlearn social conditioning that makes us cynical. We unlearn fear that keeps us stuck. We unlearn our arrogance and stubbornness that makes us think we already know everything. Humility is to have the mind and heart of a child, to continuously learn, to consistently be open to the wisdom the world teaches us.
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A wheat plant grows straight up. Only when it becomes ripe and is full of nutrients does its position change. It bends and bows down when it becomes mature. Spiritual maturity is also like that. When we don't know any better, we may have a little bit of accomplishment and think we are a big deal. We stand in arrogance and think others owe us something, and we think we can go around and act like we're different from everybody else. We say, why haven't you bowed down to me? As far as spiritual growth is concerned, it is useless. But if we become wise and we embrace our humility, we become willing to bow down to others, to learn from others, to let others be our teachers, to remove our bloated sense of self-importance.
Good looks, a beautiful lover, great fame, and mountains of money are some of the things in our material existence that we may mistake as justifications for arrogance. It is born of the ego and it feeds the ego, so unless we get out of the vicious cycle of depending on our ego, we will spend our entire life chasing after what is outside. The antidote to this is humility. Humility they say is not to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less. It means we are less concerned about what others think of us and what accomplishments it may appear we have achieved, and we think more of how we can serve others. Once, a king called his two sons and had an earnest discussion about how they want to split their inheritance. The first son claimed he wanted the throne, the estates and the gold and the jewels, while the second son said he only wanted a simple ring. Eventually, the king died of old age and true enough, the sons got what they said they wanted.
The first son, despite everything that he has, was never truly happy. Whenever good things abound, he would get so attached to them, he would fear losing all that he owns, and so he lived in a constant state of attachment, fear, and anxiety. And whenever bad things happened, none of his possessions comforted him. The second son, owning very little possessions, lived quite a peaceful life. Whenever good things abound, he would take out the ring he inherited and read the inscription: This too shall pass. This will remind him that everything he appreciates in his life is a gift, and with that graciousness and humility, he understood that none of them are permanent. He lived without fear of loss. He accepted the temporal nature of all things. And whenever bad things happened, he would also take out the ring and read the inscription: This too shall pass. Knowing that difficulties and challenges are temporary comforted him. Even as unexpected and undesired situations arise, he understood that as pain is sometimes unavoidable, suffering is optional. We get to choose how we live our lives. With attachment and arrogance, we will spend our lives chasing after goal after goal after goal, but never fully feeling satiated. We will then be caught in a vicious cycle of desire and suffering. But with humility, no matter how much or how little we possess, how much or how little we accomplish, when we see everything that we have as a result of grace, we will find more ease in sharing the gifts that we have, and in turn we will find more peace, more meaning, and more purpose in the way in which we live our lives. True story. One day at a prison yard, a bird flew in. An inmate started to throw stones at this bird, and another inmate asked him to stop. Now, we have to understand that in prison, doing so can potentially be dangerous, as it borders on territory, and is akin to picking a fight. The stone-thrower asked the bird-defender why he should stop. And the man said "That bird has my wings." The words themselves may seem like they don't mean anything. Was he trying to be poetic? What was going on?
This man who defended the bird is Jarvis Jay Masters. As a child, he grew up in circumstances that were less than ideal, to say the least. He was poor, neglected by his own parents, abused, thrown into the foster care system. He was incarcerated because of robbery charges. Before he was able to finish serving time, a prison brawl happened and a prison guard was killed. He was implicated, and even though many believe his innocence and there is evidence that he is innocent, he was sentenced to death row. The irony of this is that it was during this murder trial that two things happened. One, he started to reflect on his life, where he had gone wrong, and who he was. Two, he met a private investigator working on his case who taught him how to meditate. His practice progressed to the point that he became a Buddhist, and he took the boddhisattva vow, that means he has committed his life to the freedom and awakening of all beings. So that day, when he told the other inmate "That bird has my wings" he was talking about compassion that comes from non-separation. Compassion is to understand from the deepest level that every life matters, not from that airy fairy everything-is-perfect land of privilege, but to understand compassion drawn from his own suffering. The bird has my wings. Jarvis Masters has written a book by that title to speak at length of his story. That bird has my wings. It is a reminder that we are all interconnected to each other, our paths intricately interwoven, our destinies interdependent. That bird has my wings. It tells us that as far as the practice of compassion goes, we make it our business when others are bullied, and we do not let that happen under our watch. Note: One of the most impactful ways we can practice compassion is to become vegan. Please watch From Farm to Fridge to witness the violence that we inflict on other beings, and join Manila Vegans to seek advice on how to stop this. |
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