Being Empty

"All phenomena are like illusions." --Buddha

When I was a kid, I heard the saying, "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me." Of course back then it was a cool way to remember how to spell the word assume. Now it means something a little different. I go about my business each day with a whole bunch of assumptions in my head -- I have stories and prejudices and theories and beliefs and a whole host of other thoughts running around in my head. The funny part is -- most of them aren't really true.

It starts off harmless -- you believe something and you believe that others think it's true too. You just assume that you and another person are on the same page. There's no need to actually talk about it and compare notes, right? Ooooh, I have burned myself with that one. I have -- again and again -- stupidly assumed that the person I'm in relationship with (and I'm not just talking about romantic relationship, although it certainly does apply here) is in accord with me. This ends up leading to lots of hurt feelings, disagreements, and relationship fractures.

[Just recently, I did something that went against my assumption about someone. I spent time with someone that I was convinced was a certain way. I tried my very best to go into our time together with an open mind. What happened was just beautiful -- I realized that the truth was not in line with my assumptions. As a result, my relationship with this person is deeper now than it's ever been. It makes me wish I had dropped my assumptions earlier...but better late than never, I suppose.]

I've seen this a lot over the past few months...more than I care to admit, actually. As a result, I've committed to spelling things out rather than assuming. I also try to look at things a few times, from different perspectives, before making a judgment about something or someone. It's difficult because I don't even realize that I'm assuming anything -- it simply seems like truth to me. As the quote above states -- all phenomena are appearances to mind which are dependent upon the minds that perceive them. It would stand to reason that the cloudier your mind is, the cloudier your perceptions. Guess that means my mind needs some work, eh?

How do you combat misperception and assumption and all the rest? Emptiness. The book Modern Buddhism by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso offers up a whole chapter on this very topic. The definition for emptiness that Gyatso gives is "the way things exist as opposed to the way they appear." If you'd like to read more on this topic, you can find free downloads of all 3 volumes of Modern Buddhism here. It may not be light summer reading, but it is though-provoking reading.

As for me, I do this little practice anytime I'm feeling riled up about my perception (or, often in my case, misperception) of something:

--I lie down on my mat with a bolster at mid-back (it also supports my upper back, neck, and head) to open my heart.

--I bring to mind anything that is either upsetting me or hasn't gone my way or is a source of conflict and ask myself one simple question -- "What's true here?"

--I set aside my thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, etc. and stick with the facts. I turn into a reporter and stick with the basic, who, how, why, where questions.

--I then take a few deep breaths in and exhale with a HA sound.

This helps me separate out my feelings and my ego from the actual truth of the situation. I'm not quite at emptiness, but I'm a little less full of mind clutter.

Hmmmm...now I've got Jackson Brown's song, Running on Empty, playing in my mind. 

Namaste!

 

 

Comments

[Jena]

Hi! I love that you also share some philosophies of yoga.. :)

http://lindayoga.com/

[Diane Cesa DeGiorgio]

Thanks Roshani! I love, love, love the example you offer here. Thank you so much for sharing!

[Roshani Adhikary]

I've made assumptions more times than I'd like to admit, but thankfully they've never caused any measurable harm. I remember in undergrad during a Linguistics class, a classmate of mine had a sad epiphany. We learned that men and women, generally, communicate very differently. According to our professor, men are much more direct (example: what time is it?) while women tend to assume and are more indirect (example: i wonder what the time is/ do you have your watch on?) both genders are essentially asking the time, but with women there is an indirectness that comes from societal pressures of never being too much of an inconvenience.
Apparently, my classmate and her then ex-husband fought a lot over their language... the husband complained the wife assumed too much and she thought he was trying to be difficult by purposefully acting like he didn't understand questions she was implying, indirectly. When this classmate discovered it was a gender-difference in styles of communication, she was deeply saddened and it always made me think, "If I ever get married, I will remember to be direct, always."
Now that I am, I still make a conscious effort not to assume things (for example if my husband says, "No, I don't want seconds," I have to consciously remind myself that he genuinely means that, not that he is indirectly implying that I shouldn't have seconds). Reading this blog was a great reminder of always keeping in mind that not all of us are on the same page. Thanks for adding the Yoga-based practice at the end, it's a nice way to incorporate Yoga as a practical solution :)