Are You Really Seeing Reality as It Is?

As I say goodbye to my family and friends in Toronto and slowly make my way to the monastery….

I can't help but contemplate around what motives us and what moves us to do the things that we do?

It can be hard to question our motives, our behavior, and who we have become, not only as individuals, but as a society. It means taking responsibility for ourselves and how every action we take has a direct influence to this reality. To ask these questions, means to look at our inner world with a fine tooth comb and begin to be honest with how we've contributed to every significant and seemingly insignificant parts of our lives.

I hear this trope a lot: ‘I’m a good person and I do what’s right.” Is that so? For some of us, we have built such a strong personality and identity, that it becomes very uncomfortable when someone or something starts poking at this image we have crafted of ourselves and of the world.

We tend to live through this black-and-white lens, and reject the idea of nuance in human nature. We become so stubborn, so stuck, and so unhappy when our black-and-white perspective on the world comes into question; forgetting that we are quite complicated, controlling, and stubborn over how we perceive the world and ourselves. 

We seem to have lost an ability to be malleable. We grasp at anything to reinforce our beliefs and think ourselves as superior to someone who does not agree with us, or become upset about how the world isn’t what we think it should be. We become self-righteous in our belief systems and our Ego outwardly attacks when this comes into question.

But, maybe we’re wrong. Maybe we've been seeing the world from a delusion our entire life. It's fascinating to see how most people don’t want to be seen as “the bad guy”, or someone that would be capable of doing “bad” things, and will reframe their behavior and blame someone else or an "uncontrollable circumstance". Unfortunately, humanity is much more complicated and nuanced than looking at “good vs. bad” “right vs. wrong” and forgetting how this kind of thinking leads to perpetual unhappiness.

How do we see reality with a sense of clarity? Stop living from ideas. Cultivate humility. Allow Love to reveal itself in everything. Live in the “I don’t know” and be at peace with not knowing.

But how do we get to his point? From the space of the Heart, everything is perfect. Suffering is inevitable in life, but there can be a perfection and beauty to suffering, which is a deeply concerning prospect for most people as they need the world and their life to be a certain way. Otherwise, their entire constructed reality crumbles and they become paralyzed or living from a place of fear or not caring what happens to themselves or those around them.

So then how do we become free from the shackles of this delusion? Space. Creating an inner quietude. Silence. Removing unnecessary distractions. Love. Listening to this unspoken language of the Heart and following this into infinity. 

Do not see this as work. This is not work. This is not about applying some capitalist way of thinking to spirituality. It is simply about Being. Learning to be present with what is, again and again, moment to moment, no matter what is happening to us or around us.

Understanding that every moment, every circumstance in our life, is an opportunity for an inner contemplation and a movement towards true happiness and everlasting peace.

Sit in a moment of Stillness and watch how Reality is perhaps not what you believed it to be; it's something so much more vast and incomprehensible that all you can do it bow your head in reverence and Love for all of creation.