If you walk into a room, and everyone there is upset, angry,
or out of balance, chances are that you will become a little more uptight. If
you find yourself in a space where everyone is meditating, and more at peace
than your current state, probably you might find yourself becoming a little bit
more calm and centered. It is in just this way that our state of being can
influence those around us for better or worse, and the work that we do on
ourselves can be a benefit to those around us, with whom we have contact,
however brief or subtle that contact is. When we evolve, the world evolves a
little bit too.
The Buddhist concept of Darshan, where merely being in the
presence of an evolved being can bestow benefits on the recipient, is a
manifestation of this common sense principle of entrainment. A very nice
physical example of entrainment, from Itzhak Bentov’s book Stalking the Wild
Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness (1977) suggests that if you
placed several old fashioned clocks, with pendulums swinging below them, on a
wall, and started them swinging back and forth at different times, so that they
were not all moving together, when you come back later you would find them all
synchronized - moving back and forth at the same time together. (This physical manifestation actually happens, facilitated by vibrations transferred through the wall).
In the West a classical style of education might rely on the
memorization of facts and a system of analysis and linear thought processes.
Eastern styles might espouse a more holistic view based upon the cultivation of
awareness through disciplines such as meditation, of which T’ai Chi is a
powerful example, more and more as one’s practice evolves. T’ai Chi practice
and study can cultivate both awareness and critical thinking skills, and in so
doing, helps evolve not only the practitioner, but also his/her environment.
I was rereading Barry Stevens wonderful book Don’t Push
the River (1970), which has some delightful stories in it, when at one
point I stopped because the story was “Too good to read all at once”. I wanted
to spend more time on such a treat. This reminded me of the punch line from a
story with a very different message.
The Three Legged Pig
Story
(A Cautionary Tale)
A guy walks into a bar. He has a pig with him, which he sits
next to him on a barstool. The pig is missing a leg. When he orders a drink he
also orders one for the pig. Of course, the bartender asks him what the story
is with this obviously unusual animal. The guy takes a sip of his drink, and
says:
When the bank was
foreclosing on our mortgage a couple years ago, this pig rooted in the dump and
came home with a lottery ticket someone had thrown away that had winning
numbers on it, and saved our home. When little Johnny got lost in the woods
this pig found him and brought him home. Last year our home caught fire in the
middle of the night. We were sleeping, and would have all died in the fire, but
this pig saw what was happening and ran in and woke us up and saved us all.
The bartender was fascinated. He asked the guy, “How did the
pig lose his leg?” And the guy says “A pig that special, you don’t eat all at
once.”
Not always, but too many times, this story could describe
some jobs in today’s world, where no matter how good you are, you’re still just
a disposable commodity in an impersonal world. As father Peru said in one
version of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon,(1933) “You can’t hope for mercy,
you can only hope to be overlooked.”
The cultivation of Awareness and the
compassion that it engenders is always a needed blessing and a spiritual
pursuit.
Namaste,
Daniel
