More that six months ago, we saw a listing for house here in Fort Collins that stood out a little from the hundreds that we were reviewing from day to day in our fruitless search for a new home here. It had some atributes we were interested in, but we wrote it off at the time because of its location (street too busy, we thought), and some indications that it suffered from deferred maintenance.
Later, after sitting unsold for some months, I noticed it again, now sporting a reduced price. Pat was out of town for business travel for a week or so, and I declined an opportunity to get inside and see what that was like.
As I came to appreciate the value of being close to the university campus and Old Town, it occured to me that the location was actually nearly ideal, and I began to idealize the characteristics of the place, based on what I could see from the street. I inquired about the place, and found that it had just sold.
As I grew more frustrated with our failure to find an alternative to the rental house, that bungalow house near the campus came to represent all the lost opportunities and misjudgements I judged us to be guilty of that kept us stuck in our unsatisfactory situation.
A week or so ago, I found a
new book by the Dalai Lama. It's no secret to anyone who is around me much or reads this blog that I've been pretty unhappy for a long time now, and I'm trying to work on that with whatever wholesome (as in not Jack Daniels, for instance) resources I can turn up. I have found secular Buddhist books to be particularly promising, and this new book really appeared to zero in on the specific problem that sabbotages my thinking so often.
The Dalai Lama devotes the entire book to attacking the delusional thinking and endless trouble (for the thinker and their unfortunate associates) that results from not perceiving things as they actually are. Rather than intuitively understand that every object and phenomena is made up of component parts and resulting from numerous other conditions and dependencies, people have a habit of perceiving things to have an inherent existence that manifests from within (stay with me here - there is a point..). When one makes this mistake, it is all to easy to attach qualities of good and bad to the object or phenomena , or wildly exagerate the perceived good or bad qualities, ignoring or diminishing the opposing qualities. The results of this kind of inacurate mental processing is often - to quote HHTDL, ruinous.
I have so often indulged in what the Dalai Lama now illustrates an antidote for. In ways small and large, I have idealized, catastrophized, demonized, become attached, infatuated, repulsed, and driven with abandon into spasms of seeking and avoidance. The bungalow house pictured so innocently above took on a malevolent presence, as our failure to buy it (or even inspect it thoroughly by see the inside) became an indictment of our common sense and judgement.
Just as I have been begun to diligently work on the results and source of this kind of misperception, I suddenly found out last night that the bungalow house near the campus was - back on the market. Just as Pat and I have been preparing to go and seriously assess living opportunities in Mexico (having all but abandoned hope of finding our place here) - this idealized place was opening up as a renewed opportunity.
I scheduled an appointment to meet at the house with the realtor for this afternoon, and Pat and I drove over to meet him. Before we left, we had a good laugh about the general circumstances - how now that the house that had been so idealized (by me) as a result of its unavailability was going to need an objective assessment. We were both nervous about the possibility that it would be so good that it would alter our strengthening direction south of the border.
We arrived before the realtor, and surveyed the outside. But we had seen all that before, and it could not provide the clues we would need to see what we were really dealing with. That lay within. Chris, the long-suffering realtor arrived, extracted the key, and we entered.
The first rooms were unexceptional. As we progressed from room to room, upstairs to basement, the ordinariness, then negatives (from our perspective) grew. By the time we made our way back to the front door, it was clear that the place was of
no interest to us.
All my disappointment and recriminations had been for nothing. My fabricated perception of what the place had represented had caused much trouble for me (and Pat). But now, seeing how this had occured, and seeing the reality of the situation, I could apply this to a whole portfolio of other misperceptions, large and small, that consumed energy and diminished the quality of life day by day.
In the end, the situation was the cause for much relief and laughter. It is another basic tenet of Buddhism that we have to lighten up, have a sense of humor, and be gentle with ourselves as we deal with life as something of an absurd cinema experience.
There was a quote a couple of months ago in an email from a list I subscribe to...
"When the teachings "click" for you somewhere deep in your heart and mind, then you really have the View. Whatever difficulties you face, you will find you have some kind of serenity, stability, and understanding, and an internal mechanism-you could call it an "inner transformer"-that works for you, to protect you from falling prey to wrong views. In that View, you will have discovered a "wisdom guide" of your own, always on hand to advise you, support you, and remind you of the truth. Confusion will still arise, that's only normal, but with a crucial difference: No longer will you focus on it in a blinded and obsessive way, but you will look on it with humor, perspective, and compassion."
Sogyal RinpocheClick.
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