This column has high levels of Buddhism, so I apologize if I start to transcend meaning or pour you all a tad too much hippie Kool-Aid. I’ll try to remain grounded and, if I fail, I’ll try to do so adorably, like Sarah Palin or Ron Paul. This task is difficult when ultimate reality is free of all adjectives, you know?
First things first: All life is suffering. No matter how well off you are, you will experience suffering. Websites like whitewhine.com attest to that. I’ve had to dredge through a recent slew of shit that I could have done without — a guy I cared about cutting me out of his life and Taco Bell discontinuing the Beefy Crunch Burrito and replacing it with a more expensive taco with a shell that’s a giant Dorito.
Is nothing sacred?
I hadn’t begun to get over the guy after a week or two, which is pretty atypical for me. And there’s only one thing a man can do when he’s suffering from a spiritual and existential funk: meditate.
So I criss-cross applesauced and ohm-ed my way to some perspective and understanding.
I don’t have enough space to palatably reify the abstract mess that is the Dharmakaya — a fancy word that, for sanity’s sake, means the body of Buddhist teachings — so bear with my inner hippie for a bit.
Just be cool and enjoy the ride, man.
Imagine your body is a television set and the emotions stirred about by the things in your life are the infinite number of channels you can display. Things to be happy and sad about are constantly in existence, and your demeanor arises from the ones occupying your focus. The Dharmakaya offers a path toward the ability to see all of them at once.
When you can watch all the channels at once, you’ll start to see other people’s channels too, imagining yourself in other people’s positions and literally seeing and feeling from their perspective.
That is called the oneness of being — the ability to simultaneously be yourself and see as someone else, whereby all involved can influence the perspective of the others. All human suffering stems from ignorance and a disconnect with the oneness of being.
But if someone engages in the oneness of being and orients all perception toward the pursuit of happiness, that person will experience ultimate reality and be at peace with it, which is true happiness: enlightenment.
But how does any of that apply to getting over people who wrong you? Well, you know someone came along and smashed into your existence before speeding away from it, sending you spinning off the path to enlightenment and away from the oneness of being. You’re upset because you’re ignorant as to why they’re treating you like crap, or you’re caught up on “what’s best for them.”
Stop that. Smile. Meditate. Reorient yourself toward your happiness. Focus on the other person’s perspective, then be it. Identify the feelings keeping you apart and accept it. Do not make judgments, even if it’s out of cowardice or fear.
Soon you will understand why that person’s perspective cannot change to what you want it to be. Once you understand it, you can find peace with your situation.
Meditation will heal the damage when a guy does you wrong or when Taco Bell introduces tortillas made out of crepes. It will keep you serene when the French interpret that as an act of war and drop a nuke on us (which they’ll aptly name “Napoleon Blown-apart”).
Practice. If you truly inhabit the other person’s perspective, you will find peace.
Chip Skambis is an English and telecommunication junior at UF. His column appears on Mondays.
