Choosing a Point of View

It’s funny the way we toss around our points of view, as if we’re entitled to any which one. Or at least we feel like we are. It’s a free country, right?

But wouldn’t it be better if we were more deliberate? And chose a point of view that included caring about everyone, and all the critters, and also the planet?  And also took into account that whether or not we adopt a wise, compassionate, point of view, is largely in our hands? And has consequences? 

Because it does. Our point of view matters because it’s our rudder. It determines which way we’ll turn when the times get tough. Which they have. So don’t we want a point of view that always, or as often as possible, points us in the direction of safety for everyone on this small, watery, boat we call earth?  

♥️♥️

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call #521. 

We’ve been walking the Noble Eightfold Path, which is the “how” of the Four Noble Truths, and the last of the Four. It’s the path of wisdom and compassion; the path of liberation for ourselves and also so that we can support liberation for others. Liberation from suffering – not from the vicissitudes of life, but from the ways we want things to be other than they are because we believe – subtly or not-so-subtly – that if only things were the way we wished they were, then we’d be happy. Then we’d be free. And liberation for others, meaning, creating safety and belonging for everyone in our lives, in our world. Which sounds like an impossible aspiration and is, and yet, mindfulness invites us to hold that aspiration. 

We know there are eight steps on the path, hence the name. We’ve looked at six. We have two left: Wise View and Wise Intention. Let’s unpack Wise View. 

When we invite one another into Wise View, we’re inviting ourselves to intentionally choose a point of view. This is different, at least for me, from what we may have been taught, and what the dominant culture tells us, which is that we have – as a lifelong proposition and also in any given moment – and innate point of view, that arises and is a solid concept, to which we should pay attention and which we’re entitled to share with others…even to the extent of trying to persuade them to adopt it, since it’s correct and theirs isn’t. And sure, we’re also taught to listen to and even respect other points of view, but we’re also taught, and society supports this, that we should be skeptical of other points of view.   

The invitation of mindfulness is to de-center that messaging and eventually abandon it. Instead, the invitation is to, first, to notice that “point of view” is just a thought, and, like all thoughts, is changeable and changing, not fixed. And probably not innate. Rather, our unexamined or unintentional, unpracticed, points of view, arise from the causes and conditions of the moment, and of a life, and of both. And therefore can change, and be changed. 

I’ll call the first point of view, a kind of default. Like the states of mind I find myself in if I’m not practicing much, it arises as a result of my childhood conditioning, everything that’s ever happened in my life, all the humans and experiences I’ve encountered, and the world itself, all coming together in a given moment to form – many things, of course, including “my” point of view. Let’s say, hypothetically, that someone grows up in a loving home with two self-aware parents who are emotionally intelligent and understand how to navigate the world, and teach all of that to their child. Again, hypothetically. Or maybe that’s you. The child’s point of view, as they emerge into early adulthood, could be that the world is a safe and loving place, people will be generally attentive, emotions are welcome, and anything they decide to learn and practice, they can master.

There’s a story I love about a family who is moving to a new town and they get to the gate and ask the gatekeeper what the townspeople are like. And the gatekeeper asks, “What were the people like in your old town?” And the family says, “Oh, they were awful!” And the gatekeeper says, you’ll probably find the people in this town awful, too. And then another family is moving to the town and ask the gatekeeper the same question, he asks the same question, about the people in their old town, and they say, “Oh, the people in our old town were wonderful!” And the gatekeeper says, you’ll probably find the people in this town wonderful, too. 

This isn’t hard to understand, right? Whatever we think and ponder becomes the inclination of the mind. Whatever we practice, becomes a habit. And, we have a choice about what we think and ponder, what we practice, and…what point of view we hold. We aren’t relegated to the point of view we had in the last town we lived in, or that our family had, or even that happens to be arising, molded and shaped by the conditions of our past or by those of this very bumpy moment in the world. We have a choice. 

The choice mindfulness invites us to make is three-fold. First, mindfulness invites us to adopt the point of view that the Four Noble Truths, which say that this being human is tough – there are so many bumps in the road, every day the roads seem to be getting worse, gosh, what’s the county doing with all that tax money? And yet, that it’s one kind of “difficult” to live with the pain and sorrow of life, quite another to spend time, or spend our lives, wishing life were different because then (we think!) we’d be happy, and quite another, and quite liberating, to let all that go and be here, now, where happiness and freedom are possible, even in hard times. 

Second, mindfulness invites us to take the point of view that we’re all on this bumpy road together; that we’re interconnected; that we inter-are. That everyone’s life is bumpy and that even though that’s true, what’s also true is that joy is available if we only stop, take a breath, and remember how remarkable it is to be living this human life, together. And that even more joy is available when we lift up the joy around us, and also when we tend to the sorrow.   

Third, mindfulness invites us to take the point of view that our happiness is largely in our own hands, and depends upon the choices we make, and that every choice matters: everything we say, everything we do, every choice we make related to our livelihood, our community-based endeavors, our spiritual endeavors; the decisions we make about our family life and friend life and the strangers we meet on the way. Every choice matters, which is why it’s so important to make wise, compassionate, choices, loving choices, moment by moment by moment. Because then, actually – and see if this is true for you – Wise View emerges easily, and is resilient, and steady.