Sometimes, I have a wonderful revelation and write or think about writing an article about it. And then I pick up a magazine, or read a book, and there, right in front of me, is the revelation. But it’s by another person. It’s by a Buddhist teacher, a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim mystic; a philosopher, a neighbor, or a friend. Often, the first impulse of feeling I have is frustration; what will I write now? There’s envy there, jealousy maybe, although how can I be jealous of Buddha or Jesus?
I need to remind myself there’ve been thousands of years of people on this planet. There are over 8 billion of us right now. Do I really expect myself to come up with something no one else ever thought of? The particulars, the context I write about might be different, the flavor. But total originality? And isn’t a revelation a revelation whether or not another person was graced by it before I was so graced? Do I have to compete over joy or get jealous over sharing whatever I think distinguishes me from others?
And would searching for total originality be just another way of isolating ourselves from others?
Occasionally, I notice a very different response. Oh, wow. I’m not alone. This is exciting. Or: I wonder how this other person describes it? I sort of know where the idea came from for me; but what’s the story for this other person? I feel curious, and a sense of joy for both of us. This response feels so much better.
It reminds me of what Buddhism calls Mudita, one of the Four Immeasurables or mental habits that liberate the heart. The other three are loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity, or being able to discern, adjust to, and move with whatever occurs. Mudita means sympathetic or empathetic joy, or when we feel joyous in the happiness, achievement, good fortune, or in the skills and revelations of another person.
When we notice in ourselves these feelings, of envy, jealousy, or the like, and let them go by kindly recognizing how human the feelings are yet limiting. And we wish them good fortune. There’s relief there. There’s a sense of freedom, from fixations and walls of fear. We feel more cared for, and more able to create relationships and community.
Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg shares how we sometimes, like my first response above, begrudge another’s happiness or achievement. Some of us are even inclined to glory in another’s setbacks or failures. We might think there’s a limited stockpile of success or happiness; that if they get it, we won’t.
Yet, we can look up at the sky and feel a beauty that seems to go on forever. It might seem familiar, like it’s just sky, like we know it already. Or it can scare us, wake us up to how small we are in the universe. It can provide a revelation of infinity in the midst of the limited, normal, and the every day. The sky is just so different from the trees and buildings that reach into but stand apart from it. The infinity of sky seems so different from the immensity of matter.
I remember standing on the great lawn in the middle of Central Park in New York City and looking downtown toward 59th Street. The contrast between the trees and the buildings shook me up for a second. The two sights, great trees and big buildings, just didn’t seem to go together. And then I looked up and saw the sky above— it didn’t fit at all. It was so vast it couldn’t be contained by any mass of trees or grid of streets.
Such a paradox: at a distance, there’s the vastness of sky. It’s blue, orange, gray, black or something that includes all or none of those choices. But close up, it’s air, invisible. It’s breath. It reaches everywhere. Sky and air; it’s a difference of name and culturation, not ultimate reality. It’s a difference in language, and how we think about and experience the two; but the air touching our face as breath and the sky beyond the trees are both simply sky.
Likewise, we might feel the people we envy are at a great distance from us. And any dislike we feel for others, or anger, bad feeling, and maybe even resentment touches them, not us. But where is this envy but in ourselves? As Sharon Salzberg reminds us, someone else’s happiness doesn’t directly cause our sadness. We make ourselves unhappy. Our response to what they do, our negativity toward another being can live inside us, hurt and isolate us. How we treat others mirrors how we feel in ourselves. It’s like the sky—it’s right here, touching our face, giving us life, not off in the distance.
When we have a revelation, it’s most likely an opening. The envy over sharing it with another is just another form of closing.
What a pep talk. I hope this is as helpful to you as it is for me.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
