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I rushed back to my car thinking I forgot to lock the car in the parking garage. Turned out I had locked my car. Not at all unusual for me. Hopefully, memory is the second thing to fade. As I rode down the escalator, a cute little kid, about 7 years old, asked, “Is it blocked up there?” I was already late for lunch. My first thought, “He’s just a kid.” Well, I wisely let that go.
I said, “What do you mean? Do you want to go to the theaters?” He said “Yes.” I stood with him at the bottom of the escalator. I told him that he could still make it to the theaters up the escalator, “It’s not blocked.” I got him. The boy smiled. He knew that I got him, too.
Spending time with that 7-year-old boy reminded me: It’s not that hard to “get” someone. Getting someone is about what I have to give up to be with them. However, simple doesn’t necessarily translate as easy. Sensei Dan would always say, “Have no preconceived notions.” So I give up what I know. I give up being right. I give up being better than. I give life to others.
Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles” tells the tale of letting go of being right to “get” your enemy. Christian Bale’s Captain Joe Blocker escorts his mortal enemy Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk, played by Wes Studi, to his homeland in Montana. The Chief is dying of cancer. In their past, the Chief brutally murdered Joe’s friends and fellow soldiers. Consequently, Joe annihilated the Cheyenne in his vengeance. Joe tells his Colonel, “I hate ‘em.” He hates all of ‘them’.
Once distanced from his Fort on their journey, Joe offers Yellow Hawk his tribal combat knife. He orders in Cheyenne, “Take it!” The old dying Chief refuses to fight.
In sublime conversation with Mrs. Quaid, played by Rosamund Pike, widowed by the Comanche who murdered her family, she asks Joe, “Do you believe in the Lord, Joseph?” He replies, “Yes, I do Mrs. Quaid. But I think he’s been blind to what’s going on here for a long time.”
In darkness and lightness, we can justify being right, justify our prejudice. Christian’s Joe gives up being right as he authentically takes on what it is to be his enemy, to be Yellow Hawk. Joe and the Chief suffered great loss. Both he and Yellow Hawk acted out of rage: They were indeed the same. Forgiveness arises as a profound possibility.
Bruce Lee said, “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless like water.” Give up being right. Water flows: Both filling and creating space. Like water: Create space within yourself; give up being right; give up prejudice. That might be the source of getting another. Selflessly getting another human being is the source of compassion and forgiveness as well.
I’ve discovered that giving up being right is like emptying a closet in my mind. I create space for others to live. I give up, “I’m better than you.” I give up, “This is a fucking waste of my time.” I’m freer to be me.
When I get someone, I create the possibility of compassion and forgiveness. As with most things worth having, I must practice. “Just train” as Sensei might say.
Although I can’t expect others to get me, I can do my best to get them. Toward the end of my dad’s life, I got him: Who he was for me, when I was king salmon fishing beside him on the boat on the Kenai River. Dad worked so hard doing his best for his family for his entire adult life.
Dad didn’t know how to raise me when I was a boy. He did the best he could. I’m guessing he did what his Dad had done to him when he was a little boy. Like you and me, Dad was both lightness and darkness.
I gave up being right about Dad. I forgave him for his humanity. Maybe Dad got me too? Maybe not? What mattered is that I got him. I loved him the best I could.
Do your best to get others, not expecting the same in return. In doing so others will want to get you. That’s karma. O-Sensei said, “The Way of the warrior is to give life…” Give life to others. Amen.
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Photo credit: Pixabay