Awakening
I read that spiritual awakenings typically happen in one of two ways. In the more dramatic fashion, an individual has a transcendental experience with the divine. They may see a light, hear a voice, or in any case have a particularly memorable instance of connection. The other way is slow, gradual and molecular. There's no particular moment of awakening.
I am aware that I am experiencing this slow spiritual awakening. I realized that if five-years-ago-me heard today-me speak about my perspectives and life today, old me would think new me had lost their mind! Which always brings me back to the fantastic line from A Christmas Carol, where the maid says to newly awakened Ebenezer, "You don't seem yourself!" and Ebenezer replies: "By God, I hope not!"
I feel silly even writing this. I don't pretend to have gained any secret knowledge about the world. I write to record this for my future self, that I may one day look back and smile, in love and good humor at my crude and clumsy attempts to make sense of it all. I'm going to take the risk of globalizing my experiences and understandings here.
The water of life
Every individual is interconnected. (This is where I start to sound loony to my past self.) Every action affects countless beings, probably all beings. (Seriously, what am I smoking.. okay, commentary over). I believe this is related to what the zen monks mean by "everything is reflected within everything else."
The metaphor that came to me is water. Each individual is a body of water, ranging from a puddle to a pond to a lake to an ocean. The size of the water represents our capacity for acceptance, resilience, equanimity.
By default, the surface of the water is calm. Events disturb the calm. Jump into a puddle and it'll be thrown into chaos. Jump into an ocean and the ocean barely notices.
Just so, our nature as individuals is calm. The events of life disrupt our calm. Our reactions to those disruptions ensure the calm doesn't return. The cycle begins.
The bodies of water are interconnected by streams and rivers. A peacefully flowing stream may become a raging torrent, and destroy the calm of a small pond. The disruption does not end with the pond: it rages onward, radiating outward to its connected waters, to the next bodies, and on and on, dissipating but affecting everything (I recall in a physics lecture that the gravity of a body affects another body, inversely proportional to distance, trending towards zero but never exactly zero).
Just so, as individuals, when we are hurt, we radiate that pain out to others. When we're unhappy or angry we make others unhappy or angry. Consider again the size of the water. A raging torrent may ravage a pond, but it dissipates into an ocean. In the same way, as individuals, when we cultivate equanimity, when we build our capacity for resilience, we no longer propagate pain to others.
Faith
It's a process. At first, we're ignorant of the cycle of pain. We hurt others as we are hurt by them. When we build some capacity for resilience, we no longer amplify or return what is given us, but dampen the effect, working to minimize our contribution. Later, we are able to stop propagating pain, and return love instead.
It's taken me a long time to appreciate the truth in these words. That journey has been rooted in faith, a faith that I couldn't articulate previously. Thankfully, the monk at the monastery spoke on faith this past weekend.
Change in this life is possible. It's possible to alleviate pain and suffering in this life. It's possible to heal, grow, transform. I've felt this to be true my entire life, but I have not been able to express it or truly experience it.
Humility
None of the ideas I lay claim to. After two years of attending a Buddhist monastery and spiritual fellowship, the soil of my mind has been fertilized with much wisdom, passed down from others to me. In connecting myself to these sources, to the universal source, I feel humble and blessed. I feel hopeful.