I Am What I Am (Or Am I?) |
Something bizarre happened to me. A few weeks ago, my co-worker and I were shopping for graduation supplies at a party store and, while brainstorming for ideas for our school’s graduation, we ended up in the kids’ birthday party aisle. As we browsed the many different party themes, my friend pointed to the “Bratz” section and said, “Uh oh, what would your daughter say if she were here?” (My five-year old is currently on an anti-Bratz crusade.) I laughed and pointed at the display and said, “Mommy, that is terrible.” We laughed and decided to walk over to the balloon counter so we could get our job done.
A few moments later, a young woman in her late teens or early twenties approached us, looking a bit dazed. “Excuse me,” she said, “did you just point at me and tell me I was terrible?” She was angry and looking like she possibly could get violent. “No ma’am,” I said, “I’ve never seen you before.” “You were pointing at me and saying I was terrible,” she said, her voice escalating. It was at this point I realized we were dealing with a situation that could escalate into something scary. “We weren’t talking about you,” my friend said, “It’s cool.”
While ordering the balloons, this young woman began circling us, and was seemingly talking to someone on her cell phone, telling the other party that she was planning on inflicting bodily harm on us. We quietly asked to see the manager in the back of the store and while the manager walked to the front to survey the situation, the whole experience ended with the woman leaving on her own—and leaving us a bit shaken.
I thought about this strange encounter for days. Aside from it causing a full-blown panic attack after I left the store, I was convinced that this woman had walked into my life and shook up my day for a reason. I began thinking about my perception of my reality. Her unwarranted and possibly drug or psychotic induced paranoia may have been an extreme example of a distorted perception, but within the extreme, there are great lessons. After all, real truth is as subtle as a raindrop in a pool, but the ripples it causes are what we usually see and what induce our reactions.
An important part of being enlightened, or even just surviving in this crazy world, is understanding that everything is relative, and reality is not always what we perceive. This is something I struggle with a lot. Whether it’s thinking a friend is angry with me when she really just had a bad day, or that I look horrible in the dress I’m wearing, and then getting several compliments on my appearance, I often find that my insight is completely wrong. It is only the beginning of warped perceptions. When you factor in fear tactics in the media, society’s pressure to look a certain way, and our own paranoid thoughts, I think it’s safe to say that most of the population is walking around completely disconnected from what is “really real.”
Buddhist teachings constantly remind its students that perception is far from the ultimate Truth. In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha reminds his student that a flower is made up of many parts; a flower is not the soil, or a stem, or a petal, or the rain that helps it grow, therefore, a flower is not a flower. However, by accepting the non-flower, we are truly able to understand the flower. The same can be applied to the self. There are many factors that make up a person. Along with the many parts of someone, there are the opinions and expectations of the individual made by both the self and others that all contain truth and untruth. These things alone do not comprise the self. So, by understanding the non-self, we come to a greater grasp of who we are and our place in the world.
In other words: we are not what we think we are (nor is anything else, for that matter).
Applying this Sutra to our daily lives can help us not take ourselves so seriously. Since we are always changing and rearranging our lives, our perception of “what is” is not always accurate. By taking the time to breathe deeply and return to that silent space inside us, the Truth about the world and ourselves becomes a bit clearer. When faced with an upsetting situation, stop a moment and remember that the truth of the moment is most likely an illusion and will change at any moment. So much of our anxiety and suffering could vanish because we would realize that the roots of so many problems were never really there. We may even find more lessons in the craziest of scenarios. |
Kristie Vullo |
| About the author: |
| Kristie Vullo is a South Florida native and writes poetry, short story, and creative non-fiction that focus on women’s issues and spirituality. Currently, she is co-authoring a novel with her writing partner and long time friend. She has been part of the feminist movement for sixteen years and has studied reiki and various religious paths during her physical existence on earth. Believing that we are here to make a difference, she works at a vocational charter school that recovers young adults who have dropped out of high school and wish to obtain their GEDs and a better future. She lives in Boynton Beach, Florida with her husband, young daughter, and two cats |
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