Byron Katie is a popular author and teacher beloved by the Buddhist community for her wise way of challenging delusion, one of the ‘three poisons’ (The other two are greed and aversion). While she has written many books and given lots of workshops for adults, it is the children’s book, Tiger Tiger, Is It True? I bought for my granddaughters that for me most clearly illustrates how the things we tell ourselves are making us unhappy.
In the introductory note to parents, Katie says that people always want to change the world so they can be happy. But they have it backward. She recommends changing the projector – the mind – rather than trying to change what’s projected. She uses the example of a piece of lint on the lens of a film projector. Nothing you can do on the screen will remedy that. Imagine someone at the front of the theater using all kinds of cleaners to scrub the screen clean — how frustrating! The projector just keeps on projecting the shadows of the lint on the lens onto the screen.
When the mind is projecting shadows, we function in a state of delusion, relying on this misinformation we are projecting. So it’s important to look closely at the nature of our thoughts and to question whether what we assume about everything is actually true.
A few weeks ago we looked at other people’s delusions as an entry point into noticing our own. As we think about a family member, friend, person in the news or character in a novel; does it become easier to recognize some false idea they are clinging to? Some assumption they are operating under that keeps landing them in unpleasant circumstances? If you find yourself thinking, ‘Yeah, keep telling yourself that.’ then you know you are looking at an example of delusion.
After looking at other people’s delusions, hopefully we are better able to develop a compassionate way of seeing them. Then we can turn the light of that understanding onto our own patterns of thought and emotion as they arise. We can begin to notice and investigate what we accept as true without question.
It may feel threatening to question our own long-held beliefs. Why? Because we have built solid-seeming identities out of these beliefs. It may be difficult to imagine who we would be without these beliefs. When I say ‘beliefs’ I am not necessarily talking about ideas, philosophies or religion. Many of our deepest beliefs are simply about ourselves, how fundamentally flawed we are in a variety of ways. We may believe ourselves to be incapable of certain things — speaking in front of a crowd, for example; or bad at things, say sports, or good at things, like maybe cooking. We may get into comparing mind around these things and feel all kinds of uncomfortable emotions. Who would we be without defining ourselves in this way? These are just mental formations. They are not who we are! How would life be without that persistent pattern of thinking that keeps making us miserable?
Being able to recognize delusion is a vital skill, enabling us to awaken.
Speaking of wise women who share their gifts with the world, Marie Kondo now has a series on Netflix called ‘Tidying Up’. I wrote about her book almost three years ago, and have been following her recommendations ever since. Now with this series we can see her in person and delight in her very meditative and compassionate way of coming into skillful relationship with our stuff. Whether you’re already a fan or just need help organizing in a way that is compatible with your practice, tune in to her series or read her book.
Over the past weeks we have been looking at three valuable questions — What is my intention here? What am I afraid of? and Is this true? These are particularly helpful when we feel something’s not quite right in our lives. For example, when we: