How to tear down walls

Uncountable walls have been built throughout history between territories, between cultures, between peoples as protection from invaders, attacks to the uniqueness, integrity of society, culture, economy, and basic human rights. Paradoxically and to our dismay, we see a revival of walls as a fashion of our day, here now in the XXI Century.

Livestock fences in Guadarrama, Spain.

But why do people build walls? Before building them physically, we, human beings build them in our minds and heart. The materialization is just a reflection of what we have inside. So why do we erect walls, and what kind of walls we build in our subconscious or consciousness? We do because we live in fear. Thinking we are separate, we create boundaries in an attempt to keep the "other" out. We are afraid of being hurt, afraid of being "naked" in front of everybody. First wall is our clothing. Yes, clothes protect us from the weather, the heat, the cold, the wind, the rain, the snow, our fragility. Then we have doors with locks. They protect our privacy, the vulnerability we invented when we started accumulating "things" for our survival and comfort. Walls make us feel secure, but also give us the illusion of stability, permanency, immutability, the illusion of suspension in time and space. Walls also guard our illusion of ownership. We imagine that what is inside the walls is our property to keep forever. More obviously, walls, nowadays physical or virtual,  protect us from invasions and attacks.

But there is a more detrimental reason why we want walls. They represent our psychological and emotional restrains and limitations to our own personal growth and expansion. Do we have a wall so we don't go out and see the real world? So we don't learn different lessons and grow? So nothing changes? So we don't change? I think some people are afraid of migrating people, because they have broken their walls, they have dared to change, to learn a new language, to think differently, even though they have probably been forced to change. People who know how to change may represent a threat to our illusory state of "eternity".

Fear is also the opposite of love, so we also erect walls because we don't love ourselves, or each other. Do we use clothes to hide? Some people wear black clothing because they have the illusion to hide the overweighted, "imperfect" body. Still others wear them too big ... to hide "inadequacies"? Others cover their faces with thick layers of makeup to hide even more "imperfections". Still others build thick walls around their behavior in order to keep the "other" away. Some cultures have a well defined "personal space" of a certain measure, so when the "other" crosses the line, they feel invaded. And still others will not even taste new foods, try new ways of doing things, meet new people, make real connections with others because they are afraid of change, afraid of what others might think of them, afraid of getting sick, afraid of the ridicule, afraid of getting hurt some way, afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid. Alienated by fear!


If we want to tear down a physical or collective wall, we need first to study our own personal "walls" (read "fears") and accept the challenge of transformation. Imperfection is fine, our imperfections are perfect. Change is unavoidable, actually, change is the only constant. We discover that we are all "damaged goods". Vulnerability is unavoidable if we are to fulfill the purpose of our coming to this life. It is OK to be one way today, and another way tomorrow. This is unavoidable too. If you don't believe it, look at your own past. It is in the state of vulnerability and mutation that we have a real life, that we can have the experiences we need for our spiritual growth, and human development.

When we discover and identify our own fears, then we can work on accepting and loving ourselves as we are, and let them go. The best way is to let fear overcome us, feel it, overpower us. I know it takes courage!  I have done it myself. I almost died in my first child's delivery, so I thought "if I don't have another child, I will carry this fear forever". Then I decided to have a second child to overcome my fear. The second delivery was nothing like the first, and I felt liberated. It was not the only time I tried this strategy, since then, I always do the best I can with what I have.

I also developed patience this way, because there is a process of "digestion" involved, and you need to wait for the results. Big experiences may feel like a boa eating an elephant, for example, taking months to digest it, years maybe. Some fears are like elephants, and we need to find patience, compassion, comprehension, self love, love for others to overcome them. When you discover your fear this way, you understand that we all, human beings, fear the same things; we are all in the same journey, so we can also have patience and comprehension with each other. That's when you have torn down the walls between you and the others, because you have realized that we are all afraid of the same things. We don't feel separate anymore. With the stones of the torn down wall, we have built a bridge.

Something else I discovered is that the gut sensations of fear feel the same as those of courage. When I first started writing hesitantly in English, I thought people could be laughing about my mistakes, word misuse, grammar errors, and such, and frankly, I was afraid of the ridicule. But I thought, Oh well, who doesn't make mistakes? In any case, the message goes through, which is the most important. In any case, no one will live my life and do what I am supposed to do here. So, I named those feelings, courage, and went on to write, even though I knew I needed an editor. Walls can be as simple as that, not doing what you are called to do because of your own insecurities. They may seem small walls, but they have huge effects on our development and self esteem. Fear never makes us feel good about ourselves, it diminishes us. Love does. Love instills expansion in everything we do, it breaks walls, borders and frontiers. What we do in love liberates us and others at the same time. Choose love instead of fear, and walls will fall of their own weight.

Doors

Doors

I come from a shadow world 

groping my way,

hitting my head, stumbling around,

sometimes slowly, often running,

in the hope of seeing 

a little light at the end of the tunnel.

From time to time, I hum my old saying,

“Don't look for freedom

beyond your fences,

don't seek beyond anymore

it is all inside you.”

But one day I heard that song 

and sang it for the first time.

Then you've arrived slowly,

also blind like me, 

I understood you, you understood me.

without even knowing,

I was at the door where the light blinds the eye,

you called me, I answered,

and the Door opened wide, 

I called you, you answered,

and you too were there, ready to cross the threshold,

each with our own light beam,

you saw your path, 

I found mine.

~ o ~

Dicté

Je viens d’un monde sombre 

où je marchais à tâtons

en me cognant la tête, en me cassant les pieds,

parfois lentement, souvent en courant

avec l’espoir de voir 

une petite lueur au fond du noir.

Je chantonnais de temps en temps ma vieille chanson,

“Ne cherche pas la liberté 

au-delà de tes frontières,

ne cherche plus au-delà

parce qu’elle est entièrement dans toi.”

Mais un jour je l’ai entendu 

et l’ai chantée pour la première fois.

Alors je t’ai vu arriver lentement,

toi aussi, aveugle comme moi, 

je t’ai compris, tu m’as compris.

Sans même savoir,

j’étais à la Porte où la lumière aveugle,

tu m’as appelée, j’ai répondu,

et la Porte s’est ouverte de par en par, 

je t’ai appelé, tu as répondu,

et toi aussi tu étais là, prêt à franchir le seuil d’argent,

chacun avec son rayon de lumière,

tu as vu ta route, 

j’ai trouvé la mienne.

Picture by William Colsher, Quadrifrons Arch of Janus

Mocking the monster

It shouldn't be news for those who know me well how deep my emotions could get. Lately, I've been profoundly affected by our present collective situation. But also touched by the anger, cynicism, mockery, fear, and laughter the monster arouses in people around me. I have personally reacted to some events with laughter, because otherwise I'd be in tears for the daily display of absurdity and viciousness of the present situation. I try to ration the news even though I can't avoid them for a long time when our safety may be at play any minute. However, I'd like to make a fine distinction between the person and the character, between mocking the person and mocking his actions.

Both the actions and the reactions sadden me, and at the same time the situation looks so ridiculous to me considering the age we live in, that it provokes my laughter. It seems to me that I am watching a play, that this situation is a comedy in the large stage of life, a work of Salvador Dalí, a cubist canvas from Picasso. Surreal. Dismembered reality. All of the sudden, the actors are speaking, no! not Greek, it would be too similar to the three languages I speak. Chinese! There is nothing I can make up of it.

And still, I can't pass the mockery against the person. It is obvious that the guy is an ignorant, lives completely unconsciously asleep, and therefore has become the perfect puppet. So oblivious of reality he's more a character in a puppet's show than a real life individual. But mocking a disabled person is not funny. It doesn't make anybody better, as we already confirmed. He should inspire more compassion than anything else, because he can't really do better. Like Ajahn Brahm once said about difficult people, it's better to have the attitude of "the guy hit his head when he was a child, and since then he's been like this". His case is pathetically pitiful. It bears repeating. But remember, his conditioning, the way he is -after hitting his head in infancy and such- is not his fault. So laughing at that or at his ignorance wouldn't be fair. I once had someone laugh at my ignorance and my feelings and it didn't seem fair because I didn't even know that there was something to be ignored. And about feelings, one can do very little except observe them and not to act upon them. Can you see what I mean? If a person has a disability, a mental condition or disorder, one should have compassion, because those are already a hardship and the origin of much suffering for oneself and those around.


Having said that about the person, it is impossible not to reject, one way or another, the actual actions of the character, his lavishly aggressive and often denigrating utterances, his wicked decisions, his malevolent designs, his elitist and unjust orders, his divisive intentions, his quarreling mood, his service to money makers, and all the rest. Is he aware that he's pushing the anger button? I'm not so sure, because he seems to be only concerned about the 'me, myself and I' side of life, worshipping himself by debasing others. Is he aware of the consequences? Probably not. Considering that social media tailors your pages to show you what you want to see, and his TV is certainly tuned to the channels that revere him (obviously, he can't stand watching anything that states otherwise), he doesn't even know what is really going on.


If you agree about the grotesque of this situation, it is in our reactions that we should be constructive, never destructive. The solution is not so much about eliminating the problem, but rather creating an innovative replacement that dissolves it naturally. Again, remember Ajahn Brahm's re tale of the Buddha's timeless story of the "Anger Eating Demon".
The more we lash back to the problem, the bigger it gets, the more we fight it, the stronger it gets. The key is to concentrate that energy in building the world we want to live in, and the old will crumble down on its own. For this task, fear, anger, cynicism, suspicion, mockery and lack of respect for the actors and their followers actually waste the energy necessary for building. Also protesting has its limitations and may as well consolidate conceptions and positioning by antagonism. Voicing dissent should be intentionally planned to attain a specific target (like showing the numbers), but all efforts shouldn't be spend on it.

Do I really know what I want to substitute for this reality? Have I identified my passion about something I want to create, build, give birth to, generate, germinate? Do I have room and time to follow my passion and make it happen? Are there other people I'd like to join to make it happen together?  It's time to concentrate the energy, avoiding the scattering of it in demonstrations of heated emotions that can only add to the problem and even worsen it. We have infinite possibilities in front of us now. I think we should take advantage of the momentum and take off. Carrie Newcomer has a point in her popular song "If not now, tell me when".