Measuring elephants...

Do you know the story the Buddha once told about the blind men and the elephant?

In this simile the Buddha talks about an occasion when a number of blind men were called together by a raja (king) to inspect what an elephant is like. (link to whole story at end)

"He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant."

After they all had time to inspect he asked each one: well, what is the elephant like? And each one gave a description:

"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied,'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

What happened next, maybe not surprisingly, is that they started arguing, each one of them insisting that they had see the 'real' elephant, that they really know what an elephant is like, and all the others don't know anything about elephants. And then it came to blows.

Sounds familiar? Maybe even too close for comfort. We seem to be living in a world where many around us are insisting that they are the only ones who have the true measure of elephants, and the rest are liers and cheaters, wanting to mislead others. They know best .... We know best.

And yes, maybe it would be an advantage to not put blind men to the task - that is quite a strange twist in that story. With it, the simile seems to want to tell us, that we are blind. The teaching is that we are all blind, because we think we know and

"in [our] ignorance [we] are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

We often approach our life, our world, and ourselves, with trying to know, trying to understand, make sense of, and work on achieving to do better next time. This can be so habitual, that we don't notice how we are measuring, evaluating and setting some-'thing' against an-'other' in the process: 'this is what I always do; today I managed better than yesterday; this is what you are like; those kind of people don't fit with us.' This view can only arise if we deal with things, with objects that can be grasped. It has become invisible to us, when we mistake our view or perspective for the actual living reality. Hopes and fears so often dominate our internal world, and we engage in personal performance-reviews.

This is brought together in the teaching on the eight worldly concerns, sometimes called the worldly winds (as we feel blown about by them): hope for pleasure and fear of pain; hope for gain and fear of loss; hope for praise and fear of blame; hope for good reputation and fear of bad reputation.

All of those can only operate within a dualistic view: we have made ourselves into an object, a thing, that can be measured, that will fail or succeed in the world. From that perspective, we see the world as something that meets us with approval or disapproval.

The spectacularness of elephants is beyond words. We too are not a thing to get hold of by evaluation - we are beyond any definitions, laid upon us by ourselves or by others. Other people are beyond definition: if we engage in thoughts like 'they are like that' - what have we grasped? And idea of some-thing. We can grasp an idea, but we probably mistake the tuft of the tail for the whole elephant.

It seems popular at the moment to comment on people with different religion, political views, ethnicity or gender as 'other', and we have seen how that can come to blows. Looking at the worldy concerns will help us live more within the ungraspable moment, where self, other and the world co-arise as an unrepeatable precious moment - be it a joyful or a painful moment.

We are not a thing. The world is not a thing. Each situation arises as an ungraspable effervescent momentary formation, a patterning in which self and other meet in an ever new dance, fresh and unrepeatable. And yes, we can be part of that dance!

I would like to invite you to join us in an exploration of being part of that dance. We are starting this Thursday 2 October with an online course on the Eight Worldly Concerns. We will meet every 2 weeks until December to form a community of practice, where we support each other in finding out how each of us gets blown about at times, and how we might find some stability in being a vibrant part of the arising, rather than in static ideas and heavy definitions that seem safe for a while but end up strangling us. We will be meditating, dancing and sharing our experience. The more we can share openly, the richer our perspective of life - or elephants - can become! I look forward to meeting you there!

Register here to join and please get in touch with any questions.

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Also coming up from 12 November: Wednesday morning drop-in meditation

Read the whole story of the Blind men and the Elephant here

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