Seeing with New Eyes

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Jellaludin Rumi,

(translation by Coleman Barks)

For many years this poem has provided insight and inspiration to me. It reminds me daily of the journey of acceptance. It also points clearly to the unseen potential in our responses which can open the way for sensing or seeing something new and sometimes, unexpected.

Some years ago a wise friend opened my eyes to this potential. During a period when I was quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) despairing of my pain she alerted me to the fact that maybe the way I was seeing was part of the problem. At a time when it was painful and difficult to walk for more than ten minutes, she turned to me one day and said, “But can you be happy with that?” I sat there looking at her in a perplexed way thinking - what does she mean? Doesn’t she see and hear my pain? With a quiet assertion, she gently asked again, “But can you be happy with that?”

I sat there for some time, eventually and very hesitantly saying, “I suppose so”.  Not a resounding response, but she had planted a seed. She exposed something I had not seen. For some time it still puzzled me. However, as I continued to meet with her and began to investigate the thoughts that arose in response to my pain, I began to see what she was pointing to.

One night when awoken yet again in the night, I had a clear insight. Instead of continuing my fearful self-talk, “Oh no, I can’t sleep, I am awake again.” I suddenly thought, “What if I focused on the fact that I had slept, even if it was only half an hour since I was last awake. Each time I awoke from that point on, I said, “I am grateful I slept, I am grateful I slept”. Over a period of some months, my sleep pattern began to shift. I began to sleep for longer and longer periods, until eventually I was sleeping through the night.

These days if I am awake in the night, I still acknowledge my gratitude for the sleep I have had and I acknowledge that, even though I am awake, I am resting. Sometimes I am gifted by the sound of one of the birds also awake - a lone voice in the night. I am always reminded of The Beatles’ song, “Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night” and I am grateful.

Even in places of pain and darkness there are gifts to be found. Sometimes they are hidden in plain sight, just outside our present view. Sometimes, it takes a kind friend to quietly and gently expose them. Other times, our deeper wisdom speaks to us clearly, sometimes in the dead of night.