Day 195: "The Truth Cannot Be Borrowed"
Finding truth is not the same as finding happiness, wrote Thich Nhat Hanh over 50 years ago.
The truth must be experienced directly.
The truth cannot be borrowed.
These lines, these notions, ring deeply true to me.
I sit here writing these words during a coaching call. My client asked if we could start our session with some writing time. "I just need to write something," she said. I know the feeling. And so I offered these words, in case they might be helpful as a prompt of sorts. Then I set the Insight timer for 10 minutes and muted myself so that she wouldn't have to hear me typing.
I'm sitting at my son's desk. He's at his dad's house. Covid has complicated our coparenting as we do everything we can to keep two households safe while trying not to overstep. It's delicate. A dance. I look out the window, as I often do while writing, gazing into some middle distance, the green leaves brightened by morning sun. I need to get my eyes checked; all day long, I put on my reading glasses then take them off, unsure of when I need them.
Last night, I dreamed of being in a large synagogue. I was passionate about the singing, the prayers, the Hebrew, but there was confusion, too. Many bathrooms. I showered in each one, wanting someone to notice my beauty, but nobody did.
The truth must be experienced directly.
Yesterday, sitting in a sukkah reminded me that there is no replacement for direct experience. It's one of the great casualties of this time, the fact that so many experiences are unavailable to us. I try to focus on the bright spots, what is doable, what is accessible. I give thanks that it is safe to step outside -- safe in that the air is breathable, safe in that I am not fearing for my bodily safety, safe in that I can run far from other people and thus without fear of exposure to a deadly virus.
But the truth is here, a lump in my throat, too. I miss freedom of movement in different ways, and the unexpected, spontaneous, often meaningful encounters with life that such movement brings. Travel, just bumping into people, those serendipitous times you spot someone you hadn't seen in forever.
What am I really saying? Last night, my daughter was sitting at her desk, which doubles as an art table. She was leaning over, focused, intent, making a print, carving words to press into ink and then onto paper. I went to kiss her goodnight, my eyes drifting to a photo of us on her wall -- she was 18 months old, I was 30. I'm smiling widely, she is naked in a bucket, her moon-shaped face looking directly at the camera.
You could say it was a cliche moment, my heart catching in my throat, the strange truth of time layering. In the moment of leaving her room and catching her reflection in the darkened living room window in front of me, I had a sensation of being in both times simultaneously, as if this person who is my child was still so small was offering me a glimpse of the one who would be turning eighteen in five days, as if her small self, my younger self, were both able to see how compressed the years would seem, how deeply and beautifully we would both grow to be ourselves. We are beyond our ancestors' wildest dreams.
There have been times of great heartache and struggle along the way, because the truth is not always synonymous with happiness. But happiness, that is another thing altogether. It is the incredible privilege of being her mother, it is the sometimes-perilous path of raising children, all the moments of held breath and feeling lost and unsure. And ultimately, it is seeing the truth of who she is, who her brother is, who each of us really is. That is the truth that cannot be borrowed, manufactured, or altered. It can only be encountered, cherished, and held at once lightly and with great care.
I lower my glasses down my nose and look out the window once again. This time, my sight is clearer, and I know that just minutes from now, much less days, weeks, months, or years, the view will have changed once again.
“Youth is a time for seeking truth. Years ago I wrote in my journal that even if it destroys you, you must hold to the truth. I knew early on that finding truth is not same as finding happiness. You aspire to see the truth, but once you have seen it, you cannot avoid suffering. Otherwise, you’ve seen nothing at all. You are still hostage to arbitrary conventions set up by others. People judge themselves and each other based on standards that are not their own. In fact, such standards are mere wishful thinking, borrowed from public opinion and common viewpoints. One thing is judged as good and another as bad, one thing virtuous and another evil, one thing true and another false. But when the criteria used to arrive at such judgments are not your own, they are not your truth. Truth cannot be borrowed. It can only be experienced directly. The fruit of exploration, suffering, and the direct encounter between one’s own spirit and reality — the reality of the present moment and the reality of ten thousand lifetimes. For each person, it is different. And it is different today than it was yesterday.”