The Watercourse of Life: Wisdom and Fluidity in the Mandala ~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Peter Barreda, September 15, 2003 (Material copyright 2003, all rights reserved)

The best of men is like water;                  Water benefits all things                  And does not compete with them.                                   --Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching          Just as it is said that you are the author of your own destiny, so are you the artist of your own mandala-- the mandala of your life. This mandala is a representation of how you live your life: your views, your habits, the people you know, activities you enjoy, ideas you espouse. And while the precise elements that make up the mandalas of each of our lives do not specifically matter, what is important is the structure we lend it. Lao-Tzu wisely said that the way of water is the way of wisdom, its fluidity and flexibility, its ability to flow on unimpeded against the resistance of the mightiest rocks. This is how we should act, he advised-- always seek the low path, the end of the line, the shadowy side of the mountain. It is a philosophy of malleability, of bending rather than breaking, and this is how we must design our mandala. What does that mean? It means to incorporate acceptance and flexibility into the way you live your life. If you believe A and someone argues B, then let him have B. It does not weaken your belief in A for another to believe B, and it certainly doesn't diminish your self-worth in any way at all. Each thing that you believe is an element in your mandala, and if someone comes along and shoves against that element a little bit, or even a lot, it is not worth the trouble to push back. Let them be, and simply move on. Your mandala will continue with its integrity intact. This is an example of the fluid structure of a healthy mandala. Rigidity will anger you, give you ulcers, even kill you from within. Rigidity in your mandala will make you ready for a fight, an argument, a blood-feud at any perceived offense, real or imagined. And rigidity implies insecurity, like a nervous armadillo whose only defense, however futile, is to roll itself up into a hard little ball. But hard things are brittle, and the rock will take only so many hits before it shatters, and then the game is over for good. Better to be like the humble elephant, confident of its place in the world, strolling through the fields with peace in his heart. Wind, rain and hail may strike him but everything bounces off. Rigidity will make you miserable, defensive, overly sensitive. Fluidity will make you confident, resilient, peaceful and happy. To be more accurate, it is the other way around-- true inner strength and confidence confer fluidity of character, for they need not be defended. In addition, fluidity stems from an understanding of the way things work. It is a realization that, in the long run, things will always work out well. This is wisdom. Rigidity is the opposite-- it is shortsightedness and insecurity.           This shortsighted rigidity is the specialty of the ego, insofar as it has evolved as a very immediate reactionary device designed to help us survive at least into the next day. The behavioral tendencies that helped life forms to succeed, to survive and reproduce, are the ancient basis of the recently formed consciousness of living beings. At first, consciousness, beginning simply as a sensory awareness of environmental conditions, allowed for a better ability to analyze the environment, identify food and danger, and adapt to conditions as they changed. Eventually, complexity led this awareness to recognize the self in specific distinction to the environment. At this point the act of perceiving and reacting was still intimately tied in to the survival drive as the organism endeavored to satisfy its needs for food, shelter, safety, and familial protection. As this sense of self strengthened, the urge transformed from the desire to physically assert oneself in the environment to the compulsion to assert the idea of one's self in the community. At first all these needs were purely physical, but when self-awareness began, in time culminating in the ego, this constant, driving, inescapable urge for assertion became inextricably linked with the very identity of the organism. Before self-awareness set in, self-replicating life forms differed from simple chemistry only in their level of complexity. Organisms acted according to their instincts just as atoms bind together, following basic, albeit much more complex, tendencies. The ego, however, is a new piece in the puzzle, and the phenomenon of thought that arises from this complex awareness machinery is a new element in the universe. The problem in the behavior of modern man is that the ego still rules the roost, and it acts according to outdated rules of engagement from a time when the prevailing theme was "kill or be killed." We are beyond that now, although we don't seem to know it yet. Almost every single thing we do comes from the ancient need to assert the self, to feel stronger, better, smarter, more handsome, more able, more powerful in every way. This is chest pounding at its most primitive, and we must break free from it.           The Buddhist idea of seeing through the ego comes the closest to what we, as a species, must absolutely accomplish if we are to survive and progress as a universal entity. It is the ultimate goal of our eternal struggle between instinct and intellect. Consider instinct as the collection of survival behavior that has allowed us to reach this point in our evolutionary development. Once intellect arose in the form of a continually fine-tuned awareness, the outdated purpose of instinctual behavior acted contrary to the best interest of the development of consciousness. That is not to say that we are completely free of the need for such instinctual, survival-oriented behavior, but we are on the way toward a freedom of sorts. There is an overlap, of course, during the early development of consciousness and conditions in which we must still struggle for survival. Curiously, however, the greatest threat by far to humankind as a species, and on an individual basis, comes from our own aggression. And this aggression, of course, stems from the instinctual behavior left over from the jungle, culminating within us as the strongly entrenched ego, ever striving to assert its position in the scheme of things. So yes, in many ways we do still need the guidance and protection that the ego and its instincts dispense, but it is protection from the egos and instincts of others. We have progressed mentally (in terms of physiology, if not sagacity), to the point where we have the potential to use our minds, our reason, to override the instinctual aggression we feel, to discard the need to continuously assert our self to the detriment of others. This is the struggle of instinct vs. intellect.           Lao-Tzu professed that the most important human qualities for living in harmony with the Tao, his "three little treasures," as he called them, were compassion, humility and moderation. To this list I would add a fourth, which, although Lao-Tzu did not include it specifically in his list of "treasures," certainly flows naturally from the general philosophy of Taoism-- levity. These four qualities, possession of which allows one to live in accord with the Tao, are also the extreme opposites of qualities we find in the overdeveloped ego. If one is not compassionate then he is unfeeling, valuing his own condition above that of his fellows. If one is not humble he is arrogant, believing he is the most correct and talented of all his associates. If one is not moderate he is greedy, his actions governed by desire and hunger. If one does not possess levity of character he is heavy and ponderous of spirit, giving too much importance to the matters of his life. All in all, a person who practices the "four treasures" ensures that he will act from the heart rather than from the ego. The ego, which is the ultimate warrior for the self, in the end will succeed only in creating strife and suffering. In contrast, if we behave from the heart we will create a society in which we are free from the obsolete aggression of our bloodthirsty physical evolution and move on to greener pastures. Only in this way will we succeed at progressing to the next stage of universal evolution, the next ring in the Universal Mandala.           And so, to return to the idea of fluidity in your life and the mandala of your mind, we now can see how the ego is the greatest impediment to our happiness. It is the ego that becomes offended when someone disagrees with us. It is the ego that gets furious when another car cuts us off in traffic. It is the ego that sinks into depression when a stated goal fails to materialize. These reactions, and countless others, are nothing more than the rantings of an impetuous, self-obsessed ego that does not get its way. In reality, most of the things that upset us do so because they differ from an imagined standard that we make up to help define us. But we need not create false standards to define us, indeed we need no external definition at all. To knock the ego from its pedestal we need only realize that all of these rules and standards that we've set up are fallacies, and destructive ones as well. It is these false standards created by the ego that stiffen our mandala, our attitude, and make us rigid to the world. And it is this rigidity that makes each contact with the world a sharp and painful barb.           So be more like the water, less like the rock. Flow around obstacles and they will not impede you. Be soft to offenses and they will not harm you. Be content and confident in your heart, be fluid in the mandala of your life. This is the way to happiness and peace. Please share your thoughts on this essay here Continue to next essay Return to mandalaZone archives menu (Material copyright 2003, all rights reserved. No portion of this text may be used or reproduced without the express written consent of the author.)

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