Be The Change
–By GN–
New Year is a chance to look within ourselves and reflect upon the past year. We reflect on our happiness and joy in 2020, as well as our challenges and difficulties so that we can make our New Year’s resolution. I love Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” We can look deeply at this moment to see what we would like to change for ourselves in the New Year 2021.
There’s the Chinese proverb, “If the house is peaceful, then the family will be peaceful, and the world will be peaceful.” We know that the peaceful energy we create will radiate outward and affect many people around us; whatever we say or do will affect our environment and society.
In 1972, the MIT meteorologist Edward Norten Lorenze wrote an article regarding the Butterly Effect. He indicated that “a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Texas.” He believed that a flap of a butterfly in one place could create a tornado in another place, that “a very small changed in the initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.” (“When Lorenz discovered the Butterfly Effect”, 2015). In application, it means that whatever we do or say can carry its effect elsewhere. If a person sits nearby a riverbank and throws a flat pebble across the water surface, he or she will witness some ripples created on the water. In quantum physics, there’s the term “quantum entanglement,” where a pair of particles remain connected so that actions performed by one affect the other. Even if two particles were placed on different islands, scientists could still measure their effect on each other.
In Buddhist, there is the term karma. Karma is a totality of one’s actions in this life and past lives. These are the actions of the body, speech, and mind. Thus, whatever we think, say or do, affects the other person. Do you ever face a situation where you have met someone, and even if they haven’t said anything, you can feel the positive or negative energy they radiated? That means that whatever thoughts a person is emanating, it affects your beings.
To understand this, let us explore more about how our mind works. In Buddhist psychology, there are eight types of consciousnesses: store consciousness, manas, and six sense-consciousnesses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind-consciousness). Consider our store consciousness is like storage or basement where we store things, and our mind consciousness is like our living room. And in our store consciousness, we kept many “innated mental” seeds. According to the Buddha, we have at least 51 different kinds of these seeds. The seed usually doesn’t manifest until it’s been touched by someone or something through our six senses. For example, when we hear someone say something negative to us, we become angry or irritated. That means the seed of anger or irritation has been touched and risen up in our mind consciousness. When we are mindful, we can recognize what kind of seeds have been watered and manifested in our minds.
In order to start the process of change, we need to begin with ourselves. First of all, we need to come home to ourselves. By returning to our essential being, we can touch on what is happening at this moment. We stop whatever we are doing or saying and recognize what is happening within us and around us. And we embrace those feelings or mental states with acceptance and love.
The second practice is to stay in the moment, in the now. Doing so with helping us be more stable and freer. There are people who sunk into depression partly because they dwell too much in the past. Whatever trauma or problem they encountered in the past, they could not get out; they get caught in its bubble and become depressed. When we can free ourselves of the past, we can transform and create a new present. Many wise teachers would agree that to take good care of the future is to create a good present moment because everything that we are, that we were are all in the present moment. Even if we have a very negative past, we can now change it in the present moment. That way, we can also change the future.
The Buddha taught his disciples the method of “dwelling happily in the present moment.” When we are able to be in the moment, we can take care of things more productively.
At the same time, it will help us to appreciate what we already have right now, as our good health, our eyes still can see, etc. It’s very common for our minds to wander and to desire something else. It’s the habit of our ancestors from many generations, from the “cavemen” time (the Stone Age), where people have to wander from place to place in search of food and lodging…until people discovered how to raise animals and start farming, then humans began to settle down. So, this seed of restlessness is continued in all of us. We can grow restless and unsatisfied after doing the same thing or staying in one place a while. To stay in the moment and be satisfied with what we can change this old habit.
The third practice we can do is to connect to our source or our true nature. It’s the “inter-being” nature or interconnectedness nature. Interbeing means that we are in each other; we relate to each other; we are connected. We can see our connection to each other and our connection to the cosmos and all beings. Scientists have proved that we are composed of all the elements that made up the star: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. They believe at one point that we might come from the star. This is true because we are eating plants and animals that are growing from the earth.
And the earth is made up of fragments of dead stars. Thus, when we eat that, we have a part of the star within us. When we see that connection, we no longer feel disconnected from others anymore.
The human body is composed of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. And we know that these elements inside of us are also connected to the elements outside of us. For instance, when we breathe out the carbon dioxide, the tree breathes in that and exchange oxygen for us to breathe in. Without the trees, without the atmosphere, we cannot breathe and cannot survive.
Luckily, we still have the trees and the atmosphere to create oxygen for us to breathe continuously. When water resources are depleted, many lives are affected. In some countries where water is contaminated, it’s challenging for people to survive because the water is not clean and usable. And without clean water, people cannot produce plants, cannot produce food to eat. So, we know that to protect the environment is also to protect ourselves. This is the insight of inter-being.
The fourth practice is to see the impermanence nature of all things. That things are subject to change, and nothing remain the same forever. Things change according to causes and conditions. For instance, if we want tomatoes, then we have to plant a seed of tomato. We have to give it enough fertilizer, water, and sun.
We have to continue to water the seed until the tomato plant starts to grow. And with sufficient conditions (water, air, fertilizer, sunshine), the tomato plant will begin to bear fruits and turn from green to yellow or red tomatoes. But eventually, when the conditions no longer sufficient, the tomato plant will wither and die. Similarly, a person’s physical and mental states are also continually changing.
Everyone must go through birth, sickness, old age, and death. No one can escape sickness, old age, and death. To be able to see and accept the impermanence in life is to be able to change our attitude towards life and start living a better life.
In conclusion, when we are able to change ourselves, we are also affecting changes in the world. We use the energy of awareness to return home to take care of our bodies and mind. We stay in the moment and appreciate the good things that we already had in our lives.
By touching the true nature within ourselves, we can connect to the people and everything around us; therefore, we will be able to heal and transform ourselves. When our thoughts are full of understanding and compassion, our speech and actions can also guide us towards bringing positive changes to society and the world. When we can touch the impermanent nature of all things, we no longer be fearful and can easily accept the changes in us and around us. We can open our hearts to cultivate more understanding and compassion so that we can offer to our loved ones and help to change the world we live in.
Reference:
1. “When Lorenz discovered the Butterfly Effect,” May 2015, Open Mind. Available at https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/when-lorenz-discovered-the-butterfly-effect/.
