Panoramic Vision

             

This panorama is a shot taken from an airplane flying over the Pacific Northwest. Although the plane looks like its about to do a loopty-loop or leave the earth's atmosphere (note earth's curvature), the angle simply reflects my rush to whip out the iPhone and catch the vista before the plane cruises over the flatter, greener Northern Californian landscape down south.

It's easy to sense childlike wonderment with that view high above the earth - if you are actually looking at it instead of the TV screen on the seat back in front of you. But what if you were trekking through those icy cold, snowy mountains with a thin shirt to cover thin skin and shoes with holes in the soles? Suddenly that gorgeous reality 25,000 feet on high would be completely non-existent, replaced by the perceptual experience of a hellish white wasteland of suffering. Even if one were well equipped with mountaineering gear fit for a western-style Himalayan trek, the journey through these mountains and valleys would require endurance, fortitude, nourishment and a spirit of adventurous purpose.

Segwey to our lovely human minds, with all the emotions and thoughts that are in the baggage compartment, the biggest and heaviest piece of luggage being FEAR, a.k.a False Emotions Appearing Real. In that trunk are things we have collected over the years; some very old items including our blankey, some new items that make us seem au courant to the others, and everything else in between.

The thought patterns that inform our "story," that baggage we carry, are what we tell ourselves is actual, based solely on what we decide is true - our choice and no one else's (even when we are human blotters and absorb the psychic toxins around us). If we venture into ego's icy territory unequipped, the karmic result is suffering. 

However, if we cultivate a deep knowing that our thoughts are insubstantial puffs of smoke that dissipate as quickly as they form - swift moving clouds in a strong high wind - then we can let go, relax, and enjoy what one infamous Tibetan lama called "panoramic awareness."

Case in point: about fifteen years ago, one of my most beloved humans was in deep shit in every way possible (except serious bodily injury or a long jail sentence). Being one who would like to fix everything, including things that are none of her business, I felt as if I were going insane with anxiety because nothing I did could fix "it." If any of you have ever been tied down to a mound of fire ants, that was the faux experience rattling around every chakra of my human body.

And then I remembered panoramic awareness. Instead of freezing the scenario with a macro lense snapshot, I zoomed out to the wide angle; nothing ever stays the same, and a hundred years from now we won't even be here. And then the intensity of suffering disappeared in the wind of timeless time and a calm settled in.

So while we use our intellectual prowess to decipher solutions to global warming, or figure out how to unstop a toilet with a good plunger, the other stuff - the junk in the trunk - can be viewed with a levity born of deep knowing.

It's a good experiment: try using your human camera's wide angle lense today and test out the clarity of the vista with your infinite pixel mind. The view might just look amazing.