Beth's Ponderings
So...is the glass
half full or half empty? Whichever way
you answered, are you really sure? Do
you want some more time to think about that before answering?
We are taught to
perceive the world, and all that is around us, in a certain way, and by and
large we never ever question those perceptions.
The drawback is that often those perceptions,
and the conclusions we draw from them about our lives, are based solely on an
artificially static state that has no bearing on reality, a reality that is in
constant ebb and flow, and changing from moment to moment. Even we are constantly changing, and the you
that just read these words is not even the same you that read the first line.
In our example, we
claim that the glass is in a certain state and assume that state never changes,
nor can it be changed. Yet, the glass is
never half empty or half full, it is only ever 100% full, perhaps not full of
the exact same substance, but nonetheless, it is always completely full. Even when the glass appears to us to be
completely empty, it is still 100% full of air.
We lock into a
particular way of viewing the glass and its contents, and are hard-pressed to
view it in any other manner, even though there are unlimited ways of looking
at, and describing, the glass and its contents.
And the state the
glass definitely has the ability to change, and is constantly changing. The glass can be filled with liquid, it can
be filled with a solid, it can be filled with a combination of materials and
substances, it can be filled with only air, it can be filled an unlimited
number of times without changing the essence of the glass at all.
But, the one thing
the glass cannot be is emptied. We can
remove the liquid, solids, or the air, but the glass hasn’t been emptied, its
contents have merely been replaced with other contents.
When we experience
a “loss” in our lives, our lives haven’t been “emptied” at all. We’ve merely had the contents of our lives
shifted and replaced with other contents, so that our lives are always filled
to overflowing.
Beth
Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://sites.google.com/site/thechautauqua22/home/April%2021%2C%202017%20Chautauqua.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
