Like many other detective series, video cameras play a crucial role. Cops request past footage from parking garages, ATM's, toll booths--and what was thought to be hidden gets seen, becomes evidence. What was vehemently denied gets grudgingly acknowledged.
Practicing awareness is like detectives asking for video footage--except not in the past but in the present. Many things that were 'hidden' get 'seen.' Mysteries get solved. Really big ones. In some way the Biggest of them all.
- Like the Buddha's: "Why do we suffer?"
- Like Paul's: "The very things I most want to do I don't seem able to do--it's the stuff I don't want to do that I wind up doing. What's going on?"
Many theories describe the human dilemma. Which ones ring truest for us? Ah, why don't we review the footage so we can get a more accurate take on the Problem?
This is the first thing mindfulness does--invites us to see for ourselves how our 'selves' work. We become witnesses of our own lives (so much less intrusive than having witnesses called to testify for or against us later).
Recent psychological research tells us that in most arguments, the side we take usually has nothing to do with logic--though we try to argue 'logically' in order to win. The side we take is almost always instinctive, knee-jerk, dumb (see Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis).
Don't believe this? Simple--see for yourself (actually, see in yourself). Witness (deeply) the seed, the unfolding, the process of an argument you're in.
Not long ago I would have argued about what drives what we argue about. Not anymore. And this applies to everything. Seeing for ourselves, accurately, is foundational to becoming healthier, wiser, and happier.
Once we witness the stuff that's tripping us up, keeping us from doing what and being who we most value, the way forward has more light on it--and we have more energy for and trust in the process.
