There’s nothing like returning home, even if that home is a honking, crowded, monsoon-riddled assault on the senses. On a visit to Mumbai, India, this August, I spent a lot of time stalled in traffic looking out through rain-fogged car windows. I could barely make out shapes and figures through the blurry wetness. This clouded landscape was a reflection of my mind that was filled with layers of emotions, drama, intrigue—literally creating unreal worlds out of nothing but thoughts and images.
During the weeks that I observed the tidal wave of change in the two years since my last visit to my home of origin, I was especially struck by the condition of my mentally ill father, unable to care for himself, and by the lives of those around him who were deeply entangled in his suffering. One of the symptoms of his multi-pronged, complicated disease is repeated handwashing, but he is afraid to use liquid soap lest a tiny drop escape and be thus wasted. I was struck by the absence of liquid soap in their home. It took me back to a memory eight years ago of my then three year old in preschool in Cambridge. The teacher worriedly reported during a conference that my kid refused to throw away any zip-lock bags saying “the earth will weep.”
Suddenly, patterns and habits in my family of origin, in myself, and in my child connected like puzzle pieces on a landscape of generational burdens. Unchecked, these burdens tend to pass on through their own momentum with frightening accuracy. However, it is possible to interrupt these inherited thought patterns, habits, and ways of being in the world. Awareness can stop the conditioning in its tracks. We can see that nothing is inherently independent. A series of complex causes and conditions gave rise to my father’s fear of liquid soap, which in turn gave rise to my distorted scarcity mindset, and then my daughter’s irrational attachment to zip-lock bags. All connected.
Clear seeing is to align with the truth of how things are in the present moment with the absence of greed, hatred, and ignorance. Practically speaking, this means a willingness to be radically honest and to feel whatever we don’t normally like to face—without blaming and shaming.
To choose the response of clear seeing offers the choice to forge a more wholesome path. For me at that moment, it meant working with my daughter to recognize the difference between operating out of a sense of perpetual scarcity and the shame of waste versus stepping into enoughness and the responsible use of resources.
On this trip, by finding many moments to practice clear seeing, I realized, too, that precious family heirlooms are passed down as well as unwanted burdens. These are the heirlooms of strength, resilience and generosity. Thank goodness for these blessings in all our lives.
Meditation teacher Rob Burbea, author of Seeing that Frees, says that suffering comes because we misunderstand the world and ourselves due to our perceptions and that clear seeing is the way to inner freedom. Clear seeing is supported by a commitment to a consistent meditation practice in conjunction with other healing modalities. As our meditation practice gets stronger, Burbea encourages us to begin to see the world through the three characteristics (impermanence, suffering, and not self), and to do it in a pragmatic and deliberate way, as simply observing may not have the power to break through the constrictions of the heart. After establishing mindfulness and a measure of steadiness, we need to repeatedly reflect and see all experience and all phenomena through the lens of the three characteristics.
Through this way of looking, things can then begin to shift and move us towards greater peace, love, and freedom. Back in India, there was a dropping away of frustration and grief and an emergence of understanding and compassion for my father. Conditions couldn’t be any other way, and a choice had been uncovered in how to meet them with grace and equanimity.
May we continue to look into ourselves.
May we see things exactly as they are.
And may such clear, direct seeing free us.
—Larry Rosenberg