After we purchased the land for our monastery in 1983 we were broke. We were in debt. There were no buildings on the land, not even a shed. Those first few weeks we slept on old doors we had bought cheaply from the salvage yard; we raised them on the bricks at each corner to lift them off the ground. (There were no mattress of course-we were forest monks.)
The abbot had the best door, the flat one. My door was ribbed with a sizeable hole in teh centre where the door handle would have been. I was glad the doorknob had been removed, but that left a hole in the very centre of my door-bed. I joked that now I wouldn't need to get out of bed to go to the toilet. The cold truth was, however, that the wind would come up through the hole. I didn't sleep much those nights.
We were poor monks who needed buildings. We're couldn't afford to employ a builder- the materials were expensive enough. So I had to learn how to build: how to prepare the foundations, lay concrete and bricks, erect the roof, put in the plumbing- a whole lot. I had been theoretical physicist and a high school teacher in my lay life, not used to working with my hands. After a few years, I became quite skilled at building,even calling my crew the BBC(Buddhist Building Company). But when I started it was very difficult.
It may look easy to lay a brick; just a dollop of mortar underneath, a little tap here, a little tap there. When I began laying bricks, I'd tap one corner down to make it level and another corner would go up. So I'd tap that corner down then the brick would move out of line. After I'd nudged it back into line, the first corner would be too high again. You try it!
Being a monk, I had patience and as much time as I needed. I made sure every single brick was perfect, no matter how long it took. Eventually I completed my first brick wall and stood back to admire ir. It was only then that I noticed-oh no!- I'd missed two bricks. All the other bricks were nicely in line, but these 2 were inclined at an angle. They looked terrible. They spoiled the whole wall. They ruin it.
By then teh cement mortar was too hard for the bricks to be taken out, so I asked the abbot if I could knock the wall down and start al over again- or even better, blow it up. I'd made a mess of it and I was very embarrassed. The abbot said no, the wall had to stay.
When I showed our first visitors around our fledgling monastery, I always tried to avoid taking them past my brick wall. I hated anyone seeing it. Then one day, some three or four months after I finished it, I was walking with a visitor and he saw the wall.
"That's a nice wall," he casually remarked.
"Sir," I replied in surprised."have u left ur glasses in ur car? Are u visually impaired? Can't u see those 2 bad bricks which spoil the whole wall?"
What he said next changed my whole view of that wall, of myself, and of many other aspect of life. He said "Yes. I can see those 2 bad bricks. But I can also see the 988 good bricks as well."
I was stunned. For the first time in over 3 months, I could see other bricks in that wall apart from the 2 mistakes. Above, below, to the left and to the right of the bad bricks were good bricks, perfect bricks. Moreover, the perfect bricks were many, many more than the 2 bad bricks. Before, my eyes would focus exclusively on my 2 mistakes; I was blind to everything else. That was why I couldn't bear looking at the wall, or having others see it. that was why I wanted to destroy it. Now that I could see the good bricks, the wall didn't look so bad after all. It was, as the visitor had said "a nice brick wall". It's still there now, twenty years later, but I've forgotten exactly where those bad bricks are. I literally cannot see those mistakes anymore.
How many people end a relationship or get divorced because all they can see in their partner are "2 bad bricks"? How many of us become depressed or even contemplate suicide, because all we can see in ourselves are "2 bad bricks". In truth, there are many many more good bricks, perfect bricks- above, below, to the left and to the right of the faults- but at times we just can't see them. Instead, every time we look, our eyes focus exclusively at the mistakes. The mistakes we all see, and they're all we think are there, so we want to destroy them. And sometimes, sadly, we do destroy a "very nice wall"
We all got our 2 bad bricks, but the perfect bricks in each one of us are much much more than the mistakes. Once we see this, things aren't so bad. Not only can we live at peace with ourselves, inclusive of our faults, but we can also enjoy living with a partner. This is bad news for divorce lawyers, but good news for u.
I have told this anecdote many times. After one ocasion, a builder came up to me and told me a professional secret. "We builders always make mistakes," he said, "But we tell our clients that it is "an original feature" with no other house in the neighbourhood like it. And we charge them a couple of thousand dollars extra!"
So the "unique feature" in the house probably started out as mistakes. In the same way, what u might take out to be mistakes in urself, in ur partner, or in life in general, can become "unique features", enriching ur time here, once u stop focusing on them exclusively.
posted by Whiteaura II @ 12:06 AM
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