There I go as.....
There I go as...is a valuable and potent practice to learn empathy and oneness. I'm glad I waited until today to try to compose this writing, as it means more to me in the wake of our acting president's decision to lift bans on trophy hunting for big game. That means large, living, warm blooded sentient creatures that some other creatures find it enjoyable to kill. It is beyond my capabilities to understand this behavior, at least in this life expression, and I don't want to. I'm very very sorry for any lifetime in which I committed such callous, murderous actions. I was hoping that the whole "Me big hunter, arrr arrr, watch me take life" nonsense was falling away, but apparently not.
There I go as...goes this way. Start small. Get quiet and look at something or someone in an observing quiet way. Place yourself in a position that you are looking out the eyes or the soul of that thing or creature and say, "there I go as...a truck driver. I am possibly angry, grieving, completely thoughtless, a Buddha driving a truck, thinking of sex, thinking of food, etc." Really get that you are that person for a few moments. You cannot help but feel united with that being, even for just a moment. There I go as, a waitress, a cop, a dog, a tree, a fly, a cloud, a doorknob. You find that you start to feel the essence of what you move into for a moment, you are starting to behold....soul.
Always do a protection prayer or practice before doing this. If you've got the guns, you can move a bit further into this practice by reaching harsher realities. There I go as...a hog facing the slaughterer, the boy about to be violated by his own father, the political rebel tortured for her beliefs, the mother elephant stalked and shot dead by a gleeful grinning hunter. Or the other way, there I go as...a master just achieving enlightenment, a mother gazing at her much wanted newborn, someone who has just won the lottery for real, an animal adopted into it's forever home, a man given a clean bill of health, triumphing over some disease challenge. The possibilities are endless.
The point here is that if you get the multiple lives thing, we have all been the bug, we've all been the windshield. That perspective opens our hearts and takes away judgement. It can bring tears and real heartache, or joy and sweetness. What it does it help us to know, that we really really...are one.
