Day 121

Can you see the beauty? What if that was a guiding question in my life? What if I asked myself this question when I am in an argument with my partner? What if this was the question I pondered when I am absorbed in self flagellation? What if I replaced by criticism of others with this question? I have spent a lot of time and energy focused on the ugliness in the world: crime, poverty, conflict. What if I focused on the beauty instead?

I used to work with juvenile offenders, kids locked up in detention facilities and group homes. I was asked to give a speech about my work. It was the morning of my presentation and I still had not prepared any notes. I was standing at my backdoor looking out at the field that bordered my backyard. I would often stand there and curse the person who owned and refused to care for this plot of land. I resented the weeds that threatened to encroach on my property. On this day, however, I saw something different. There were huge sunflowers standing at attention just adjacent to my lawn. How had I missed them before? It was as if they had appeared overnight. I was in awe. My presentation that evening compared the kids I worked with to the weeds that grew in that field, because that's the way most people saw them, as a nuisance, ugly, invasive and dangerous. But if you look closer, you see can see something beautiful in each of them.

Even the most difficult situations hold seeds of beauty. I remember watching the news about the famine in Ethiopia in 1984. It was devastating to see malnourished children dying in their mothers' arms. My own son was a baby at the time and I could feel the pain of those mothers. After days of watching the news, with image after image of those forlorn eyes and swollen bellies, I broke down, sobbing, not only over their misery, but also over my own inability to act. Then I started noticing the response. People from all over the world donated money and supplies. Remember We Are the World? The human response to suffering is a beautiful thing.

The Buddhist say that life is suffering. I don't know why we suffer. I do know that awareness and compassion can transform suffering. It is in the midst of suffering that we most need to ask ourselves: Can you see the beauty?