Pema Chödrön, Don’t Bite the Hook Part 5 of 6: Water Logic
November 12, 2009 by dr. lam
We are oftentimes very inflexible in our worldview, and we become increasingly entrenched in our beliefs. We view the world as black or white, this or that, which Chödrön refers to as “rock logic”. We are like rocks: immutable, inflexible, and intolerant. We do not see any way around something because we only see our way, which of course is the right way.
Like the Tao Te Ching’s exhortation to be like water, Chödrön refers to a gentler type of logic she calls “water logic”. If we hold this image in our mind, we can become less stern in our aspect and less believing in the absoluteness of who and what we are to allow for complexity of opinions, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and really people in our lives. We can be like water in how we see things. Another image that we have discussed from Dyer’s review of the Tao is that we can be like bending reeds that do not break with a gentle breeze or forceful gale.
A refinement to this concept is tolerance. A fundamentalist worldview can make us stand apart from everyone around us so that we become overly dogmatic and thereby create walls to others. I am not talking about religion or politics per se but any rigid framework that does not allow open dialogue but forces non-acceptance and raises barriers. When we are like water, we can accept friends without labels like “black”, “poor”, “uneducated”, “lazy”, “Muslim”, “Democrat”, or whatever word that does not fit into your narrow worldview. Again, be like water.
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The reason why we tend to be inflexible in our worldview is because we truly believe it is the best way and that’s why we believe it. We especially tend to be inflexible when we think our worldview overrides another and that we think we “understand” the thinking of another belief. Reality may be that we have a warped view or straw man view of another belief and that we are placing an unnecessary wall between what we think and what that really is, hindering us from being open-minded enough to view another viewpoint. When we allow ourselves to see another viewpoint in an unbiased way, who knows, maybe it is a better than what we originally thought of it, and if it is not, then we still come out ahead. I think this allows for a well-rounded perspective. I think it is fine to have our viewpoints and to believe in our worldviews but to make sure we have a respectful attitude towards other’s viewpoints, even when we do not agree with them. I think the focus should be on attitude towards another as being like water than on being like water in one’s beliefs. If our attitude is right, then we will be more open to giving whatever it is a clean slate perspective free from bias, than if we just focus on accepting any belief out there. I hope that makes sense. My concern about focusing on making all our beliefs like water is not just that we won’t have any opinions on anything, but there is a flip side of the coin. I have a friend that is so “open-minded” that he fails to see that his “open-minded” viewpoint has created a huge bias itself from any other perspective other than what is his viewpoint, leaving him far from being open-minded. Just funny that sometimes when we think we are right and have the answers, we miss the big picture by unknowingly putting up unnecessary barriers, and having a water-like perspective can help us be more well-rounded. Wonderful blog, Dr. Lam!!!! Great point about accepting friends without labels!! It’s sad that some even view others as such.
Love your blogs!
nice point of distinction. we can have our viewpoints that are firmly grounded so long as they do not become obstinate points of contention that separate us as humans.
Wow, Dr. Lam, you summed my huge comment into one nice, concise sentence!
namaste.