The Freedom of Shifting Perspectives

Let me use this analogy: suppose from the moment you were born there were a hundred cameras pointed at you every moment. During the entire thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years of your life these hundred cameras were always focused on you. Now, if you choose to look through only one camera lens, and say this is who I am, this is me, this is my self, this is my life, this is my story, it’s obvious that it would be only one of a hundred perspectives. If those hundred cameras were all focused from different angles, there would be at least a hundred perspectives. If there were an infinite number of cameras, there would be an infinite number of perspectives on this story, and this life and this self. In reality, there are an infinite number of perspectives, but we act as if there were only one. We see our self and the story of our life from just this one perspective. It’s delusion, it’s crazy. How could that be the only perspective? But we hold on to it, and we’re willing to go to war for it. We go to war in our relationships, we go to war as nations, whatever our perspective is becomes the only right perspective. We’d rather die and be right than be happy and be wrong. It’s just insanity. If we were able to look through each of these hundred lenses, we’d have a hundred different views of who we are, and we would see that no view is the right view. In other words, there is no right view. All views are limited and restricted. There is no particular view that is going to be the correct one. So we end up with what the Buddha taught in his first teaching, which is called the Eightfold Path, when he said, ‘have Right View.’ Right View is having no particular, fixed view, which means seeing that all views are limited, that no particular view is the only view. They’re all restricted, they’re all limited, they’re all fragmented. Actually the right view is no view. That is why from the beginning it’s really important that you learn to shift perspectives. That alone is going to help tremendously in your life. Just imagine the next time you get into an argument with your partner or spouse, and you are able to let go of your view and open up to the possibility that there might just be another perspective on the situation — her view, or his view. The moment you do that, it sets you free. You can empathize with another person’s perspective, which is absolutely the opposite of what we usually do. Usually we get stuck in our perspective, and we suffer the consequences of being fixated on our own view. Zen Master Genpo Roshi is one of a small group of Westerners recognized as lineage holders in both the Soto and Rinzai Zen traditions. He is the founder of Kanzeon (Love and Compassion) Sangha, an international organization headquartered in Salt Lake City and the creator of the Big Mind process. His fifth book Big Mind, Big Heart: Finding Your Way uses the Voice awareness approach used in this article to help people transcend limiting self concepts. Visit his website at: www.bigmind.org