~ Opinions, communication, and finding ourselves bigger.
Over the last year or so, I have noticed that many times when we human beings try to communicate, we end up urgently expressing opinions. We assume that we are communicating--but we often get so caught up in the ideas we cherish, that we forget to connect, find a common ground of love, and leave room for disagreement in the realm of ideas and emotions.
An interesting thing about opinions: they themselves are based on often unspoken ideals and assumptions that we hold dear, and may even take as universal. If we disagree in our unspoken assumptions, then our spoken conversation may get muddy.
We are, for example, talking about awakening, and one person assumes the wordawakening means literal wakefulness while another assumes it means a faculty that can be awake even while we sleep. Or we speak of sexuality, and one person thinks sex is inherently violent, another thinks sex should be transcended if possible, another thinks the primal nature of sex is helpful for meditation. One assumes sexual partnership is monogamous, while another assumes it cannot be. What kind of conversation are we going to have?
There is a transformative ground of openness and connection that can happen in communication.
If we want to experience it maybe we need to assume less.
Maybe acknowledge the assumptions we have. When we have patience and friendship we can talk about them with each other.
And remember that real communication can happen when we are in touch with something beyond words and ideas.
Sometimes we actually forget that there is a whole range of human experience not involved in thought and emotion. Oh, yeah. Wait, what else is there?
An intelligence that is not intellectual, but alive and fluid--as Krishnamurti says, "intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony both intellectually and emotionally."
Our tenderness.
Our courage.
And especially, or rather in summary, our openness--our openness to be more than we thought or felt before in our lives.