Yesterday there was a media kerfuffle about the the Kansas City Chiefs/Miami Dolphins pro US football game. Fans on both sides were upset that in order to view it live, they had to subscribe to a streaming service that they probably wouldn’t have otherwise. It was only $5.95 a month, but still… the idea that they had to pay extra for what’s traditionally shown on network TV rankled quite a few people.
That got me thinking about the Chiefs, last year’s Super Bowl champions (and newly followed by millions of Taylor Swift fans), which led me to an old saying that’s been borrowed from sports and taken everywhere from to the front lines of health care to the corporate boardroom: There is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM’. Everyone on the team depends on one another, and the group has to work together to integrate the talents of each individual into team success. This requires something of each team member that can be difficult and humbling to do, especially for high-achieving people: the setting aside of ego; the realization that “I” am not as important as “we”. When well-facilitated and executed, this results in everything from sports championships to saving the life of a severely injured trauma patient. It’s a beautiful thing to behold. Some might say it’s almost a spiritual experience.
We are all part of a vast interdependent web of life. To touch one thing is to touch everything. When we see this, we can’t help but be more compassionate and understanding.
Pema Chödrön
We arrive as brand-new humans in this world unaware of our relationship to it. We find ourselves in a global society that is based on distinction: ”you” and “I”, “yours” and “mine”, “they” and “we”. We’re given a name so people will know what to call us and so we can be distinguished from others. We learn about the city and nation we live in. We may be taught a particular set of religious or cultural beliefs. A large part of our identity develops based on our comparison to others, and we internalize that into a set of beliefs about ourselves that becomes our ego. Our perception of ourselves is initially based on others’ perception of us, over time becomes part of what we believe about ourselves, and in turn becomes the measure by which we judge ourselves. We celebrate our successes and we feel our failures, all based on external feedback that becomes internal dialogue. This is “I”. ”I” am a successful artist. ”I” am (or was) bullied at school. ”I” got a promotion. ”I” have a substance addiction. ”I” have a great family.
When we align ourselves with similar “I”s, it becomes “we”. ”We” are a congregation. ”We” love the Miami Dolphins. ”We” have certain political beliefs. This is a powerful reinforcer of “I”.
And, where there is a “we”, there is a “they”. ”They” are Kansas City Chiefs fans. ”They” are Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, Greens. ”They” have a different skin color. ”They” worship differently. We might even begin to think that “they” want to supplant our “we”. If that happens, who are “we”, and more scary, who am “I”? One only needs to glance at the news to understand that that fear can be a powerful generator of unskillful action, both individual and collective.
What if there was another way?
In the vastness of interbeing, your happiness is linked with my happiness, and my suffering is linked with your suffering. This understanding can lead to deep compassion and empathy.
Ajahn Brahm
One of the most difficult things for many Reiki practitioners to learn is that the energy works best when we simply get out of the way, so to speak, and let it go where it needs to. That “I” is deeply ingrained in us, and it can be hard to let it go of. After all, “I” received the attunement and those are “my” hands on the client. But, we need to set that aside and realize that it’s not us doing the work, it’s the energy. It was while meditating on this during a client session that a powerful realization struck. I was considering a line from anthropologist Alberto Villoldo in which he quotes an Andean shaman: ”I didn’t pray for rain. I prayed rain.” The shaman knew that she and the weather were one. At that moment I realized that the Reiki energy was not separate from me. I WAS the energy, and it was me, and it was my client, and it was all beings. In that sense, there was no real ”I”. There was the temporary, corporeal “I” that is manifest in this time and space, and there was the eternal “I” that is not separate from other beings.
The Buddha called this concept “non-self”. It’s sometimes mistakenly interpreted as the belief that “I” don’t truly exist, but it’s more subtle than that. Of course there is this body, in this space and this time (such as we think of space and time on Earth). And, there is so much more. The late British philosopher Alan Watts wrote, “As the ocean ‘waves’, the Universe ‘peoples’.” The underlying meaning to this is profound. If waves had viewpoints like humans, they might look at one another and see a different wave, not realizing that underneath, they are ocean. What if “we” realized that beyond our humanness, beyond our learned self-concepts and group perceptions, all beings are connected, just like the ocean connects the waves? Would it change the way “we” see “them”? Would it allow us to put aside all of our conditioning and see an”other” as connected to us in a way that transcends this world?
I believe that humans are capable of this, but it requires the courage to realize that the perceptions we’ve built for ourselves and our “we” are false constructs based on disconnection. And, just like a successful sports or health care team, this is a group burden that has to be shouldered by individuals. We can all relate to one another at that level if we have the fortitude. Tomorrow, perhaps you can connect with an”other” who isn’t a “we”. See past another’s “I”, which may manifest outwardly as something disagreeable or unskillful, into compassion for what might be behind that “I”. Start a chain of loving kindness that will spread to other “I”s. Imagine what would happen if we did this on a global scale.
May we all live to see the time when “we” becomes “all of us”.
Hillsborough Healing Hands, LLC 