How To Use Zen Like Perspective To Become Unstuck Whilst Finding New Clarity And Solutions

Sometimes we can become stuck in our perspectives and struggle to make any progress in the way we view things on a daily basis. This can include your conversations and attitudes, your circumstances and things that happen and other areas such as your relationships and work life.

Do not focus on anything in particular;

instead, turn back into yourself slightly,

and let your gaze expand and become more and more spacious and expansive.” – Sogyal Rinpoche

A simple little exercise you can do is to use Zen like perspective to give you some depth, new dimensions or just a plan old change. As a tactile example we will take an object to go through the steps involved.

• So let’s take a drinking glass.
• Let’s put it on the table.
• And look at it.
• Fairly simple and straight forward and nothing very enlightening in that is there?

Well first of all we need to take some steps back and begin by removing the labels on all those occurrences above.

• So now rather than a ‘drinking glass’ – describe what is it you are viewing. So some things might be an object, a vessel, a receptacle, see through material, a hard transparent group of molecules and so on.
• We then might view what it is on – so rather than a table, describing its size, shape, compounds and so on.
• Going on to what the contents of the vessel are, or what we think they are.
• Now take in the immediate surroundings and see what they are indicating to you too, the area, temperature, smell, ambience and anything else that comes out.

We might go through those things fairly quickly if we pushed ourselves too but like most things the more time we allow to flow around us then the more likely things will come up that we might not at first have considered. It can get particularly more interesting involving another person or more if you are able to.

 “Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” – Shunryu Suziki

• Now once you feel that you have exhausted that aspect for the moment.
• We need to physically move. So we could move to the left or the right or going completely opposite of where we are currently sitting or standing.
• You can also try just moving a few degrees in one direction or another to understand both the subtle shifts and larger more obvious or noticeable ones.
• We then have to go through the exercise all over again but this time some of the ideas or perspectives are already in the forefront of your mind, so you have to be mindful of them and side step those in order to view this freshly.
• You can even have a five minute break here and then return to do this so to give yourself a bit of mental distance.

Invariably things will look different. There might be huge noticeable differences or slight nuances that take a keener eye to pick out.

When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its red leaves, you will not see all the others. When the eye is not set on one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit. But if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.” – Takuan Soto

Ultimately though the objective is to isolate out and comprehend how quickly we take on so much without any conscious intervention at all. That is perfectly understandable when it comes to our physical selves functioning to preserve our lives and our instincts and interpretations when driving and doing tasks that require our instant action and adjustment moment by moment.

But for those areas in our lives where we feel stuck, or that we are struggling for some fresh input or simply would be helped by viewing it from another perspective. It can be incredibly informative and sometimes lead on to one of those moments where you suddenly get an idea from nowhere (seemingly) or a solution that you were unable to find (see) from your current viewpoint.

Shifting our personal perspectives doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with someone else’s but it does allow for a deeper understanding plus it can allow us to be more empathetic to others and solution orientated. It could also give us a chance to alter what we thought was a truth when it may transpire that we had in fact misunderstood.

We can lose nothing, yet gain everything when we can allow ourselves to let go and be free from our often unyielding, obstinate and stagnated self. By creating simple harmony within and moving unreservedly amidst the Tao we are able to become unstuck, find new alternatives and often breath new life in to old problems and circumstances we previously felt we were unable to change, improve or do anything about.

Eating – simply eat, be with it.

Walking – simply walk, be there.

Don’t go ahead, don’t jump here and there.

Mind always goes ahead or lags behind.

Remain with the moment.” – Osho