In Our Nature

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MINIATURE BOUQUET

Once, while visiting San Francisco, a friend who was also there visiting, picked me up to go out to dinner. He was very excited and handed me a self-help book. He’d bought a copy for himself and a copy for me as a gift. This was not a person who was usually given to such enthusiasm, at all, especially about self-help books which he typically held in disdain. But, there was apparently something about the title of this particular book that attracted him and he had read enough of it standing in the bookstore, oblivious to the customers swarming around him, to realize that this book carried a message he (and I) needed to hear.

The book was The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by the San Francisco psychologist, Elaine N. Aron. It’s no longer in print (although she now has other titles out). I suggest you look in your local library for The Highly Sensitive Person since used hardcover copies start at $50 and used paperbacks start at $30. The message of the book is simple: if you are shy, overly sensitive to your environment, easily overwhelmed by too much stimuli, need to repair to quietness to center yourself, there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s simply your nature.

That’s a very affirming message and my friend was right, it was one both he and I needed to take to heart. While it’s true that, as humans, we are more alike than different, we are, nonetheless, different. It’s too easy to compare ourselves to others and expect from ourselves what we see others able to do. That’s hardly fair is it? “Compare and despair,” as the old saying goes.

I was reminded of all this when, recently, I stumbled upon a article in the Bhutan Daily News. (No, I don’t read the Bhutan Daily News as a matter of habit; I’d just wandered around the web one morning and found myself reading this article.) In the article, the author, a Buddhist teacher, tells the following illustrative story:

“Once a very shy young man approached a Zen master who was famous throughout Japan for being fearless. He wanted to know whether practicing Buddhism could help him become strong and powerful like the master. In reply, the old monk shouted, “No, Zen is useless”.

“At the time, the young man thought the master was just saying this to prevent him from becoming attached to worldly goals. In his heart, however, he felt sure that if he trained with him he would in fact become strong and less shy.

“The young man became a monk and practiced diligently with his teacher until he died some twenty years later. At that time, he reflected on the conversation held many years before and concluded that he had not actually become stronger and more outgoing. However, there had been a major shift in the way he viewed himself. Before, he was ashamed of his shy nature and the way he stuttered when speaking in front of many people. He was still introvert and stuttered, but now he was not ashamed of his nature. Basically, he had stopped comparing himself with others.

“He described the situation in this way: His teacher was like a huge sunflower. That was his character. He was born like that. On the contrary, he was more akin to a small violet. Obviously a violet cannot become a sunflower – nor in fact does it need to. It is perfect in its own way. Only our conditioning create prejudices such as big is better than small or that one thing is ugly and another beautiful. From their side, there is no such differentiation.”

I can think of other examples from other philosophies and other religions that carry this same message; it’s not necessarily Buddhist. Truth is truth, wherever it is found. And, this is a truth it’s too easy to forget. Compare the flowers pictured in this post, none are “most beautiful.” No flower is too small, too big. Each is perfect in its own way. Each flower’s beauty is unique. Each has its own nature.