The East River creates a good boundary between Brooklyn and Manhattan so they can be good neighbors. The Manhattan Bridge glistens at sunset at the end of a beautiful March day in NYC keeping the two neighboring boroughs connected.
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One of the benefits of practicing yoga and meditation is that we can step back, zoom out, and see the larger picture. Often when we're caught up in the immediacy of any given moment, we can potentially become highjacked by our emotions and not act in our or anyone else's best interest. But by being able to view our situations from the "30,000 foot" level, or maybe even from just the "30 foot" level, we can make wiser decisions on how to act. As the song goes: "God is watching us ... from a distance." Perhaps there is something beneficial to be had in seeing things "from a distance."
In order to benefit from viewing life from a distance, I think it's important that we create good boundaries in our life. Not having good boundaries allows for the possibility of folks walking all over us. And with that can also arise personal feelings of helplessness and failure, both of which can be self-defeating.
Someone named Clare wrote these words:
Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
I like that. In the heat of the moment, when we are attacked, it is easy to see the other person as "the other." But when we can zoom out and see why the person acted the way they did, we may also have the grace to see the seeds of those feelings and reactions could even lie dormant within us too. Then it becomes easier to forgive. I'm not necessarily saying that we need to justify their behavior but rather only that from a distance it might be easier to see why they may have acted that way. But in order to be able to have this perspective, we need to set some good boundaries.
Renowned Buddhist Meditation Teacher, Pema Chödrön, who I consider to be very wise, had this to say about setting boundaries:
Compassion doesn’t imply only trying to be good. When we find ourselves in an aggressive relationship, we need to set clear boundaries. The kindest thing we can do for everyone concerned is to know when to say “enough.” Many people use Buddhist ideals to justify self-debasement. In the name of not shutting our heart, we let people walk all over us. It is said that in order not to break our vow of compassion we have to learn when to stop aggression and draw the line. There are times when the only way to bring down the barriers is to set boundaries.
It seems almost ironic that she's suggesting that in order to bring down the barriers we need to create some. Yet, I see the wisdom of that. If we can have the grace to be able to step back a bit when we are attacked then we may be able to not take the other person's actions quite so personally. But yes, that does take a good amount of grace. And for that to happen, we need to have some good boundaries in place first. And that is where yoga and meditation can be beneficial. Both practices are, in a way, "boundary setting." They can help us to hold the "gray areas" of our life with just a little more capacity and less judgement, see things a bit more "from a distance" and then lead us to taking wiser actions. As the Yogi and accomplished Teacher Sadhguru said:
In maintaining distance from your thought and emotion, you can become available to the grace of the greatest beings.
Personally, I long for having that quality of grace as I know I can easily become high-jacked by my emotional reactions to difficult situations. Perhaps there is something to be said about Mr. Spock's ability to tame his emotions. While it may seem on one hand to be not-so-human to not be emotional, perhaps on the other hand we could be even more human if we could somehow process those emotions in ways that can have beneficial outcomes. Again, as I alluded to earlier, yoga and meditation are practices that can help us by turning those emotions into useful fertilizer to seed good and helpful responses to all situations in our life.
Someone named Jennifer, a.k.a. The Comfort Queens, said:
Good boundaries make it easy to be a good caregiver, friend, and lover.
I agree. If we don't have good boundaries, it does, as Pema said, become easier for people to walk all over us. But the power of good boundaries lies in the perspective we can gain by being able to separate ourselves far enough away from other people's hurtful and unwise actions to be able to see their basic goodness along with our own.
By separating we in a way become less separate. Seeing things “From a Distance” leads us to seeing, as the song says, that "We are instruments ... Marching in a common band."
On a global perspective, with the war raging in Gaza, it would behoove us to see this particular situation from a distance with a wider lens. As Jonathan Capehart said recently on the PBS NewsHour, "zoom out" and see the larger picture. Yes, there is absolute madness going on and both sides share in the blame but the solutions that will lead to lasting peace can only be gained by seeing things from a distance. The only way to a lasting peace in the region may lie in creating good boundaries so that both sides can be good neighbors to and for each other. The power of good boundaries will lie with both sides being able to feel safe and secure within their own boundaries first.
On a personal level, the power of our good boundaries lies in them helping us increase our own self-esteem and sense of worth.
I hope your ongoing yoga and meditation practices can help you create good boundaries so that you are not highjacked by both the forces within you and those immediately outside of you. I hope they can help you create peace and harmony in both your smaller world and the larger one as well.
May you be happy, …
May you be healthy, …
May you be able to see things from a distance, …
May the power of your good boundaries benefit people nearest to you and ultimately spread out to All Beings Everywhere.
Aloha and Metta,
Paul Keoni Chun
