In the Sufi tale of Looking for the Key, we find the wise sage Mulla Nasrudin searching for his lost key outside his home. A passer-by, curious about Mulla’s searching in the dust, offers to help. As time passes, the crowd grows assisting in the search, as promises grow of riches to be shared once the key is found. After many hours, a young boy asks Mulla, “Are you certain you dropped the key right here?” “No,” replies Mulla, “…I lost the key somewhere inside my house.” The crowd stops and asks, “Why are we looking out here?” “Your insight is clear…,” responds Mulla, “… it is far too dark to look for the key in my house. There is far more light out here!”
As we approach another turning of the year, making resolutions to do more of this or less of that, where are you looking for this change to occur? Far too often, while we honestly seek change, we look where the “light is brightest,” only at the action. But from both neuroscience and Buddhism, we learn that all action is preceded by intention. Athletes use the power of mental imagery to perform a specific movement to improve their abilities. In this mental rehearsal, nearly all the same neurons are fired just as though their body is moving. What if we put this power of intention to work in our daily lives?
As we seek to change, either prompted by New Year’s Eve or later in 2023, consider a new approach: learning how to shine the light into those dark areas where intention dwells. Mindfulness practices invite us to access this innate capacity to witness the unfolding thoughts that drive emotions and behavior. This simple act of observation creates a gap between trigger and reaction. And within this gap, dwells choice: the choice to continue to reinforce the habitual reactions or experiment with a new response. Remembering that neurons that fire together, wire together, we invite true long-term behavior change with each choice made a new. And a true “out with old, and in the new” arises.
Wisdom Tales: Looking for Lost Keys
Tags:
change, mindfulness, sufi
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