The world as mirror. It is one of those pointers that are simple, practical, and endlessly rich. It helps us with current discomfort and stress. It invites in growth for who we are. And it – eventually – invites reality to notice itself.
The mirror has at least three facets.
I can find in my own life what I see in the wider world – in others, stories, landscapes, mythology, dreams. What do I see out there? How do I find the same in my own life? How does it play itself out here?
I can recognize my own overlay of images interpreting and making sense of whatever is happening. My stories and interpretations are my own. It is me.
And I can recognize all happening within and as what is, what I am and everything is. Empty. Awake. No thing appearing as something.
The recognition has three facets as well.
I see in myself what I see out there. I understand it. I can find specific examples.
I can allow it to sink in. I can allow myself to feel it.
And from that comes a natural appreciation. An appreciation for those serving as a mirror. An appreciation for the mirroring itself. And an appreciation for what I find here. It is a coming home, finding it here. It is part of the richness of who and what I already am. It is something we all share. It is one of the many and rich ways we are in the same boat.
There are several methods for working with the mirror.
I can use The Work. I can explore my own world of images through the sense fields. I can visualize the other (a person, dream figure, landscape) sitting opposite me, allow it to come alive in my experience, and then visualize myself as the other – in detail – and feel myself as the other. Or I can use one of the many other techniques out there.
And there are several other aspects of this as well.
In the beginning, this process may happen in (apparently) isolated areas of life. Small islands where I recognize the mirror. This may then gradually shift into a sense of the whole world as a field and a mirror, and an immediacy of the recognition, often without the aid of any particular tools or techniques.
Anything I see out there in the wider world is a mirror. It doesn’t matter what it is – a person, a situation, a building, a city, a landscape, a movie, a story in a book, a painting, music, a theater play, stories from religion, mythology, dreams. The whole world is a mirror.
And of what I see out there, and then find here, are things I – at least initially – are drawn to or repulsed by. Attractions and aversions both, and also what appears neutral. When I find it here, see it with specific examples, feel it, allow my sense of myself to reorganize to include it, there is a shift. Whether the attraction or aversion stay or not, there is also a genuine and sincere appreciation for it. There is appreciation because I see and feel the value in it, its function, how it helps me and humanity in general, and also how it shared and part of the richness of how we all are in the same boat.
My sense of myself becomes richer. In time, my sense of myself becomes as rich as the whole world, simply because the whole is a mirror for what is already here. Whatever I see out there, and whatever description comes up – about myself or others or something else – I can find how that description has validity and fits. And there is a genuine appreciation for it.
When I find it here and get a sense of myself with this included, there is no need anymore to defend a self-image that excludes it. I am stupid. Yes, I can find that. I can find specific examples. And I can even find appreciation for it. We are all in the same boat here. We all do or say stupid things, at times. And by finding it in myself, I can relax. I don’t have to live up to an image of “not stupid” anymore.
There is a natural empathy that comes with this process. I recognize in myself what I see in others. We are in the same boat. And since this goes for all beings, all beings are eventually included. The circle of “us” widens and eventually includes all beings.
The boundary between me and the wider world goes from appearing solid and real, to naturally appearing more porous, transparent and ephemeral. It is recognized as mind-made only, a part of my own world of images. Useful, but not real or substantial, or inherently “out there” in the world. This can give a sense of no separation, or of oneness. The inner and outer world is one seamless field. Eventually, it can lead to a recognition of “I” – the doer or observer – as an image as well. As content of experience. Identification with this “I” may soften, and eventually release. Allowing all to happen, including any images or sense of an I, as part of the field, part of content of experience. As it already does, but now recognized.