Recently a friend, founder of a successful financial services firm, shared this observation with me:
.
“My perception is that people desperately need depth conveyed in a
simplistic manner that they can grasp and use in their daily living.”
The context is a conversation between us about the journey each person faces in moving out of individual shadows and into his or her gifts. My friend’s exact words, perhaps, don’t strike me quite right. I might say simple way rather than simplistic manner. Maybe the word desperately is too strong. But something here really resonates with me. Maybe it is the times, the complexity, the powers we have now to connect with one another but also all the ways we have to stay disconnected — from each another and from ourselves.
The poets have always known how to reach that shore of simple and profound.
Asagoa-ya!
Tsurube torarete
Morai mizu.
Oh! the morning glory!
The bucket seized away,
I beg for water.
— Chiyo-ni
Chiyo-ni is one of the best known haiku artists of the 18th century. I’ve read many translations of this poem, and although they vary greatly from one another, the sense of it always remains the same. She sees a morning glory blossom tangled in an empty water bucket and is so overcome with its beauty she dares not untwine it; instead she goes elsewhere to get her water.
On my way to meet my friend I travel through heavy traffic. Stopped at a light and frustrated because I am late, I read the license plate holder of the SUV in front of me: “There is beauty in everything but many do not see it.”
Indeed!
I’ve always admired my friend’s ability to communicate. We’ve done some work together in the past. I remember him telling me that his method with clients is to listen to them and then add just one thing they might do to make their circumstances better. I have seen him do this and it is amazing. By comparison I’ve got a hundred suggestions clamoring to prove how smart I am; he has one — of value. What he says he is trying to do is be “peacefully effective.”
There is a story about the legendary founder of the tea ceremony, RikyÅ«, and the powerful Lord Hideyoshi. In the 16th century, when the morning glory was still new to Japan and RikyÅ« had planted his garden full of them, Hideyoshi invited himself to a ceremony. But when the Lord approached RikyÅ«‘s hut, he saw that the entire field had been cut down and gravel spread about. Only when the angry Lord entered did he see the single radiant blossom RikyÅ« had preserved in the sacred alcove. In one flower, the entire experience of the field gained spiritual expression.
Not long ago I conducted a training session. I asked one of the participants on a break how the class was going for him. “This model is so simple,” he said to me. “It helped tremendously.” Ah, that felt so good!
Simple depth. A single flower. A single word or phrase, an idea or image may unlock so much more than can be imagined.
Sometimes I think of moments that happened many years ago, still seeing in my mind the face of the person speaking:
(My first good boss) “If you are a leader and you can’t get feedback, you shouldn’t have the job!”
(A challenging professor at college) “That’s an interesting point you are making about stress. What do you think that point says about you?”
(An elderly man who sat next to me on an airplane) “If you want to know the truth, you have to make your whole life the truth.”
(A high school mentor) “You think too much. Do you believe you can get through life by thinking about it, as if it all could be solved as one big problem for your brain?”
(A lover, parting) “I won’t steal any more of your life.”
(My four year old daughter being carried onto the coach section of the airplane) “Coach is better than First Class, Daddy.” “Why is that?” I ask. “It must be,” she continues in a loud voice. “There are so many more people here!”
These morning glories, each stunning in its way, in its remembrance. How often they come to me and I “grasp and use them” in my daily life!
(As I have no images of morning glories today, these fair tulips must do!)
