Relatioinships as a Busy Street

In looking at your life, do you feel as if you're standing in the middle of a busy street and noisy traffic is careening all around you? You're so busy avoiding the chaos, you don't take the time to understand your entrapment.

But if you make your way out of the traffic by stepping up on the curb, you can observe all the movement and see that no matter how busy the street, there are clear areas -- breaks in the traffic. Next, imagine yourself going up to the fourth floor of a tall building and looking down upon the street. It looks different from here. There is direction and flow. And from this perspective it does not have much to do with you. It is just going on.

And if you go on up to the top of this tall building and look down you will see that the traffic is simply patterns. From here you can see other streets that are part of the patterns. Areas of difficulty, where the traffic gets stuck, are just part of the whole -- not good or bad, just part of life.

The more self-actualized you become, the more you can appreciate the flow, and jam-ups, and patterns as what is. You learn to become a witness of life, without getting caught up in the drama. This is learning to be in the world but not of it. From this perspective, you can see the confusion for what it is, and return to the street in the middle of the traffic without being affected by it.

In "Everyday Zen," Charlotte Joko Beck draws an analogy between the busy street and our relationships. We feel caught right in the middle of the traffic and confusion. Our relationships bring puzzlement and bitterness, because we expect them to be the one place that gives us peace from the traffic and chaos.

But Beck says relationships are our best way to grow. "...there is no way that is superior to relationships in helping us see where we're stuck and what we're holding on to. As long as our buttons are pushed, we have a great chance to learn and grow. So a relationship is a great gift, not because it makes us happy -- it often doesn't -- but because any intimate relationship, if we view it as practice, is the clearest mirror we can find."