During this past year, I've been watching a number of my friends grow in their spiritual practice. And it strikes me that one of the blessings of sangha is that, when we bring our reflection and devotion to really witnessing it, sangha shows itself as beautiful in a number of ways. For example, it is truly beautiful to watch the spiritual paths of those around you unfold. It is a great blessing to be around other beings who are unfolding in this way, and a blessing to notice this specific type of beauty.
Knowing that friends of mine are growing, especially spiritually, fills me with joy. To see this occurring is a major source of happiness. However, I don't always see it: to see it, I sometimes have to set the intention to look for it. I have to develop a practice of watching how the beings around me are changing. Without this intention and practice, I may catch a random glimpse of growth from time to time. I may notice only months down the road. But as a teacher, and in the past as a lover, I've learned that seeing growth is a skill, and that if you learn to see, you can be present with the growth of a person on a regular basis. Being present to the growth and changes in a person is, for me, one of the great experiences of being alive.
When we visualize, we actively create ourselves. If I visualize myself as being filled with love, I actually create the condition for being more loving. Having created that energy in visualization, it more naturally flows out. It also helps to visualize friends and other people as being filled with love, with calm, with strength, with clarity. While I don't believe that this practice has any direct effect on whoever I'm visualizing, I do feel that this practice helps me see them, helps me to become sensitive to their energy and deepest needs. It's important to look at all beings as having the capacity to be filled with great love, calm, and clarity.
As part of this visualization, I bring specific people to my attention, and practice just fully being with them and feeling their energy: who is this being? Imagine anyone, and just be fully with them. What do you witness? How has their energy been? What shifts have you noticed, perhaps unconsciously? For me, this visualization is a deep practice. I often begin to see their spiritual growth, even if (like most things) I can't verbalize it. When I do this practice on a regular basis, I begin to see wonderful subtlties in all people. I see their troubles, I see their growth, sometimes I see their growth arising from their troubles.
I can certainly be a better friend if I nourish myself in this way. But it is also a way to really see how beautiful the sangha is, and to not slip into disparaging the triple treasure by not seeing it so well.
The other day I was talking with a friend about a vaguealy related topic. She was actually talking not about visualization, but about the senses: if we pay attention to our sense of smell while out on a walk, even if only for ten minutes, our sense of smell increases in subtlety. We notice smells we did not notice at all before, we notice many intermingling smells, even a symphony of smells. And if we do this a few times a week, we become more inclined to smell, or to look at small details, or to look with that type of gaze that takes everything in all at once, or to notice colors more than we have been, or to really feel the air on our skin, the way it curves around us. By bringing our focus to these things, even for only short periods of times, we grow a great deal, we may even gain a heightened awareness of the way our minds and emotions react to all the stimuli of the world. We actually become more skilled at using our senses - not only at noticing things, but at processing them in a healthy way, in a nourishing way, in the way we may need particularly in a certain moment.
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