"I am nothing but you"

Sometimes, when working at the restaurant, I experience friction with certain customers; whether they are impatient, overly particular, or just in a negative mood, I feel challenged as a server. The temptation to judge is very juicy in these moments. Perhaps because it justifies or supports negative feelings I have, or provides a ‘reason’ to resent another person, it can feel gratifying to dismiss their demeanor and actions as “wrong.’

However, this feeds into a divisive perspective that is, somehow, delusional. In a lecture I attended once, a scholar of Tantric philosophy observed that if a thought brings you into conflict with others or yourself, it is an illusion. These illusions seem to stem from personal insecurities or skewed perceptions about oneself or the world. I might be prone to taking something personally from a customer if I expect to be judged or think that I am unworthy of kindness. I might believe that the world is inherently cold, or that people are selfish, which would support a perception of difference and discord. But when I acknowledge that their choices, attitude, or mood has nothing whatsoever to do with me, than I can abide with them without judgment. Without a lens of negativity or self-doubt as your perceptual device, you might even cease to perceive offense, or feel it.

The further advice of this Tantric scholar was to have humility before your illusions. This humility is instrumental to supporting a revolutionary world-view. Instead of feeling offended or mistreated or even superior, I can acknowledge my power in generating harmony, as a server of ethical, wholesome food, and as an individual with the capacity for showing unconditional kindness, and seeing past certain ‘negative’ characteristics: even challenging myself to the radical idea that those characteristics have no intrinsic value or meaning beyond what I ascribe them.

The revolutionary shift in perspective can be applied at any moment, in small gestures of unity, in all of the places we mill through in our day to day existence: restaurants, cafes, busy streets, shops, libraries, classes etc. When you look into the face of an individual with whom you feel division, or think about a group with whom you are in disagreement, you can invoke the mantra which my yoga teacher prescribed for anyone who sees difference in the world: rather than “I am nothing like you,” you acknowledge the paradoxical truth that: “I am nothing but you.”