TINNITUS, BIRDS, and NOTICING TRUTH

I have tinnitus. I don’t know what caused it. It sucks. I can’t hear things at high pitches. So I wear hearing aides that turn up the volume at that pitch so I can hear it. It makes a huge difference when I wear them, especially in conversations with other people in a noisy setting. I can distinguish consonants.

A couple of years ago Lisa and I were camping. One morning we woke up and we were looking into each other’s eyes. She said, “The birds are noisy this morning!” I said, “What?” I couldn’t hear them. I put in my hearing aides and, sure enough, the birds were noisy.

At first it made me sad that I couldn’t hear them without machines in my ears. Then I became grateful for the aides. It took me years, literally, to get over the stigma and the shame of wearing them. But I hardly have a waking moment without them in my ears.

I was thinking about this today as it applies to truth.

Let me explain:

I Bible College we were taught that, for example, the Buddha was 100% wrong.

This enabled me to hear what came next:

Then, in seminary, I was taught that we could find amazing similarities between what the Buddha taught and what Jesus taught. Which proved that Jesus was right!

This enabled me to hear what came next:

That the Buddha, Jesus, and other spiritual teachers were all tapping into a singular truth.

This enabled me to hear what came next:

There is only one reality, one truth that we are all experiencing, and that all of us are acquiring it from our own paradigms, understanding it through our own conditioning, and articulating it by our own languages.

Getting one set of hearing aides is the prerequisite for acquiring better ones.

Sometimes, truth reveals itself to us in blasts, and other times in increments so that we can acquire and assimilate it gently into our lives.

I hope you hear the birds!

Love to you all,

Davida