As an adolescent, I lived in Northwest Conway, Arkansas and was surrounded by forests, hills, and a lake. My morning breakfast consisted of a bowl of Cheerios with a pinch of sugar for flavor, but really, my morning meditation happened simultaneously while I stared out the kitchen window to watch the finches, cardinals, blue jays, and other hungry birds eating birdseed. Together, we spent the morning as one species.
Some mornings, the larger blackbirds and sometimes the blue jays would dominate the smaller birds, which flew into the trees awaiting the larger species to leave before returning to the seeds. When this happened, I grunted and judged the larger birds as the predators—the ones spoiling the tranquility for the rest of the birds, including me, the young bird in my family of four.
Years later, I read about the concept of Shi-Fei in Daoism. Basically, the concept asks us not to view reality in a dualistic form; we should abandon judgment and view reality without distinction. As soon as we create the concept of this/not this and either/or, we categorize and criticize the natural elements of nature.
As a child, I thought I followed the concept of Shi-Fei. I sat at the kitchen window enjoying my dualistic perception of reality—my idealized version of reality. I believed that the small, beautiful birds and the brightly red cardinals represented the goodness of my soul, and I developed a level of disappointment and frustration when the larger black birds—the crows—flew in like air force jets to claim territory not belonging to them.
Why did I not appreciate the entire perception of reality? Why did I merely idealize the beauty apparent in the finches, sparrows, and scissor-tail flycatchers? Could I abandon judgment without distinction and learn to love the crows?
Tonight, I sit in Border's Bookstore. Some days, my thought process shifts toward the erratic (typically around a new or full moon), and I argue with my wife and children for no apparent reason other than being trapped in a dualistic state of mind focused entirely on me.
“Why is the trash not taken outside?”
“Whose turn is it to do the dishes?”
“Where are my headphones!?
“Get in here now and listen to me while I am talking!”
My wife is a selfless human being, the beautiful “finch” I love to watch fall asleep each night, but sometimes, I make her or the kids the crow—the cause of all my pain and suffering, when my dualistic perception is the ultimate cause of my suffering.
Like my childhood, I now realize that the sparrow/crow symbolism not only exists in nature but also tightly in my thought process, and as long as I separate these two birds as “good” and “bad,” then I can never learn the real concept of Shi-Fei—the abandonment of dualistic thinking and, ultimately, judgment.
Let's return to the two birds in my head. Looking out my window, I see the little birds eating the bird seeds. After they complete part of a meal, the other birds, the crows, join in the meal. They eat their share and leave. The other birds return faithfully, and what happens amazes me. Both birds receive their required amount of food in order for the survival of the species. How beautiful now the scene engages me! How natural. How harmonious!
Let's predict the future. My wife and I watch a film related to the financial conditions of the United States. We laugh at the comedy, and instead of thinking about our own financial conditions and how she or I are to blame for any debt we have accumulated over the years, we laugh at our past mistakes together, enjoy the midnight air filled with the crescent moon and a few clouds, and return home together with a conversation about Oklahoma weather and its pleasant surprises—a snowstorm one week and a tornado the next.
Together, we abandon judgment and live the power of the Tao within ourselves because we no longer cling to the either/or fallacy nor define any complexity of our beautiful, natural relationship.
We are like the sparrow flying into a distant tree branch while watching our brother, the crow, complete his morning meal.
--Jinglett
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