THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Everybody’s heard that old story about the blindfolded wise men taking a survey of something unknown (in this case, an elephant), and each focusing on a different part of it, and then coming up with a description of it that conflicted with every other’s description and precluding a consensus of mutual understanding among them. It’s a very interesting story to contemplate, but is so well known and instantly recognized as some kind of received wisdom, as to have only the most feeble impact or potential nutrition for most of its auditors. But what about…the Elephant in the Room?

If you were in a room and an elephant was in there with you, it would be pretty obvious wouldn’t it? But if we make the elephant bigger and bigger until it fills the room, and without affecting your faculty of observation and being—i.e., leaving you a living and breathing observer, somehow, inside the elephant, how would you then be able to see it? The other half of the coin would be to shrink the elephant until, at some point, it drops out of one’s field of perception. This is, perhaps, more understandable for us but the result is the same: the elephant is there, but you don’t see it. Note that I didn’t say you can’t see it. For humans, the elephant is always there and can be seen…but it’s not.

Say we’re looking at some picture or painting or object that is “abstract” or otherwise ambiguous or alien to us, and the question is asked “What is that?” or “What does it mean?” What’s the usual response? Anything from “(your answer here)” to “(your answer here)”. But then you’ve missed the Elephant in the Room. The real question is “What is asking?” and the REAL real question is: “Who is asking?” Not “Why is the question asked?” or “How is this question asked?” Definitely not those, yet all but a few humans always ask every question but the real one and give every answer but the only answer…

Once, The Buddha held up a flower. Once, Laotse pointed at the moon. Those who didn’t get it called Buddha’s action the “Flower Sermon,” and Laotse’s “The Pointing Finger”. Those who got it, smiled and said nothing, for they saw the Elephant in the Room. At rare and unpredictable times Jan Cox would punctuate his talks to a community of interested auditors with long silences; sometimes inordinately long and increasingly pregnant pauses. Sometimes they seemed accidental or incidental (when you could almost hear the meshing of gears in his head while he pondered ‘where next’ or ‘how to express [so and so]’) and at others they were overtly (or, in hindsight overtly) intentional. And these pauses were, to me, even more powerful and impacting than when he ballpeened me between the eyes with something he said (which was often enough!). Those silences were quite simply, enormous opportunities, invitations really, unlimited pointings or beckonings, to sense the Elephant in the Room.

Always here, always now. See it. Do it. And when you get it, REALLY get it, it’s like falling backward into the open elevator shaft that’s been following you around since that day you took your first breath and opened your eyes; falling backwards, upwards, outwards, inwards...absolutely relaxed, in an, as it were, inverted full-gainer…oh, and at the same time pushing the button…to summon…the elevator…always in front of you—you know—the one featuring Muzak ® and leading to what ‘you gotta do today’.

The Elephant in the Room: Always here. Always now. See it. Do it. ‘You’ can’t see it. But, WHO can. YESSSSSSSSSS…