Living with Hearts Wide Open

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A while ago I had the opportunity to spend some time with my family in Cambodia, where we explored the ancient temples of Siem Reap, of which Angkor Wat is perhaps the most famous. Those amazing stone edifices were built around a millennium ago, when the Khmer people were practising the Hindu religion, and later became Buddhist temples as the people's beliefs evolved.

Wandering around those stone hallways, admiring the intricate carvings in the walls and arches, awestruck at the magnificent towers that lifted one's heart to worship, I felt a great curiosity about the ancient people who had built these shrines to the divine. Who were they? What were the stories that they had etched into the stone, and how had those stories influenced their lives and identity?

At the same time, I felt an unexpected oneness with them in their yearning for the transcendent, their search for meaning in the mysterious universe they found themselves in, in the inexplicable joys and sorrows of their lives. The stories they wove out their lived experiences were different from those I knew, but they were expressions of our shared humanity from which I had much to learn.

 Another phenomenon that struck me as I explored the temples was the seemingly unavoidable horde of tourists at each place. Many of these came in large groups, chattered loudly, and their singular preoccupation seemed to be in finding the best spots for selfies and we-fies! I found it constantly annoying to duck in and out of photographs... But it made me sad also to see that for the majority of visitors, those magnificent temples were nothing but a backdrop to their photographs, in which they themselves stood out front and center!

Later I realised with a chuckle that this was an excellent metaphor for how I myself - and perhaps others too - tend to go through life... So constantly preoccupied with our own concerns and expectations that everything and everyone else becomes the backdrop in a play titled "I, Me and Myself".

What would life be like if we could slow down for a moment and take ourselves out of the center? To admire the impersonal, terrible beauty of the rain that has been pounding our city for a week now... To enjoy the laughter of the little children running around me as I type... The earnest spiritedness of the teenagers gathered in a bunch on the other side of the hall... To let these speak their own reality to me, instead of colouring them with my own insecurities, hopes, expectations...?

Would that I could go through life with eyes and heart wide open!

Food for thought:
Take a minute as you read this to slow down and become aware of what is around you. Let them speak their own reality to you, and give thanks. 
What practices might I cultivate to go through life with eyes and heart more readily open?

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