Changing the Subject

 I overheard a freelance music teacher today discussing how her younger students are often pressured to take on many classes and tutorials. And she added that very often, the parents will be on the lookout for comments that allude to the child's natural gifts: "someday she/he is going to be a famous actor/actress/football player". And the parents are often quite frantic to bring out the potential in their children, thinking that it's their duty as parents to do so. It reminds me of a time when I was growing up, when I had gone through a phase of wondering where my path is and what talents I am born with. Sometimes, because I only had distant role models upon which to base my self-understanding, I would confuse what it means to be grown up with something very serious. Actually, when I look at my life, there is no time in which one's role is ever carved in stone. A person can change their interests and pursuits over time, and there is no  single path that overarches and defines someone.
    Sometimes, if a person believes that they are only put in the world to do 'one thing', they can become quite single-minded, or even obsessed with embodying that particular role. Later, one begins to see that these roles are often just self-created for the moment. A person might tentatively look into pursuing an education to take on a certain role that feels right for the person's current interest. But later, as they start to go deeper into the subject matter, they might find that it is not of such great interest. Sometimes they might even start to discern what set of ideas brought them to that subject and then start to disillusion themselves, realizing that the actual study itself wasn't anything like what they thought it would be. I noticed that this happened with many people as they graduated from university and decided to pursue careers in completely opposite directions. It is as though the career was a reaction to a subject they came to find fault with or dislike.
     Is it inevitable that the thing one feels passionate about can leave a person feeling disillusioned? Sometimes, but only if a person's mind is not flexible to see new potentials in that subject area. Just as in any kind of relationship, the things people study have many different sides and facets. In order to see those facets, one needs to free one's mind and not attach to only one side of it. I am reminded here of the metaphor of the Jewel Net in the Buddhist Huayen Sutra. In this sutra, reality is envisioned almost like a holographic reflection which stretches infinitely across all phenomena. To explore one thing thoroughly is to see the universe reflected in that thing. It's hard to comprehend, but one can bring any particular subject to life by having the view that it will eventually bottom out into a view of emptiness and co-dependent arising.
    When I was very young, I remember receiving birthday money from my grandmother and deciding to use that money to buy a pocket book on beetles. When my dad saw my purchase, he expressed a strong surprise, and wondered: what possessed me to spend all that money on a single book? At the time, I had no way to explain to my dad the feeling I had. Perhaps he had thought that I was being a bit obsessive about beetles. But now that I look back on it, it could be that I was groping to appreciate the diversity of created things, and part of me was attracted to the many forms of beetles as well as the ways they adapt in size and color to different situations and climates. It wasn't that I was training to be an entomologist, but it was more that I was learning to respect the diversity of the natural world, which always reveals infinite possibility. Had I been able to connect this feeling I had to a Buddhist teaching at the time, I might have seen that the fascination has to do with tapping into the way things depend on each other for a full understanding, and how they reflect the way the world works.
    For example, think of how beetles are classified. Scientists take great pains to classify beetles by their similar characteristics and morphology. But they also need to respect the differences in form, which are based on the environments and surroundings to which the beetles have been selected to adapt. The more I contemplate the diversity and simultaneous 'similarity' of characteristics, the more I realize that things can be both different and 'identical', and how it's a function of the mind itself to be able to see difference in similarity and similarity in difference. If all things are completely 'undifferentiated', there would be no classification of anything whatsoever, and no way of seeing interconnectedness. Beetles, environment, observer would be one jumbled and indescribable mess. On the other hand, too much uniqueness means no comparison and no co-existence across species. Then there would be no common shared universe in which things interact. But the fact that there is both similarity and difference is a characteristic of mind, through which phenomena are both co-existing and distinguished.
    All of this somewhat diverts from my original topic, but the point I am making is that all subjects can reveal the depth of the universe and mind, as well as the wonder, if one sees its nuances. If I am too attached to one impression of a subject area, that is bound to change according to whims or my subjective tastes at the moment. But if I go a bit deeper and see how the subject comes to be formed in mind, it can be a reflection of mind itself. Then one sees the subject not as an alien thing that needs to be appropriated (or rejected) but as a reflection of mind nature.