The Man with the Stone Shirt

I was reading an interesting memoir by Robert A. Johnson called Balancing Heaven and Earth, where he recounts how a heroic journey has to shatter the inner tendency to isolate oneself from criticism and doubt, as symbolized by the story an old man who is wearing a stone shirt. The stone shirt, for Johnson, represents the choice to hoard up of one’s psychic resources (or genius) to protect one’s personal self, as opposed to sharing one’s resources with the world. As Johnson remarks:

When each of us gets in touch with our personal genius, we can apply this power for the good of humankind, or we can take this power and use it egocentrically and thereby accumulate a stone power shirt around us that leads to total and absolute isolation. Our story informs us that it is expressly over the area of one’s heart that this stone barrier occurs: it is a shirt (p.152).

I found this passage (and the accompanying story which Johnson relates, derived from the Paiute tribe in the southwestern United States), to be quite illuminating. It highlights how easily it is for people to become fixated on a search for a pain-free existence, only to result in a kind of isolation or clinging to self and its powers. Perhaps this is a symbolic tale representing the ego. In another passage of the story, this old man represents not wanting to be vulnerable or humble to criticism. The old man is guarded by a multi-eyed antelope who is so sensitive to any kind of movement that it protects him from any kind of harm.

This story made me reflect: where does a person draw the line between learning from the past and not closing themselves off from all possibility? What I find sometimes helps is to know that we are always holding a space for both the light and the dark aspects. A tendency such as introversion can be both insightful for the greater good and leading to excessive isolation. If I am aware that all tendencies have both light and dark aspects to them, perhaps I am less attached to one area or another. I am able to honor the way that all aspects of ourselves can be used to benefit others, and there is nothing that is completely bad or terrible if it is treated in a way that is non-grasping.

To use a simple example: having an artistic ability can allow a person to create wonderful experiences for other beings. On the other hand, it can also lead to a more isolating tendency, such as a pride in one’s ability which cuts oneself off from receiving feedback from others or even growing and learning from the work of others. In spiritual practice, this might also take the form of becoming overly attached to a sense of “achievement” in practice, such as attaining very lofty states of being or seeing oneself as “already enlightened” so no further growth is seen as necessary or possible. This leads to a kind of stifling of the mind.

What is needed in these situations is to put oneself in the opposite place or not really knowing anything. After all, one can be proficient in an endless variety of abilities, but does that mean one knows who they are and why they are here? Exposing oneself to unresolved questions and even knowing how little one knows, can be very eye-opening experiences which help our souls breathe and give us mental space to behold wonder and mystery. If one can see the world and themselves in this way, they are freed from fixating on the need to protect themselves from the pitfalls and uncertainties of growth and maturation.

Johnson, Robert A. (1998). Balancing Heaven and Earth: A Memoir of Visions, Dreams, and Realizations. San Francisco: Harper Collins