Avoid Vagueness

Clarity is a practice. People sometimes think clarity strikes at random, like lightning. But our ability to know what we want and how to get it mainly depends on the small actions we take — and don’t take — throughout the day.

The Buddha said the mind is like a pool: when it’s still, you can see straight to its bottom. But when you ruffle the surface of the water with desire, aversion, or delusion, the water becomes impossible to see through.

For example, you might want things to work out with a romantic partner, so you use imprecise language to mask this person’s bad behavior. Or you might not want to do something, so you make a deliberately indeterminate plan.

We do this all the time, thinking vagueness is in our self-interest. But as our thinking gets vaguer, our minds become impenetrable not just to others, but to ourselves, and our inner worlds become uncertain and even scary places to be.

So you have to call yourself out on your vagueness. Too often, we DO know what we want and how to get it. We just don’t want the responsibility.

Beginner’s mind is great, but we are also the experts of our lives, and a lot of suffering comes from acting as though we haven’t faced the same issue many times, when in fact we have.

Try not to be surprised when life gives you negative feedback, for surprise itself is often an act, like those political columns devoted to being constantly “shocked” by what the government does.

Really? After all this time we’re surprised people act selfishly? That experiences are impermanent? That life doesn’t unfold according to our wishes? Ask yourself: “What task is ‘surprise’ helping me put off doing?”

Clarity is within our power. So speak plainly. Call things by their true names. You owe this truthfulness to yourself most of all.

René Magritte, "Les valeurs personnelles"