What a Bird Should Look Like
The Sufis are just mwah!
Nasrudin found a weary falcon sitting one day on his window-sill.
He had never seen a bird of this kind before.
‘You poor thing,’ he said, ‘how ever were you allowed to get into this state?’
He clipped the falcon’s talons and cut its beak straight, and trimmed its feathers.
‘Now you look more like a bird,’ said Nasrudin.
-- The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, by Idries Shah
Yeah, I want to meditate on this, it’s been one of the most impactful of the Sufi teaching stories I’ve been reading, this story of falcon pruning. Every Sufi teaching story has several interpretations, and I can see a couple here:
Contorting ourselves to fit the expectations of others
This is something nearly everyone does to more or less extent. It’s a pretty unconscious thing, and I don’t think anyone ever stops doing it completely. Hell, were I to ever somehow reach the point of really, truly, not caring about what anyone thought, I don’t think I would ever talk to anyone, since there would be nothing to be gained from communication, not even the flattering of my vanity in the making of a positive impression. I suppose no one ever becomes a true falcon, but who knows, maybe they do: falcons are solitary creatures after all.
Forcing others to fit our expectations
This is a more interesting meaning. We only accept those who fit our expectations of what people should be and reject those who don’t. Some say that this and the previous meaning go hand in hand, that if you truly accept yourself you will accept other people. I can’t comment on that, since I struggle with accepting myself.
But I definitely had a big insight on the meaning of this parable meditating on the beach.1 The subject came up of the latest triggering my mom gave me. I feel she’s an extremely critical, judgmental, and negative person, and I think she installed the reprimanding voice I have in my head. I think I have only one or two memories of her saying something positive about me and they’re both recent. She’s cut back somewhat on the negativity, since these days, it triggers me and gives me a brief explosion of anger. And I guess it makes me feel guilty to feel and express this anger.2
I was remembering the latest triggering, and then I remembered this story. And I realized I was in it. I wasn’t accepting my mother as she was, forcing her to fit my conception of what a mother should be instead. It instantly resolved all the roiling irritation and resentment I have for her. For some time at least. The truth of falcon pruning is not so easy to internalize.
Forcing truth to fit our expectations
At root, in the story, Mulla Nasrudin encounters something he had never seen before, and instantly tries to make it fit his expectations of how things should be. This is a more subtle meaning, and I haven’t caught myself doing it, though I surely do it. Now that I think about it, I have a suspicion I have something called rejection sensitive dysphoria, where rejection hurts me more than it does other people. I think I’ve gotten better at handling it, but I’ve noticed a more subtle manifestation of it wherein I see rejection where perhaps there wasn’t any,3 and that is also an example of pruning the falcon, not seeing or accepting things as they are. Due to my upbringing, it would make sense that I expect to encounter rejection frequently, but perhaps things have changed and I’m not seeing things as they actually are in the present.
There is one last sense I see in which this story gets at the root of reality.
The Problem of Evil
It’s a story about rejecting a falcon, a bird of prey, a hard edged, killing thing. In a way, when a believer ponders the problem of evil, he is pruning the falcon, refusing to accept reality as it is, reality with the evil it contains. We have an expectation of what reality should be that reality itself falls short of. Maybe we have this expectation due to memories of Heaven/the Unmanifest, or the womb, or of what being a caveman was like,4 actually, it’s really quite a great puzzle why we don’t accept reality as it is, didn’t we evolve for this, how come we suddenly see flaws in reality? It’s like a pond suddenly being dissatisfied with the shape of the hole its in.
But Sufis, who claim to have a spooky sixth sense among other things, see that we don't accept reality as it is, and so they came up with this funny story about pruning a falcon.
Meditating on the beach is the best way to meditate, as you're exposing yourself to nature.
Seems I'm pruning my own falcon here...
For example, I've a suspicion the only dateable girl at the Buddhist place I go to hates me for no reason.
I have this theory that being a caveman was actually FUCKING AWESOME, it was so good it inspired all those stories of the Garden of Eden, the Golden Age, Satya Yuga.
As ever, love the unfiltered honesty Carlos. I suspect I have rejection sensitive dysphoria too, especially when it comes to sharing my artistic work and approaching people romantically: expecting to be rejected in advance, letting that shape the way I act, then interpreting people's response to my defensive manner as being rejecting. I also have a self-lacerating inner voice, and had a sense growing up that nothing I did was ever enough ('What does it take?'). A lack of support growing up fostered shame, shame fosters a sense that I'm separate from others, that fosters anger at everyone else, I get ashamed of my anger, so now we have more shame, which means more anger, etc etc.
So these days I'm trying to stop pruning my own falcon, other people's falcons and the great falcon of reality itself.