Unselfing

Iris Murdoch is quoted (in the current issue of "Brain Pickings" by Maria Popova) as stating that beauty in art or nature is a crucial means of unselfing, a word she coined to mean "taken out of herself."

She recounts looking out her window, worried and preoccupied, until a bird appeared on the window sill. Suddenly, she was so totally absorbed in the wonder of looking at the bird that her worries vanished. And after the bird flew away and she returned to her writing, her mood had lightened. She had been transformed by the experience.

Haven't we all had such moments when a sunset or dazzling photograph stops us in the usual train of thinking, analyzing, and worrying?  We may not call it "unselfing," but maybe we sense that our ego is set aside so we can participate fully in the present moment and feel connected with something larger than ourselves.

Such moments are special.  They bring us into instant mindfulness, attentive to the now.

Whether you go to a museum and sit before a favorite painting and look at it, or go to a lake or beach and become absorbed in nature, the effect is the same: you are transformed, transported out of ordinary time and into a timeless present, with all the wonder you had in childhood when you were unaware of being subject to the demands of time.

When we are totally absorbed in ourselves, in that unhealthy act of worrying, we are not in communion with others and with the life (and beauty) around us.  Meditation, in which we empty our minds of self-preoccupation, takes a lot of disciplined practice to master, but encountering beauty is easy.