The Activity of Objectification

byElizabeth Mattis Namgyel

This is the game: the more self expands to include others, the more kindness, compassion, and insight we experience. The more fixed we get about things, the more confusion, emotional disturbance, and conflict we experience. Have you ever noticed that when you’re angry at someone you always hold a narrow and static view of them? They are “the person who did such and such.”
 
Attachment, jealousy, and aggression only function when we objectify things. That’s why soldiers in combat are trained to hold static, negative images of “the enemy.” How can we kill someone when we see his humanity? How can we hate someone when we see him face to face, when we know he is somebody’s son, father, or brother?
 
How can we have attachment when we see the dimensionality of an object—when it becomes more than just “the thing we want”? In fact, the whole purpose of advertising is to get people to want something through presenting only one side of things. If someone were to say, “Hey, this is a really nice car. Look how slick it is. See how fast it goes. But it takes a lot of fuel, and you can be sure the dashboard will crack in a couple of years. Oh, and the electrical system sometimes breaks down after thirty thousand miles”—it would most likely reduce our attachment to buying that car.
 
When we objectify things, we don’t think about the consequences of trying to obtain them: the tax consequences, the emotional consequences, the consequences they may have for others. When we see things in this limited way, we leave ourselves vulnerable to nothing but hassle, pain, and confusion. This example illustrates the dangers of ignorance, the ignorance of not being able to tolerate the interdependent and boundary-less nature of things.
 
The Big Bang
From within the fluid and ineffable state of boundary-lessness, the knowing mind experiences a stirring . . . a discomfort of sorts. Somehow it’s not enough to just rest in the boundary-less nature of this discomfort. The knower of this discomfort then acts, and leaves the open state to become the doer, or “subject.” And what do subjects do? They define, seduce, wrestle with, and push away objects. And this dynamic exchange between subject and object creates a whole lot of friction and heat, which activates a big bang of sorts . . . And the whole world of objectification bursts into action.
 
The world as we commonly know it is simply the expression of this basic misunderstanding or intolerance of boundary-lessness. This misunderstanding comes into play each moment we turn away from the fullness of experience to instead reach conclusions about things. As we proceed to either push things away or pull them closer to us, we are acting out the drama we call “our life.” We traditionally call the energy behind this drama “karma.”
 
Karma is a loaded word. Karma is popularly used to describe a sort of “divine plan” that includes its own system of punishment and reward. But the Sanskrit word karma simply means activity. What is the activity we are describing here? It is the activity of objectification. There is no Dr. Evil sitting in a large chair petting his cat and controlling our karma. There is no judge, no wise old man with a long white beard, no list of ethical “rights” and “wrongs.” Karma doesn’t predetermine anything. In fact, karma is just the movement of objectified experience. Karma is the natural, impersonal law of cause and effect. As long as we objectify things, we will continue to live in a world that follows the dictates of karma.
 
In this world, subjects run around trying to get what they want. They try to not get what they don’t want. Sometimes they get what they want . . . but it turns out it is not what they wanted . . . especially when they shop online. Occasionally, thank goodness, subjects also encounter situations in which they get what they don’t want but later on find out that it is what they wanted, after all.
 
But the point here is that there’s a lot of preference in this world, a lot of fears and hopes, a lot of pushes and pulls with our thoughts and emotions, with people and material things. Conflict begins. War begins. More and more misunderstandings occur, which create an objectified universe, samsara . . . the universe that Nagarjuna described as “the most amazing spectacle of all.”

Excerpt taken from “The Power of An Open Question”, Chapter 13.