'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (with Janet Mills) and `The Fifth Agreement' by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz (with Janet Mills)
Easter is a time to think about the Resurrection of Jesus. I write about that in “What If Jesus Was Really Resurrected?” This time, let me stick closer to my nonsupernaturalist commitment by thinking of Jesus as a great wisdom teacher. I wish I were in possession of videos of the historical Jesus to see the powerful presence that I expect he must have been to have the historical impact he had.
In order to help picture what Jesus might have been like as a wisdom teacher, let me consider a currently living wisdom teacher: Don Miguel Ruiz. I assume that if we did have videos of the historical Jesus, Jesus would be an order of magnitude more impressive. But perhaps they could be considered as in the same category.
Jesus as represented in the Gospel of Thomas has the kind of elusive and allusive sayings that one finds in many of the pages of Don Miguel’s books The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement. (Both use the writing assistance of Janet Mills; The Fifth Agreement is coauthored with Don Miguel’s son Don Jose Ruiz. The translation of the Gospel of Thomas I am linking to is by my college Biblical Hebrew professor, Thomas Lambdin.) But even in the canonical gospels, Jesus has many sayings that try to heal our inner worlds as opposed to dealing with the outer world. For example,
Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? … Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:27,34)
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22,23)
Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:1-4)
Now, let’s turn to bestselling wisdom teacher Don Miguel Ruiz. (And let me be understood to include his coauthors, Don Jose Ruiz and Janet Miller, who join him in his teaching.) There is much in The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement that is hard to understand, perhaps reflecting the gnomic nature of the “Toltec” wisdom tradition Don Miguel draws from.
Most of what I do understand in The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement can be explained in terms of this wonderful metaphor from The Fifth Agreement:
Imagine that you are in a gigantic mall where there are hundreds of movie theaters. You look around to see what’s playing, and you notice a movie that has your name. Amazing! You go inside the theater, and it’s empty except for one person. Very quietly, trying not to interrupt, you sit behind that person, who doesn’t even notice you; all that person’s attention is on the movie.
You look at the screen, and what a big surprise! You recognize every character in the movie — your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, your beloved, your children, your friends. Then you see the main character of the movie, and it’s you! You are the star of the movie and it’s the story of you. And that person in front of you, well, it’s also you, watching yourself act in the movie. Of course, the main character is just the way you believe you are, and so are all the secondary characters because you know the story of you. After a while, you feel a little overwhelmed by everything you just witnessed, and you decide to go to another theater.
In this theater there is also just one person watching a movie, and she doesn’t even notice when you sit beside her. You start watching the movie, and you recognize all the characters, but now you’re just a secondary character. This is the story of your mother’s life, and she is the one who is watching the movie with all her attention. Then you realize that your mother is not the same person who was in your movie. The way she projects herself is completely different in her movie. It’s the way your mother wants everyone to perceive her. You know that it’s not authentic. She’s just acting. But then you begin to realize that it’s the way she perceives herself, and it’s kind of a shock.
Then you notice that the character who has your face is not the same person who was in your movie. You say to yourself, “Ah, this isn’t me,” but now you can see how your mother perceives you, what she believes about you, and it’s far from what you believe about yourself. Then you see the character of your father, the way your mother perceives him, and it’s not at all the way you perceive him. It’s completely distorted, and so is her perception of all the other characters. You see the way your mother perceives your beloved, and you even get a little upset with your mom. “How dare she!” You stand up and get out of there.
You go to the next theater, and it’s the story of your beloved. Now you can see the way your beloved perceives you, and the character is completely different from the one who was in your movie and the one who was in your mother’s movie. You can see the way your beloved perceives your children, your family, your friends. You can see the way your beloved wants to project him- or herself, and it’s not the way you perceive your beloved at all. Then you decide to leave that movie, and go to your children’s movie. You see the way your children see you, the way they see Grandpa, Grandma, and you can hardly believe it. Then you watch the movies of your brothers and sisters, of your friends, and you find out that everybody is distorting all the characters in their movie.
After seeing all these movies, you decide to return to the first theater to see your own movie once again. You look at yourself acting in your movie, but you no longer believe anything you’re watching; you no longer believe your own story because you can see that it’s just a story. Now you know that all the acting you did your whole life was really for nothing because nobody perceives you the way you want to be perceived. You can see that all the drama that happens in your movie isn’t really noticed by anybody around you. It’s obvious that everybody’s attention is focused on their own movie. They don’t even notice when you’re sitting right beside them in their theater! The actors have all their attention on their story, and that is the only reality they live in. Their attention is so hooked by their own creation that they don’t even notice their own presence — the one who is observing their movie.
Let me explain the five agreements according to my own understanding using this metaphor. One key feature of this metaphor that is clear in the rest of these two books is that each person is scriptwriter and director for her or his own movie. Here are the five agreements.
Be Impeccable With Your Word. This sounds like it is about honesty, integrity and authenticity. I have no doubt Don Miguel is in favor of honesty, integrity and authenticity. But that is not what this agreement is about. Going back to the movie analogy, it is saying that if you are going to tell a story about your life, tell a nice story instead of a nasty one. Here is a key passage from The Fifth Agreement: “You’re telling yourself a story, but is it the truth? If you’re using the word to create a story with self-judgment and self-rejection, then you’re using the word against yourself, and you’re not being impeccable.”
Don't Take Anything Personally. Other people’s movies are funhouse-mirror versions of reality (as is yours). The character in someone else’s movie that has your name typically bears little resemblance either to the character in your movie with your name or to the real you. So take with many grains of salt anything other people think or say about you. Don’t take it personally.
Don't Make Assumptions. Don’t assume that your movie has a solid grasp on reality. Most people’s movies don’t. And don’t assume you know what is going on in someone else’s move: the real world differs from the metaphor above in that you can’t really go into someone else’s movie theater. The best you can do to avoid fooling yourself is to ask good questions of yourself and of other people to try to figure out the lay of the land.
Always Do Your Best. Unlike some big-screen movie characters, you don’t have superhuman abilities. You will often fail. Be kind to yourself as you try to redirect your personal movie in a two-steps-forward-one-step-back pattern.
Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen. With few exceptions, everyone’s movie is a very distorted version of reality, including yours. So be skeptical. But as pieces of art, each individual’s movie reveals a lot about where they are coming from and what kind of mental box they have put themselves in. So it pays to listen in order to understand.
The Bottom Line: As I have learned from the experience of being a co-active life coach for a dozen people, most people have a lot of mental chatter that leans toward self-criticism. The typical volume of negative mental chatter is a recipe for an unpleasant—often even hellish—internal daily experience. Internal self-flagellation, while very common, is optional. I’ll write a future post about the book Positive Intelligence, by Shirzad Chamine (which is as clear as The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement are enigmatic) in explaining how to weaken your inner judge and make you internal world a little more like heaven than like hell.
Don’t miss these posts on co-active life coaching:
Also, don’t miss the Unitarian-Universalist sermons that I have posted: