Even though I don’t have much occasion to the use the Japanese I learned when living in Japan, certain words will cycle up in my thoughts because they are particularly appropriate to express something I’m experiencing. Tachiba means literally a “standing place”, with connotations of “perspective” and “point of view”.
On my recent trip to Florida and back I was reminded of how the world is experienced differently, simply by standing on another part of it. As my yoga teacher used to say, on the manifest level its all relative, time, place, and person. Not only is Florida physically different from Colorado, plants, weather, wildlife, and being by the ocean rather than the mountains, but different people live there with different orientations and interests.
If I had gone back to Japan, or to Europe things would have changed even more. The who, what, where of my life changes just by standing in a different place, because it changes my relationships with places, people, and the planet.
Even before this trip I had been thinking about my internal tachiba, which is key to how I relate especially to other people. Where do we stand in our own being? Are we in our heart or our head? Are we focused on our body or our soul? What aspects of ourselves are we in relationship with, in identification with, or out of touch with?
Having a relationship with someone else is like building a bridge, it needs two ends, the foundations for the span that connects. The closer these foundations are to each other the easier it is to build the bridge. Our personal tachiba is like one of these foundations, it is the place where we stand, and the place we relate from. If you are wanting to relate to someone whose tachiba is their emotions, their second chakra, and your tachiba is your mind, your 6th chakra, then it may be a stretch. Not impossible but more of a stretch than with someone who has their tachiba in the same place as yours.
If you want to cultivate a relationship with someone whose external tachiba is different than yours, you might go on line, or to the bookstore and read about where they live. You might even go there, learn the language, live there for a while.
Similarly if their internal tachiba is in a different part of their being, you can explore that part of yourself, learning how to create a new internal tachiba for yourself, to be comfortable in your emotions, your mind, heart or soul. Or the shift may be one of deepening in the same aspect; deeper in the heart, or the soul. Until we can relate to that part of ourselves, and build a new internal tachiba, our end of the bridge of relationship is loose and shaky.
To relate effectively to someone on a certain level or in a certain aspect we have to explore it and know it for ourself. We have to have a level or aspect of relationship to self before we can stand there and relate to someone else in that way. Otherwise it is all mental illusion and a costume parade.
If I imagine that I’m going to Florida, but am still in Colorado, especially if I’ve never been there, very little will really have changed. If I go, but only for a few days, it is not the same as taking time and living there. If I go for several months or more, then everything begins to change.
When you do your human homework and learn to stand in those parts of yourself that have been unfamiliar, you change your tachiba and all your relationships to yourself and to others change as well. To find the heart and soul relationships we all want requires us to explore our own hearts and souls, to create new tachibas in those parts of ourself from which to form these relationships.
Enjoy your travels and the new or renewed relationships you create as you go.
(© 4/2010)
