When I was younger I loved playing water polo. I spent hours training and loved it. One of the training exercises we did regularly was tread water whilst surrounded by a circle of team mates who would take turns trying to push you under water.
Obviously this is a very good exercise to develop your legs for treading water, and although the exercise was very difficult, I appreciated the opportunity to improve myself.
It's one thing doing this in training with your team mates, in the training pool one can see how your friend and team mate is pushing you down to make you stronger.
In a match situation however, if an opponent pushes you down (not actually allowed unless you are holding the ball), one would quite easily get angry and upset at the offending opponent.
This would happen a lot.
But what would happen if you shifted your perspective and realised that even your opponents are providing you with an opportunity to get better?
Typically as the water polo season progressed the team, individually and collectively would need to get better to get favourable results over the strongest opposition. Each opponent faced provides an opportunity for improvement.
If you have the mindset of improvement, even the most talented opponent is welcomed as an opportunity to measure yourself. The opponent is no longer trying to hurt you, although consciously he may be trying to. The opponent is simply giving you an opportunity to hone your craft.
The best players I played against always had this mindset. They seldom got upset, reflected on their performance and always looked to improve themselves.
In life, however, the waters tend to get muddy.
We are easily triggered by people who challenge us or hold opposing opinions.
What if we shifted our perspective and looked at these people as opportunities for us to improve?
We can work on our triggers and then thank the person who pulled it for showing it to us!
We can explore our opinions deeply so we better understand them rather than getting defensive when challenged.
Because the world reflects our consciousness back to us it provides us with endless opportunities for self improvement. Simply understanding this can accelerate our growth and propel us forward on our spiritual journey.
And this I think is how we begin to transcend duality.