How a gorilla’s gaze transported Attenborough out of prison of human condition

The naturalist and filmmaker David Attenborough, after nearly 50 years of documenting the wonders and mysteries of nature all over this beautiful planet, cites an experience with mountain gorillas in Africa as the highlight of his career, if not his life.

In a scene that has come to define Attenborough¹s unique combination of erudition and slightly comical guilelessness, he is filmed lying on the ground while a female gorilla and her offspring are foraging nearby. The mother allows him to get very close; indeed, close enough for her to touch him, which she does.

As Attenborough is whispering some bit of knowledge into the camera about the living habits of these great apes, the mother puts her huge hand on the top of his head, palming it the way a big basketball player palms a basketball. She firmly but gently turns his head toward her, and looks directly into his eyes, holding his gaze.

For those few seconds, Attenborough exclaims, "I escaped the human condition." Something in her stare, he explained, transported him out of time. The joy of his experience is clearly captured on the film.

For Attenborough, a probing look by our closest relative momentarily shattered the wall between humans and animals. It obliterated in him, for a few seconds, the alienation that defines our species.

That phrase "escape the human condition" is so pregnant with meaning that it deserves further exploration. Just what do we mean by it?

With the question percolating in my subconscious mind, I drive up into the canyon beyond town. The air is very clear, and the mild sun of a late fall day still bathes the cliffs and warms my face.

The colors fade with the light. Within an hour the land is shadowed in muted shades. Boughs filled brilliant hues no longer reign supreme with the beauty of the day. A swath of white light reflecting off a long stretch of the creek holds what remains of the essence of the day.

The stream is considerably deeper and wider than last week. And even in the sun¹s rays, the water is nearly black, not crystal clear as in summer. I can¹t see the trout I know are at home beneath the surface, but a few times they break the glassy plane separating water and air, betraying only a fin when they do.

A chill comes over the land as the sun sets. It is time to leave, but I don¹t want to go.

There is a flash of insight. The question regarding escaping the human condition is illumined, breaking the plane of my becalmed mind. "Escaping the human condition" is a spontaneous break with the past and consciousness, as we know it!

The human condition is defined not just by alienation, but by the known. The ocean in which we swim is the known. (A fish suddenly awakens to its medium, and turns to its fellow fish, exclaiming, "look at all the water!" The other fish replies, "what water?" Consciousness is like that to most people.)

The gorilla’s gaze transported Attenborough out of the prison of the human condition, but anyone can free himself or herself at any time, if they attend to the movement of their mind and heart with all the energy of their being.

That is the true meaning of meditation--the unwilled act of leaving the dimension of the known, and entering the infinite domain of the unknown.

Martin LeFevre

mglefevre@earthlink.net

The author welcomes comments.

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