Ways of Thinking about Choice

There are so many wonderful things about just being alive, and yet all so often, I have found myself getting caught up in worries about identity and life. "How I measure up to the world" is such a huge refrain-and every so often I would need to remind myself that there are many ways to have identity in the world, and one is only really limited by a kind of collective inertia of sorts. Sometimes it does help to have a broader view, and to know that there are many choices which are out there.
   I find it interesting that the notion of choice as "one of many paths" seems to have fallen out of fashion in my mindset recently, to be replaced by the more stark and uninviting metaphor of "having to make one's own choices". This latter strikes me as a Protestant view of the universe, which is so heavily stressing on the need to somehow forge one's own destiny, without regard to the roads and paths that are already in the world.  In certain times of my life, it seems that choices are actually roads that have already been set out, and we are really only having to decide which of the "paths" to take. This metaphor is somewhat more inviting, because it suggests that there are often hidden helpers who have paved a certain way for us (perhaps even from what we have done through our own intentions in the distant past).
   I have to say that even Buddhism advocates the idea that one reaps what they sow. However, there is room there for the surprises, such as the fact that one never knows when or what will flower and when the conditions ripen. I think this is why life is so mysterious and sometimes shockingly beautiful, because it shows us things that we forgot to plant a long time ago, and have now suddenly bloomed before us--as though they had a life of their own or spontaneously emerged out of thin air.

An Invitation to Connect Differently

 The more I study theories of anti-oppression, the more I am convinced that privilege, oppressor and oppressed are quite complex expressions of samsara, or suffering. They seem rooted in the political notions of surveillance and normalizing certain groups of people and casting out others in the process. But this relationships is always situated, and I am afraid that without a nuanced understanding of greed and hatred (as well as ignorance), it's hard to really get to the heart of oppression.
  The critical problem for me has always been how to look at privilege as an invitation to connect differently rather than the retreat into fear, xenophobia, and insecure clinging to one's false and unearned sense of power. What power does, after all, is to bolster a sense of identity. When a person burrows down beyond the layers of desire for material things, prestige, status, etc. it's ultimately the self that is threatened when these particular attainments aren't met. But when I recognize my guilt in having succeeded in certain things in life by virtue of privilege rather than personal achievement, I start to feel a kind of openness to the world and others: I no longer need to feel so guarded, since what I am trying to guard is ultimately a "sham" or a kind of unreal sense of self and entitlement. It's only when I can see it this way that I can really question whether such things really define who I am. But alas, as easy as this sounds, a period of mourning the loss of the self is needed, as well as a healthy sense of guilt.
    Why connecting differently is so important is that without the sense of connection, people will take their privileges as themselves, clinging to it for life. When they loosen their identification, there is no longer a need to wall oneself off from others. These others come closer to oneself, and there is a little more of a sense of solidarity in the process. Somehow, for me, this is the exciting part about anti-oppression approaches, and I look forward to learning more in the weeks ahead.

Anti Oppression Education and Contemplation

I am currently reading a lot of theories about anti oppression in education, and I am trying to understand their connection to contemplative education. My first hunch is that contemplative education can provide a solid grounding for students to approach the difficulties of realizing that there are oppressors and oppressed. If I come into a classroom and identify some people as oppressor and the others as oppressed, I am going to create a dynamic of unresolved tension and alienation. Unless I have some way to temper that with a more fluid understanding of identity, I am bound to lose a lot of people who would identify themselves as members of the oppressor class.
   The second observation I have is that doing this kind of work would require a great deal of love and curiosity. Simply "confronting" oppressors with the idea that they are passively benefiting from others is not addressing the actual problem, which is an over attachment to social identities that keep people in places of privilege. If I don't have a means of challenging and potentially moving beyond such identities, then I am bound to feel threatened by critical pedagogy which attempts to dismantle privilege. What would it be like if both oppressor and oppressed could see a little bit beyond their self identifications, while acknowledging the power of identity?
   Spiritual education might provide ways for a more flexible dialogue between oppressor and oppressed, by suggesting ways to go beyond self attachment and allow for a more fluid understanding of identity. I would love to explore the connects and disconnects between critical and holistic pedagogy.
   

Teaching "Disruption"

I came across a quote from an article on anti-oppression by Kumashiro (2000), which states, "teaching is not a representational act, an unproblematic transmission of knowledge about the world to the student, but is a performative act, constituting reality as it names it, while paradoxically acknowledging that the teacher cannot control how the student reads what the teacher is trying to en-act...There is always a space between the teaching and the learning, and rather than try to close that space (and control where and how the student is changed), the teacher should work within that space, embrace that paradox, and explore the possibilities of disruptions and change that reside within the unknowable" (p.46). This quote reminds me that what is being "learned" and "taught" is actually more like a process of mutual creation between teacher and student than it is a linear model. However, such an idea (which is rooted in a post-structural view of education) leads me to wonder: does this mean that teachers have nothing to plan at all for their classes?
  In fact, I do believe that teachers need to "plan" their classes, but maybe the implication is not that the class has a certain pre-defined layout, similar to an architectural blueprint. Rather, it seems safe to say that teachers are literally "preparing to be surprised" by their students. An unpredictable class is not a sign of failure, but is actually an indication that some aspect of one's lesson plan has an affect on the students, similar to a kind of mental or emotional alchemy.  "Planning", in this case, is a kind of soulful and sincere intention to be present in the students' learning in some fashion or another, but it's not a guarantee that there is a knowable way to connect that is going to happen every single time in the same way.
  The other point that comes to mind is the role of improvisation in teaching. Teachers don't just deliver content, but they also learn how to broker between their own interest in the content and the interests of their students. There are many times when a student is engaged in one aspect of a lesson that simply isn't covered in the plan, yet in itself might lead to a fruitful learning. The lesson plan triggers the student to find their own ways of learning something that is meaningful to them, rather than trying to "learn" what is actually not useful or memorable to the student. The balance of having a plan and allowing students to engage it in fresh ways, is always a tricky challenge for teachers, but it seems necessary in order for the students to find what they most need to learn for themselves in the moment.

Kumashiro, K. (2000). Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. Review of Educational Research, 70(1), 25-53. http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/493768 

Mistakes and Self-Image

 There are quite a few interesting educational theories out there who are describing the way that "grammatical mistakes" relate to the way that people have to negotiate between conflicting, different sets of rules. English, I think, is notorious for having exceptions, especially when it comes to prepositions. But what's interesting about this idea is that making a "mistake" doesn't necessarily get seen as a mishap or a malfunction in the mind: rather, it's about having to accept contradictory rules and find ways to decide between these conflicts. When I think of "mistakes" in this way, I am no longer saddled with unrealistic expectations that I will always "get it right", as though there were only one "right" to choose from. Instead, I might see mishaps as resulting from conflicting interests and ways of doing things.
   Whenever I am seen as making a mistake, I might want to consider: from whose perspective is it mistaken, and what does it reflect about the things I value or struggle with? In reflecting on the mistake in this way, I am not only thinking about how I can improve the situation, but I am also concerned with learning about myself. If I keep making the same mistake, is it reflective of a deficiency on my part, or might there be a conflicting perspective or priority inside me that takes precedence over getting that one thing "right"?
   When I can see the mistake in a broader context, I might choose other self images, rather than that of "the one who always messes up". I might choose to see that complexity sometimes necessitates making tough choices between different aims, such as that between efficiency and quality, or between enjoying a good rest and staying up to study. This can also help me to see that what others perceive as mistaken isn't a reflection of my value or the work that I do. 

Relationship Between Compassion and Conflict

Compassion seems to require an ability to behold conflicting narratives and stories. Though media often tries to identify a person using very convenient labels, it takes patience to be able to cut through the whole thing and realize that people are deeply complicated beings. I find it interesting, in fact, that something that seems incomprehensible at first might be considered morally wrong, only to be reframed as further details emerge about a person's life and experiences. Being able to take in the details is so much different from grasping at straws and trying to "construct a picture" using insufficient information.
  When I was taking English literature classes in my undergraduate years, I was told the importance of active reading: meaning, one should not just take what one reads as "given" but actively dig beneath the surface to know the details emerging and to form a picture. But sometimes an opposite thing happens, where a person "over-reads" to the point where their interpretation might override any new evidence that comes in. Only when I am open to new details do I see that my interpretation is always "in this moment" and is therefore subject to change at any second in time. This is "going beyond" interpretation to see their translucence as well as their ability to be replaced over time.
   If I am deeply puzzled or confused about a story and why something happened, might the person who perpetrated the act also not have a right to feel puzzled and confused about themselves as well? Years ago, I read a Jungian analyst (Helen Luke, I believe) who contended that sometimes we are not even capable of understanding or appreciating why our souls behave the way they do. We tend to subscribe to a straightforward notion of "I do something with X reason", only to realize that our reason is often framed in retrospect of a decision for which a variety of different inputs had previously existed. Compassion seems to come from realizing complexity: things don't happen for one particular reason but often co-arise out of a sea of complexity.
   I tend to think lately that one cannot truly embody compassion unless they can see complexity.

Is Compassion Enough?

 Is it enough to be compassionate, or must we also have faith that the universe itself is compassionate in some way? I was thinking along these lines while walking home from work tonight. In some sense, the question reminds me of my readings of Albert Camus, who in the Plague seems to lay out an ethical vision in which human beings struggle to bring about their values in an otherwise "uncaring" or indifferent universe. This often amounts to saying that people must take responsibility in order to bring about their sense of meaning in life.
   I sense that the problem is that there are times when people lack the inner confidence that things will go smoothly in their life, or that they will be able to surmount every difficulty. It is then that faith becomes such an important part of the spiritual journey. Such a faith often requires envisioning that the universe is full of protective and benevolent beings who are able to help us as needed. In Buddhism, these might be thought of as transformation beings, or benevolent bodhisattvas who take are of others. In other traditions, there might be angels, deities and so on.
   There is something in all this that is simply not knowable, and I seem to have reached a point in my life where I don't have a lot of faith in some external projection that is created in the mind. In the face of the unknown, the only thing I can do is choose to soften up a bit and allow feelings of confusion and bewilderment to surface, rather than chasing them off with a kind of faith construct. Too many times, I have found that having faith in one method, one way of being, or one "technique" leaves me feeling inadequate to face every situation: there is no one single prayer that is going to fit every occasion. For this reason, I tend to be leaning toward a method of gently beholding whatever comes to me and being more secure in the unknown itself, rather than looking for some kind of secure, all knowing being. In fact, learning to relax with uncertainty seems to be my present spiritual practice!

The RAIN Method

In her excellent book, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection, Sharon Salzberg devotes a chapter to a method handling difficult emotions (as well as welcoming all emotions) known as “RAIN”: Recognize, Acknowledge, Investigate and Non-Identify (pp.52-54). I found this idea to be quite useful, and it is also similar to the 4 steps to handling a problem which I have read in Master Sheng Yen’s writings (Face, Accept, Deal, Let Go). It seems useful to elaborate on a few of the points in detail.

“Recognizing” difficult emotions seems easy, but it’s probably the most difficult for our current cultural climate. Writes Salzburg, “It is impossible to deal with an emotion- to be resilient in the face of difficulty-unless we acknowledge that we’re experiencing it” (p.52). I find that in my own experience, there are two obstacles to recognizing emotions. The first is that emotions are often accompanied by psychological evaluations: I “like” this emotion and “dislike” the other. I find that many of my evaluations of emotions are attempts to manage my experience before I can really understand what the experience is and where it’s coming from. The second obstacle is not being curious enough about the emotion or underlying conflict to want to explore it in detail. Sometimes the lack of curiosity might even come from a lack of vocabulary to describe the emotion as it’s arising. The other reason is that I am too busy trying to control my experiences to be able to yield to difficult emotions and experience tensions as they are.

“Accepting” is similar to the notion of “accepting”; in Salzberg’s words, “you accept the feeling and allow it to be there” or, “you give yourself permission to feel it” (ibid). Again, this goes back to the principle of not judging one’s feelings. While this seems easy, I think what’s difficult is being able to unearth the vulnerability of emotions. Emotions often leave people open to difficult choices, such as how to express something that is painful. Sometimes what this requires is an underlying faith that one is “okay” regardless of the emotion. Salzberg even suggests renaming difficult emotions as “painful” as an “entry into self compassion” (p.53) which is none other than leaving open a space for discomfort to arise. What’s most difficult here is that some emotions are accompanied by efforts to control a primary emotion. I have noticed, for example, that the emotion of desire is often a way of avoiding or mitigating more difficult emotions such as frustration or anxiety. The desire is a way of “medicating” the more difficult emotions. If one constantly acts on desires rather than observing the underlying difficulties which often trigger it, one is losing the valuable knowledge and ability to be with discomforts.

The ability to “investigate” refers to being curious to explore one’s emotional states, without judgment or bias (p.53). But investigating doesn’t mean a rational, discursive exploration so much as a kind of sensuous exploration. Notes Salzberg, “We might explore how the feeling manifests itself in our bodies and also look at what the feeling contains” (ibid). This curiosity might also entail seeing the conditions that arise to compose the emotion. It is a subtle balance between not repressing and not indulging emotions.

Finally, “non identify” simply means not taking the emotions to be ourselves. This might mean simply identifying a state of mind as suffering (p.54) rather than imputing it to a self. I think the best way to look at this is to actually see everything arising in mind as “just mind”: not “mine”, not “yours” and not assignable into distinct bodies or identities. However, one needs to be honest to know when a person is attaching to these phenomena and when they are just phenomena.

Salzberg, S. (2017) Read Love: The Art of Mindful Connection. New York: Flatiron Books.

Tutoring as Conversation

Recently, I have been reading a book related to composition pedagogies (Tate, Rupiper & Schick, 2001) which talks about the idea of the writing tutorial center as a place, in the words of Eric Hobson related to "cultural conversation and negotiation from which knowledge emerges”  (p.170-171) I like this kind of metaphor because it relates to the anxieties that I have as a tutor for ESL students. While the tutor is sometimes expected to "disseminate meaning"  and even "plan" the educational experience, I lately prefer to think of the tutoring relationship as that of a conversation between different cultures and perspectives. Knowledge is not being delivered from one "knower" to another, but is constantly being negotiated. Does this lead to a kind of epistemic relativism? From my own experience, it is more about continually readjusting my style as a tutor to match the specific circumstances of the learner, as well as allowing myself to learn about how to resonate with that learner. Without going into the specifics of what is being taught and learned, the process of what gets to be the focus of learning is always being negotiated.
   To give a simple example, in my tutoring session this morning, I focused on the grammatical point of modals, particularly future "possibles" using if-would statements. I did this by teaching the basic uses of modals through a grammar book, followed by an example of an article on the future of human evolution in National Geographic which talks about how humans in the future might manipulate their bodies in the wake of genetic and biomedical engineering advancements. Hence, I tried to combine a lesson on grammar with an actual topic of relevance. However, the topic then shifted as the student started to talk more conversationally when we discussed experimenting on animals. This topic seemed to hit a chord with the student, because we then started discussing how animals are used in experiments and whether it is ethical or not. In my mind, I shifted my understanding of the learning away from something purely grammatical and toward something that is related to the student's interests and context, being a person who buys products that use animal experimentation. In this case, the topic of "what is to be learned" shifted away from formal "rules" of grammar and toward a more free-form conversation
   Some might suggest that this approach goes too far away from the original intention of the lesson. However, the point is that the lesson has a particular trajectory: teaching some mechanical rules followed by an application in an article, followed by a conversation that is improvised based on some of the topics that come up (directly and indirectly) from the lesson itself. Ideally,the three stages might be combined, and this is where some kind of dialogue is a useful way of constructing the topic. However even this process can be free flowing and not necessarily planned.
   I find it quite intriguing that the "meanings" made in tutoring sessions are never controlled or predicted. Rather than seeing learning as an offshoot of some "central branch" of knowledge, could all learning itself just be never-ending branches that intersect in some places and fan outward ? The lesson plan is not designed to impart core knowledge but rather to create the optimal conditions for improvisation to take place.

Tate, G, Rupiper, A. Schick, K (2001), ed. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. New York: Oxford University Press

Learning From the Ups

 After the meditation group sitting this morning, I shared from a book from Master Sheng Yen, the 108 Adages, which reads, "All the ups and downs of life are nourishing experiences for our growth".  I puzzled with the group over what it truly means to learn from life's "ups". Initially, my feeling was that we learn more from life's "downs" than the "ups", especially since it seems that people are nurturing their character through suffering. However, as one of the participants in the group had remarked, we often have a lot tolearn from gaining as much as from losing.
    For one, having a great gain or promotion in life teaches a person the idea of impermanence. It's so temping to thing that when things are going well, one is going to have those very same things indefinitely, and there will be no changes. But one of the most challenging things one can ever do is to not hold on too tightly to the things that they consider to have gained "forever". For example, a person might strive for many years to work and pay off their mortgage on a house, only to realize later that there are other challenges they have to face. Being able to pay off a mortgage is not the end of all suffering: it might be the beginning of other challenges, such as clinging too tightly to the notion of owning a house. In fact, nothing one has lasts forever. Even the cherished body is not something that a person can have indefinitely.
    In living with "gains" or "success", one has to cope with the drawback of recognizing that success has its own hazards. For instance, being promoted to a higher station in a corporate ladder can bring a person a lot of prestige, but it can also incite jealousy in others, thus nurturing feelings of insecurity. I have this job in one instant, but is having that job a guarantee that I am now going to go on this way unchallenged? Actually, everything is always changing, so in that sense, there is hardly any success that is going to guarantee one a life's sense of security. What can be painful about situations of "gain" is letting go of the idea that gain means one needn't struggle anymore. In fact, many apparent "gains" are accompanied by still more struggles and more complex situations to go with it. A person who gets promoted to a manager has many more challenges to face as a leader in an organization. Even though they certainly gain the opportunity to take on more roles or make decisions that affect the whole company, they are subsequently under much more scrutiny. In other words, there is no reason to necessarily "rejoice" over one's gains, but one should also learn to be humble in every situation they are in, since nothing is ever gained entirely through one's own personality or efforts.

Illness and Equanimity

Watching Master Sheng Yen's talk on illness on YouTube, I feel a certain kind of detached comfort, to know that there is a way to face illness without necessarily feeling resentful. Sheng Yen suggests that of the two kinds of physical illnesses, one is about being bedridden, while the other is about the kind of unease that people experience from day to day, such as the illness of hunger. Sheng Yen reminds me that my body is hardly ever in a state of stability most of the time, and physical illness is only one of the ways in which one can learn not to rely too heavily on bodily comfort.
   An example of this is what happened at my workplace tonight, when I volunteered to do overtime in order to handle a quarterly financial verification. I felt fine in the very beginning of waiting for the statements to be printed, but soon after 6 pm, I started to feel a bit hungry and even faint. Part of this is due to the fact that I had worked a long day already, but I am sure that it also has to do with the body's habit of eating at the same time every day, and then having its routines and order disrupted. While I definitely felt extreme confidence at the beginning of my shift, I very quickly started to realize that I too am a creature of the world, and I can never be the master of my experiences, no matter how determined I am. This is quite simply because I am prey to every kind of vulnerability when there is hunger, including lack of concentration. There is nothing wrong with this but it's to know that I have to take care that I am doing things within my capacities, and preparing myself for longer shifts to deal with the body's needs. But it's also to accept that I have limits which I need to follow if I am to be healthy. Only I can know what those limits are, but the signs of going beyond those limits might include a sense of unease and anxiety that has no ground. In those times, I might be warning myself that it's time for a rest or to go for a walk.
    Master Sheng Yen does offer excellent suggestions for how to face illness, but as always, it treads a middle path between acceptance and courage. "Acceptance" is about knowing that the body is only temporary, and hoping for absolute comfort all of the time is really a kind of attachment. When a person can adjust their attitude, the illness is not so onerous, and it can be handled more deftly. The second part, courage, seems to be more about being able to really know what one is suffering and not deny it or try to hide from it.

Sheng Yen, Illness  (GDD-31, Master Sheng Yen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t8cQH1EWas)

"Circumnambulating" Silence

 There is something somewhat ironic, perhaps, about the way we meditate in this small room in the midst of a bustling city. It's precious in a way: being able to turn to silence when the world is always pushing people to affiliate in a socially complex world. I have sometimes had this sense that this silence is where my life has lead me to, only it's been a circuitous route for me: from the comfort of silence to its jarring maladjustments, and back to a revised view of silence.
   For example, as a child, I would have to say that many of my teachers classified me as a "silent" child. I think it was one of the first comments a teacher had made on one of my report cards. I recall that when others were yelling, I was somewhere inside myself, a little bit isolated from others. In a sense, this kind of "silence" is gradually socialized out of a person. In fact, it seems a pity that schools often don't honor silence in the same way that they might honor and respect a socially precocious person. Silence itself might be a powerful way for students to listen to one another and emphasize their presence rather than trying to measure each other up using words.
   Going from silence into a social life is a necessary step. Without it, there would not be any sense of community. However, as philosophers such as Rousseau (and to a certain extent Lao Tze) would appreciate, too much of a social life of a certain kind can lead a person away from her or his center. It's as though a person leaves the comfort of their own silence in order to connect with others' worlds, only to find themselves swallowed into a world of praise and blame, winning and losing. A person becomes measured by how many friends she or he has, and therefore begins to lose the sense of their own inner compass.
    Swinging back to silence, however, is not about regressing into a childhood world. I think it's about re-appraising the role of silence in community. This, to me, is a rather delicate balance. If all we know about silence is a kind of stagnant isolation from others, then silence just becomes a reaction away from the foibles of social life, a little bit like a fancy Epsom salts bath in the midst of a palace of riches. On the other hand, when silence is enveloping one's sense of connectedness, it no longer becomes an escape but more akin to an embrace. I am not judging myself as opposed to the others, and I am certainly not ignoring through silence. It is more like a silence that sees the whole situation without labelling it or reacting quickly using what one "knows".

Anxiety about Language Learning

  I am recently reading about foreign language anxiety, and reflecting on my own fears related to learning Mandarin. I think that so much of language is tied to the sense of who one is and their sense of competence in the world. Having grown up speaking and learning English, I have gone through the ropes of fashioning identity and purpose through its various forms: via writing, texting, blogging and so on. Approaching an entirely different language and grammar, I am essentially reminded of the impermanence of this "language" identity, and how easily it can be swept away. It reminds me of an episode of the Twilight Zone which I had watched as a child, in which the adults are forced to learn a language from an alien culture, and essentially regress to the level of babies in he process of having to re-learn their world. Apparently the alien language is so foreign to them that they need to reverse the process of their own development of culture and learning to be able to grasp the new.
   Of course, there is a delight that comes from being able to recognize certain characters in Mandarin. I have noticed a few sparks of it: I can certainly see how learning a character in Mandarin can be like acquiring some kind of picture of a very different world. This is quite unlike English, whose characters tend to appear abstract and not image-based at all. But all the while, I think learning a completely different set of characters is putting me very close to a kind of powerless state, where I can't express even my most basic emotions in even the rudimentary characters. This somewhat isolates me, and makes me want to run to my first language.
   It makes me realize that the concept of beginner's mind which is celebrated in contemplative practices (such as Buddhism) has a great deal to contribute to the process of language learning. It also offers a kind of phenomenology to help people appreciate their beginnings in language, rather than seeing the process as annihilating. Going beyond "self'" is a necessary part of going back to the beginning or roots of learning. I would be interested in exploring the links between language learning and the beginner's attitude that we read about in many contemplative practices.

Remember to Forget

  This past day went by extremely quickly, yet I felt anxious for various reasons. The first is that I was going back to my department today after a relatively long absence working in a different department. Adjusting back to the old routine felt strange to me, and I wasn't sure if I even had work to "return to" after the absence. The second anxiety was over the several meetings that would take place in the coming week, many of which would detract me from my routine work again. It's funny how, at the point when I was going through today's meetings and engagements, I somehow managed to forget how demanding or anxiety-provoking it is. In immersing myself in what needs doing, I was not dwelling on the cares of the future that originally made me feel anxious.
   Something else happens in these situations as well. In the process of going through something that makes me anxious, I start to lose attachment to the things which I had been trying to "use" to shield myself from anxiety. This is a very important point to me, because once those "emotional shields" aren't necessary anymore, a kind of burden is lifted from me. It's as though I had forgotten that I even needed to defend myself against the situation I wanted to avoid, and I am not spending so much energy in trying to escape from the painful experience.
   Can mindfulness include both elements of "remembering" and "forgetting"? It seems that the literature in mindfulness tends to focus on the former, but I have a sense that mindfulness also requires the ability to forget, or to lose the sense of clinging to an old or outdated storyline. Doing this sometimes requires moments of "just doing" and letting go of the anxiety around it.

From Burdens to Challenges

 I was contemplating today the difference between "burden" and "challenge". Of course, trudging through the snow this weekend might have felt burdensome at times, but I think the qualifier is that a person expects not to have to trudge through the snow. For example, whenever I think that the weather is too unusual for April, my mind automatically rejects the snow and my having to trudge through it, as well as tread carefully along the ice. But if I didn't have a vision in my mind of how the month of April is supposed to unfold, would trudging through the snow feel as burdensome?
  It seems that there are two major conditions or "mentalities" that make a challenge into a burden. The first is a sense of inner conflict between accepting the current situation and looking for another that one expects to find in its place. It's as though my mind is still questioning whether this current condition needs to be there or not, so I haven't fully reconciled myself to it. This often happens when a person is conflicted between accepting a consequence and trying to see if another could just as well be there in its place.
   The second obstacle to accepting a challenge is an inability or a lack of confidence in one's ability to shoulder difficult feelings. It's not that the situation itself is difficult, but rather the uneasiness of one's feelings around it.  This seems to be where being mindfully present can be very helpful. When I am not identified or invested in the feelings themselves, I am able to witness them and not get overly attached to either the feelings themselves or succeeding in the tasks that I have been given for the week. Rather, I am simply aware that this is a difficult situation for me personally, and I am going to need to slow things down and take them step by step.
   Finally, I think it helps to know that in the midst of personally taxing or difficult situations, there is impermanence: the situation will change over time, as the conditions change as well. In that way, I am not attached to any outcome either way, and thus I can have more energy available to accept the challenge. It's the attachment to my existence that leads me to reject the challenge and see it as a burden: I am deep down inside attached to "winning" and "losing", and thus this creates an added sense of burden.

Weathering Storms

This past weekend, Toronto had suffered a very large amount of freezing rain and snow. Although I had been warned many times through the Internet not to travel too much, I decided that I would not let the snow and ice deter me from going out or engaging in some routine. Although I was much more cautious to walk in the slippery areas than usual, I felt a kind of excitement in going outside to see if I could survive the weather. I do believe that this attitude helps to bear the conditions, and also re-frames the experience not as a danger but as an interesting challenge that doesn't happen all the time or that often.
   The point I want to make is that everything has its own dark beauty. To stick to one status quo is to risk not being able to go out and enjoy some of the strange sights of nature. For example, as I was walking down Yonge Street yesterday toward Finch Subway Station, all I could hear was the faint rumble of the cars slowly ambling their way down the busy and slushy road. It sounded ominous, like the hidden roar of a plane engine that had been muffled by the fog and clouds themselves. But that kind of sound, however "dystopic", can inspire the imagination. The unknown or fearful places also contain a kind of unknowable and undefinable beauty.
   Years ago, such experiences might have been classified as "the sublime" according to the philosopher Edmund Burke. With the sublime comes a sense of smallness in the universe, as people begin to realize that their methods of getting on in the world don't necessarily fare against Nature, which has her own "schedule" to run. But it also allows people to adjust their ideas and thinking away from the usual routines.
     The only other two times something like this has happened in the city would have been the major power outage in 2003, and the more recent ice storm a few years back. In both these cases, I found myself faced with the unknown and able to appreciate things that I don't normally experience. During the power outage, all I had was the darkness and a couple of cats I was taking care of at the time in my old apartment. I was able to enjoy the cats much more when there was no internet or other technologies of comfort.

Voices of Stillness

  This morning, after the meditation session, a participant had mentioned how she believed I had a calming tone of voice, which helped her calm her mind down. I was surprised to hear this, considering that it often takes me some time before I can reach a calm state of equilibrium. However, I also acknowledged afterward that the effort to relax was sincere on my part. Trying to relax is still an effort which requires great care, but it's not an effort as in trying to exert oneself or fight some kind of inner resistance. Understanding how I arrive at this "voice" is interesting to me, because it gives me a concrete example of the way meditation actually "works" on the things we do and how we do them.
  First, a word about "voice": it strikes me as not so accidental that voice would be such an important aspect of the meditation. Meditation "guidance" requires a voice to punctuate the silences, but sometimes voice can, if used in an unobtrusive way, provide a grounding for one's thoughts. I have often tutored students, for example, who were much more grounded in speaking their thoughts than writing them in prose form. It's as though "speaking out loud" is an immediate form of feedback, or at least a more direct access to one's direct and authentic experience of the present moment. Voice is somewhere between writing on paper and keeping thoughts in one's brain. Whereas the former is a blank canvas upon which one can construct any number of sentences, the latter is the sometimes scattershot wandering thoughts. Voice acts as an intermediary: it is both a "form" and a "non-form" in the sense that it materializes yet does not leave any permanent trace the way writing does. The only way I can thus "pick up" voice is to attend to it now, in this moment. It's no wonder that hearing someone's voice can become a powerful meditation in itself.
   The second point is about the relationship between voice and "manner". One's voice is not so easy to find. Obviously, if I am only mechanically reading from a script, my true voice isn't there: it's not an expression of what I am truly feeling or going through in that moment. On the other hand, simply saying what's on the top of one's head can also be a little bit inauthentic, because it doesn't stay true to the mind in that moment: it takes thoughts themselves to be one's true self. Only when I can treat the thoughts as pointing to a deeper awareness that I am not tied to thinking, and can release the thoughts in a spoken form that is really "my voice". Such a voice is authentic because it is true to the most authentic state of mind there is: tranquil and not dependent on particular thoughts or desires.
    A lot of this reminds me of the writings of Peter Elbow (2007) on "voice" in writing. Elbow finds that the search to define one's authentic voice is next to futile, and he at some point gave up on defining it for his students. Instead, he would point out to students areas in their writing where he was most able to pinpoint their truest and deepest inspirations and thoughts: thoughts which spoke to the innermost experiential dimension rather than being reduced to a ploy or a passing cliche. Ironically or perhaps paradoxically, a lot of finding voice involves letting go of the confusing things we think we are, as well as how we identify ourselves.


Elbow, P. (2007). Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries. College English, 70(2), 168-188.

Life Gratitude

When a person normally thinks of "gratitude", they tend to have a pre-existing framework. It goes something like, "I am grateful for having 'x', since without it, I would be more like 'y'". In many times in life, I found myself thinking this way; comparing myself to others or even to myself in the past. But what isn't often explored is how one's life can be a source of gratitude.
  Where does this life "gratitude" arise, and how? I believe it's when a person is no longer conditionally attached to the things in life. For example, when I strip away the layers of all the things I was expected to "have" by the time I reach 45 (degrees, status, promotions, education and so on), what is left is a sense that this life is so unique and cannot be repeated. It is really a timeless experience because there is no "other time" that supplants or replaces the time that is unfolding now. This is a kind of beholding of the miraculous. Is this an easy realization to have? I have hardly had such a realization, but this morning I did tell myself that there are so many good things flowing into and out of my existence, and it has nothing to do with a future that "never happened yet". These moments help me to affirm that there is always a reason to feel okay, even when things aren't necessarily okay around or within ourselves.

Vexations, Stability and Paradox

 During the meditation sharing tonight, a practitioner explored his idea of meditation allowing him to feel more "in control" of situations around him, especially in his relations with others. Rather than simply reacting automatically to situations by dismissing or becoming defensive around someone who might seem disarming or threatening, this practitioner finds that meditation allows him to slow down his sense of time around others. This allows him, in his words, to "analyse" the situation much better to see what kinds of things might be going on between him and the other person. One way is by exploring or even theorizing about why a person behaves as they do, so that a person does not take the blame when a relationship is not working very well. Sometimes, as this practitioner related, one needs to leave the other person to his or her own "swamp" of emotions rather than trying to become enmeshed in them.
   I am not too sure that "control" is quite the right word for these kinds of situations. Meditation is not necessarily leading to a better sense of control, so much as it is more about understanding that one's reactions are based on the mind's creations, not something or someone that exists independently. This is a very hard thing to realize, because in fact, most people find themselves inadvertently creating an "other" who is somehow independent of the situation. It creates all sorts of paradoxical and somewhat "knot-like" situations.
    Recently, there is a popular song out there called "Kill Em With Kindness", and somehow I think the title itself says a lot. For one, it's a paradox to kill with kindness-- unless, of course, the "kindness" is just an outer expression for an internal resentment against someone. To me, the paradox of trying to get back at someone by being extremely nice to them seems to illustrate that greater paradox of what happens when people become very proficient in their meditation practice and have positive experiences. Sometimes, one gets this illusion that their life is suddenly "together" or they are "in control" of a situation, when what has often happened is that a person has learned to let go (to some degree) of the need to control.
     Put it this way: the more desires I have, be they for entertainment or sweet foods, or other forms of escape, the more likely I will have vexations in my mind. I will become so wrapped up in comfort as long as my desires multiply. When I am able to put down some of these desires and experience a state of gentle refraining from indulging pleasurable scenarios, then I start to soften my personality: I don't need so many things to feel peaceful in mind and body. This might seem like having more control, but actually it's really more about having fewer desires or inclinations to try to manipulate the world according to one's wishes. In this way, stability of mind can be discovered.
    To go back to the earlier paradox: sometimes, we might achieve some state of equilibrium, only to find that we use this temporary state of energy and stability to then project our unwanted anxieties or vexations onto others. It may look something like, "I can now be peaceful without so and so. Which means, stick it to so and so!" But what then happens is that we engage more and more in this dislike or venting against so and so, thus going back into a cycle of resentment and ambiguity (if I truly disliked so and so, why are they so important to me?). The idea is that I am trying to create a temporary oasis but as soon as I start conceiving "others" in relation to it, those others threaten to tear down the oasis, and thus I get back to this "self" and "other" differentiation.
  All of these "knot like" situations are really forms of entanglement, and they end up just going back to suffering. It's only when I can really experience the lack of self/other as discreet substances that I can really have peace and not be disturbed by situations. But this state of renouncing self/other dualism is hard to really experience. It takes time and practice, and I can't say I am there yet.

The Hanging Thread

During the meditation practice tonight, I was able to see my practice method as a kind of life-saver. How did I see it that way? I think when I am convinced that all other thoughts lead to some kind of suffering, the method of meditation itself becomes a kind of lifeboat. It's through a dedication and love for the method itself that many of one's vexations can be renounced.
   It' s hard to come to this point, because a lot of times, I project onto the method itself things that are not inherent to it. Some people say "meditation is too hard" or "it's too strict", or even "impossible", but in fact these are only projections of a person's chance thoughts on the experience itself. They have nothing to do with the actual method. When I finally realize that my thoughts are the source of suffering, I am ready to throw myself wholeheartedly into the meditation practice method, because I am seeing it as it is, not in terms of these imagined projections.
    This devotion is not a kind of romanticized religion for me. More so, it is kind of an ultimate responsibility for oneself to make the practice come to life. Nobody but oneself can truly choose to be engaged in that moment. This is also something I have learned recently, and that is only myself am responsible for his own emotional life and engagements. The "coming back to one's method" is one way that this responsibility comes to life for me.

What Are We Responsible For?

 In Buddhism, there is often talk of "causes and conditions", and it might incline people to wonder what is truly "theirs" to take responsibility for. When I am experiencing this moment right now, whatever I experience is not at all separate from me. Therefore, I can say that all of this experience I am having is fundamentally my responsibility. While the conditions arise from previous ones, the mind itself is capable of experiencing conditions in different ways. I am not chained to the past, even though I am certainly facing the conditions themselves.
   That having been said, there is no reason to "fight" the conditions of the mind. The point is, what kind of vow am I making in this present moment? Let's say I am in with a group of people who are doing things that are harmful to themselves or to others. Even though I have no reason to be a judge for that person's actions, I can still decide how I want to act in that moment. If I simply conclude that what I am seeing is harmful and to just "go along" with the harmful conditions, then I am forgetting my vows to cultivate peace of mind for the sake of all beings. I believe that the conditions around me are affecting me, but actually I am choosing my present vows, and thus I am not bound to the conditions themselves.
  I always turn to the analogy of meditation as a guide to this principle. While conditions of mind are certainly arising in the ways that are predictable from the past seeds that have been planted in the mind, one is never "imprisoned" to such conditions, any more than the reflections "capture" the mirror surface. To think that I am bound by the conditions is very much like someone mistaking the mirror reflections for "real" things which are embedded in the mirror's surface. If I am sufficiently relaxed and resting in the method of my practice, I wouldn't feel this way at all.
 It's important in all of this never to attach too much importance to conditions in themselves. Favorable conditions are very much like the people you are attracted to in a party: you take them as being fortunate events and might even cling to them, only to realize that those people are going to leave the party without you. Unfavorable conditions, conversely, are similar to unpleasant situations in a party. If I take them as permanent, I will mistakenly add more suffering to the party than is warranted. I believe that those beings are real and to be accounted for, when they are really phenomena.
   This idea suggests that nobody ever forces me to feel unhappy or discouraged. It is simply that I fall for the idea that it is others who force me to feel a certain way. This is just wandering thoughts!

Love "Entitlement"

 During yesterday's panel discussion on love and compassion, one of the participant in the audience, a therapist, raised the interesting question of how people who have never been loved before in any kind of depth can feel loved by their teachers and peers, let alone extend love to others. This question is interesting because it does raise the point, how can a person know that the love (or lack thereof) they receive (or don't receive) is a true reflection of their belonging in the universe? This amounts to saying: how much love are young people "entitled" to receive from others in classroom situations?
  In fact, my question is a little bit of a trick one, because I am not even sure myself whether it's appropriate to speak of "entitled' or lack thereof when it comes to being loved in classrooms. First of all, teachers are under no obligation to treat their students in a "loving" way that students feel is "truly love". Even if teachers could know with any precision how the students want to feel loved, there is little likelihood that a class of 30 or so students is going to be able to receive that kind of attention from their teachers.
   Secondly, there is never a precise measure for what is "due" to the other in relationships. Once two or more people are willing to face each other and help, then the matter of what is "due" for each person is naturally negotiated, and that relationship will change over time. In the beginning, relationships can be tenuous, because we don't precisely know how to treat each other. Both students and teachers come into the class with their own baggage, so naturally they will feel nervous to know how their needs are met together. If either the teacher or the student is not truly present in the classroom, then there isn't enough energy for either to provide kindness or attention.
   What can teachers do in these situations, then? I think the attitude of open heart is so crucial here. I wonder if that might take the form of a simple faith that all sentient beings need a certain amount of love and support and this in itself warrants attention, even though specific needs might remain unmet in the process. Through this faith, I may not be able to please everyone, but at least i am open to my own vulnerability to needing acceptance and love. This brings me closer to others and allows me to see the suffering that others go through when they don't receive needed attention or help.

Public Speaking and "Facing the Other"

 Tonight, I had the opportunity to facilitate a talk that took place at Emmanuel College, on the subject of Jack Miller's book Love and Compassion: Exploring Their Role in Education. When I stepped up to the podium, I was completely frazzled. I am not sure what the reason is, but often, I do sense an inner judge, as well as a feeling of being overwhelmed by "many others." And this also lead me to reflect on the notion of "Other" that the other panelist, Tom Reynolds, explores in his article "Love Without Boundaries: Theological Reflections on Parenting a Child with Disabilities". I have a few random observations which I will say here on these subjects.
  First off, about the notion of "being overwhelmed at the sight of many Others": is this "healthy" or "unhealthy"? Somehow, I have a sense that our culture pathologizes this feeling of "overwhelmed by the Other", as though it were a sign of inexperience, lack of confidence, or some kind of inner lack. To feel vulnerable in front of a crowd of people often feels as though one has to cover up this anxiety with some theory, some idea, or some method. But as Tom Reynolds has suggested in his writings (as well as Jack through his classroom circles), the notion of being open and witnessing to one's anxiety with others might not be a bad thing at all. Sometimes when a person just allows her or himself to be with those emotions, they turn out to be very exhilarating. I found that even though I was quite dry and nervous after the panel, this nervousness felt almost ecstatic, taking me out of this habitual "self" and allowing me to be fully with discomfort.
    The standard cultural interpretation that goes with fear of public speaking is something like: if you are "nervous" when speaking in front of others, then it means that you haven't developed enough resilience when doing public speaking. I have heard all number of explanations or techniques used to overcome such a fear: for instance, my co-worker advised me to "look at the audience's foreheads" rather than their eyes. Such ideas suggest a kind of metaphor of "armoring" oneself or "arming" myself with knowledge to address potential criticism or judgement.  But, as I reflect on my personal experience in public speaking tonight, I wonder, is this the "correct" way of looking at it? Or might the feeling of nervousness really a kind process of opening up which challenges these hardened edges of looking at "my comfort", "my competence", and the other hardened, presumably "certain" ideas I have about myself? Could this anxiety I feel be seen as a kind of spiritual ecstasis, or going beyond the cherished ideas I have about myself?
   I think that when I am more open to a different, revised understanding of what happens when I speak in public, then I am no longer scrambling for ways to secure my sense of self. This could be the awakening of a kind of compassionate "being with" others---one that is not constantly guarded, and which might even be open to the vulnerability of fellow "others". The same goes with other situations in which my comfortable, secure sense of "this is who I am" gets challenged on all sides. When I stop looking for these safe "refuges" by which I defend and define who I am, then my anxiety can be seen more as an exhilarating "letting go" of what I formerly used to define who I am.
   

"Civilized" Debate

 During my Grade 4 class on Gulliver's Travels today, we explored the strange and arcane world of the Houyhnhmns, horse-like creatures who we presume are more "civilized" in manner than both the Yahoos and humans combined. I had the students pick one of the three kinds of beings and explore what it means for them to be "civilized" or "uncivilized", as well as why cultures choose to use these terms, and what function it might serve. After the students came up with their answers, I plotted them on a diagram to show the overlaps and differences in how they define "civilized". More importantly, I explored the ambiguities and even dangers of this term. What does it mean when some students associate civilization with "manners" while others tend to swing toward technological prowess or ability to use money? As I was doing the exercise with the students, I was beginning to realize that people might tend to associate civility with their own customs, rather than having an objective idea of what the term means. As with many terms that are often bandied about in political discussions, this word tends to be a bit slippery. It certainly got the students to think about their ideas and dialogue about how the term is often used to discriminate one group of people from another. I would have to say that this kind of debate proved to be healthy and thought provoking for the students and myself as well. I also noticed that children of that age do like games, and it was hard for me to lead the powerpoint before it, since they were definitely anticipating the games.
   I am not too sure why "debate" is so appealing to students. Part of me wonders if perhaps the exercise of debate on civilization is actually feeding into the tendency to form "factions" around us vs. them. Is even the very notion of "civilization" a rather dated concept in a time when we are questioning imperialism and its tendency to dominate through a complicated logic of inclusion and exclusion? At the very least, I hope that these kinds of exercises might allow students to see the logic rather than taking that logic to be real or indissoluble "truth". In seeing the potential violence of logic (its illusion of inevitability), students might think twice or re-examine their assumptions about what it means. However, I am also aware that Grade 4 students are perhaps still exploring their own understanding of what truth is, and how they distinguish right from wrong.

Writing Behaviors

 Robert Zoellner's theory about "Talk Write" Theory (in Myers and Grey, 1983) is quite interesting because it positions writing as a behavior, not just as a series of isolated thoughts. Now what does it mean, then, that writing is a behavior? It suggests that when people write, they are engaging in a kind of ritual, from the time they pick up the pen to the first sentence they write. The difficulties of writing are not necessarily about mastering rules or trying to fill one's mind with ideas about "good" writing. Rather, it's the way a person engages in writing itself that makes the difference in how writing is experienced.
 Zoellner is writing from the perspective of behaviorism. While I don't totally agree with this school of thinking in its attempt to downplay the role of introspection in behavior, one thing I do get out of it is that sometimes one's thoughts begin with action, not the other way around.  When I am in the process of writing this blog, for instance, I often find myself procrastinating for want of a single idea I am going to decide to reflect upon. However, what gets me over that block is the act of writing itself: telling myself to even write a single paragraph tends to get me over the hump of "not knowing what to write". In fact, it's often the act of writing itself that tells me where I get stuck in the writing. This is a bit paradoxical, but the idea is that in doing the act, I actually know where I am creatively blocked, and what I might unconsciously be resisting.
   An example might be the common idea that writers have, "I have too many ideas to write about and I can't choose which one to focus on." This thought obviously can make a writer feel overwhelmed, but what happens if I just write in spite of that thought? Actually, there is almost a natural process of gradually narrowing the topic, similar to how racing thoughts tend to diminish when a person chooses to be present in a meditation method. Here, it's the act of writing that itself becomes the method, and not the actual content of the writing. Method becomes content, as the person's intentions begin to coalesce into words and one can express one's being through this single minded attention to the act of writing itself.
   This leads me to my other point, and that is: how a person engages in the act of writing can determine the way it is written as well as its quality. An example: if I am seated close to a window and keep getting distracted by passing airplanes every time I write a word, chances are I will probably write in a very choppy way. Moreover, I won't necessarily enjoy the writing itself when there are no flow moments- unless I am writing about the airplanes themselves, in which case the writing could flow as a meditation on that experience of watching.
 

Myers, M. & Gray, J (ed) (1983) Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition: Processing, Distancing, and Modeling. Urbana: Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English

Fear and Irritation

 I have observed in myself that behind irritation is a kind of fear. There is a strong desire to avoid as well as a belief that I must avoid a situation. If I "breathe into" the situation itself and know that I am able to sustain the irritation with a big heart and mind, then the fear subsides. And there is this creative energy that is left over to do and create things.
   I think that when a person goes through the entire experience, an expansiveness can occur. But it's too easy to cut off that experience in favour of reactivity. This is partly because of the society in which one lives, where the emphasis is on maintaining one's rights and dignity, which sometimes amounts to avoiding discomfort at all costs. Staying with painful emotions is all the more difficult because we are often pressured into asserting our own individuality, under the belief that not doing so will make us into doormats. This is a kind of social ethic which can promote healthy boundaries but also a somewhat toxic or unhealthy belief that everything must go one's way.
   What if not "saving face" were somehow okay, and I didn't really need to preserve any personal image of myself in all situations? What if I simply relax into what is happening to me, rather than trying to assert this impermanent self? I think it's worthwhile to challenge the notion that irritation must be met with a kind of self-assertion.

"Alone" Time

 One of the problems of being in the city (or excitement, perhaps) is that there are so many things that seem to "need attention". I have noticed that there needs to be more quiet time just to know one's own thoughts and state of mind. Unfortunately, a busy schedule and lifestyle often leaves a person so exhausted that at the end of the day, they are only in the mood to distract themselves through Youtube videos or the like. This kind of cycle leads to endless distractions.
   It's one thing to be alone but there is also a sense of recovery,  or coming back to the sense of a person's most heartfelt experience of aliveness. I have found that this is most difficult to recover. During the group meditation practice tonight, it took quite a while for thoughts to settle to the point where I wasn't driven by them, and luckily the facilitator for tonight's session allowed me the opportunity to relax myself. When all the thoughts settled, I did feel myself a completely different person, as though the thoughts were just random furniture in a bare and already clean, spacious room.  Thus, you can imagine how hard it is to really recover an authentic sense of being in daily life, if it takes nearly two hours for the mind to settle and know that it is truly sitting in he present.
   It's not sufficient to just "be alone" to have this time with one's own experiences and felt sense of being. One has to get to a certain point where they can recover the lost sense of "who I am is not affected by all of this". This is a kind of felt appreciation of existence that I have often experienced as a young person, but very rarely as an adult. Could it be that one's responsibilities take them too much away from the sense of wonder in being alive?

Awareness of Ideals

Today, I was tutoring my student about mission statements. I came across an idea that mission statements are somewhere between the visionary and the concrete. A mission statement that lacks "specifics" is going to appear over-idealistic and somewhat wishy-washy. On the other hand, a mission statement that only consists of concrete "facts" or "specifics" lacks a wider view about what a person or organization intends to do for some greater good.
  I am sometimes afraid that too much "vision" even in religion can lead to unrealistic idealizations of ourselves and our capacities to live in the spirit. As I get older, I become more exposed to the harshness of packed schedules and lack of sleep. I experience the limits of my body and consciousness in those moments, yet, for me, this kind of life seems more true to life than a life entirely free from the earth. It's as though a part of me wants my feet to be firmly touching the ground, even if each step seems wearisome.
   In Chan Buddhist tradition, there is the saying that "all actions are Chan", which means that the spirit is never far from the ordinary things of this world, whether it's eating, sleeping, working or taking a shower. Every one of these activities is none other than acts of mind. Where does "idealization" set in? For me, it's when I seek to become a better person or a kind of mental ideal, without realizing that the ideal is just that: a kind of mental projection. There is a kind of subtle self there: the projection of how I wish to be seen as "spiritual" in others' eyes. What then happens is that I subtly reject this actual moment in favor of an idealized possibility. This then leads to conflict between this idealized self and the rejected one which ends up being split off or repressed.
   The only way I have been able to avoid this situation is by seeing the spiritual in the ordinary itself: in the tired feet, in the busy days at work, in the rain, in the bus ride home. By not separating these from some idealized or sacred view, I allow these experiences to become part of the practice of being present.

The Shapes of Things

During the Chinese class tonight, I was reflecting on my previous blog related to the educational psychologist Rhoda Kellogg, in particular her observations on how young people acquire the ability to make symbols. Kellogg's theories about the kinds of archetypal images and shapes that children are forming an early age suggest that they play with collective meaning before those meanings coalesce around conceptual objects. For instance, children experiment with what Jung referred to as "mandalas"--divided circles which illustrate a balanced matching of halves in one complete cycle--long before they understand that what they are drawing are "geometrical shapes known as circles". 
   Reflecting on my own experiences in practicing the formation of Chinese characters on a draw computer media, I would theorize that learning a language also requires the ability to experiment with shapes. Forming the characters becomes a way of connecting with the inner shapes, be they the graceful swishes of a long line or more circular patterns. It's also this formation that seems crucial to the embodied aspect of language and writing in particular. Unless I am actually forming the characters, I don't have that continuous feedback loop which directs or guides the hands in shaping the characters. This takes away the sense of randomness and creativity, or play, that a language might entail.
   I am also reminded that words themselves might have meanings which are embedded in their formations. These "meanings" are more primordial: they don't relate to the agreed upon meaning that a particular word has, but might relate to the deeper meanings of the shapes coming together. It's much less apparent that this would happen in the English language than in the Chinese language, since the latter tends to be more image-laden. However, I can see how all languages might entail an encounter with the felt meanings of shapes and forms. Even writing as a physical act is a sort of art, in the sense that it creates forms which in turn guide the awareness to very nuanced, subtle and hard to trace meanings.

Children's Art and Spirituality

Rhoda Kellogg (in Meyers & Grey, 1983) was a psychologist who maintained that children's art contained elements of structure, form and meaning that have universal meanings (pp.67-74). Drawing from Jungian archetypal psychology, she maintains that children's art contains similar "gestalts" or structural elements, one of which is the mandala that is sacred to many spiritual traditions and which symbolizes the wholeness of the soul. Curiously, few parents would catch onto this sort of symbolic imagery, in part because parents tend to reward children for creating art that resembles something that is close to a consensual vision of what reality is and how it is illustrated.  This is also because parents tend to place little significance on the seemingly "random" squiggle shapes which compose early children's art. Mistaking these random scribbles for "misguided" attempts to create presumably "real" objects in the world, people tend to view children's art as underdeveloped visions of adult reality, rather than seeing the seeming randomness of children's art to be significant in and of itself.
    By looking at children's art as innately predisposed with profound structural elements, Kellogg seems to prepare the way for future educators such as Tobin Amon and Robert Coles to explore the "spirituality" of children. But I think another aspect which might get overlooked is how Kellogg reverses the view that children are only "undeveloped" adults. In seriously considering the creations of children in their own right, Kellogg manages to restore adult curiosity toward children's ways of knowing. One might think that children's ways of knowing are somehow underdeveloped "versions" of adult seeing, but another way of approaching this is to see adults as fully indoctrinated into ways of seeing that are entrenched in systems of culture and power. An example of this might be that of a tree.
      Most students by a certain age (say, 10), are able to trace what appears to be the rough outlines of a tree: brown trunk and a normally circular "green" blob of leaves and foliage. Do these things even resemble actual trees? For adults, the circular green top and slender brown trunk signify a tree, even though the image might not even correspond to what trees look like. But the point is that scholars such as Kellogg would suggest that it isn't the child who labels the shapes of the branches and foliage as a "tree". Rather, adults confer upon the children such labels, which are usually enforced by the shared culture. I say that the green blob and long brown trunk collectively make a word "tree", yet this image hardly corresponds to what an "actual" tree looks like. However, once one examines the images the children are creating in and of themselves, they discover profound things about them, such as the ability for children to make many things from one central circle.


Myers, M. & Gray, J (1983) Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition: Processing Distancing, and Modeling. Urbana, Ill: National Council of Teachers of English