A Contemplative Way of Love

“When love no longer knows how to contemplate, it wants to possess, hence, the disappearance of Platonic love ---that which proceeds not from the imagination but from the soul.” –Alexandra Fidyk, “A Rehabilitation of Eros”

           

Alexandra Fidyk writes about Socrates’ encounter with Diotima, in Plato’s Symposium. Socrates, like many in this famous discussion, is talking about whether an object of love can truly be known and esteemed when it is not yet possessed or ‘owned’ by the lover. Diotima suggests to Socrates that there is a middle space between ‘knowing’ and ‘not knowing’, as in cases where a person can know how to do something without quite having the words for them. Socrates is humbled by Diotima’s example, and Fidyk maintains that this humility is also a model for the receptivity of love. Hence, she remarks, “Eros lives ‘in between’ all the messiness and the particularities that comprise an embodied human life.” (p.63).

            Fidyk’s analysis points to a model of love as enchantment and receptivity, which are both intriguing possibilities. For one, I believe that this ‘model’ of Eros goes against a notion popularized by M. Scott Peck, among others, that love is an action and not a feeling. Is it possible that perhaps love is neither an action nor a feeling, but something quite non-categorizable? Diotima hints at this when she describes this mysterious middle way between knowing and not knowing. The other interesting aspect, I find, is that Fidyk finds a space in her interpretation to explore a contemplative understanding of love. This idea might sound quite mystical to some, but it avoids viewing love as some kind of abstract technique of giving. It also suggests that love embodies how to receive another, not necessarily how to ‘give to’ another as though they were separate.

            The way I relate to this analysis: there are times when I feel that giving can be an impediment to loving. This is especially true when a person takes on a giving role in relation to others, and seems to put that role in front of the other person or the connection one has with that person. It could be that in that situation, the person values the giving role they create for themselves more than the actual being with another. But there may be other reasons for this as well. I believe that when giving becomes a strong habit, there is sometimes a fear that ‘non-giving’ will sever the bond one has with someone else. It is as though one needs to be in a giving mode 24/7, non-stop, and it’s about exerting oneself to achieve a merit with someone else. Not only can that way of relating to people be exhausting, but it is also failing to consider how one is experiencing the moment with that person. Soon, the relationship can become mechanical and full of this hidden expectation or fear of separation from not giving.

            I think that meaningful giving requires a meaningful ability to receive an experience and to just interact with it. Meditation is perhaps a good example of this kind of connection. When I meditate, I am asked to focus on a method, such as watching the breath, reciting a mantra, or observing the body. If I do this with a mindset of fear (fear of thoughts or ‘intruding’ experience), then the method becomes a projection of the self. At that point, I start to measure ‘my ability’ to be on the practice by how long I can sustain awareness of the method. This soon becomes tiring, especially because it emphasizes sustaining the existence of the subject, the “I”. So in order to sustain the practice, I have to relax quite a bit and find some way to quiet the mind. This is the background through which the method starts to have a context. Then the awareness becomes the experience, and the method is gently referring to that gentle awareness. At that point, there is simply no need to push or put the self into the foreground of what is happening. It is just this still awareness where the breath arises and falls in a cyclic pattern.

            I do wonder if this meditative stance of “ just being” and receiving can apply to a loving relationship. I believe so, but it is like what Fidyk hints at in the quote above when she describes soulful love. It seems that in order to truly receive another, one has to go beyond even the images one create of others.

 

References,

 Fidyk, Alexandra (2009), “A Rehabilitation of Eros: Cultivating a Conscious Relation with Love” Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, Volume 3, Number 4, pp.59-68

 

Balance and Harmonized Thoughts

            Lately, I am reading Jean Shinoda Bolen's wonderful book, Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self. There are two reasons in particular why I find this book interesting. The first is that it explores a creative process of seeing everyday events symbolically as extensions of inner conflicts, a process that Jung describes as synchronicity. Another reason I find Shinoda Bolen's book interesting is that it describes a kind of integrated self: a self that synthesizes opposites by beholding tensions between polarities and working between these polarities, rather than emphasizing one over the other. Some of what Shinoda Bolen writes about in particular parallels the kinds of ideas I also read in Buddhism. For example, she notes, regarding a patient of hers who was drawn into a pattern of destructive perceptions of others:

If this man could accept the possibility that the world he experiences is a mirror and that what he sees and condemns is a reflection of what must change in himself, then change would be possible. For most people, altering the pattern of the way things are in the outer world is impossible, while changing what one sees as a problem in one’s own psyche, although difficult, can be done. (p.60)

 Like Buddhist teachings, Jungian writings emphasize how the external world people see is a projection of an inner space, particularly in cases where people are attached to emotional situations or judgments. I think that the Jungian position is different from Buddhism in many ways. While Buddhism traces the source of all thoughts to mind, I think the Jungian position tries to label the kinds of universal patterns (or archetypes) that are projected onto the sense of self and others. Shinoda Bolen notes, “Recognizing the pattern is the beginning of wisdom, because it allows one to observe instead of being drawn, willy-nilly, toward the emotionally charged person.” (p.58). This attitude of labeling the types of encounters we experience is one way of deflating their emotional power. Rather than taking an emotion as a personal issue or an issue relating to someone else, this realm of archetypes becomes a more impersonal space to which one can shift emotional energies. And it also provides a temporary explanation of sorts, as to why certain situations feel heightened.

            One thing I find potentially problematic about the Jungian approach is that it might tempt people to believe that symbols and archetypes have a separate awareness from mind, or are these fixed entities that have the same universal meaning for everyone. I truly believe that archetypes are powerful only because the mind invests them with a temporary power. What a person does with these projections is still to be figured into the course of a spiritual practice. The second potentially problematic area is that it might sidetrack people away from the relationships one has in this present space. Over-emphasizing the symbolic, ‘projected’ elements of an experience has a way of diverting attention away from the uniqueness of a person and her or his experiences and positionality. It is as though, in studying symbolic archetypes, the archetype itself takes precedence over the person in that moment. In fact, these projections people make should perhaps only be identified for the purpose of letting go of their power, and not taking those thoughts to have a separate awareness. Trying to apply this understanding to the unfolding dynamics between people might start to become cumbersome. It is like having a vast toolkit of patterns to work with and trying to find the one that fits the situation of the moment. Finally, I don’t believe that the archetypes that Jung identified in his work can truly exhaust the kinds of experiences a person has that are valuable and useful. They seem to be more general guidelines or patterns that people can keep in mind when they respond powerfully to a situation. But they often under-explain what is really happening in that moment, including the particularities of conditions that make the current moment what it is.

            Nonetheless, the area I find most beneficial is the notion of harmonizing opposites, which seems to have drawn from study of Taoism. Shinoda Bolen beautifully interweaves Taoist philosophy with concepts from Jungian psychology, showing how they intermingle. What I appreciate about this approach is that there is always an underlying opposite to any assertion one can make about an experience. Even if I say that the weather is terrible today and I shouldn’t go out, what I say about it is contending with other perspectives that suggest that I should endure the weather to do something. The conflict arises when that one thought tries to take over all the other thoughts. In fact, all these thoughts arise from the same source, and often even co-arise in the same time-frame. But when I start to insist on one thought being the ‘correct view’, I am giving so much power to one thought over others. I think the emphasis in the Jungian view is to know that there are different forces operating, just as in Buddhism, we talk about the current thought not related to the previous. When I know that none of these thoughts or forces are the ‘real’ me and are simply arising thoughts, I can then start to relax awareness and not take these thoughts as my real self. Perhaps this is one possible bridge between the Jungian/Taoist approach and some of the Buddhist approaches.

Shinoda Bolen, Jean, (1979), The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self. San Francisco. Harper.

A Donut Pendant

 

The day is fair and slightly overcast at the Taiwanese Festival at Harbourfront. Various people sell their wares in the outside patios. I learn about someone who teaches guitar and posts humorous stories on Facebook as well as providing guitar lessons on You Tube. I find someone who sells personalized cards for various retailers. I see trinkets of many kinds, jewelry to be bargained for, and a series of installments with pictures representing life in Taiwan.  Between the sounds of Taiwanese rock and traditional Japanese folk/drinking music, I am able to soak in the sounds and smells of outdoor festival life. I see people connecting together, laughing together, and trying to show others what they know and have to survive. I buy a small pendant that is shaped like a chocolate glazed donut.

I don’t know what a donut pendant represents to me until I come home, and realize that it connects to me on several levels. For one, the donut is a kind of symbol of craving, innocently couched in this tiny necklace ornament. For another, the donut subverts the notion of what is precious and what is expendable. A donut, one might say, is not meant to be a keepsake, or a hand-me-down, or even a precious jewel. It is usually something one craves when they want sugar or a nice flavor.  But having a donut pendant reminds me that all these precious elements are products of desire. Were they not to be desired or shared, there would be no festival, or perhaps no reason for people to congregate and be together. It also reminds me that everyday cravings are also a source of shared community between people. They become the transitional objects through which people create shared meaning or meetings together. Wherever there is food, drink, or things for sale, there will be people to congregate and learn more about tastes or objects that are different from their acquired customs. Among other things, this opens a door to a compassionate connection with other beings.

Is there anything wrong with material things or wanting material or sensual things? I think it’s important not to rely on material cravings for a feeling of well-being. However, today’s visit to the festival reminded me that materials can be useful forms if they are seen in the context of how they point to mind.  How so? I think there are several connections I can make. Reflecting on the diversity of the objects around me today reminds me that phenomena are always changing, from sounds to smells, from feelings to thoughts, from tastes to forms. One moment, I see a pavilion selling t-shirts, and the next moment, I find a tent selling a new cell-phone plan. But they also point to the multi-functionality of causes and conditions. So many people and resources go into this temporary meeting of people. It takes care and thought to make the events work and coordinate the activities. And even among the products and services, one is faced with a reflection of the complex ideas that emerge in mind. It is truly an amazing experience if I touch on all these appearances without fixating on one or another.

Finally, going to this event reminds me of the complex mystery of mind. What am I here to do? To connect, to contact, or to buy something? Maybe all of these are true, or none at all. When I buy something, have I really gained something? Who gained what? When I spend money, where does the money go, and did I have it in the first place? Materials are simply going from one pocket to another, then returning back again to begin the cycle anew. If I reflect on this longer, I can see that there is nothing to feel anxious about, because the things we own are just part of a flowing cycle. Even the things I hold precious one day will start to lose their luster later, and then they become the possession of someone else who might need them more in that moment. Reflecting in this way, can mind not feel mind’s gratitude toward mind? Can it be better appreciated in this way?

One Hill, Then Another

I remember a long time ago, I had read a collection of short stories by the science ficion writer Edward Bryant, called Among the Dead and Other Events Leading Up to the Apocalypse.  This collection was interesting and noteworthy because it introduced me to another great author, Joan Didion (one of whose quotes were used to begin the collection). Aside from that, there was one story in that collection that I remember vividly. The gist of the story is, it’s about this group of people who are trying desperately to climb a hill of this deserted place, in the hopes that they will somehow arrive at an oasis or a different world when they leave that hill. In the end, they finally reach the summit of the hill, after a lot of mental anguish among themselves, only to find that they skip into a dimension and arrive at the bottom of yet another hill. The story is not meant to be a hard core science fiction, but seems more of an allegory for how the idea of progress contains the seed of its own failure.

I wonder how to explain this idea, but I think that there have been different ways of approaching why progress leads to a special kind of failure. I think the easiest reason is to say that there is no such thing as progress, and this is just a figment of the imagination. Another reason is that people suffer from attachment to their ideals, and this suffering makes the goal not so ‘worth it’. All of these sound like stock answers, but they overlook what makes the notion of progress and ‘getting better’ so tempting or compelling. If I go back to the psycho-geography of Bryant’s story, one aspect is that getting over a hill often entails that we are going into another place, and leaving the past behind. The view from the ‘other side’ of the hill always entails an exclusion of the past. In common parlance, we often say ‘I got over it’, or him or her, to describe how we transcend a certain kind of suffering. In my mind, that always conjures up the notion of climbing a hill and then using the hill to cover up what happened before.

The other notion of psychic hills that interests me is that they seem to compartmentalize or ‘dimensional-ize’ certain areas of space, dividing otherwise flat space into different parts. But does one ever get to that point? Sometimes, the more lucid one is, the fewer compartments there really are. It is not that I got out of one space and into a better one, but that I somehow see through all the artificial boundaries I create between spaces.  That is when left often becomes right, bad becomes good, and I am no longer protected by my hard boundaries. In The Surgangama Sutra, the Buddha compares mind to a set of boxes with space inside of them. He remarks to Ananda:

 

“Suppose one were to try to fit some space into a variety of containers. Because containers differ in shape, we could say the spaces within them also differ in shape. If you take away the containers and look at the space that was within them, you will say that the space has become one again. But how could space become unified or separated because of what you have done? Indeed, how could the space be said to be either one or not one?” (p.180)

 

When I read this passage from the Sutra, I am reminded of a time when I went to one of those Magic Mazes when I was a kid. Here you have a very simple space with lots of distorted mirrors (and even more distorted kinds of music). And I am in that room getting scared of my own image because it looks like some alien creature. But all the frightening images are just forms of ‘me’! And which of those is the ‘real me’? No matter where I turn, I am afraid of the phantom presence, but it is all illusion, and it is all me at the same time. If only I can see that, then I make the connection that nobody is chasing ‘me’.

The parallel in practice is that I think there is often a desire to get somewhere or to be something special after meditating. More often than not, the opposite might also be the case. With more clarity of mind, one can start to see what is down there in the waters, and how uncontrollable it really is. But if one doesn’t have that clarity, how can any problems be resolved?  If one doesn’t accept the gravity of one’s own karmic energies (be it anger or sadness, or joy, or attachment, or clinging), it would be impossible to change this or cover this up by simply generating a new kind of thought. The paradox is that it is only total acceptance that can allow real changes to happen. That acceptance is almost a realization of how caught up I am in thinking I am ‘this’ or ‘that’, and how powerful that delusion of a separate self is. It is like trying to take a lever the size of a switch and using it to move the earth. When I truly accept how futile that is, how impossible that thought is that this concept of “I” can change anything, can I yield to that which is constantly changing yet stays the same

 

References

The Surangama Sutra: With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hssuan Hua. A New Translation (2009) Buddhist Text Translation Society.

.Bryant, Ed (1973), Among the Dead and Other Events Leading to the Apocalypse.  New York: MacMillan

Embodiment and Social Roles

       In the book The Misleading Mind,  Karuna Cayton compares the roles that people play on a day to day existence with the roles of an actor, such as Tom Hanks. Yet the qualifying remark he makes is that unlike actors, we often confuse our roles with our true selves. Hence, he remarks, “unlike Tom Hanks, who knows he is acting, we typically do not grasp the idea that we are constantly and continually playing roles.  These roles, or identities, are relative and temporary and serve a purpose, but they are not who we are in an absolute sense.” (p.144)  As I was reading this passage, I began to think of all the ways people are bounded by social roles. However, one thing that Cayton does not describe too much is that many roles arise in part from a sense of embodiment, or a defense against the ‘invading’ or intruding body.

       Many roles people play are not simply faces to show to the world, but they are also ways of negotiating between body and world.  If I did not have a body, it would be easy for me to conjure up any sense of self that suits the moment, and I think this happens a lot in the cyberspace world. There is even the opportunity to create avatars of one’s choice, based on one’s liking or interests, or most preferred personality characteristics. Adopting a moniker not only allows me to adopt a persona; it also allows me to bring in archetypal notions of selves, as is the case when one uses a famous actor or action hero to be one’s personal avatar.

      If someone has a body that is creating pain or is cumbersome, that pain and awkwardness has to be borne out in our daily social roles. It is not  often the case that I can lie in bed or work less to compensate for body aches. The body is something I must account for, even if I cannot say that the comes from me.  So I still need to function socially, even though my body or feeling state might operate in a challenged way. But it is here that the question becomes: where exactly does the body begin, and where do social roles kick in? One example of where I see this is when people who have pain in their bodies need to choose between expressing that pain or somehow transforming the pain through an attitude shift. In this way, people attempt to cover over pain by adjusting themselves to a social norm on how pain is properly expressed (or not expressed). There are always mini trade-offs that could potentially take place when this happens. If, for example, body pain is exacerbated through stress, one might try to seek less stimulation or simplify their life, but it might be at the expense of certain kinds of social life.

      I think where Chan and meditative practices in general are useful in this sense is that they take people beyond identification even to the body, or the sense of the body. Meditating on a particular method of practice, such as the breath,  allows me to start to see beyond pain and overcome a subconscious fixation on trying to reduce or escape from painful experiences. Sensations are seen as just sensations, and there is a break in the association between sensation and proprioceptive impression of the body. I also begin to sense that how I experience the body is usually not just a direct contemplation, but is actually the result of many conceptual filters that define the limits and contours of body itself. Without these limits, I wonder if perhaps the mind would be boundless.

      In that way, I have found myself realizing how much our impression of the body is actually socialized, normalized, or discursively mediated in some way. There are several ways this happens. One is through comparison of abilities across different bodies, as in the case of what is called ‘ableism’, or a fixation on ability as a measure of a person’s value relative to others. Here, the body becomes a social commodity for comparison. Yet another way is comparison of body appearances, privileging some body types based on social standards of beauty. A third way is to make the body problematic, by labeling it as diseased, disordered, disabled or ill. These again are social labels that are meant to suggest a limitation or a challenge. But what social function does that sense of being “challenged” serve? Does it lighten the burden of embodiment, or perhaps add an extra conceptual layer to what it means to have a body? Does it make me afraid to make a move that will impair the body, or might being labelled “ill” liberate us to not obsess over pain and get on with the process of living? These questions are complex, but they allow me to realize that body sensations are as transient as social roles, and we don’t need to be bound by the illusory sense that we are imprisoned to our bodies. We also don’t need to fall for the illusion that there is a perfect body state somewhere out there, if only we perform the 'right' regimen of physical and spiritual exercises.

 Kayton, Caruna (2012), The Misleading Mind. Novato, Ca: New World Library.

Meditative Conversation

In our encounter together, we meet with friendly and polite gestures. I shake your hand and we smile. We are former colleagues in the same class. And I don’t know what will happen, how the conversation will go or what we will learn. I am even venturing to say that, like all conversations, this one will be full of spontaneity, as we start to explore the future after school and after all the courses have finished. This mysterious encounter has no beginning, middle or end. It might pick up again where we leave off, or it might go to some other future. It has no specific speaker. Its journey is part of a greater journey. But we always come back to the rhythm of speech, the patterns of speaking and listening, the sight of the shared table space in front of us. The words we speak become the solid utensils, the grounds upon which further communication can be based. I pick up the word, then put it down when I am done.

When is conversation a meditative practice, and when it is not meditative at all? Some might take issue with this question, seeing that formal meditation practice does not use words or discursive thinking to mobilize itself.  Is this to say, then, that mediation and speech are mutually exclusive social practices? I would have to suggest that they are not mutually exclusive at all. But in order to prevent the term ‘meditative’ from becoming a meaningless rhetorical word, I would need to explore the question of when we can take this activity to be meditative at all. And there are related questions: should it turn out to actually exist, does meditative conversation demand that all the conversation participants be deep in meditation? Does it demand a consensual decision to practice being aware in a certain way? Does the effort to mutually converse meditatively preclude or disqualify certain states of mind, or so-called ‘unmindful’ dialogue and speech? I think that maybe the concept goes a bit deeper than this, because most meditative experiences throw into question whether there are separate selves in the first place.

Most of the time, bodies lean a little bit forward in orientation, seeking one thing and avoiding others. I have oftentimes experienced the body a little bit tight, as though primed to defend itself from unseen dangers. When the body is chronically held in this way, what happens? What takes shape then?  The body in repose is something quite different. It surrenders, it falls into its state of being forever tentative, and it takes its time. A body that surrenders to its chair reflects a mind that is open to “just listening”, or just attending to the whole situation and others in that situation. It does not categorize the experience in terms of an already existing criterion. But the other point is that in conversation, the meditative stance is not even to hold onto this notion of a body in silent repose. It somehow manages to surrender so much of its own pretensions to be meditative, that the conversation becomes uncannily ordinary. By that, I mean that the conversation becomes ordinary to the point where there is a touch of strangeness to the ordinary, in a world where ordinary always strives to be extraordinary or to transcend its own perceived ‘limits’. The body and mind are then free to move in ways that are plain and simple, unaffected, and unafraid of mistakes or even failed expectations. It comes the point where even expectations lose their sting, because they are popping up like the wandering thoughts that they are, only to dissolve into the present experience. I observe the whole dynamic, using an internal anchor: the thoughts popping up and then dissolving again. And it occurs to me that all these loose threads and wild chases, all these playful writings in the sky, are wonderful, and building a shared rapport. They serve the function of mind in that moment, then lead to whatever they need to lead, or not.

We say goodbyes, we leave, we surrender the meeting. We promise to catch up in some later time. And we part into the dark and cool August night.

 

Not Bounded by The Sense of Body

           During meditation today, I recited Buddha’s name silently, and felt a warm light softening my body. I simply recited, occasionally asking who is reciting. I gradually could feel a sense of boundlessness. I felt my body expanding. But I also could sometimes see that I am not what I call the body. The body is always a kind of bounded concept. It entails limits, or a skin that separates one individual from other individuals. Body seems to entail duality, but it also means being thrown back upon the limits of a sensation. If even for a moment, I believe that I am this pain that is in my spine, then I have already created an artificial limit with that thought. Who says that I am that pain? Who says that the pain is ‘me’?

The pain itself is not suffering. Rather, it would appear that the suffering is the accompanying belief that the body is me, or I am bounded by my body. This is the double edged sword of the health care profession. While health care is designed to heal the body or prevent illness to the body, it is also invested in the idea that we are determined by the state of our bodies. And this just feeds the notion of identifying who we are as beings. We become married to the idea that if only I ‘get rid’ of some condition, then this would make me an optimally functioning person. The body over-determines what are actually impermanent thoughts and sensations.

I think that the process has to involve a continuous investigation of, ‘is what I am feeling me?’ in order to be able to work on it. But I find it interesting how even the simplest sensation brings out a judgment or an image of self. And I need to keep my awareness just a little bit beyond that judgment, to see who is really having this limiting thought. In that sense, it isn’t that one needs to wait for the ideal moment to practice. Rather, the deepest challenge is the best practice. And one just embraces the struggle wholeheartedly, because there is nothing really limiting the mind or practice. This faith in the boundlessness of mind is so crucial, it seems, not just to spiritual practice but to life itself. As long as I believe in a self that is bounded by obstacles, then this belief is itself a kind of imposed nightmare. All one needs to do is shift a bit and ask the question ‘who’, and then the obstacle is just another rock in the running water. It isn’t that there are no obstacles, but with faith in mind, all obstacles are manageable, because they are empty, part of a flowing totality.

Grasping and Letting Go Mind

On the weekend, the Venerables talked about the difference between Buddhist understanding and Buddhist practice. I think the discussion made me wonder why this difference exists.  Why is it that simply listening to a concept and mulling it over isn’t the same as practice? Where is the disconnect between understanding and practice?

            From a Western psychology perspective, I have read this described as a dualistic notion of ‘two minds’, the most common variety being the split between the rational ‘left’ brain and the ‘trans’ rational, intuitive right brain. In a book called Synchronicity and the Self, Jean Shinoda Bolen compares the left brain to the right when she remarks, “The left hemisphere contains our speech centers…and uses the logic and reasoning of linear thinking to arrive at assessment or conclusions.” (p.7) In contrast, the right side of the brain “knows through intuition what the totality of a picture is, and also experiences a sense of what something emerged from and what it may become.” (p.8) She goes on to suggest that the right brain is able to observe and contain ambiguities and opposites, whereas the left side of the brain tends to reason using dualistic thinking. The idea behind it is that what we arrive at logically is never quite true, simply because there is always something that is somehow eluding logical or rational thinking.

Yet it seems that the rational paradigm has dominated a lot of educational circles. Reading Bolen, I believe that ‘understanding’ from a purely logical and rational perspective can be a bit dangerous, because I often can arrive at a rational insight that doesn’t match with my true feelings and behavior. In that sense, the concept hasn’t yet gotten down to the marrow, and I haven’t formed real direct contemplation of the concept itself.

            I think that one clue as to why this arises is that left brain thinking is often couched in the metaphors of grasping or holding onto something, or even ‘getting it’.  How often have I heard the expression “I get it”, to mean that I understood something? If I ‘get’ something, does that also entail that I can lose it as well? That seems to give rise to the fear of losing what I have learned in the past. It is something that leads us to collect bits of knowledge and accumulate models, for fear that they will get lost… or somehow the mind will wear down if I don’t somehow exercise certain faculties.

            Conversely, when we think about the right brain, we start to think about wholes, and being able to behold or contain opposites. I think this is perhaps akin to seeing and letting go at the same time. It is sometimes comparable to pictures which contain scrambled pixels./ In order to see the scrambled pixels form a totality, I need to let go and see at the same time. This is easier said than done, because it doesn’t mean that one slackens or has no thought whatsoever. But habitually, for someone who uses rational thinking or instructions a lot, there is a temptation to want to find some way into that through some instruction or direction.

            The problem with relying only on rationality, even from a neuroscience perspective, is that the left brain is only one function of the total body. It does not seem to control other functioning or even influence what other parts of the brain are doing, at least according to research. The challenge then is to be able to translate codes of reason (especially what we think is reasonable to do, based on logic or morals) into action. It is not so easy because as long as I operate only from this function, I don’t experience mind as a whole.  So there is a certain violence in making reason or rationality a kind of ‘ruler’, without the complementary practice of letting go to reveal the total mind.

           

 References

Bolen, Jean Shinoda, (1979) The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self. San Francisco: Harper

Sights, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, Going to One

              The bus arrives later than usual today. I board the 42 Cummer bus on the way to edit my friend’s accounting assignment. I feel stuffed from a big lunch I had today. My mouth tastes like salt. I feel the upper contours of my palette and decide that I need potassium to neutralize the sodium. I resolve to drink a lot of juice when I get back to the subway station. I feel like the makeshift doctor of my fleeting soul.

             
              The bus has a strange ailment itself. As the lady sitting closest to the driver tells him, the electronic stop announcements seem a bit garbled today, and there are incoherent letters scrambled across the stop display. The lady looks concerned, as though she was diagnosing the ailing bus. I admire her concern, not for herself, but for the concept of the broken bus. The driver is a crisp and nasally voice behind a thick brocade of black leather. He sympathetically nods to the lady’s polite concerns. He even plays with a few buttons just to indicate his care for the sick bus. But all of us in the bus know that flipping a few switches won’t reassemble the signal problems haunting this bus. We might as well say that the bus is haunted by a prickly ghost who just likes to scramble letters for the sake of confusing other beings.

             
              But when I look at the scrambled letters, I am seeing it with a different lens. I simply look at it with a relaxed mindset. The feeling is not to want to make sense of it, but to see the background as a totality. There no desire to make sense of the letters or words. In fact, they are not even connected with one another at all. The garbled images: do they frustrate me with incoherence, or do they point to a space where the symbols don’t actually interact with each other to create anything?

 If I am always living life trying to make sense of symbols, then I only see what I am creating, not mind itself. I become preoccupied with meaning, and this can be a great source of suffering. An example might be a situation that creates an expected ending, only to turn out in a different way. This happens because language almost furnishes a mindset that expects certain kinds of completions. For example, how many times have I read novels, and then subconsciously started to see life in the same way as novels, complete with ‘characters’ and plots? This happened to me when I was much younger, but I can see that the reason is that narratives often create subconscious expectations. I see a word and then expect it to signify, to function in a way that is comfortable and familiar to me. It ‘makes sense’. But if the experience lacks the familiarity of language, where does that search for confirmation lead me?

Sometimes, I have to let go and stop trying to finish, to make sense, and see what kind of space that can create. Is it frightening? Is it liberating? Letting go of my need to solve things neatly. To where do all those sights, symbols, sounds return?

Soul Batteries

 

            During the Buddhist Study class today, the Venerables, Chang Chu and Chang Yuen, explored the Six Paramitas with us. I seemed to have been particularly inspired by this class. I came away with the feeling that Buddhism can potentially uplift the spirit. I facetiously call this ‘soul battery recharge’, when in fact there is no such concept as a soul in Buddhism. But I refer to it more as a feeling of uplift that comes from making a vow.

            One thing that really struck me about the talk is the importance of making vows for others. I explored this idea that Chan Buddhism does not have to be about attaining some special state of mind, such as enlightenment, or even trying to gain something for myself. In the beginning, when I heard about the notion of putting others before me, I felt a bit overwhelmed and heavy. I looked around all the faces, familiar and unfamiliar, and started to wonder ‘where do I start?’ And it felt overexerting, as I tried to make eye-contact with everyone, or think of what to say to people if I were to contact them. Of course, this is a very naïve interpretation of what it means to make a vow for all beings, but I was trying to use a kind of empty beginner’s mind to inquire into this way of being.

            I had a chance to speak with Venerable Chang Chu about this dilemma. I asked him: when I see the sea of people, where do I start? How do I stop myself from being overwhelmed by all the people who might need my help? Venerable told me that it’s important to know what feels most comfortable to me in the moment, and work with the people to whom I have some affinity first. Only when my heart is really matured through serving of others might I be able to start to expand that vow to all beings. It doesn’t mean that I only stay with some people I like, but it means that I try to work with existing affinities to practice serving other beings. I practice doing something for the sake of others (not myself) in the simpler situations of having an existing connection with someone. In this way, the task of making a vow for all beings is a bit less overwhelming, and there is an applied component to it.

            A lot of what the Venerables talked about in this class had me thinking about my concerns over motivation in schools. Other entries I have written describe the conflicts I feel about extrinsic/intrinsic motivation, and the tensions between these two forces. I asked Venerable Chang Chu, how important is it for volunteers to compare themselves or look up to other volunteers as exemplars? I have once heard that it might be healthy to compare oneself to, or even imitate, someone else in terms of their ability to practice calm or concentration.  The Venerable’s answer was quite interesting to me. His answer is that it depends on what ways we are looking toward others. If, for example, I compare myself to others in terms of ‘better’ or ‘worse’, then this gives rise to a lot of vexations, and I end up creating needless competition. Not only this, but the desire to be the best person only gives rise to more vexation, once I do satisfy the ‘top’ position (however arbitrary that happens to be). The Venerable offered an alternative that strikes me as very useful to practice. He mentioned the idea of thinking of people as individuals from whom we can learn, rather than in terms of a vertical hierarchy. If, for example, I am able to see that someone else’s difference is reflecting both our distinct qualities, then I am no longer in competition to be higher up than that person. Even if the other were to receive a promotion over me, it wouldn’t diminish my value or my experiences. Looking at things relatively rather than as absolutes would also help in this area. By seeing phenomena in a relativistic way, I no longer even feel that gaining something is a gain for the mind, or losing something is a loss for mind.

            My residual concern has more to do with this motivation business. In my heart, I sometimes do wonder exactly what the motivation us to practice giving toward others, or putting others before myself. The society in which we live is quite focused on the idea of getting ahead, establishing a personal legitimacy in the world, and gaining personal credentials such as degrees and other accolades to add to one’s resume.. In the midst of that mad scramble to legitimate one’s time and energies, it can be hard to take on the notion of putting all other beings first. The Venerables offered many examples of what this could be, such as the realization that what we do always has a karmic consequence, over at least three lifetimes. In other words, there are laws operating in the universe that do acknowledge people’s intentions, not just rewarding people like a kind of cosmic candy dispenser.

            For me, I think that there needs to be a method that allows the mind to be calm and aware, and not to cling to thoughts or impressions. Chanting vows with a sincere effort behind the words might be a good place to start, at least to reconceive one’s heart. Without that method, I can’t see any sustainable motivation for altruism that isn’t somehow self-serving. That is because even when one is trying to be good, all too often it relates to an external motivation.

            But I also think that one has to have faith to know that one’s deepest heart has all beings in mind. It is hard to access that space, and reciting vows is one way for me to create that open space of possibility. It also involves stepping outside the way that I have conditioned myself to thinking that there is such as thing as ‘falling behind’ or ‘being on top’, rather than simply appreciating that all beings have intrinsic worth and value.

Loving the Incomplete

I wonder: what would life be like if the thought that is arising is already the perfect thought, and I just trust that this is the perfect thought?

Most of my life seems to be just about trying to perfect the thought that is already passed. Today, I reflected on something that a close friend had told me a few years ago. She was talking about how, whenever she took tests at school, she would get stuck on a certain question and her hand would freeze up on that question. Her teacher had to guide her hand to the next question. Later, I think the teacher had helped her to realize that she didn’t need to keep going on a question on which she was getting stuck. Perhaps, I wonder whether this is because she was holding onto what she thought was supposed to be there. I can think of many examples in my life where my thinking somehow freezes or gets stuck in some idea or attitude and lingers there.

It is not to say that I cannot dedicate myself to something. But it is to know that the something I dedicate to is always changing. What I think now is not the same as what I just thought, even though it might seem to be the same object. The two thoughts don’t connect. So, in a sense, there is nothing to correct about that thought. This is just engaging the new thought without trying to make the old one better. But in the case of the exam, there is something that the mind does to feel stuck or suffering. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it is a quality of lingering. It reminds me of this novel I read many years ago by Virginia Woolf, where there is this artist who can’t seem to finish the painting she has started. It is only toward the end of the book that she starts to find that stroke that will finish it for her. I can understand that sort of agony and joy she feels.

 I fixate on the idea of loving the incomplete. To be honest, I am not there yet, at all. It is just the question of how to love the incomplete that is a kind of obsession. In a way, it replicates my friend’s fixation on trying to find the answer in the test. In real life situations, there is never time to answer anything fully. I use expedient means (memory, quick hands, luck, the stray thoughts) to put something together that might satisfy the customer, the teacher, the boss or the relative. Then, if I stumble on the test, I try to find ways to compensate for that failed test. But even that is still trying to complete the past. So what would loving the incomplete mean? The question has no answer. It is about being true to the nature of thought. Not trying to create stories out of finished thoughts. Once the thief has left the room, there is no need to create an alibi. But still, I do anyway. Stories are often ways of justifying disjointed thoughts, bringing them to a satisfying conclusion.

"Zombie Apocalypse"

I recently overheard a conversation regarding what would be the worst case scenario: that is, if the world was over-run by the zombies. The conversation was asking that the other person somehow imagine a situation where the mind is so stuck that it would be in a corner and have no place to go but face undead human beings who prey on the living. It is also a kind of fantasy of being over-run by inanimate beings that are ‘aware’ yet ‘have no awareness’. I have actually become quite used to the idea of worst case, impossible scenarios, similar to ‘what would you rather have..’, given the choice of two deeply painful experiences.

 One of the most interesting premises in the zombie film genre is that something without consciousness (such as a virus, or radiation) would animate a dead body and operate through that body. It is like having the best of both worlds, but without the mind. Many science fiction novels I read as a young adult seem to have employed this theme quite skillfully. In Robert Heinlein’s novel The Puppet Masters, alien worm-like creatures nestle in the backs of people’s heads and start to impersonate people’s behavior, gestures and language. Soon, they start to take over the American government, in a plot to dominate the world and its media. Even as a child, I was enthralled by the idea that these invertebrate creatures could somehow install themselves into perfectly functioning human minds and start to take over the function of mind, without actually being the mind itself. It seemed to be a very elegant way for humans to be used by non-humans, without the non-humans having to even evolve tools, arms or legs to do its own bidding.

 Does this remind me of anything? It reminds me of what I read just yesterday in the Surangama Sutra: “now your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are like conspirators who have introduced thieves into your house to plunder your valuables.” (p.175) Is it possible for that which has no awareness to invade that which is aware? In the case of what Buddha describes, it is not a zombie or alien invading the mind. Rather, it is the mind conspiring against itself to squander all the great things it has. But there is an uncanny similarity to what I read in science fiction. It is the notion of how humanity is fooled into accepting appearances as the true mind. Appearances, like the worms or viruses of science fiction novels, end up taking over the functioning of a perfectly good mind.  The difference is that in Buddhism, mind never ‘vacates’ its position or its essence. It only appears to do so.

What could things without awareness do without the mind? Science fiction seems to play with these ideas in different ways. In many zombie movies, it almost looks as though the barely animate virus wins out by taking over human consciousness. It plays into a fantasy that makes the scenario horrific, which is that humans are nothing more than bodies, waiting to be taken over by any number of natural elements. Science (and capitalism, for that matter) operates under similar ideas. According to these modern ways of thinking, we are really just bodies with specific natural functions, and we need to consume or be consumed in order to survive. It almost sounds like a classic behaviorist position to me. Zombie movies only point out the fragility of this position, by showing how easy it would be for human brains to fall prey to viruses, and thus to degenerate to the level of an almost non-sentient being. The zombie in these films typically operates on a sub-human, often sub-animal level, displaying no signs of vitality, no consciousness, no compassion, and no warmth. It is like being taken over by a filing cabinet or a sink. Even the most basic life forms would appear to have some vital striving that zombies seem to lack in these movies. Instead, the zombies move with a quiet desperation from one person to the next, ‘consuming’ the living so that their mere bodies could keep existing indefinitely.

I think one reason for the rising popularity of this genre is that it must play into human fears of what consumerist ideologies mean, or don’t mean, for most people. But in some sense, there is something crude about this movie, because it plays into facile notions of cultural universality. By positioning the entire world of humans as vulnerable to virus attack, we are lead to think that all humans are universally vulnerable and imprisoned to their biological legacy. There is no cultural intermediary of ingenuity, or collective wisdom, or cross-pollinating ideas, to mitigate this raw vulnerability to ‘biology’. In so doing, zombie movies reflect the common feeling of being over-run by corporate, ‘global’ world-views that have no concern for human cultures. These perspectives typically operate under a Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest, privileging the biological over the social. In the zombie world,  no collaboration or brainstorming (pardon the pun) can resolve the ever-present problem of physical, body survival.

While zombie movies are all in good fun (not to be taken too seriously) perhaps the idea behind them needs to be examined more closely. Do these movies satirize materialism and the obsession with bodies, or does it perhaps play into these obsessions and ‘feed’ our fears? I think that, like most B-movies, zombie movies contain a mixture of education and exploitation. On the one hand, they may educate audiences on the extremes of taking the brain to be in the body. On the other hand, they exploit our fears of losing our mind when we succumb to the diseases that plague all bodies. The antidote to this fear would be an insight that our minds are not in our bodies at all, and are thus not prisoners to the natural elements. But this perspective requires a complete turn away from the emphasis on body and material, non-aware environment as the driving forces of life and responses.

The Surangama Sutra: With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hssuan Hua. A New Translation (2009) Buddhist Text Translation Society.

 

More "Intrinsic"

If I look deeply into what is the source of experience, can I even find it in the work in which I am absorbed? Is being absorbed in what I like so important as knowing that it too will pass? This awareness that things pass seems to integral to the process of learning itself. Yet is it taught?

I am thinking about the experience as a whole. In life, there are things we enjoy doing, and those things are often held up as objects of learning: sciences, arts, endeavors. But then there are the things that are considered ‘non-interests’: the interruptions, the stops, the uncertain meetings between people, and those indefinable, confused moments. What I thought was, so much of the research on intrinsic motivation paradoxically treats learning as a kind of smooth, flowing product, working toward  a single given end. The more challenging parts of intrinsic being get cast off into the sidelines. What I am talking about in particular are the moments when we disconnect, when we zone out, lose a train of thought, or just feel confused about the direction. I think that one can view those disconnects in different ways. From the perspective of those who champion motivation, these disconnects are somehow frowned upon. It is thought that confusion or doubt might be a failure to connect, rather than a necessary stage in the encounter I have with something. I am also thinking of those times when I simply could not be with the things to which I most want to connect. Are those experiences not also experiences of mind? Can we also not learn to navigate those experiences, rather than rejecting them? Yet, so much of education stresses the necessity of focusing only on one object. It doesn’t offer up the possibility that focus can be a whole awareness, not restricted to one object.

In the Surangama Sutra (Part V, Chapter 2), there is a chapter where the Buddha is describing to Ananda how the mind becomes confused. It all starts out where we are able to see things as they are: light and dark, sound and silence, space and obstruction. Here, the mind follows function to see these states as they are coming and going. I imagine that this means that the mind isn’t attaching to this or that form, or labelling this or that quality. Rather, the view is so whole that there is no differentiating between these states of being. Later, the mind starts to make out specific separate forms or visual objects. And later, the senses start to ‘chase’ these objects. It is as though, once objects are created, a course kind of perception starts to set in, and that perception starts an endless pursuit of external objects.  As I read this passage, it reminded me a bit of how human pursuits get narrowed into categories. Sometimes, I will even embark on a project with a specific idea of what the outcome will be. It is as though I take a trip somewhere without even having to leave my chair. The ‘answers’ are already preformed, and I only need go to those faraway places to ‘confirm’ or repeat the answers already in mind. The confusion is that I cling to what I think should be there, rather than seeing the journey as unfolding and as complex. I wonder if anyone has ever thought: a journey requires thousands of hands. There are many people who allow the plane to take off, and many more whom one runs into along the way. Are these beings part of the journey, just accessories to the journey, or are they constituting the whole journey itself? When I reflect on this chapter of the Surangama Sutra, I think that the object is just a creation of the mind. And what is really happening all around it is also mind. So why exclude these elements from the journey itself? Yet, the champions of motivation are always trying to get people to focus on one thing, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, rather than observing the whole experience as a real mystery. Where is it all coming from? To behold that question is to see the whole unfolding experience without narrowing to a single purpose.

The Surangama Sutra: With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hssuan Hua. A New Translation (2009) Buddhist Text Translation Society.

"Intrinsic"

Reading Alfie Kohn’s book, Punished By Rewards, I started to have a few reflections on the meaning of competition, rewards and punishment. This book is quite critical of the ways kids are rewarded for any actions they perform, to the point where the meaning of an activity is lost. The classic example is that of a researcher who rewarded students for art work, only to find later that the kids had completely lost interest in doing art for its own sake, even after the rewards were withdrawn. But another example that sticks with me is a program where pizzas are awarded to kids for reading books. I don’t know who benefits more here: the kids, the libraries, or the pizza stores?

I wonder how a meditative or Buddhist, contemplative perspective would look at all of this. In the meditation sessions, there is a lot of emphasis on process orientation and not doing something with the expectation of results. It’s funny to me because the issue is quite complex for adults. Children often do things with abandon. As long as they are not given special ‘perks’ for doing something, they will often find ways to do things. But I wonder if adults can get away from the notion of extrinsic motivation. Even in spiritual practice, a kind of goal is set up at the very beginning, and it becomes the beginning motivation to practice.

In daily life, there are many examples of extrinsic motivators. To use a simple example: the workplace is always asking employees to account for their numbers. How many of this was done in a day, or how many of something else? As Kohn reflects, none of the performance appraisals ever provides a realistic sense of different styles of work, let alone the quality of the work being displayed. Of course, the numbers still give a ballpark sense of how much an average employee can be expected to do in a day, but it might not say very much about how they work  is being done, or with what care. It is easy to construe figures as absolute measures of the quality of work, when in fact it is not really an exact science.

One solution that many thinkers have put forward is to arrange for more intrinsic motivation. This motivation would involve setting up situations where people can feel free to enjoy an activity for its own sake. It is not easy to do this, but some have suggested to make an experience just challenging enough that people are stimulated enough by the performance of the activity and their involvement in it. It does not matter, at that point, whether the experience has a final reward. In that case, the experience of process itself becomes the reward. This sounds wonderful, but is it easy to teach, let alone implement?  I believe it might be difficult for a group of more than five students, because at that point, diverse needs and interests have to be addressed. Not everyone simply has the intrinsic motivation to partake in a shared activity, for example, so the teacher would need to arrange for a variety of interests to be represented in the classroom.

From my understanding of Chan, it is not so easy to say whether Chan (or Zen) favors an intrinsic learning approach, where people are fully ‘engaged’ in something without external rewards. There are two reasons for this. One reason is that intrinsic motivation always creates the possibility to become attached and suffer vexations from that attachment to some experience. It seems a great truth in Buddhism that suffering is a part of existence, no matter where a person goes. Promising an enriching experience through ‘intrinsic’ motivation is sometimes setting people up for disappointment, because most experiences are a mixture of pleasurable and unpleasurable. Is engaging in an activity that interests us always going to guarantee a ‘flow’ experience? I found in my own experience that it isn’t really like that, and often, we need to convince ourselves that even an activity we love is “worth doing”. When I even look at the issue closely, there is nothing in the world that I can say I purely love wholeheartedly. Even if I say I love chocolate, would I want to eat fifty pounds of chocolate in one sitting? So my point is that intrinsic value is always relative. And even when it does work, it can be quite terrible if people have to detach from what they enjoy the most, to do something else. So while it is enjoyable to harmonize with an experience and learn from it, this is often only half the picture of why a person might persevere in something.

The second concern I have is that I don’t believe that any activity humans engage in ever needs to be ‘rejected’ outright, at least from the perspective of a spiritual practice. Competition may be one preferred method to live or learn among people, and it might be important to acknowledge that some people simply thrive on the feeling of competition and ‘winning’. It doesn’t mean that one can then conclude that we all learn best under competition. It might be more like saying: this is one way, and there are plenty of other ways too. These kinds of ways of doing things can be engaged in, but it would need to be under the awareness that they don’t bring about lasting happiness. Even intrinsically motivating activities are not permanent. Hoping that students have more opportunities to learn through a deep enjoyment or flow experience may be too much to ask, especially when students often don’t choose the courses to be in.

The third concern I have is that, in fact, I don’t see how any of these two forms of learning necessarily translates to a genuine concern for others or society. They both focus on ‘motivations’, as though the human being were some kind of contraption with different buttons to press, to make it ‘work’. And they both rely on a certain pleasant, flowing, ‘connecting’ feeling for the two to truly work. But neither people nor life is ever quite like this, and getting people to become absorbed in a subject (such as writing or archery) does not necessarily prepare them for the less controlled situations of daily life. So I think this is where the learning of meditation comes in, because it is here that people might start to get glimpses of something that is not conditioned by time, by rewards, by space or anything else. And this observational awareness could be a tool that sees the whole trajectory of learning: connecting, disconnecting, unlearning, the suffering of learning, even the cessation of learning.

Kohn,Alfie (1999),Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and other Bribes. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Where I Least Expect It

I came across this beautiful quote today from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, in a book called The Way of Tenderness. It says, “The way of tenderness appears on its own. It comes when the events of your life have rendered you silent, have sat you in a corner, and there is nothing left to do but sit until the mental distress or confusion about who you are or who you are not passes.” (p.28) This quote interests me because Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is trying to ask whether enlightenment touches upon identity, gender, race and class. Is spiritual work about sidestepping identity to achieve some permanent bliss, or is it about facing that we are all identities in a complicated social matrix, which includes hatred and oppression? Manuel suggests that the heart of enlightened being is in the midst of facing oppression and working with the raw tenderness that undercuts suffering from oppression and hatred. To try to deny this is to try to seek peace in a concept rather than in the lived experience of all beings.

I find it interesting that Manuel chooses tenderness as the way to express enlightened being. When I think of tenderness, I think of a newborn shoot, or an insect that has just shed its old skin. The rawness is so vulnerable yet so connected with all being, mirroring the delicate movements of the world, whether in love or hate. And tenderness also seems both fragile and strong at the same time. To suffer the painful wound and yet be able to bear it and hold it up for others to see, is a display of courage. It is not very often that human beings can have trust in the world that would allow them to face that tender and vulnerable part that feels what the world feels.

As I was reading this quote, I also reflected that there is another kind of tenderness which is not often associated with the pain of a newborn. I think it is the tenderness of uncertainty. I most relate to this tenderness, because it is the kind that often feels close to the surface and accessible to me. It is also hinted at in this quote, when Manual refers to being rendered “silent”, “sitting in a corner”, with “nothing to do but sit.” One of the most painful things I have experienced is the sense that things lie await to happen but there is no clear way of knowing what it is. I think this is the potency of emptiness. Rather than waiting for that realization of emptiness, I go the other way and try to anticipate and control every perceived danger that could happen to me.

And this also seems to be one of the sources of oppression, where one group arbitrarily controls others on the basis of appearances, for resources and for status. But it seems that the roots of that is a fear of uncertainty. Nobody wants to stand naked to the world and having to trust that others are me and me others. It is too unproven, too unconfirmed, and it means that people might suffer the same pain they might have felt when they were very young and exposed to fearful elements. And the times when one does face this fear is the times when, as Manuel suggests, we have no choice but to do so; our ego is ‘in the proverbial corner.’ The reason this practice is so hard and difficult is that it seems to go against the quest for certainty that often begins in school.

Mind does not just seek out blissful experiences. It is also mirroring disconnection and the everyday pain that lies beneath the surface of social being. To give up expectation is to almost risk giving up even the teachings of Dharma, knowing that they are only pointing to that raw tenderness that Manuel describes.

Manuel, Zenju Earthlyn,  (2015) The Way of Tenderness: Awakening Through Race, Sexuality and Gender. Boston: Wisdom Publications.

Just Being With..

I remember reading something in Hoofprint of the Ox by Master Sheng Yen, as part of a study group many years ago. It had to do with the idea that one should not wait until one becomes fully enlightened or have some realization, before one can help others or try to benefit other beings. He compared this to the idea of swimming. When learning to swim, one must dive right into the water and use their bodies to get to the shore, rather than waiting for an opportune moment. In other words, people learn by doing, and often they will have to stumble and make mistakes in order to do so. Of course, there is nothing so mistaken that one cannot learn something from it. So in that sense, there is courage in the ability to try to benefit others without any real idea as to how to do so, exactly.

There is a more subtle layer to this, and that is the question of whether or not helping or giving to others requires a ‘gift’ or a transaction to take place from one person to another. I tend to think yes, it does require imparting a skill that someone else does not have, or donating money and time to someone else for a worthwhile project. But sometimes there is nothing to give, no giver and no receiver/ It is at that point that the mind is communing with itself and pointing to itself. This is probably a hard relationship to achieve and describe. I think this might be the essence of Martin Buber’s “I” and “Thou”.

I think the most important thing that people can give to each other is awareness, and that it not something that takes place through a transaction. It is more akin to a mirror shining on a mirror. Two mirrors can reflect each other so perfectly that there is no location where one mirror is to be found. Both mirrors are reflections of the other. In this case, is something given? The only thing then, at that point, is a shining mind. That experience is not extraordinary but might be perhaps considered quite ordinary by all standards/

Because this notion is so abstract, I might go further and say that this giving might be considered taking the self away from the transaction itself. This again, is not so easy to achieve or understand. The experience of it might be something like communing without a sense of an expectation toward other that is related to the self. At that point, even the expectation to have something to give is erased. This is so because the presence of a giver is still a self that is considered separate from the transaction of giver and receiver.

I don’t think I have realized this fully, because there is still a minimum expectation of interpersonal care or attention that is needed for me to be, without the need for a specific role to give. It is hard for me to ‘just be’ with another without the sense of “I” giving time or other valuable resources to another. I need to feel that “I” am contributing something ‘valuable’ to another and am not wasting her or his time. But is ‘just being’ not also a kind of divine gift? Why do I need to give anything other than my full presence and attention to the situation of another person? Don’t all true gifts really flow from that principle?

 

The bus at the end of the world

On Avenue Road, Past Highway 401, the street seems to peter off into a quiet suburb. It is as though the street ends in a quiet whimper,  replaced with the silence of residential areas. It is a place full of hedges, and separated from the highway by a stone edifice. Off in the distance, one can see in the horizon the city skyline of North York, past Yonge and Sheppard and moving towards Steeles Avenue. Cars are going down the 401, filled with excited people waiting to breathe in the city life.

A lone bus sits quietly in a small circle. It is the 61 bus, and it heads toward Eglington. The driver says that he will not be leaving until 30 minutes.  I almost begin to feel as though this were a kind of final stop in the city to end all stops. And the bus takes on the symbolic meaning to me. It seems to take on an attitude of dereliction. And walking past the bridge along the 401, I get another sense of the bird’s eye view of cars. The cars evoke the meaning of an accelerated life, and something that is somehow impersonal. Even though the cars are really only objects, I endow them with a symbolic meaning of a fast pace, and a machine-like side of the city. Standing above those cars gives me a very different sense of  life in the city. It evokes the transience of what people do, where they go, and what they attend to. And it looks so anonymous there. Personality somehow gets parcelled out into these metallic boxes on wheels. I never learn where the people go. The lights in the city fade off into the distance.

What I experience here is something like the erasure of self. It is quite scary but at the same time there is something quite interesting about seeing the city as a kind of collective organism. This experience is that of knowing that everything has its own spirit. But if I spend my time absorbed in my schedule, or my thoughts, I miss the unusual spirit of the city. Even neighbourhoods have their own special essence. Avenue and Lawrence looks so different from Avenue and Wilson. Yet, they are not all that far away at all. Each place also has its own special enchantments. Avenue and Lawrence, for example, is filled with art galleries and sushi places. The art store has pictures of what the art would look like in one’s living room. Here, art decorates, it functions in the midst of other materials around it, and it fits into someone’s vision of the good life, which they share with their friends and neighbors. And in Avenue and Wilson, there are no such galleries. There is the Harvey Kalles Real Estate Office in big green letters and the Armour Heights Library, but other than that, it is quiet and residential. But it has its own intrinsic feeling.

When you walk long enough down these lanes, you might start to feel you will lose your way of speaking and even your language. Communing with the city, I start to realize that many problems I experience are created because I want to believe that this body and these memories are going to last. I attach significance to ideas and then say this is ‘my’ domain, then imagine situations that might threaten this domain. I create a wall, and guard that wall against the imaginary intruders: the threat of anonymity that surrounds this ‘me’. But after walking here, how do those thoughts feel? They feel far away and a bit unreal. They feel like they could just as well be other thoughts. And they feel invented to protect me from that feeling of anonymity when one crosses a bridge and sees a line of cars below.

As I arrive home, I sense a kind of panic, or  a feeling of disorientation. I realize that travelling north to Avenue Road on a weekend gives me a very unusual feeling. I try to get my bearings by trying to go back to some familiar sense of who I am. But I wonder if it perhaps is more exciting to leave it at that, and to venture into the unknown again.

 

 

The Discussion

We are gathered around a table, you and I. Me, you and a whole lot of others. We exchange notes about what we read, how we processed the readings. And we went home again afterwards. It was a complete circle…or was it complete? Anywhere in the circle will be the center of the circle. Is there any point that is the absolute center?

We talk about interdependence, and the meaning of focus. We describe the determination to practice in the midst of suffering, physical and mental.  We talk about how we will take this into our workplaces, into our homes, and into our hearts. And hope that we can transfer merit to those around us.

No matter what tool from this conversation I take with me, will any of these tools, these concepts, or these experiences have an applicable value in every situation? No, but they are certainly good reminders. Reminders of what? Don’t I sometimes get hooked on words and abstractions/? To where should these tools point?

No matter what is exchanged, something inside of me keeps pointing to what is nothingness. It draws the words downwards into a space where words take on multiple meanings and layers. And they sliver off  into these context-based snippets of meaning. If words are only conditioned units of meaning, can I take any of them with me? Their meaning continuously changes. What is there to take on? A self? A detachment from self? What self? Where is no-self? If there is no self, why am I talking about there being no self?  I get caught in a word play here. Or did I? Who is this I? The thoughts swirl, coalesce, then disappear. Even the notion of ‘me’ is conditioned arising.

The value of these discussions is to where they point. Again and again, they circle, then take a dive. But what do they come up with as they emerge from the dive? A small fish is a small hope. A great fish is great determination. Keep fishing and there will be no fish, no ocean, and nothing but a pool with no water. It is dangerous to dive there.

So, try again. Why talk about these things?

Isn’t the self an empty phenomena?

Who said that?