"Answering the Call"

  I am pondering Martin Buber's chapter, "The Question to the Single One", in his book Between Man and Man. Buber critiques a philosophical style which tries to reduce the notion of responsibility to "an idea, a nature, an institution...all that in essence is not a person." (p.45) Buber seems to suggest that most modern philosophers of his time were simply out of touch with what he refers to as "what of elemental reality happens between life and life...the mysteries of address and answer, claim and disclaim, word and response." (ibid) I think what Buber is suggesting is that if a person tries to look at their life only in terms of who they are as separate beings, they lose the importance of being answerable to the calls of other beings. To live, according to Buber, is to answer a particular call toward otherness, rather than being enveloped in a narrow view of oneself. I wonder if perhaps Buber is even hinting at the possibility that duty lacks meaning unless it is grounded in real relatedness.
        Buber roots ontology not in the self but in the calls that other beings claim upon us in our daily lives. Yet, throughout my reading of this text, I am left puzzled as to how to practice this view in daily life. In fact, Buber refuses to reduce such a call to a technique, and he even compares it to a kind of revelation. It leaves me wondering, is even the act of reading Buber going to bring a person closer to this revealed interconnection with others?
      I tend to go back to my limited experiences of meditation to understand how it applies to the examples that Buber is describing. If mind is really letting go of self-attachment and not using discrimination to separate 'my body' from 'others', there wouldn't be any real obstacle in interacting. We wouldn't be putting up any personal obstacles, such as "I need to be this way, to relate to this person." But so far, Buber does not offer the unique consolations of technique to offer an explanation on what is happening between people. He doesn't say, 'just think that everything is phenomena', because Buber wants his audience to know and feel what it is to be called by something other than the consciousness with which one is familiar. This call is a mystery because it takes people into something that can never be possessed. Buber remarks "You cannot devour the truth, it is not served up anywhere in the world, you cannot even gape at it, for it is not an object." (p.47) So with Buber, even the assurance that a spiritual journey is getting one 'somewhere' is lost. The real plunge is to get outside of one's self-assurance, and it is quite hard to even conceptualize how this is done. In fact, Buber is resisting reducing the process to a concept, because concepts are what reduce things into 'its', or objects to be consumed or 'gaped at'. And he is insisting that reality is not reducible to neat parts.
     There are certainly parallels in Buddhism, but they are not so easy or apparent to see. When I read the Vows of Samantabhadra, for instance, I am seeing that the vow to honor Buddhas includes respecting and honoring all living beings. If one does not experience awe and wonder in seeing another sentient being, then this is also the same as failing to see the awe of a Buddha. The two realms are in fact inseparable. But too often people take a spiritual teaching and try to strip it of its genuine otherness: it is like trying to cocoon oneself in the comfort of a conceptual framework or predictable practice. But this is also cutting off a genuine experience of no-self, yielding to a world where there are others who have just as much viable claim to existence and purpose as oneself.
     I don't think there is any way to 'grasp' or practice this teaching other than to simply let go of 'teaching' a little bit, and allow a space for others to simply lay their demands (or their wishes, their claims to being) into one's psychic space. Ialso don't think this entails having to meet those demands, like a kind of gopher or 'servant'. Rather, I think it means simply allowing the infinite possibilities of others' wishes and demands to fill our being. It also means allowing the guilt that arises when one realizes that not every claim can be answered or met, even though all claims have an equal value in the world. There will always be a kind of guilt that comes from having to choose some claims over others, and the messiness of that process. But the challenge is to relax into full awareness of the claims of others, without having to go into a defensive posture or even fix all those claims. Listening is key, because it is through listening that one's sense of humility can lead them to a loosening of self-clinging. But this too is a delicate process, and it takes time to arrive at a genuine awe and humility that is not tainted with self-pity or punishment.

Buber, Martin (1965), Between Man and Man. New York: Macmillan