Direct Encounters

What I most enjoy about Martin Buber's writings is that he emphasizes relationships as the most direct and unencumbered way to have a spiritual encounter. This is in contrast to an over reliance on techniques and abstract rules, which tends to inform a lot of Western philosophy. In fact, there are times when I am reading Buber where I start to feel that spiritual encounters cannot be reduced to labels or 'things'. He at one point remarks in Between Man and Man: "he who practices real responsibility in the life of dialogue does not need to name the speaker of the word to which he is responding--he knows him in the word's substance which presses on and in, assuming the cadence of an inwardness, and stirs him in his heart of hearts." (p.17) I think the point of this passage is to relate to the world in a very different way from what most people are accustomed to. Rather than trying to use present situations to validate one's past judgments or labels, there is simply a discarding of the labeling process in favor of a direct encounter with other beings.
    Now just what is this 'direct encounter' all about? Buber quite wisely resorts to a concrete example to illustrate, when he talks about a horse he had befriended at his grandparents' estate when he was eleven years old. Buber describes how he formed a connection with the horse, and how his initial experience was one of beholding the horse as a kind of "Other":

If I am to explain it now, beginning from the still very fresh memory of my hand, I must say that what I experienced in touch with the animal was the Other, the immense otherness of the Other, which, however, did not remain strange like the otherness of the ox and the ram, but rather let me draw near and touch it. (p.23)

Buber beautifully describes what I think is such an interesting possibility: the balance between beholding the Other as an Other without being disconnected from 'otherness'. Buber's encounter with the horse allowed him to feel in awe of this other living creature, yet the act of 'being allowed' to pet the horse allowed him to connect with the horse. This is quite unlike some spiritual philosophies which emphasize 'oneness' (p.24-25), and only end up reducing "Others" to functions of the self. In the latter case, I am able to fully relax with all beings, but they end up becoming functions of my experience rather than beings in their own right. If I do the latter, I end up making the encounter a kind of blasé one: it's devoid of the edge that comes when two separate lives come together, and even denies distinctions. In contrast, Buber is celebrating the encounter as something fresh that always arises through the intersection of two or more very distinct beings who are continually allowing a space for connection.
     In order to really appreciate Buber's writings and style, I would have to think that one would need to really believe in and practice seeing the universe itself as a living totality. But by 'living totality', this doesn't mean that a rock is equal to a plant. Rather, it means that a rock can still be a rock and a plant a plant, in a continually changing set of interactions. This is quite different from someone who wakes up in the morning and says, "In order to get through the day, I am going to see everything as the same thing, made of the same substance, and this will guarantee me equanimity." In Buber's case, I think the totality would come more from not labeling or trying to equalize any experience, but rather immersing oneself in the unfolding moment as something new. This latter way of being is scary because it opens the possibility of having to acknowledge other beings as others, rather than as instruments for self gain.

Buber, Martin (1967), Between Man and Man. New York: MacMillan