Life as Cinema

 The players in this cinema do look more real than this bundle of impressions within. They speak, but they speak from a unified place. I can identify their bodies as distinctly real. And when I look in the mirror, I can see that there is this body that can be said to put together all the various impressions. Without that sense of the body, one might not feel so real.

   But when I start to recognize that I am not a single body experience--I am the sum of all these impressions, not just the body--then I stop trying so hard to control what happens to the body, knowing that I am not the body. This is something of a relief! Spending all my time taking care of a body that is bound to suffer the bouts of decay, illness, tiredness, etc. can be a draining experience, and can at times lead to a sense of defeat. So the idea that I am not my body is quite liberating in itself.

    But this would not mean that I neglect the body. Instead, it becomes a tool. I use that tool to be able to get things done and to work, but it's not something I need assign success/failure to. In this sense, I can let go of the egoic attachment to the body.

Breathing Space

 I decided to finish two out of my three lesson plans tonight, before the weekend started. This planning certainly helped me to feel less overwhelmed and more of a sense of release--the sense that I can indeed take a break over the weekend, aside from my regular teaching. I start to reflect: it's only when a person is occupied that they truly appreciate times when they are not occupied. Maintaining that balance between "occupied" and "free" is like the two parts of breath: inhaling and exhaling. These rhythms are homeostatic, and they are somehow mutually indispensable.

    I feel gratitude when I am tired in this way--it's not a tiredness that comes from weariness, but one that comes from being rightly occupied, or occupied in the (hopefully productive) service of others. And although I struggle with always having energy to do so, I remind myself of times when I wasn't so engaged, and it seems that I do prefer this life. Belonging is a human need, and I can only hope that those who suffer loss of employment during the pandemic can feel belonging of some kind, as well as engagement. I do feel that it is a necessity. But, I also remind myself that there is room for much needed rest.

Accessibility To Meditate

 More than anything, what I have been trying to do with my research is to make meditation accessible to teachers, regardless of their situation or what kinds of pressures they go through. I sometimes feel disappointed that I may not make the desired impact in my study--since I don't think I have the power to make teachers love meditation or do it frequently. But, what I want to do is to inspire curiosity and to help teachers become better equipped to use meditation to calm their minds before assessing student writing. This "making accessible" requires making meditation feel enjoyable.

   I personally find myself rushed to take on many things. But it is precisely for this reason that I am able to empathize with those who are squeezed for time. Even tonight, I felt the pressure to try to complete many evaluations and assessments. But I also feel that there needs to be time out-- a space for inner reflection, at the very least--which people tend to take for granted. Centering not only releases stress but it also allows for meaning construction: a chance, that is, to regroup and see what is most significant or meaningful. If one is always in a rush, there is simply no time to feel--not only to feel one's own body but also to feel what is meaningful to that person. What resonates with me? Where do I locate myself in all these changing scenes and events? I believe that it is only in the process of centering that such kind of meaning can surface at all.

Life's Accounts

  Karma has sometimes been compared to the notion of keeping score of one's pluses and minuses. I recall reading that in Muslim culture, there is a similar notion of Allah weighing the positives as opposed to the negatives of one's behavior. I believe that even the ancient Greek concept of the afterlife has harbored a similar idea. It makes sense to say that one's good deeds should outweigh their bad deeds, but I wonder if there could be an algorithm as comprehensive enough to sum up all of a person's deeds, inactions and "misdeeds". What would such a computer look like? Of course, the idea itself is a thought: it comes and goes, depending on how dedicated we try to be toward it.

   Working on my thesis feels to me this way. I look at the thing one day and it looks okay, but then reading another article makes me want to tweak it to make it better. I shape and tweak it until I feel that I have satisfied someone's requirements--ideally, the person in my head who I feel is qualified to speak about it and assess its total quality. But in the end, it doesn't feel that this thesis, or any writing for that matter, ever really finishes. It's meant to be a little bit asymmetrical in relation to its original intent and goal: a surprise, even to its creator. But without surprises, the creation is a little bit pointless. I create in order to fundamentally surprise myself through the learning. If I had the thesis all in my head before writing it down, how surprising would that be to me, and how would it constitute the adventure that comes from inquiry and creation? In situations like these, I can't really resort to an accounting metaphor, because what I put into it should (hopefully) not equal what comes out.

  If all one had to do was to contribute "good balances" into the account of life, there would not only be little purpose, but also little room for expansion and surprise. I often do things not because I have determined them to be good --at least not yet, anyway--but because they give me room to breathe and advance a little so that I can see and discover new things in myself. So I didn't embark on this project simply to gain merit, or bring it to others, but to see what's possible by extending myself a bit. Some of what's possible might be downright useless or bad, but there is a risk of that which comes from acting and being both a creator and someone being created by things outside me. But I consider this to be the miraculous thing about learning; it's value is never fully disclosed but always being revealed in the moment.