When I look at my professor's writings, I think about all the things I need to do to improve, and what it would take for me to be at a similar level of writing, stylistically and so on. What I recognize from that exercise is that writing is definitely a social discourse, having its rules, audience and intentions. I believe that the first time I ever truly recognized this point was back in 2002, when I decided to have some of my poems published through an amateur magazine. Up to that point, I had been writing poems primarily for my own interest, but when I had to actually consider their market, I realized that there is more to professional writing than simply writing what one feels like writing. I would even go so far as to say that professional and 'hobby' writing are completely different beasts. It is not good enough for me to simply see professional writing as a polished version of what I write for myself. Rather there are specific things that people look for, and it's quite hard to satisfy those wishes if one doesn't have a community which shows the way.
Does this mean that writing for oneself has no value? Actually, quite the contrary, it suggests that the two kinds of writing are normally separate yet equal. Whereas professional writing often extends the writing of others in community, I tend to think of my own writing more like a self-discovery, where I am trying to work things out and make sense of them. I think that daily writing is 'good discipline', not insofar as it might get a person closer to writing for a market, but because it encourages a kind of articulation of how one thinks and feels which is not always captured in the final product of a writer's book or short story. In a sense, the two purposes of writing can complement each other and give a writer motivation to continue her or his craft.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
The nature of fire
Santideva writes the following analogy when describing anger on others:
If inflicting harm on others is the nature of the foolish, then my anger toward them is as inappropriate as it would be toward fire, which has the nature of burning (p.66, No 39)
This passage seems to make sense, but how often does a person really practice the idea? I have a sense that Santideva's view of emotions goes against a common sense view, which I like to describe as something like "you did it first". A person often treats the anger as something that is triggered from someone or something else and keeps looking for the cause in that other person. But where exactly does anger begin, if not from the perceptions and ways that one frames the world? If I am clear about the fact that anger doesn't come from someone else, then I can observe the anger without ever thinking it is caused by someone else. In that sense, I never turn anger into an object or an enemy.
It seems the nature of consciousness to try to treat everything as a concrete object. One example I come across is when people talk about 'depression' as though it were a kind of thing that enters one's mind and body. If you have never watched the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", it is a kind of fitting example of the thinking where I treat a mental state as a kind of alien invader. Rather than seeing depression as a label for a set of complicated factors or characteristics, I overuse the term depression...at first as a short hand, but then as a kind of catch-all phrase to describe any difficult mental state which involves a heavy or sad impression.
In a similar way, Santideva is referring to people who make something really important out of what are really just cause and conditions. If a driver cuts another off on the highway and that person becomes angry, the angry person will rarely consider in that moment that many factors would be contributing the other driver's behavior. Instead, that other driver starts to contain the personification of all the things one has rejected, both in oneself and in others. This is a kind of strange magic that the mind does. It endows events or situations with properties and values that don't necessarily belong to the situation at all.
What Santideva is trying to do in this passage, I believe, is to go back to the original state of things, by comparing people's behavior to the nature of fire. Now, nobody ever blames fire for burning, so why would we blame people for being themselves? Santideva is using a simple example of properties we can all agree on as 'natural', and extending this metaphor to all people. It's interesting that this analogy is incredibly hard to grasp and practice, because the typical attitude between people is to exaggerate or even distort what one perceives as either 'good' or 'bad' qualities. But if I finally accept that people are the result of their previous behaviors, thoughts and decisions, is there any reason not to see them as like the fire that burns? This attitude is a simple and unconditional acknowledgment that there is always a cause for why people behave as they do, and one needs patience to really look upon it.
If inflicting harm on others is the nature of the foolish, then my anger toward them is as inappropriate as it would be toward fire, which has the nature of burning (p.66, No 39)
This passage seems to make sense, but how often does a person really practice the idea? I have a sense that Santideva's view of emotions goes against a common sense view, which I like to describe as something like "you did it first". A person often treats the anger as something that is triggered from someone or something else and keeps looking for the cause in that other person. But where exactly does anger begin, if not from the perceptions and ways that one frames the world? If I am clear about the fact that anger doesn't come from someone else, then I can observe the anger without ever thinking it is caused by someone else. In that sense, I never turn anger into an object or an enemy.
It seems the nature of consciousness to try to treat everything as a concrete object. One example I come across is when people talk about 'depression' as though it were a kind of thing that enters one's mind and body. If you have never watched the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", it is a kind of fitting example of the thinking where I treat a mental state as a kind of alien invader. Rather than seeing depression as a label for a set of complicated factors or characteristics, I overuse the term depression...at first as a short hand, but then as a kind of catch-all phrase to describe any difficult mental state which involves a heavy or sad impression.
In a similar way, Santideva is referring to people who make something really important out of what are really just cause and conditions. If a driver cuts another off on the highway and that person becomes angry, the angry person will rarely consider in that moment that many factors would be contributing the other driver's behavior. Instead, that other driver starts to contain the personification of all the things one has rejected, both in oneself and in others. This is a kind of strange magic that the mind does. It endows events or situations with properties and values that don't necessarily belong to the situation at all.
What Santideva is trying to do in this passage, I believe, is to go back to the original state of things, by comparing people's behavior to the nature of fire. Now, nobody ever blames fire for burning, so why would we blame people for being themselves? Santideva is using a simple example of properties we can all agree on as 'natural', and extending this metaphor to all people. It's interesting that this analogy is incredibly hard to grasp and practice, because the typical attitude between people is to exaggerate or even distort what one perceives as either 'good' or 'bad' qualities. But if I finally accept that people are the result of their previous behaviors, thoughts and decisions, is there any reason not to see them as like the fire that burns? This attitude is a simple and unconditional acknowledgment that there is always a cause for why people behave as they do, and one needs patience to really look upon it.
A Return to Santideva...
Now, after all the tussle of the past few months, where did I leave off in my writing about Santideva? In fact, I might ask the more fundamental question, why Santideva? Maybe this is the more interesting question to ask, since I often wonder whether it's good to look up to any philosopher for insights or points of view, or if perhaps it's better to go on one's own and find what is true to themselves.
This little dilemma I have reminds me of a scene in the movie adaptation of Siddartha (the Herman Hesse novel), where the main character, a kind of Buddha figure, suddenly realizes that he cannot rest content with what others have taught him. In an act of defiance, he yells something to the effect of "I have to follow my own heart!', upon which he rejects all authority and decides to look for truth away from all institutions. Siddartha was written at a time when Buddhism was relatively new to the West, and I see it as an interpretation of some aspect of Zen that might have been popular sometime in the 60s or 70s. Zen must have been an intriguing possibility to many in the West at that time, precisely because of its mystery and being from another culture entirely. But I do have to wonder, is the truth always to be found in one's own heart, or do we sometimes need to go to other people's hearts for guidance? I believe it's certainly a balance between the former and the latter, although I haven't quite figured out where that balance lies. The romantic notion of the lone individual who finds her or his own truth in isolation seems like a thing of the past. Somehow, I get a real sense that there needs to be a community or two which allows a person to find that truth.
When I read Santideva's writings, am I relating to him as an authority? I haven't yet come to the point of asking myself, 'what would Santideva say in this situation?' I see Santideva as someone who, like myself, seems to have written in order to remind himself of the things that are most valuable to him. In that sense, I like the idea of writing to remind oneself, because it can transform writing away from venting emotions toward something that is trying actively to relate one's experiences and emotions to some principle or idea one is wrestling with. In this way, rather than following a teacher blindly, the exploration of that teacher's writings becomes a kind of
I have, so far, not yet really gone into Santideva's writings. Perhaps this makes the title of my blog deceiving. But since I am making up for the lost blogs of this past month, I will return to Santideva shortly.
This little dilemma I have reminds me of a scene in the movie adaptation of Siddartha (the Herman Hesse novel), where the main character, a kind of Buddha figure, suddenly realizes that he cannot rest content with what others have taught him. In an act of defiance, he yells something to the effect of "I have to follow my own heart!', upon which he rejects all authority and decides to look for truth away from all institutions. Siddartha was written at a time when Buddhism was relatively new to the West, and I see it as an interpretation of some aspect of Zen that might have been popular sometime in the 60s or 70s. Zen must have been an intriguing possibility to many in the West at that time, precisely because of its mystery and being from another culture entirely. But I do have to wonder, is the truth always to be found in one's own heart, or do we sometimes need to go to other people's hearts for guidance? I believe it's certainly a balance between the former and the latter, although I haven't quite figured out where that balance lies. The romantic notion of the lone individual who finds her or his own truth in isolation seems like a thing of the past. Somehow, I get a real sense that there needs to be a community or two which allows a person to find that truth.
When I read Santideva's writings, am I relating to him as an authority? I haven't yet come to the point of asking myself, 'what would Santideva say in this situation?' I see Santideva as someone who, like myself, seems to have written in order to remind himself of the things that are most valuable to him. In that sense, I like the idea of writing to remind oneself, because it can transform writing away from venting emotions toward something that is trying actively to relate one's experiences and emotions to some principle or idea one is wrestling with. In this way, rather than following a teacher blindly, the exploration of that teacher's writings becomes a kind of
I have, so far, not yet really gone into Santideva's writings. Perhaps this makes the title of my blog deceiving. But since I am making up for the lost blogs of this past month, I will return to Santideva shortly.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
The Value of Isolation
Over the last couple of days, I had a chance to read a few things and watch lecturer (who is an eminent child psychologist) talk about the theme of childhood development. One of the things the lecturer talked about was how child development requires a great deal of bonding with parental figures. This bonding is not about attaching to the parent with anxiety but more about providing 'holding spaces' where it feels safe to be on one's own, knowing that the parental guide is always available when required. But in order for a child to truly develop, she or he needs to tolerate times when the parent is not emotionally available, without interpreting these periods of unavailability as devastating or corrupting of a child's regularity. This is why it is important for children to have a space of their own so that they can learn to be resilient even when there is no constant coddling or 'stroking' available from the parent.
I tend to agree with those of the likes of Ian Suttie (author of Origins of Love and Hate) who tended to see it as normal for even adult human beings to require stroking in the form of human support. People need to feel somewhat important to other people, in order to insure that their world doesn't seem unreliable to them. Of course, there also needs to be a genuine insight into how I create this world of unreliability through my thinking about things in a certain way. If I believe my own thoughts that others are always, at all times, unreliable, I forge the fact that people can and do help when the need and circumstances arise. Perhaps the trick is to let go of always expecting to be rewarded with the emotional support of others when life gets difficult.
I know that for myself, in periods of isolation, I have the chance to test my own thinking. In a sense, meditation also provides a kind of space where one can see which thoughts are so compelling, and form interpretations of others' intentions which may or may not be true. But at the same time, isolation always needs to return back to something in order to become meaningful: it needs to have a context. Even people who study in the mountains for years need to be able to take their practice back down to the marketplace where people thrive. This is because the real insight of isolation is interconnection. By learning to better tolerate periods when others are not sustaining me, I have this great opportunity to expand my heart even when there is no reward or mutual regard. This is a real test of how deeply one has found their own true heart, rather than getting caught in a chronic need for approval to feel safe or assured. I can't say that I am particularly 'good' at this process, but wish to outline what I understand about it.
I tend to agree with those of the likes of Ian Suttie (author of Origins of Love and Hate) who tended to see it as normal for even adult human beings to require stroking in the form of human support. People need to feel somewhat important to other people, in order to insure that their world doesn't seem unreliable to them. Of course, there also needs to be a genuine insight into how I create this world of unreliability through my thinking about things in a certain way. If I believe my own thoughts that others are always, at all times, unreliable, I forge the fact that people can and do help when the need and circumstances arise. Perhaps the trick is to let go of always expecting to be rewarded with the emotional support of others when life gets difficult.
I know that for myself, in periods of isolation, I have the chance to test my own thinking. In a sense, meditation also provides a kind of space where one can see which thoughts are so compelling, and form interpretations of others' intentions which may or may not be true. But at the same time, isolation always needs to return back to something in order to become meaningful: it needs to have a context. Even people who study in the mountains for years need to be able to take their practice back down to the marketplace where people thrive. This is because the real insight of isolation is interconnection. By learning to better tolerate periods when others are not sustaining me, I have this great opportunity to expand my heart even when there is no reward or mutual regard. This is a real test of how deeply one has found their own true heart, rather than getting caught in a chronic need for approval to feel safe or assured. I can't say that I am particularly 'good' at this process, but wish to outline what I understand about it.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Agitated thoughts
Today was a bit of an agitating day for me: some stress at work, followed by a busy commute on a late and very crowded bus, on the way to group meditation. By the time I had arrived at the centre to set up the cushions and video for the evening sharing, I already noticed myself being in a very agitated state. I felt like one of those glass ornaments with the snow inside, that had been shaken once too many times...! But nonetheless, here I was in a position to try to calm myself before starting the meditation, yet knowing that I was not really going to be calm at all, at least not at the beginning.
When I was guiding the meditation and doing the practice tonight, I started to realize how much this agitation I was experiencing actually 'grounded' me in the moment. How is that possible, you may wonder? Shouldn't agitation be the enemy of calm mind? Actually, not really, because in fact it's the agitation in our lives which reminds us that we need to get out of thinking we are our own thoughts. If everything is so comfortable and serene that one can just enjoy thoughts on their patio while blowing soap bubbles, then one is never motivated to quite get out from one's thoughts: in fact, in an ideal state of being, many people fall in love with their thoughts and become enamoured with the illusion of stability which comes from thinking. It's only when one becomes extremely busy with painful thoughts that one becomes truly motivated to meditate! In fact, it's then that meditation starts to make sense as an alternative to the busy-ness of one's thinking.
One of the participants in the group sitting mentioned that she had difficulty really settling in the practice, this being her first time at the meditation session. She referred to how she had to keep coming back to the awareness of breath many times after falling away into wandering thoughts. But I mentioned that in fact, this is the miracle and joy of meditation itself. In a sense, one often doesn't even realize that she or he is thinking, let alone returning to her or his breath. In this sense, one only need trust that the practice itself will lead to a calm mind, and one needn't obsess over looking for a perfect 'static' state of mind.
When I was guiding the meditation and doing the practice tonight, I started to realize how much this agitation I was experiencing actually 'grounded' me in the moment. How is that possible, you may wonder? Shouldn't agitation be the enemy of calm mind? Actually, not really, because in fact it's the agitation in our lives which reminds us that we need to get out of thinking we are our own thoughts. If everything is so comfortable and serene that one can just enjoy thoughts on their patio while blowing soap bubbles, then one is never motivated to quite get out from one's thoughts: in fact, in an ideal state of being, many people fall in love with their thoughts and become enamoured with the illusion of stability which comes from thinking. It's only when one becomes extremely busy with painful thoughts that one becomes truly motivated to meditate! In fact, it's then that meditation starts to make sense as an alternative to the busy-ness of one's thinking.
One of the participants in the group sitting mentioned that she had difficulty really settling in the practice, this being her first time at the meditation session. She referred to how she had to keep coming back to the awareness of breath many times after falling away into wandering thoughts. But I mentioned that in fact, this is the miracle and joy of meditation itself. In a sense, one often doesn't even realize that she or he is thinking, let alone returning to her or his breath. In this sense, one only need trust that the practice itself will lead to a calm mind, and one needn't obsess over looking for a perfect 'static' state of mind.
Monday, November 14, 2016
Fear of Missing Out
I have not been writing in this blog consistently for the last few days or so, and my only excuse is that I have been hard at work on a paper for one of my classes, which compares Hindu and Buddhist sacrificial rituals.
I have noticed, as I just started to formulate a topic for tonight, how much I miss the blog. Free writing is such a different style than the academic research writing which I have had to undertake recently, and I must say that it's a relief not to have to cite everything I write with a bibliographic reference! So there is a kind of stiffness I feel for not having free-written in a couple of days, combined with a sense of genuinely wanting to resume my daily blog writing.
I was having this conversation the other day with a Chan practitioner about the proliferation of social media, and how it can become distracting at times to really practicing single-pointed awareness. I sometimes make it a habit to turn off my internet when coming home so that I can focus on writing a paper or reading a few academic articles. This measure is necessary because it is so easy to get distracted by the internet, similar to the way in which a person gets caught in wandering thoughts. Besides 'turning off the internet', is there any other way to avoid the tendency to surf?
It seems that the most compelling driver for internet use is something called fear of missing out (which has even been abbreviated to FOMO!). I read an article which talked about how a lot of anxiety among young adults stems from this fear, particularly due to the proliferation of things and events that compete for a person's time and attention. With all the meetup groups out there, how does a person choose which to attend? If I attend one, for sure I will be in a position where I will have to forego the other, and so on.
It seems that the ultimate remedy for FOMO is to see things with equanimity. One might think that staying at home is less glamorous than being downtown on a Friday night, but then one can recount the advantages of the former over the latter. Being at home means more time to relax, to catch up on one's reading, and to be in a warm place for a while. Is there not always an advantage to any state one is in? Even being in a traffic jam gives a person an opportunity to see that this stressful situation could always be worse, and isn't all that bad either. Consider: if I am in a traffic jam, at least I am not caught in the rain. It seems that these small gratitude reminders could help deal with the fear of missing out.
I have noticed, as I just started to formulate a topic for tonight, how much I miss the blog. Free writing is such a different style than the academic research writing which I have had to undertake recently, and I must say that it's a relief not to have to cite everything I write with a bibliographic reference! So there is a kind of stiffness I feel for not having free-written in a couple of days, combined with a sense of genuinely wanting to resume my daily blog writing.
I was having this conversation the other day with a Chan practitioner about the proliferation of social media, and how it can become distracting at times to really practicing single-pointed awareness. I sometimes make it a habit to turn off my internet when coming home so that I can focus on writing a paper or reading a few academic articles. This measure is necessary because it is so easy to get distracted by the internet, similar to the way in which a person gets caught in wandering thoughts. Besides 'turning off the internet', is there any other way to avoid the tendency to surf?
It seems that the most compelling driver for internet use is something called fear of missing out (which has even been abbreviated to FOMO!). I read an article which talked about how a lot of anxiety among young adults stems from this fear, particularly due to the proliferation of things and events that compete for a person's time and attention. With all the meetup groups out there, how does a person choose which to attend? If I attend one, for sure I will be in a position where I will have to forego the other, and so on.
It seems that the ultimate remedy for FOMO is to see things with equanimity. One might think that staying at home is less glamorous than being downtown on a Friday night, but then one can recount the advantages of the former over the latter. Being at home means more time to relax, to catch up on one's reading, and to be in a warm place for a while. Is there not always an advantage to any state one is in? Even being in a traffic jam gives a person an opportunity to see that this stressful situation could always be worse, and isn't all that bad either. Consider: if I am in a traffic jam, at least I am not caught in the rain. It seems that these small gratitude reminders could help deal with the fear of missing out.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Krishnamurti comes to mind...
On my facebook feed, I am hearing and reading a lot of stories about how people are reacting to the election results in the U.S. I am seeing something akin to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's account of the different stages that we go through when dealing with the loss of loved ones. Of course, the first stage of the process is denial and disbelief, followed by extreme resistance and even an effort to bargain with others to bring the loved state of being back. But none of these measures prove to be lasting, and eventually they give way to a more accepting way of being. Has acceptance and accommodation happened for the U.S. elections? Perhaps now and perhaps never. It's hard to say what is 'normal' anymore, much less the baseline to which one can reliably turn.
I am not especially interested in the idea of trying to look for a villain in the story of the elections. It seems to me that the country is so complex, and there is no one cause for things in this story. The more a person demonizes another, the harder it is for that demonized or stigmatized person to learn from others or participate in community with others. Filled with fear and shame, such a person can do nothing but try to solve the problems of the nation on their own, with minimum involvement in others' lives. Conversely, those who demonize others without sincerely trying to understand the others' motivation are only perpetuating a culture and climate of hatred or exclusion. In a sense, I have to wonder: are we yet evolving to the point where we start to see through our labels and judgments?
Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher, comes to mind as I am thinking this through. I learned from my readings of his books that conflict is not something we need to stigmatize or see as 'abnormal'. As this election suggests, conflict is part of the everyday meaning and process of being human. If one learns not to balk at conflict, the feelings and perceptions associated with it are not regarded as bad at all. But it always seems the case that conflict almost primes a person for a flight or fight, knee-jerk reaction to things. I end this blog with the question: can people learn to abide in conflict without reacting or taking sides?
I am not especially interested in the idea of trying to look for a villain in the story of the elections. It seems to me that the country is so complex, and there is no one cause for things in this story. The more a person demonizes another, the harder it is for that demonized or stigmatized person to learn from others or participate in community with others. Filled with fear and shame, such a person can do nothing but try to solve the problems of the nation on their own, with minimum involvement in others' lives. Conversely, those who demonize others without sincerely trying to understand the others' motivation are only perpetuating a culture and climate of hatred or exclusion. In a sense, I have to wonder: are we yet evolving to the point where we start to see through our labels and judgments?
Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher, comes to mind as I am thinking this through. I learned from my readings of his books that conflict is not something we need to stigmatize or see as 'abnormal'. As this election suggests, conflict is part of the everyday meaning and process of being human. If one learns not to balk at conflict, the feelings and perceptions associated with it are not regarded as bad at all. But it always seems the case that conflict almost primes a person for a flight or fight, knee-jerk reaction to things. I end this blog with the question: can people learn to abide in conflict without reacting or taking sides?
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