One of the problems of being in the city (or excitement, perhaps) is that there are so many things that seem to "need attention". I have noticed that there needs to be more quiet time just to know one's own thoughts and state of mind. Unfortunately, a busy schedule and lifestyle often leaves a person so exhausted that at the end of the day, they are only in the mood to distract themselves through Youtube videos or the like. This kind of cycle leads to endless distractions.
It's one thing to be alone but there is also a sense of recovery, or coming back to the sense of a person's most heartfelt experience of aliveness. I have found that this is most difficult to recover. During the group meditation practice tonight, it took quite a while for thoughts to settle to the point where I wasn't driven by them, and luckily the facilitator for tonight's session allowed me the opportunity to relax myself. When all the thoughts settled, I did feel myself a completely different person, as though the thoughts were just random furniture in a bare and already clean, spacious room. Thus, you can imagine how hard it is to really recover an authentic sense of being in daily life, if it takes nearly two hours for the mind to settle and know that it is truly sitting in he present.
It's not sufficient to just "be alone" to have this time with one's own experiences and felt sense of being. One has to get to a certain point where they can recover the lost sense of "who I am is not affected by all of this". This is a kind of felt appreciation of existence that I have often experienced as a young person, but very rarely as an adult. Could it be that one's responsibilities take them too much away from the sense of wonder in being alive?
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Awareness of Ideals
Today, I was tutoring my student about mission statements. I came across an idea that mission statements are somewhere between the visionary and the concrete. A mission statement that lacks "specifics" is going to appear over-idealistic and somewhat wishy-washy. On the other hand, a mission statement that only consists of concrete "facts" or "specifics" lacks a wider view about what a person or organization intends to do for some greater good.
I am sometimes afraid that too much "vision" even in religion can lead to unrealistic idealizations of ourselves and our capacities to live in the spirit. As I get older, I become more exposed to the harshness of packed schedules and lack of sleep. I experience the limits of my body and consciousness in those moments, yet, for me, this kind of life seems more true to life than a life entirely free from the earth. It's as though a part of me wants my feet to be firmly touching the ground, even if each step seems wearisome.
In Chan Buddhist tradition, there is the saying that "all actions are Chan", which means that the spirit is never far from the ordinary things of this world, whether it's eating, sleeping, working or taking a shower. Every one of these activities is none other than acts of mind. Where does "idealization" set in? For me, it's when I seek to become a better person or a kind of mental ideal, without realizing that the ideal is just that: a kind of mental projection. There is a kind of subtle self there: the projection of how I wish to be seen as "spiritual" in others' eyes. What then happens is that I subtly reject this actual moment in favor of an idealized possibility. This then leads to conflict between this idealized self and the rejected one which ends up being split off or repressed.
The only way I have been able to avoid this situation is by seeing the spiritual in the ordinary itself: in the tired feet, in the busy days at work, in the rain, in the bus ride home. By not separating these from some idealized or sacred view, I allow these experiences to become part of the practice of being present.
I am sometimes afraid that too much "vision" even in religion can lead to unrealistic idealizations of ourselves and our capacities to live in the spirit. As I get older, I become more exposed to the harshness of packed schedules and lack of sleep. I experience the limits of my body and consciousness in those moments, yet, for me, this kind of life seems more true to life than a life entirely free from the earth. It's as though a part of me wants my feet to be firmly touching the ground, even if each step seems wearisome.
In Chan Buddhist tradition, there is the saying that "all actions are Chan", which means that the spirit is never far from the ordinary things of this world, whether it's eating, sleeping, working or taking a shower. Every one of these activities is none other than acts of mind. Where does "idealization" set in? For me, it's when I seek to become a better person or a kind of mental ideal, without realizing that the ideal is just that: a kind of mental projection. There is a kind of subtle self there: the projection of how I wish to be seen as "spiritual" in others' eyes. What then happens is that I subtly reject this actual moment in favor of an idealized possibility. This then leads to conflict between this idealized self and the rejected one which ends up being split off or repressed.
The only way I have been able to avoid this situation is by seeing the spiritual in the ordinary itself: in the tired feet, in the busy days at work, in the rain, in the bus ride home. By not separating these from some idealized or sacred view, I allow these experiences to become part of the practice of being present.
Monday, April 2, 2018
The Shapes of Things
During the Chinese class tonight, I was reflecting on my previous blog related to the educational psychologist Rhoda Kellogg, in particular her observations on how young people acquire the ability to make symbols. Kellogg's theories about the kinds of archetypal images and shapes that children are forming an early age suggest that they play with collective meaning before those meanings coalesce around conceptual objects. For instance, children experiment with what Jung referred to as "mandalas"--divided circles which illustrate a balanced matching of halves in one complete cycle--long before they understand that what they are drawing are "geometrical shapes known as circles".
Reflecting on my own experiences in practicing the formation of Chinese characters on a draw computer media, I would theorize that learning a language also requires the ability to experiment with shapes. Forming the characters becomes a way of connecting with the inner shapes, be they the graceful swishes of a long line or more circular patterns. It's also this formation that seems crucial to the embodied aspect of language and writing in particular. Unless I am actually forming the characters, I don't have that continuous feedback loop which directs or guides the hands in shaping the characters. This takes away the sense of randomness and creativity, or play, that a language might entail.
I am also reminded that words themselves might have meanings which are embedded in their formations. These "meanings" are more primordial: they don't relate to the agreed upon meaning that a particular word has, but might relate to the deeper meanings of the shapes coming together. It's much less apparent that this would happen in the English language than in the Chinese language, since the latter tends to be more image-laden. However, I can see how all languages might entail an encounter with the felt meanings of shapes and forms. Even writing as a physical act is a sort of art, in the sense that it creates forms which in turn guide the awareness to very nuanced, subtle and hard to trace meanings.
Reflecting on my own experiences in practicing the formation of Chinese characters on a draw computer media, I would theorize that learning a language also requires the ability to experiment with shapes. Forming the characters becomes a way of connecting with the inner shapes, be they the graceful swishes of a long line or more circular patterns. It's also this formation that seems crucial to the embodied aspect of language and writing in particular. Unless I am actually forming the characters, I don't have that continuous feedback loop which directs or guides the hands in shaping the characters. This takes away the sense of randomness and creativity, or play, that a language might entail.
I am also reminded that words themselves might have meanings which are embedded in their formations. These "meanings" are more primordial: they don't relate to the agreed upon meaning that a particular word has, but might relate to the deeper meanings of the shapes coming together. It's much less apparent that this would happen in the English language than in the Chinese language, since the latter tends to be more image-laden. However, I can see how all languages might entail an encounter with the felt meanings of shapes and forms. Even writing as a physical act is a sort of art, in the sense that it creates forms which in turn guide the awareness to very nuanced, subtle and hard to trace meanings.
Sunday, April 1, 2018
Children's Art and Spirituality
Rhoda Kellogg (in Meyers & Grey, 1983) was a psychologist who maintained that children's art contained elements of structure, form and meaning that have universal meanings (pp.67-74). Drawing from Jungian archetypal psychology, she maintains that children's art contains similar "gestalts" or structural elements, one of which is the mandala that is sacred to many spiritual traditions and which symbolizes the wholeness of the soul. Curiously, few parents would catch onto this sort of symbolic imagery, in part because parents tend to reward children for creating art that resembles something that is close to a consensual vision of what reality is and how it is illustrated. This is also because parents tend to place little significance on the seemingly "random" squiggle shapes which compose early children's art. Mistaking these random scribbles for "misguided" attempts to create presumably "real" objects in the world, people tend to view children's art as underdeveloped visions of adult reality, rather than seeing the seeming randomness of children's art to be significant in and of itself.
By looking at children's art as innately predisposed with profound structural elements, Kellogg seems to prepare the way for future educators such as Tobin Amon and Robert Coles to explore the "spirituality" of children. But I think another aspect which might get overlooked is how Kellogg reverses the view that children are only "undeveloped" adults. In seriously considering the creations of children in their own right, Kellogg manages to restore adult curiosity toward children's ways of knowing. One might think that children's ways of knowing are somehow underdeveloped "versions" of adult seeing, but another way of approaching this is to see adults as fully indoctrinated into ways of seeing that are entrenched in systems of culture and power. An example of this might be that of a tree.
Most students by a certain age (say, 10), are able to trace what appears to be the rough outlines of a tree: brown trunk and a normally circular "green" blob of leaves and foliage. Do these things even resemble actual trees? For adults, the circular green top and slender brown trunk signify a tree, even though the image might not even correspond to what trees look like. But the point is that scholars such as Kellogg would suggest that it isn't the child who labels the shapes of the branches and foliage as a "tree". Rather, adults confer upon the children such labels, which are usually enforced by the shared culture. I say that the green blob and long brown trunk collectively make a word "tree", yet this image hardly corresponds to what an "actual" tree looks like. However, once one examines the images the children are creating in and of themselves, they discover profound things about them, such as the ability for children to make many things from one central circle.
Myers, M. & Gray, J (1983) Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition: Processing Distancing, and Modeling. Urbana, Ill: National Council of Teachers of English
By looking at children's art as innately predisposed with profound structural elements, Kellogg seems to prepare the way for future educators such as Tobin Amon and Robert Coles to explore the "spirituality" of children. But I think another aspect which might get overlooked is how Kellogg reverses the view that children are only "undeveloped" adults. In seriously considering the creations of children in their own right, Kellogg manages to restore adult curiosity toward children's ways of knowing. One might think that children's ways of knowing are somehow underdeveloped "versions" of adult seeing, but another way of approaching this is to see adults as fully indoctrinated into ways of seeing that are entrenched in systems of culture and power. An example of this might be that of a tree.
Most students by a certain age (say, 10), are able to trace what appears to be the rough outlines of a tree: brown trunk and a normally circular "green" blob of leaves and foliage. Do these things even resemble actual trees? For adults, the circular green top and slender brown trunk signify a tree, even though the image might not even correspond to what trees look like. But the point is that scholars such as Kellogg would suggest that it isn't the child who labels the shapes of the branches and foliage as a "tree". Rather, adults confer upon the children such labels, which are usually enforced by the shared culture. I say that the green blob and long brown trunk collectively make a word "tree", yet this image hardly corresponds to what an "actual" tree looks like. However, once one examines the images the children are creating in and of themselves, they discover profound things about them, such as the ability for children to make many things from one central circle.
Myers, M. & Gray, J (1983) Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition: Processing Distancing, and Modeling. Urbana, Ill: National Council of Teachers of English
Friday, March 30, 2018
Teacher and Student Acceptance
In a book aptly titled Teaching with Feeling, educational psychologist Herbert Greenberg (1968) describes the process whereby students who don't receive sufficient attention or validation in their schooling years are later (hopefully) "picked up" by someone else. However, at the same time, he cautions:
A great concern in this regard must be the child who is neglected or disliked continuously. It is hoped that each child will find one teacher (perhaps in physical education, the shop, music, art), or the nurse, who will like him (sic). Or perhaps next year, with a new classroom teacher, he will be more fortunate. However certain children year after year, teacher after teacher, never click positively with anyone. These children are truly neglected in the educational process simply because they arouse no positive feeling in teachers (p.50).
As I am reading this passage, I am thinking a lot of different things. First of all, part of it does perhaps ring pretty true to many people's lives, if not most, even though Greenberg was writing in a time that is quite different from today's world. Emotional support or love never comes to everyone at the same time, and from everyone, especially when it comes to teacher and peer support. Perhaps one of the lessons that people eventually might get from this is that they are never really or fully "in control" of the process of connecting in ways that feel positive or sustainable. There is even a kind of joy in being able to bear moments of non-love or non-support and to even test one's ability to go through such periods when they are not being supported by kind teachers or guidance counselors.
On the other hand, I don't think that Greenberg is necessarily describing those fortunate students who have been able to develop the confidence to sustain periods of not being supported by teachers or authorities of some kind. Perhaps there are, as he describes, students who somehow did not find teachers who resonated with their character traits, and therefore did not develop the sufficient confidence to be able to see periods of non-support or lack as opportunities for personal growth and independence of some kind. In those cases, what kinds of choices can both the teacher and the student make to ensure that the student's need for emotional support in their learning is being met? This very much seems a timely topic in light of recent incidents of school violence, many of which seem to be instigated by people who are characterized as "loners" or aggressive individuals by the school system and surrounding society.
When students fail to accept themselves, it seems to be up to the teacher to be able to work on themselves to the point where they can model acceptance in the child. I don't think this necessarily means coddling the child or giving them insincere gestures of support. Rather, I literally mean that teachers need to accept their total reactions toward all their students as a part (but not all) of themselves in the changing moment, before students can mirror that sort of grounded acceptance.
In other words, perhaps, teachers can practice self-acceptance of the totality of their emotional worlds, with the aim of conveying that attitude of total acceptance to the students.
What this means is that when I (as a teacher, say) am completely okay with who I am right now, emotionally and physically, as a presence in this classroom, I am no longer trying to suppress certain elements in my emotional makeup to please students or fellow teachers. Nor, for that matter, am I grabbing onto these emotions as though I needed to prove to the world that they are inseparable parts of me and therefore need to be somehow championed. Instead, this lack of attachment and acknowledgement of emotions can create a sense in children that it's simply okay for them to be who they are, without trying to prove themselves through some violent or aggressive force.
In this way, my point is never to frame myself as "an authority figure who dispenses love to passive students". Rather, I see myself as someone who exercises wholeness (as best as possible) so that students can possibly awaken to little moments of wholeness in their present existence. This also replaces the hidden expectation that teachers are supposed to be indiscriminate dispensers of love and support, empowering students instead to find their own inner support within themselves through moments of presence and acceptance.
Greenberg, Herbert M. (1968). Teaching with Feeling: Compassion and Self Awareness in the Classroom Today. Pegasus
A great concern in this regard must be the child who is neglected or disliked continuously. It is hoped that each child will find one teacher (perhaps in physical education, the shop, music, art), or the nurse, who will like him (sic). Or perhaps next year, with a new classroom teacher, he will be more fortunate. However certain children year after year, teacher after teacher, never click positively with anyone. These children are truly neglected in the educational process simply because they arouse no positive feeling in teachers (p.50).
As I am reading this passage, I am thinking a lot of different things. First of all, part of it does perhaps ring pretty true to many people's lives, if not most, even though Greenberg was writing in a time that is quite different from today's world. Emotional support or love never comes to everyone at the same time, and from everyone, especially when it comes to teacher and peer support. Perhaps one of the lessons that people eventually might get from this is that they are never really or fully "in control" of the process of connecting in ways that feel positive or sustainable. There is even a kind of joy in being able to bear moments of non-love or non-support and to even test one's ability to go through such periods when they are not being supported by kind teachers or guidance counselors.
On the other hand, I don't think that Greenberg is necessarily describing those fortunate students who have been able to develop the confidence to sustain periods of not being supported by teachers or authorities of some kind. Perhaps there are, as he describes, students who somehow did not find teachers who resonated with their character traits, and therefore did not develop the sufficient confidence to be able to see periods of non-support or lack as opportunities for personal growth and independence of some kind. In those cases, what kinds of choices can both the teacher and the student make to ensure that the student's need for emotional support in their learning is being met? This very much seems a timely topic in light of recent incidents of school violence, many of which seem to be instigated by people who are characterized as "loners" or aggressive individuals by the school system and surrounding society.
When students fail to accept themselves, it seems to be up to the teacher to be able to work on themselves to the point where they can model acceptance in the child. I don't think this necessarily means coddling the child or giving them insincere gestures of support. Rather, I literally mean that teachers need to accept their total reactions toward all their students as a part (but not all) of themselves in the changing moment, before students can mirror that sort of grounded acceptance.
In other words, perhaps, teachers can practice self-acceptance of the totality of their emotional worlds, with the aim of conveying that attitude of total acceptance to the students.
What this means is that when I (as a teacher, say) am completely okay with who I am right now, emotionally and physically, as a presence in this classroom, I am no longer trying to suppress certain elements in my emotional makeup to please students or fellow teachers. Nor, for that matter, am I grabbing onto these emotions as though I needed to prove to the world that they are inseparable parts of me and therefore need to be somehow championed. Instead, this lack of attachment and acknowledgement of emotions can create a sense in children that it's simply okay for them to be who they are, without trying to prove themselves through some violent or aggressive force.
In this way, my point is never to frame myself as "an authority figure who dispenses love to passive students". Rather, I see myself as someone who exercises wholeness (as best as possible) so that students can possibly awaken to little moments of wholeness in their present existence. This also replaces the hidden expectation that teachers are supposed to be indiscriminate dispensers of love and support, empowering students instead to find their own inner support within themselves through moments of presence and acceptance.
Greenberg, Herbert M. (1968). Teaching with Feeling: Compassion and Self Awareness in the Classroom Today. Pegasus
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Subtle Kindness
Recently, I read an article which talked about a recent school shooting. Many of the students were given the impression that because the shooter had violent proclivities, it was somehow up to his fellow classmates to bestow "kindness" upon him in order to have prevented his violent behavior. A student who tried to befriend this person has reported that in her attempts to try to bestow kindness on him, he behaved violently and inappropriately toward her. The student concludes that people should never feel obligated to bestow kindness on someone even if they appear to be a "loner" with tendencies toward violence.
I am reflecting on this issue, because I do wonder whether educators perhaps need to exercise care in the way that we teach/preach about kindness in classrooms. It's obvious that many of the students are indoctrinated with the view that it's good to extend a certain kindness toward all people, regardless of how that kindness is received or whether the receiver even truly benefits from it or wants it. People thus are brought up to think of kindness as a kind of moral injunction-which is often exactly what it is in many religious texts. "Be kind to..." is often understood as a divine commandment and a moral obligation that people have a duty to somehow fulfill or bestow evenly on all people. However, as I did learn in my recent experiences at the Timekeeper retreat, the way we handle situations is to first know what the person's situation is, as well as to clarify it using wisdom. Indiscriminate kindness can lead to a sort of almost blind or stereotypical vision where we smile at people and treat them nicely in the hopes that they will change from "frogs" into "princes" overnight. But what is implied in this vision of kindness is a kind of social control. Implicit to this notion is that if I am nice to you, eventually you are going to be nice just like me. Now why doesn't this work most of the time, you might wonder?
I think the answer is that most people eventually get the idea that, when kindness is "dispensed" in this way toward them, they are somehow being tricked into doing something or even manipulated to feel a certain kind of obligatory reciprocity: "I scratched your back, now you scratch mine". Kindness becomes a game or a strategy that people use to please people who are powerful or in authority, rather than being a genuine emotion that arises from one's interactions and even a real compassion for someone else. This kindness is more a kind of social conditioning than it is something that comes from a real insight into how another person is doing in life. Not only do the receivers feel that it isn't genuine (that is, being done for the sake of an ideology) but the givers feel completely burned out and betrayed in their acts of kindness. Their kindness doesn't even feel so real to themselves, let alone others.
I wonder if perhaps if people weren't so pressured to be any certain way, that they would perhaps naturally have more room to empathize with other beings. That is, maybe this "kindness" we are looking for arises precisely when we drop all the "looking for", "seeking", "striving" or even "pretending" for the sake of getting accolades and avoiding blame. But I think what's at issue here is that people are never given a chance to drop these pressures and pretenses. We are living completely in this sealed off pressure dome, where everything we do is monitored and given a label. This is happening for so long, in fact, that there is no room to even appreciate who we are inside of us. As a result, we hardly are able to feel anything for others either, because we are so cut off from who we are deep in ourselves.
To go back to my original point: people may have to honor the depth of uniqueness in a person's soul before thy can develop a genuine respect. This is not easy to do if people are never given the chance to see their own souls and to be valued for their souls. But the way to do so is to appreciate that we come from distant lands, which aren't necessarily limited to this present life. We can never fully know the mystery of who a person is, and when one sees someone who is violent, the first thing is to know that this is someone who needs special kinds of care and attention. The second is to recognize that this person must be suffering a lot in not being able to connect with people in nonviolent or creative ways. This gives rise to real compassion, to know, "well this person must be having a real hard time with this issue. Even though I don't share their struggles, I have my own struggles in some aspects of life". This self reflective compassion is much more nuanced than the sudden jump to "you must be kind to everyone you see".
I am reflecting on this issue, because I do wonder whether educators perhaps need to exercise care in the way that we teach/preach about kindness in classrooms. It's obvious that many of the students are indoctrinated with the view that it's good to extend a certain kindness toward all people, regardless of how that kindness is received or whether the receiver even truly benefits from it or wants it. People thus are brought up to think of kindness as a kind of moral injunction-which is often exactly what it is in many religious texts. "Be kind to..." is often understood as a divine commandment and a moral obligation that people have a duty to somehow fulfill or bestow evenly on all people. However, as I did learn in my recent experiences at the Timekeeper retreat, the way we handle situations is to first know what the person's situation is, as well as to clarify it using wisdom. Indiscriminate kindness can lead to a sort of almost blind or stereotypical vision where we smile at people and treat them nicely in the hopes that they will change from "frogs" into "princes" overnight. But what is implied in this vision of kindness is a kind of social control. Implicit to this notion is that if I am nice to you, eventually you are going to be nice just like me. Now why doesn't this work most of the time, you might wonder?
I think the answer is that most people eventually get the idea that, when kindness is "dispensed" in this way toward them, they are somehow being tricked into doing something or even manipulated to feel a certain kind of obligatory reciprocity: "I scratched your back, now you scratch mine". Kindness becomes a game or a strategy that people use to please people who are powerful or in authority, rather than being a genuine emotion that arises from one's interactions and even a real compassion for someone else. This kindness is more a kind of social conditioning than it is something that comes from a real insight into how another person is doing in life. Not only do the receivers feel that it isn't genuine (that is, being done for the sake of an ideology) but the givers feel completely burned out and betrayed in their acts of kindness. Their kindness doesn't even feel so real to themselves, let alone others.
I wonder if perhaps if people weren't so pressured to be any certain way, that they would perhaps naturally have more room to empathize with other beings. That is, maybe this "kindness" we are looking for arises precisely when we drop all the "looking for", "seeking", "striving" or even "pretending" for the sake of getting accolades and avoiding blame. But I think what's at issue here is that people are never given a chance to drop these pressures and pretenses. We are living completely in this sealed off pressure dome, where everything we do is monitored and given a label. This is happening for so long, in fact, that there is no room to even appreciate who we are inside of us. As a result, we hardly are able to feel anything for others either, because we are so cut off from who we are deep in ourselves.
To go back to my original point: people may have to honor the depth of uniqueness in a person's soul before thy can develop a genuine respect. This is not easy to do if people are never given the chance to see their own souls and to be valued for their souls. But the way to do so is to appreciate that we come from distant lands, which aren't necessarily limited to this present life. We can never fully know the mystery of who a person is, and when one sees someone who is violent, the first thing is to know that this is someone who needs special kinds of care and attention. The second is to recognize that this person must be suffering a lot in not being able to connect with people in nonviolent or creative ways. This gives rise to real compassion, to know, "well this person must be having a real hard time with this issue. Even though I don't share their struggles, I have my own struggles in some aspects of life". This self reflective compassion is much more nuanced than the sudden jump to "you must be kind to everyone you see".
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Small Kindness
Coming back from a 5 day meditation timekeeper retreat, I begin to realize that there is a simple kindness that everyone has, which can arise when the right conditions are in place. That sounds a little bit silly, but what I want to share is that the kinds of qualities that timekeeping are meant to arise in people are really the conditions in which kindness can manifest. Some of those qualities include humility, attention to small details, and the ability to take care of the different signals for the sake of the practitioners. There is a kind of interaction between person and environment which is really delicate yet so crucial to the process of being an effective timekeeper. After coming out of this retreat, I start to develop a different sensibility toward volunteering. I start to realize that every little bit of attention I give to something truly counts in the final result, and it adds (or detracts from) the professionalism of a finished work.
What's the relationship between this kind of care and kindness itself? Well, I have found personally that when my ambitions in life are very big, I don't have the ability to see what's in front of me. Conversely, seeing simple details in the here and now can furnish endless opportunities for small yet significant moments of kindness. Life sometimes furnishes examples. On the way to the Chan Hall, a practitioner whom I was talking to turned around very swiftly and warned the woman behind him not to step on a caterpillar which was slowly inching along the ground, soft and furry. I was quite moved by the fact that this practitioner so quickly spotted the caterpillar in so brief a period of time, as though he had eyes in the back of his head! It was as though every living creature was precious to this man, and he showed it through his behavior in that split second.
Kindness also seems to come with appreciation. When I am not trying so hard to be really good at something, but take a moment to appreciate what I can do in this moment, my personality naturally becomes softer. During the timekeeper training, I tried to do a kind of "perfect" prostration in accordance with the regulations. When I couldn't quite do it, of course, I did feel inadequate. Yet afterwards, I reflected that this is what I can do at this time, and it can certainly improve as long as I have the blueprint of what a prostration might look like. I don't need to be there right now or right away, but I can let that blueprint grow on me somewhat, until it becomes a part of me. This is very much like the metaphor of planting a seed.
I think what stops kindness is the habitual tendency to look for more, to want more in little time, and to compare ourselves with others. Another aspect is the anxiety that comes from thinking in an all or nothing way: it has to happen now or never, I am either all good or all bad, and so on. These kinds of polarizations don't mesh with the reality of how things grow in the natural world. Again, to use the metaphor of seeds, trees never grow into their full size overnight. Part of the beauty of seeing a tree is precisely that it grows in its own way, at its own pace, using the natural conditions it needs around it to find its own growth.
What I am suggesting is that if a person changes their mindset a little bit, they can find themselves becoming softer in their personality. It's not necessary in these cases to rush through life, and one can savor the delicate aspects of life in a state of movement and change.
What's the relationship between this kind of care and kindness itself? Well, I have found personally that when my ambitions in life are very big, I don't have the ability to see what's in front of me. Conversely, seeing simple details in the here and now can furnish endless opportunities for small yet significant moments of kindness. Life sometimes furnishes examples. On the way to the Chan Hall, a practitioner whom I was talking to turned around very swiftly and warned the woman behind him not to step on a caterpillar which was slowly inching along the ground, soft and furry. I was quite moved by the fact that this practitioner so quickly spotted the caterpillar in so brief a period of time, as though he had eyes in the back of his head! It was as though every living creature was precious to this man, and he showed it through his behavior in that split second.
Kindness also seems to come with appreciation. When I am not trying so hard to be really good at something, but take a moment to appreciate what I can do in this moment, my personality naturally becomes softer. During the timekeeper training, I tried to do a kind of "perfect" prostration in accordance with the regulations. When I couldn't quite do it, of course, I did feel inadequate. Yet afterwards, I reflected that this is what I can do at this time, and it can certainly improve as long as I have the blueprint of what a prostration might look like. I don't need to be there right now or right away, but I can let that blueprint grow on me somewhat, until it becomes a part of me. This is very much like the metaphor of planting a seed.
I think what stops kindness is the habitual tendency to look for more, to want more in little time, and to compare ourselves with others. Another aspect is the anxiety that comes from thinking in an all or nothing way: it has to happen now or never, I am either all good or all bad, and so on. These kinds of polarizations don't mesh with the reality of how things grow in the natural world. Again, to use the metaphor of seeds, trees never grow into their full size overnight. Part of the beauty of seeing a tree is precisely that it grows in its own way, at its own pace, using the natural conditions it needs around it to find its own growth.
What I am suggesting is that if a person changes their mindset a little bit, they can find themselves becoming softer in their personality. It's not necessary in these cases to rush through life, and one can savor the delicate aspects of life in a state of movement and change.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)