Hubris as "Cosmic Relief'

I am reading about the Greek concept of "hubris" in Luc Ferry's The Wisdom of the Myths. On page 211 of this book, Ferry describes how, unlike the Christian concept of sin which is often focused on personal faults, hubris is more concerned with meting out punishments to ensure that a cosmic order and harmony is preserved. Presumably, if the punishment does not sufficiently fit the crime, disorder would naturally result. As Ferry remarks, many of the Greek myths center around characters such as Prometheus who, through the mistake of overconfidence or pride, overstep their place in the universe. The result is the wrath and eventual brutal punishments from the gods.
   I tend to think of hubris as "cosmic relief" from a psychological point of view. After all, can you imagine a universe that has no limits whatsoever, and a person can simply become whoever they wanted to be? Not only would such a universe be a bit boring, but it would also lead to a lot of anxiety, because one is no longer limited in their actions. It would be something like having this huge blank canvas that continually allows you to write over it, but then erases it almost instantly afterward, leaving no traces: almost like a giant Etch-a-Sketch toy. With hubris,on the other hand,one is reminded that there are limits to what a person can do, and overstepping one's boundaries does lead to felt harms and emotional distress. However, this does not mean that one is eternally damned! That would be a little bit overboard. It means that some kinds of regret might be healthy ways of recognizing that actions do have consequences, and there are always things we can learn from in mistaken actions. I take it that none of the stories in Greek myths are ever literally real, but instead, they suggest metaphorical relationships.

Ferry, Luc ( 2014 ) The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life. New York: Harper

Putting Spilled Milk Back into the Glass

 The title of this blog entry comes from a similar vignette in Terry Orlick's book, where he talks about a young student who became upset when she spilled a can of paint on the floor. Orlick advises the distressed student that the paint cannot be put back into the jar, so why fret about what has already happened? Accidents can happen as quickly as one split second, and there are moments when a person simply does not have the time or even the awareness to stop something from happening when it does. Yet, as typically does happen in these cases, the person has plenty of time, it seems, to keep going back to the same situation to see if they can put the paint back into the jar, or the spilled milk back into the glass.
   When something painful happens,  such as an accident or something unforeseen, it's fine to logically think about what one could have done or could do better in the future. However, what I sometimes think this situation calls for is a kind of presence of mind that neither goes back to the past nor tries to rush into an imagined future where there are no spills or accidents whatsoever. One has to be strong and present to the situation to be able to face it wholly, rather than putting all their energies into a fictional time when everything is completely fixed. In working with the energies of regret and disappointment, we learn to live with such feelings without fueling the kind of aggrandizing thoughts that come in their wake. For every regret or disappointment, there is a kind of semblance of omniscience: thinking that our stories should never contain accidents, as well as a desire to make sure there are never any opportunities to feel such things again. Now, is that realistic? I say perhaps not.
  As Orlick suggests, the best a person can do is to accept the fact that the paint and the milk are already spilled: trying to put them back is counterproductive and does not reveal a key lesson, which is how to remain resilient in these times or situations. When I can really know that hearkening back to the past is no way to handle the present problem, I have more energy to face the problem now and try to do something to make it better. But that doesn't mean trying to get things back to the way they were before.

Orlick, T. (1993) Free to Feel Great: Teaching Children to Excel By Living.

Side Streets

  Walking home from work today, I decided to take a slight detour onto a sidestreet on the east side of Yonge, on the way to Steeles Avenue. I was attracted to a sea of green that I had never seen prior to this particular walk, and found myself in a kind of abandoned park with a narrow trail of gravel and dirt running through it. Eventually, I was able to use that trail to make my way to the shopping centre at Yonge and Steeles. All the while, I kicked myself, thinking, "I have been taking the loud main street for all this time--and, after two years, here I am discovering the side street!" Why, indeed, didn't I know about it sooner?
  I am not just talking about literal side streets anymore. Side streets are often symbolic detours, where a person reaches the same destination in possibly (but not always) the same time, using a route that few people even know about. It takes a bit of courage to even find the side street: for example, part of me wanted to save time and just use the main road to get to the shopping mall and have my dinner before going home. However, curiosity and a willingness to be open overrode this imperative to be "on time", and I ended up enjoying the side street all the more. The point is: detours may take longer and might even disappoint a person's hopes or expectations, but they often teach people more things and allow them to see otherwise hidden worlds.
   How can I use this idea in my life? Another question is: how can we know when a detour is working for us? I would have to say, everything has a middle point. Too much detour becomes a problem in itself, leading to a life without focus or even a goal. But too little "detouring" can lead to a very rigid, tense mind, one that is calculating or monitoring itself to see whether it's doing what it "should" be doing. Such kind of self-restraint might make a person a champion of taking cold baths, but it doesn't always make them happy or pleasant to be with. This is because they don't have a relaxed or open way of looking at things, and might even find themselves falling into the trap that there are objective, external standards that everyone is meant to follow: the symbolic "main roads", which in fact always seem a bit too jammed with people and their emotions.

Bittersweet Flavor of Autumn

   Fall leaves always signal, at least mentally, a bittersweet impermanence. During the meditation session yesterday morning, that feeling took the form of the gentle crackling of the leaves outside, as well as that pile of leaves that greeted me at the doorstep of the Chan center.  It also took the form of the sound of a single bird flying outside the Chan Hall---a raven or a crow, perhaps--which heralds the eventual migration of birds and the end of the summer season.
   I have to say that in spite of its intimations of impermanence, fall is my favorite time of year and also one that is evocative of my childhood. I am especially fond of October, for several reasons. When I was very young, I often felt a sense of shock that school is starting in September, and October was the time when things started to settle down within me mentally, and I knew that I was going to survive. It still happens for me to this day: September being a time of violent transition while October being the month of "accommodation", when things start to feel more settled, crisp and clear.  The other aspect I like about fall is the harvest colors: the gold of pumpkins, the fiery reds and yellows of the leaves, and so on. The appreciation I feel is bittersweet: I want to hug these fall colors into my body and internalize their warmth and comfort, but even the leaves themselves are destined to lose all their color and decay back into the soil, as winter spreads its fierce coolness.
   The other thing I like about autumn is Halloween. I don't attend Halloween parties these days, but when I was in grade school, Halloween was a time when students bonded with each other by creating haunted houses, dressing in costumes and sharing horror stories, and even creating these stories. I think I will try to do the same this year with the Grade 4 students, to have them create their own spooky stories. Two of my favorite writers, Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allen Poe, are "Fall" writers to me. They are best read under a tree of crisp red leaves. Again, Halloween reminds us of the underside of things: twilight, death, the moon, the turning of things from one state to another. All of these are gentle reminders not to cherish beauty too tightly but to be prepared to hold it lightly in one's hand and to let it just follow its natural course from birth to flowering, to decay and death. Even decay can be beautiful and joyous, and this is what occasions like Halloween and Day of the Dead can teach us.
  Fall can teach a person a lot about how to behold their life. I consider it the most philosophical season of all. I hope you can enjoy this season with me.

Learning from Myths

 Learning about Greek myths is not just about fanciful stories. It is also looking at the human dilemma. As I am preparing my lesson plan for the upcoming Grade 4 class, I am taking a hard look at what Greek mythology can contribute to children's lives and development.
  One theory about the value of learning Greek myths comes from Luc Ferry who, in his book, The Wisdom Of Myths, suggests that mythologies teach children about a harmonious order in the universe, sometimes referred to as "chaos". On top of elaborating the creation stories and ideas about how the gods and goddesses came to populate the world, Greek myths articulate the role that humans play in the world. As Ferry puts it, the question related to humans is "How are men (sic) going to insert themselves into this universe of gods that does not seem, in any a priori sense, to have been made for mankind?" (p.32). What impresses me about this question is how it transcends the actual narratives of cosmos and order that pervade Greek myths and stories, suggesting instead an underlying sensibility of paying respects to the various forces that govern the human world. According to this view of mythology, the world is depicted as peopled with different forms so that we can learn as humans to respect our place in the world, to "know ourselves" and thus, in doing so, know what is apportioned to us in the universe. If I overstep my bounds by trying to aspire to unrealistic dreams, I am "punished" through a negative consequence--which might, in modern psychological parlance, be something like melancholy, narcissism, or any number of disorders that separate people mentally from the world they live in and create great amounts of anxiety. If, on the other hand, I am clear about what I am able to do in this moment and stick with what is workable to me, then the result will be the "reward" of harmony with the cosmos: the gods look to us well, we have good affinities with different powers, and we are supported by the forces around us.
   I have to admit that, while this kind of moral universe is good to introduce to children, one also needs to develop critical acumen not to take the mythological order too literally, particularly as a way of asserting the supremacy of a "natural" world order. We all know the consequences of such an idea, including oppression of people throughout history. On top of this, once the students do reach adolescence, they will for sure start to challenge the notion that there are actual "natural" limits to human endeavors. Existentialism, a philosophy which many are introduced to in their senior high school years, eschews the idea that there is a fixed world view that forces people to behave in a certain way. However, I have to admit that the Greek mythical world order does have parallels with that of other religions, including Buddhism (which is both religion and philosophy). While Buddhism does not talk about a world order, it does talk about karma, and the respect for an orderly universe might parallel the attitude of contrition that Buddhist practitioners show toward their teachers and the bodhi mind as well. "Knowing one's limits", in this case, might certainly refer to knowing that one has Buddha nature but is "not yet" a buddha, and hence needs to take their place in practice rather than outstepping their bounds. I quite respect Greek myths as a kind of moral education for young people, although what I most appreciate about it is the way it symbolizes struggles that many people face in their lives.

Ferry, Luc, (2014). The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life. New York: Harper Collins

Acceptance Therapy

In the book Siddartha's Brain, James Kingsland devotes a chapter to various kinds of therapies that have been inspired by Buddhist teachings and practices. One of the most intriguing models I have come across is something that has often been referred to as "Acceptance Therapy". The tenet of acceptance therapy is that one learns "to allow distressing emotions, thoughts, and sensations to come and go without trying to fight them, suppress them, or run away from them" (p.132), which might in a way be considered the essence of mindfulness. How does such a therapy work, however? Does it mean simply accepting whatever thoughts come to mind? It's more than this: it means not identifying with the thoughts themselves; not saying, in other words, that this thought is "me", and thus not indulging particular thoughts. Kingsland distinguishes between a "doing" mode of being, which emphasizes "automatic" responding without awareness, and a "being" mode, more akin to mindful awareness, where one is able to "experience thoughts and feelings as transient phenomena" (p.131). It's only when I am not attached to my passing thoughts or moods that I am not compulsively doing things to try to regulate or control such thoughts. An analogy might be that of standing before a whirpool rather than being absorbed into it (ibid).
   A lot of acceptance therapy meshes with the ideas of Silent Illumination. Silent Illumination emphasizes seeing the whole without trying to grasp at the parts. When I am attuned to totality, there is actually nothing to grasp, not even totality. Then my mind is free to pick up something and put down as needed, and it is not clinging to any conditions. The difference is that Acceptance Therapy uses this principle to get patients to engage in what is called "metacognition", which is thinking about the process of thinking. When I am attuned to the way my mind is tossing and turning in all sorts of crazy ways, I become less invested in the thoughts themselves. It is almost as though there is a kind of ironic detachment being cultivated here, although Silent Illumination isn't performing any kind of reflection. To the contrary, contemplation is a kind of knowing without judging or evaluating the ways one approaches experiences.
  I think that in order to really practice this kind of therapy, a person does need to commit to some sense of wanting to change. Being mindful is certainly a tool, but I also think that a person going through this therapeutic process needs to have a plan or a concrete thing that they would like to improve or do better on. It also helps to have a social model, such as a teacher or a person to look up to. The danger I see with this kind of therapy is that, when taken alone, it might start to lead to self-deceptive ideas, such as allowing every thought to be entertained without principle, or even daydreaming at the worst. Some Buddhist practitioners also succumb to a false idea that because everything is "only a thought", then there is no point stopping behaviors from arising since everything is created by the mind. But this is precisely wrong because it only reinforces compulsive behaviors that lead a person to seek treatment in the first place. If I am doing this practice on my own, I won't have people to look up to who can help me see where I might not be engaging the practice correctly. \

Kingsland, James, (2016). Siddartha's Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment. New York: Harper Collins.

The Changing of the Guard

The meditation was literally "silent" today, as I was the only attendee for group practice. I was somewhat relieved that I didn't need to lead, since I was feeling a need to simply sit and settle my mind. I valued that experience very much, because I do believe that being comfortable in one's solitude is a very key aspect in being available for others.
   I was reading an article today where they interviewed a famous celebrity who later started to become more isolated and secluded as his career was starting to decline. Part of the article was a kind of chicken and egg exploration about why people fall from a place of opportunity to one of seclusion. One key conclusion is that this particular actor had a reputation for being abrasive and difficult to work with, often ending relationships with snide remarks or very cynical put downs. Eventually, as this habit progressed, this actor found himself not getting many offers for jobs, which only exacerbated his sense of being out of touch with the industry and envious of his old fame.  While the article and interview paints a dour picture of a man who is too sensitive to criticism yet conveying a "don't give a damn" attitude (a complicated but all-too-human paradox), things get complicated here. Part of this story may very well be, as it is written, a kind of cautionary tale about the effects of creating negative karma. One conclusion is that negative karma isolates people in ways that make it difficult for them to re-enter social circles and contribute to communities or trades. But what I find compelling about this article is that there always feels like something deeper behind this voluntary or not-so-voluntary seclusion, something that goes beyond karma.
    I like to think of it in this way: for the first twenty years of one's working life (if they're lucky), a person learns to establish their name and identity as someone who is competent in certain areas. I know lots of people in my workplace who are the "designated something", whether it's the Excel expert or the person who knows how to remove paper jams, or the English wiz, etc. Part of the process of becoming a fully functioning, connected and social person is this apprenticeship period where we try to demonstrate as best as we can (under the circumstances) to prove our values and worth to others. This is an extremely important phase in life, and I believe that failing to achieve a certain felt sense of value in a community can result in all sorts of mental turmoils in later life, including depression or being haunted by self-esteem or fear. But as a person starts to reach a certain age, they might realize that what they have achieved is now being sought by others who happen to be younger than them and in just as much need of validation and recognition as themselves. At that time, the older person needs to make room for the up and coming generation, and might even start to feel themselves being squeezed out by newer organizational cultures. The way a company or business is run in one generation will be drastically different from another simply because technologies change, our education changes, and our ideas change as well. It's no wonder that sometimes a person who made her or his way to the top of a certain career might feel confused or befuddled when the things that made them successful in one generation are no longer guarantees of success in the present.
    Sometimes, to go back to my earlier example, I have a feeling that when people find themselves more isolated than before, it's not just because of the social circumstances or because of faulty decisions which derail them. While I do believe that these two factors do contribute to decline or alienation, I also have another hypothesis: namely, whatever we build up in life always has a polar opposite within. If I am a very brilliant scientist, for example, my polar opposite might be a person driven by the arts instead of scientific methodology. When I devote myself to one kind of success, another part of me gets suppressed or even bent out of shape. I wonder if sometimes the rage a person might feel when their career is being sidelined is really the expression of a suppressed energy in themselves that never had the chance to be expressed, due to fear of losing one's place in the pecking order. As soon as that pecking order starts to disappear or we find ourselves falling, all that suppressed energy gets expressed as anger. The anger is not necessarily a reaction to something in the environment, such as getting fired or being replaced by someone else. Rather, it's the expression of a disowned self that is not developed precisely because a person is devoting themselves to one way of being. Because that self has suffered so much disuse, its expressions are often awkward, socially inept or even inarticulate.
   I can't help but attribute this famous actor's incoherence to the expression of a part of himself he was never allowed to express and never practiced expressing, because the social milieu would not allow it, and would not accept him or forgive him for it either. It seems important in these troubled times for people not to be mocked or jeered because they no longer stand for who they were or were "best known as", but rather to try to see what this new side of themselves is trying to express, however awkwardly or (heaven forbid), differently. This is the time to accept new parts of ourselves that don't fit, as well as to accept unconventional aspects of life rather than trying to pathologize those aspects. How many times do I read news stories where a person's "bad" (read: misunderstood) behavior is attributed to "narcissism"? "Oh, he or she is just so in love with themselves". But when you really reflect on it, most people are deeply in love with their thoughts, views and ideals, even when they pretend that they are being open minded! There has to be a deeper explanation to a person's garrulous behavior besides the obvious labels or classifications. I challenge the culture to look a little deeper when they see someone who appears to be falling by the wayside in life...perhaps even falling into something daring and new.