Different Ideas about Working Life

  Most Western cultures inherit a particular idea about work that is often derived from Greek and Biblical stories of the Fall. According to this view, people are punished for disobeying God by being driven to very hard labor. Rather than being provided for, people are "condemned" to fending for themselves. This attitude also gives rise to a flip-side, the narrative that "life without work" is an even greater drudgery. Where and how did working life ever come to be associated with these labels?
  If a person is too focused on work, they may very well lose scope about the overall lessons that are often inadvertently learned through work life. Examples: how to listen before speaking; how to communicate to be understood; how not to jump to conclusions; how to refrain from decisions until possibilities have been fully explored and analyzed, etc. These principles, for sure, could be learned outside of communities such as work, but what makes work so compelling is that we are pushed to work by survival needs. That is, a lot of things one would otherwise walk away from is highly (perhaps notoriously) tolerated at work!
   Work life often teaches me things that I would never have sought using my own thinking or devices. Am I suggesting, then, that everyone should have an activity that they are forced to do to survive? Well, currently, that is the social arrangement, but I often wonder whether work is really something we are forced to do after all.I suspect that people for the most part enjoy the sense of being mentally occupied and engaged, as well as the sense of belonging that workplaces afford. I doubt that work would suddenly fall behind if everyone didn't have to work tomorrow. I believe that people would still desire work in this case, and in fact, would seek it out even more if it were not associated with pressure and fear.

More Fall Walking

 Today's walk was a beautiful one, and I had the lucky opportunity to see the autumn trees foregrounding the foggy, somewhat eerie backdrop of a warm and humid day in Toronto. This time, the walking was around the Don Valley Brick Works, amidst a series of maze-like trails. I have more time to reflect as well on the importance of being in the present moment, just the same way as the trees themselves are gently reflected in the water. No single moment, I am reminded, is any more "tangible" than this beautiful reflection. And the natural clarity of the fall leaves reflected in the crisp water reinforced the fragility of that beauty.
  Can witnessing the beauty of nature help us to have different perspectives on our loved ones and relations? I believe so, but of course, it depends on one's mindset. Any number of mindsets can, and naturally do, emerge on such a nature walk.  One obvious mindset is, of course, to be so preoccupied with one's cellphone or inner thoughts, that they can't even see the things around them with any clarity. If a person is similarly caught up in worries about the future and anxieties about what is already passed, they will not have the heart or the mind to enjoy what is in their life in this moment.
    Another mindset, somewhat opposite to this, is a kind of possessive hyper-vigilance. I often see this in the form of people taking selfies or constant snapshots of the fall scenes, in hopes that perhaps some of that activity will literally "capture" the beauty around them and preserve it for future keeping. I also saw this earlier today when several young boys were pulling carp and catfish out of the local pond across from the Brick Works, treating the fish as though they were special "pets" that they could extract and throw back into the water at will. Naturally, the fish were struggling to breathe when the boys kept doing this, and I started to fear for the fishes' lives, almost to the point of wanting to warn the boys not to do this, for fear that the fish will die in vain. Although this action strikes many people as inhumane, I now start to wonder to what extent this attitude also applies to our relationships with people. Do we sometimes try to "hold" people in one pose or one place that is not conducive to their flourishing and life, rather than allowing them to swim naturally in the elements where they are most healthy? I attribute such a mentality to one of grasping and attachment.
   Often, people "kill" the moment by bringing a grasping mindset to it. I believe that it comes down to not being able to properly appreciate or enjoy things as they truly are in the universe, in their proper context. As soon as I find grapes that are particularly sweet or "better" than what I tasted before, I long to reproduce that exact same moment of tasting the grapes, by going back to the same place over and over again. Eventually, I "kill" the moment by trying to recreate it again and again, only to realize that I am simply poisoning myself through a grasping, comparing mentality. I think I am tasting something "new" every time when in fact I am mentally trying to repeat my previous experience of the grapes, holding it as a standard moment. The same goes with people as well. Am I really seeing the person in front of me, or am I only repeating a dream I had before? Knowing the difference requires a kind of mental reminder that the past and present are not the same.  And being in the present requires not clinging to any thought.
    I think that being with nature is really a good therapy to correct the mistakes of grasping on the one hand, and distraction on the other. But engaging with the natural world requires a light, open mindset of receiving nature's simple gifts, rather than trying to appropriate those gifts on the one hand or "zone out" on the other. At what point children stop enjoying nature and start wanting to keep nature as a pet, for me, is really a very tragic moment. It seems to mark, for me, the beginning of an acquisitive mindset, where one's identity is defined not by where they are but by what they can hold onto. And old age, conversely, is about going back to knowing where one is in this moment, and letting go of what cannot be held onto.

Incubating Ideas

 On the way home tonight to Mandarin class, I started to think about how much brainstorming and writing I will need to do to start nurturing a suitable topic for my thesis. It's going to be a bit of a long journey, and I suppose one of the joys of this process lies in not really knowing where it will ultimately take me. But the good thing about it is that, just as a bird often uses even the most random elements at its disposal to "create" a nest, so even the most disparate elements could end up forming this future totality. At the same time, I want to make sure that what I come up with is really coming from my own heart.

I sense that this is part of why doctoral work is in itself a spiritual process of forming connections and accessing the soul. It doesn't need to be imitative of similar processes: it can certainly borrow from things around it, but the process of inner learning (learning about one's deepest aspirations) is going to be different to everyone. To know this in itself lifts me of the burden of having to somehow read or absorb everything. Sometimes the most direct topic will naturally solidify over time, and one gradually builds and deepens her or his connections to the preferred topic.

Ideas need to sit for a while before they can grow and hatch, but analogously, one needs to nurture those ideas with warmth, spirit, consistency, and care. Many people confuse the creative process with a kind of stagnation. They might have had episodes in their lives when creative ideas just seemed to strike them, unprecedented, out of the blue, with no prior context to know just how they arose. But what isn't accounted for in these cases is how much care is put into mystery. That is, one has to have faith that mystery has a kind of productivity, a little bit like the faith of going up a misty mountain and not really knowing when or how one will reach the highest point. And most of all, I believe that a certain amount of dedicated "plodding" is essential for one's finest, most heartfelt ideas to emerge. Even if a thousand such thoughts and inspirations don't amount to the final result, they play their part in eliminating possibilities, which is also an important (and often ignored) aspect of creation. Yes, even one's "rejected" ideas are generative, because they represent learning efforts and new insights as much as the "final" product does.

A Human "Placemat' (but not a "Doormat")

  We had our meditation in the Second Floor Meditation Room this time, due to a visiting teacher in the Quiet Room tonight. At first, two Muslim women came into the room and asked me if something was going on--to which I replied that we have a Buddhist Chan meditation event. They then went outside the meditation hall to do their prayers. Later, when another co-facilitator arrived, she suggested that the two women could have prayed in the same room, since we don't use up a lot of space for our event. It then dawned on me that this entire room is big enough for everyone, so why was there any need for the women to leave the room to do their prayers? I told myself that next time, I would invite the women not only to "join meditation" but to pray with us as well.
   An analogy I would like to explore is the idea that the mind is like a gigantic placemat. If you ever remember times when you were a child and the placemat was a flat piece of plastic that was placed on the table which allowed you to make any kind of mess you wanted, without too many repercussions. Could the mind be seen in this way as well? I believe so, but the trick is not to think that your mind is 'better' or 'worse' than someone else's. In fact, it's all the same mind, so why differentiate one mind from the other? The same goes with emotional states and personalities. If I am making a space for everyone, I don't distinguish "my way" as being superior to someone else's. Rather, my practice is to allow every way to simultaneously operate in unison, much like those monads that the philosopher and mathematician Leibniz conceived of in his principles. When I am really committed to this practice, I don't worry about what I need to do, since I am only a placemat through which others will have their agendas or meanings to uncover for themselves. And I don't insist on one way being the "correct way". If I have such a mindset, I can never be at peace in any situation, since I insist that things be one way. What if I just let go of the idea that there is "any way" to begin with, instead realizing that all ways lead to one (or to none at all)?
   This is not the same as subscribing to an ethical relativism or a kind of weak-minded doormat philosophy. A "doormat" is someone who simply succumbs to every wish, believing (at times) that acquiescence leads to some form of reward. Sometimes, it's the opposite way, in the sense that people can be giving and being drained by a person who doesn't know the limits to what they can give. A "placemat" seems a more apt metaphor to suggest that all relations are experiments in give and take, where we create shared space upon which we can create all kinds of art works or, conversely, "messes".

A Crowded World

In an article in Tea Words Volume II called "Buddhadharma in the Modern World", Master Sheng Yen remarks:

The world today has a genuine need for Buddhadharma. There are many fine things in the modern world but also, much that is less than desirable. As the world becomes smaller and more crowded, people are getting busier and busier. As a child I read a Chinese novel called Journey to the West. It is the story of a monkey with mystical, supernormal powers who accompanies his master to India to seek special teachings from the Buddha. Despite the monkey’s power, the journey is very difficult. The monkey could leap over 100,000 miles but because his master lacked that power, the journey was arduous (p.17)

Reading these words, I reflect that the word "crowded" can be a metaphor both for the world getting smaller and the idea that we live "crowded' lives. I remember once reading a prediction that with more technology, people would not need to work as many hours. In fact, more technology has simply extended the reach of people's productivity to the point where they are simply working longer hours and having even more tasks to accomplish. Mater Sheng Yen compares this phenomena to that of "Journey to the West", where one person's arduous journey is actually another person's single step. What it reminds me of, in fact, is that we often don't realize how much we are asked to do that may exceed our own bodily capacities. Sometimes I compare this situation to that of a frog that is slowly boiling in water that is gradually increasing. The frog is barely aware that it is in a bad position until it is much too late.

Meditation seems to be so essential to my life, particularly when the pace of life is so great. For example during tonight's sitting, I experienced the pains of living a sedentary life; back pain and the usual soreness and tightness that comes with being in one place for a whole day. Yet, in sitting with that pain, I was able to drop a lot of racing thoughts, and I felt a sort of quiet which allowed me not to be so driven by all the thoughts. It turns out that the "crowds" are really in our own minds, and when we are not able to find a place to run away to, it's best to find refuge in the mind itself.

Even on a crowded bus, it's possible not to be so driven by crowds; not to always react or respond to everything, but to illuminate one's reactions with a state of calm.

Sheng Yen (2013). Tea Words Volume II Elmhurst NY: Dharma Drum Publications

Myths continued

    In reflecting on the roles of myths, I have come to realize that there are progressive understandings in myths. While the "creation stories" tell children about cause and effect and the categorical tensions that exist between order and chaos, subsequent stories teach them what it means to be a "mortal" in a volatile world; the sense that one's own actions can have severe repercussions or consequences; the splendor of creation; and the terrors of existing in a world where even the gods are not necessarily "reasonable" by any stretch of imagination. Greek myths strike me as being (somewhat) the apotheosis of other religions, in the sense that their gods tend to be quite jealous and even terrible at times, and it's only later in the mythological canon that Zeus, for instance, learns that human/god relationships are reciprocal and require mercy. The progression from a justice-based to a mercy based ethics is yet another aspect of myths that make them, to some extent, parallel the maturity of human endeavors and relationships. If the goddesses and gods are not open to trying new ways of relating to mortals (and vice versa), then the powers will often only end up wiping each other out in battle.
  I am not so much interested in the "bare bones" of a lot of the Greek myths as I am about the patterns of relationships that they reveal. For example, Oedipus is a figure in Greek mythology who is so pitiably cursed by his own fate (in murdering his own father and marrying his mother), that it forces people to wonder how they relate to events in their own lives that come from themselves yet at the same time are somehow beyond their capacity to know or understand. In seeing that struggle carried out through Oedipus, something inside of us (some story that connects with our own felt experience of life)...let's just say a psychic wound is opened which we allow ourselves to safely explore from the distance of a symbolic pattern in a story. Hercules and his twelve labors is somewhat the same, echoing the "never ending" trials that people face when they are indebted to their own souls to unfold certain lessons and prove themselves through different ways. The resolution to such stories is not the point so much as it is showing people that some things we go through are inevitably part of the condition of being human. Perhaps looking at these narratives in this way can help our struggles to be manageable and more worthwhile as well.

Disaster Stories

I find it interesting to observe that nearly all mythologies contain a story about the "deluge" or flood which wipes out all creatures except for a few virtuous folks. The story of Deucalion (a flood which heralded the Greek Bronze Age) is one such example. If taken from a psychological point of view, floods (or disaster stories in general) tend to symbolize a kind of "taking stock" of the most essential virtues and letting go of the rest. When I take stock of my mind and find that there are a lot of distractions or destructive emotions, I decide that I don't want to follow these to their outcomes, and I start to plot a simpler course for myself.  Sometimes this might take the form of reducing the time I spend on overstimulating myself or thinking obsessively about some worry or concern.
   Of course, flood stories mean so much more than this single interpretation allows. I tend to think of floods as also symbolic of curbing excess, retaining the important bonds that we have with loved ones, and staying true and loyal to a good life. It also represents a wrathful being who, however loving and just, will not tolerate or excuse behavior that deviates from the path of spirit or soul. A lukewarm (pardon the pun) spirituality does not tend to jibe well with these higher beings, and floods take a no nonsense approach toward creation, saying in effect that some things cannot be sustained. Again, I don't take this story as "literal" punishment, but rather the sense that too many things taken together can easily become destructive and excessive, and our psychic "floods" are clearing spaces for the mind to resolve itself and decide what is really and truly needed to sustain the journey.
   Modern disaster stories (such as those of science fiction writer J.G. Ballard) might chart a similar course, only using technology as the weapon of humanity's own destruction. Interestingly, here, it isn't nature or gods that prove wrathful, but humanity's own hands that end up self-destructing. Do we too often create our own conditions for self-destruction, so that we can leave space for something new and simple?