Life Going Zoom

Many people are writing editorials or blogs on how to best utilize one's time when in self-quarantine. But I wonder if the way time is used is a crucial part of any life. Perhaps, as I have mentioned in previous entries, a change of pace gives people a chance to better examine how they are using their time, but also, conversely, how time is using them up. I am also witnessing what happens over time (to use an unintended pun) when a change of pace unexpectedly arises.
   The first stage is obviously "crisis": a time when all of one's previous routines are being disrupted, so much so that it feels like a kind of psychological death or falling out. We wonder, now that there is no contact with others, no outdoor travel, no "non-essential" shopping, etc, what do I do with all the freed up time? Of course, what often happens at this stage is that we start to fill our days with new things and new routines start to set in. Rather than using this death as an opportunity not to plan but to see life in an altogether new way, we might build a different life which features similar routines. That's when the accommodation sets in, and our lives are rebuilt after the terrible crisis.
  "Zoom" is a very good example. I have recently been getting many requests to use Zoom, as well as initiating requests for online sessions. Zoom is a software that allows for group interactions and is very user friendly. In the beginning, when I started using Zoom, it was there to fill an isolation that was left from being quarantined--and, in this sense, it becomes something that is refreshing and welcome. But later, I sense--particularly in this past week- that Zoom is another tool that re-introduces a set of routines and tasks. In itself, Zoom becomes the hub of a new online marketplace that brings all that was there before "back to normal". While this is a good thing in a way, it also shows that there is very little room for individuals to define their own routines or give themselves space to try on new identities and styles of being. But working from home is also interesting because it often entails that a person could do more, since everything is in one place and they needn't travel from one place to the next. This is where I think technologies can push people to extremes if they are not used wisely or in a considerate way.

Being Generous with Moments

Being generous, I think, requires total trust and faith. It's not easy to do. The problem is about the self and what it believes to be its own "capacities" and "sufficiency". Any time my sense of self and boundaries are challenged, my sense of generosity contracts, and I go to a place of trying to protect what I believe feels safe and "self-sufficient". But all these boundaries are illusory. The only suffering is the suffering of putting up boundaries and walls.

  What it takes to be generous is to challenge the inner "should", like "this should be this way", or "I should not feel this way". I think it requires sacrifice: not the grudging sacrifice of resentment, but more like a genuine sacrifice that comes from "nothing to lose". Sounds a bit contradictory, I admit, because quite often the connotation around sacrifice is that it is a real giving of something that we feel loathe to part with. But I don't think this is the true meaning of sacrifice. More to the point, sacrifice has to come from a truly free offering that, again, comes from a genuine sense of "nothing to lose". The real heart of sacrifice is this nothing to lose part, because without it, sacrifice becomes little more than a token gesture.

   Another way I am thinking about it is to see generosity as a venturing or perhaps "an adventure" in letting go---trying to see what it would be like to give time and resources to others that I would otherwise wish to have for myself. This is the heart of serving and a real contemplative practice that doesn't take place on the cushion.

When Confusion Prevails

I have been reading about the Tibetan Buddhist view on the third stage of the bardo, prior to the time when beings reincarnate into new lives.  This is supposedly a time of extreme confusion, where the temptation is to try to settle one's blustering mind-state by referencing a specific body with a specific form. If anything, this bardo to me is similar to what happens when I am trying to settle on a topic to write about, or even a research project. The pressure to resolve confusion can take the form of trying frantically to settle on a particular design, rather than staying with the feeling of confusion until it somehow resolves itself.
  Listening is another form of potential confusion. Have you ever thought about how listening to another person can be such a risky operation? Unless we are so familiar with what a person is talking about that we can literally "complete the other's sentences", it's not likely that we can control the direction of  a conversation, much less know in advance the speaker's meaning. Listening becomes a huge interpretive undertaking, which often leaves the listener lacking in any mooring if the subject matter is beyond that person's familiarity or comfort zone. In those situations, it can be tempting at times to prematurely bring in an interpretation that has nothing to do with the present discussion, or even jump in with one's own opinion, which has little to do with the story being told. The potential for misunderstanding or lack of comprehension altogether can be very strong in these situations.
  What if it were that the interactions we have with others transcend understanding, such that trying to search for the meaning of the others' sentences is not as important as the mind to mind communication of inter-being? This is a weird idea, but I guess I am trying to drive at the interaction as transcending the meaning of peoples' sentences or words. This goes back to the idea that dying is not a terrible thing if we learn to stop grasping at things, and stay in the space of formlessness for a while. In this way, confusion yields to a wisdom of non-grasping.

A Longing to Create

The joke that has been circulating recently has been that the corona virus might inspire a future "Baby Boom", given that people stuck in their homes might find little to do except create children. This is humorous, but behind every good joke is a dead seriousness. I believe that a lot of what's going on globally relates to a collective movement to go home and literally "incubate" a fresh beginning or a social idea. But it might also reflect, at least for me anyway, the longing to create.
  Creating is not the same as "producing", and I think that a lot of human life emphasizes more production than creation. An example might be corporate life. As a worker in a corporation, I am expected to produce as much of a service as possible, to the members who are my customers. The customers, in this case, are musicians, and the service is about music royalties. Although there are certainly elements of creativity in the work that I do and how I do it, that creativity is driven by the greater needs of the organization. Some people might compare this kind of life to being a cog in a machine, although I would probably not put it in such as stark way as this. Nonetheless, being able to work from home, I can't help but think, where is the home base upon which I shape my values and purposes? Is it naive to think that coming home might also involve trying to find a space where I can be a creator based on who I am deep inside?
   I think the longing to create, at least in the context that I am describing, also might key into a notion that we can be recognized as people with creative powers in a community with others. Artists would probably most resonate with this idea, but I believe that creative effort also extends to doing crafts or displaying some aspect of one's abilities. I have even heard one of my friends teaching flower arrangements in her spare time, as well as organizing groups related to the art. While these activities don't promise lucrative "productivity", they offer these small spaces where humans express things that are dear to them and reflect their lived present.
    To step off the constant push to production is to enter a space where we might ask, "what next?" and be met with many possibilities, all of which are bewildering. Creating is a laborious process, however, and I wouldn't be under the illusion that an epidemic might spawn a host of new artists. But I am hopeful that new ideas might arise from being self-isolated and not so driven by the distractions and entertainments of modern life.

Mind flexibility

Flexibility of mind is like getting rid of all the things you need to keep your ship afloat. All the ideas that bog a person down--including the cherishing of materials and possessions--only keep the mind trying to grasp, rather than learning to relax into the moment. No matter how many views we might happen to cherish, even those views are bestowed upon us by the cultures in which we grow up. What we often cherish as "mine" is really cultural habits passed down. So even this cannot technically be considered your own.
   As soon as there is attachment, there is pain and a fear that come from identifying with the object of the attachment. Recognize it and then release, and practice the idea that there is nothing to even let go. Subject and object are just games of the mind.
 When the mind is flexible, there is an ability to ask the question: what is this moment needing? Instead of imposing a plan or a framework, there is a freedom to just let things be and to make oneself available for whatever happens to arise. In this way, the way of being is softer and more loose.
  Perhaps this looseness of mind is a kind of preparation for all the deaths we experience throughout our lives. It can be an invitation to adventure and exploration, not a place of fear.

Sources of Greed

What's the real source of greed? I am thinking about this recently. While it might seem obvious that greed comes from having too many desires and wanting too many things. But I think an alternate explanation might be that greed arises from a mentality of scarcity, due to a contracted sense of the self. In order to desire "a lot" for myself, there has to be a sense that things are perpetually moving away from me. This is the curse of Tantalus, who is condemned in the Greek classical underworld to not being able to reach food due to an overweening flood of water.
    I suspect that greed comes from an insecurity that is fed through a spirituality of scarcity. If people believe that there is no abundance that is already theirs, they will steel themselves to try to scrimp for whatever they can. A sense of security comes from the belief that I can have something "all my own", but this grasping mentality is actually the source of suffering itself. It comes from the idea that the world is perpetually spinning out of "my" grasp, which also entails a separate "I" as opposed to the world. It is like I am trying to grab crumbs falling from a table because I don't see the source of those crumbs. I treasure and value them as though they were the only food bits I could ever have, not knowing that the source is always renewing itself in some way or another. In essence, greed always stems from a partial view-not realizing that what we see is a piece in a greater whole.
    People might think that the answer to "greed" is to be happy with "less", but even this "less" is illusory because it, again, entails that the self is separate and isolated. It doesn't account for all the ways in which people are given many things and continue to be gifted with abundance. So I think that the answer to the question of how to curb greed is not "accept your lot in life", but rather, "open up to the abundance that already is life". I can only be as generous as I am able to see the universe as generous.

Closer to Non-Duallity

I am continuing to read Andrew Holecek's Preparing to Die. Holecek describes how the stages of dissolution mirror a kind of edging toward a non-dual relationship with mind. The first senses to weaken and dissolve during the death stages are the eyes, followed by ears, nose, tongue and sense of touch. These senses, according to Holecek, are less and less dualistic, because they convey more proximity than distance, and more of a sense of now-ness and totality as opposed to the dualistic "near vs far", "us vs them". Perhaps one way of putting this might be to say that eyes are designed (by evolution perhaps) to see the hard edges of things and detect movement and deviation. Eyes woould be more sensitive to difference and would define differences through mental categories.Skin, on the other hand, is more related to the sense of closeness and proximity between my body and another's, which in turn evokes the notion of interconnection.
   What I find intriguing about this hypothesis is the idea that perhaps the entire civilization and education is built around the eyes. Bentham (as you might recall from the writings of Foucault) talked about the idea of the eye as a kind of symbol of 360 degree surveillance: both looking at others and looking at ourselves. When the eyes dominate a civilization, there is no need for external force, since we become our own watch-people. As people age and their bodies start to weaken, they can no longer sustain the energy that's required of hyper-vigilance or trying to "measure up" to society's requirements, such as the need to compete for scarce resources and titles. As a result, they may start to turn more inward and develop a more non-dualistic approach toward life, where letting go becomes a natural aspect of the body going into a slow decline. But who is to say that this is bad or a sign of "decay"? Perhaps this approach is closer to a more authentic wisdom.