Joyful Impermanence

  Can there be a joy in impermanence? For instance, if we are trying to achieve a goal and we are aware that this goal is fragile and can easily be thwarted by any number of events, then can this not be a cause of sorrow? Many people wonder about this. They suggest that because everything is impermanent, then there is no sense in tackling "large goals" if they cannot be totally achieved. This comes from a long tradition of tragedy which pits the main protagonist against a set of unseen forces, all of which conspire to topple this main character's aspirations and dreams. According to this view, either we completely reach the summit and consummation of our goal, or we don't bother to embark on the journey at all. After all, wouldn't the failure to reach the summit not constitute a poignant reminder that we are not in control of our lives at all?

   I like to think of goals in terms of Master Sheng Yen's concept of "making vows".  When we make a vow, we choose to think of the goal as a journey with many obstacles and lessons along the way. The goal is not to achieve "something" but rather to lose things, such as a strongly entrenched sense of a self that is always singular and has the same characteristics or qualities over time. With vows, we decide that we are not going to come out of the journey as the same person as how we came into it. So we are willing to be more flexible in terms of what we think is supposed to happen in the end. 

    I also like to think in terms of sub-goals. Because most things take a long time to obtain, we have to have the attitude that we will live with the goal for a long time, so we might as well make ourselves enjoy the journey. Goals can always be split into smaller and smaller parts, so that the load is more manageable and we can continue to live and function in the world. While doing my PhD, I was able to break down my assignments into smaller tasks, so that I wasn't putting things of at the last minute.

  Finally, impermanence is a part of life: we don't need to make huge leaps in life to see and enjoy impermanence. Impermanence is what is happening in this moment. We don't need to assign ourselves anything that's too overwhelming. It's best to take every day one small step at a time and see how we respond, rather than busying our minds with all the scenarios of things that can go wrong in the future.

Who Writes Anyway

  The notion of "agency" is in sore need of revision when it comes to writing. We tend to think it is "I" that is the writer (at least there is a clear agency) when in fact it's often only when we get out of the way of the I altogether that real writing actually gets accomplished.

  When I come to writing with the thought that I need to do something to get the wheels in motion, then I am putting this undue pressure on myself to create. Writing is more playful than that and needn't start so somberly. The truth is, what we call "the self" is hardly in charge of the writing process at all. It's usually this very same self that is so horridly critical that it doesn't get things started at all.

   When we stop fixating on who writes, we allow other elements to enter into the writing, such as the spontaenous, uncanny and mysterious. These are the things that can even surprise us because they come from parts of ourselves that we only partly understand, such as the unconscious. When we allow these forces to come out in writing, we are bound to feel more surprised.

Writing in the Information Age

 I am teaching my student about opinions and bias, particularly how to detect bias in news stories and essays. One thing I have been reflecting on is how glutted I can be with information, and how the act of writing sometimes can help me better focus and reflect on what's relevant and not so relevant. 

   Sifting through information is sometimes one of the great virtues about writing. We often get bombarded with so many layers of data, to the point where we neither know where we stand with it nor how we organize it in our minds. Is it even important information? In an age where we are being distracted by questions about whether Canada will become the 51st state or not, we may fail to realize that some questions demand more attention than others because they have more impact and meaning. 

    What is is specifically about writing that can help offset information overload? One obvious reason is that the simple act of writing can help dispel wandering thoughts, sequencing them into something that has polish and some degree of organization or linearity. Secondly, we can use the structure of the writing to figure out what arguments or bits of information are more meaningful and impactful. As a writer, I start to take agency for the information I am taking in and gaining confidence in my ability to discern what counts and what doesn't. The information ceases to be someone else's and becomes something I can influence and shape into meaning.

    Finally, there is something meditative about writing. Writing gives me the chance to slow down my thought process and dispel a lot of distracting or unimportant thoughts, in favor of something that has a certain artistic grace. We hardly ever associate something like academic writing as an art form, and it's unfortunate that even some schools embrace the possibility that Chat GPT can now compose all of our essays for us. But when students let the AI do the thinking and writing for them, it takes away one of the best skills we have, and that is the ability to artfully organize our thoughts into something resembling clarity, logic and beauty.

   We often think of writing as a finished product, and this reduces the process itself to a final goal that gets read by an anonymous reviewer or reader. But writing is also a process that's worth doing for its own sake, allowing the writer to develop a relationship with herself that gives her a sense of agency, grace and self-worth. To know that we all can formulate our own opinion about something without having to be swayed by the latest sound-bite, meme, e-blast or other "fast messaging" device, is one way that we can develop a sense of trust in our ability to form independent conclusions. We also learn to slow down to take in a wide variety of inputs to form a meaningful and balanced whole, rather than giving into the most glamorous or currently fashionable point of view. 

For these reasons, I have always positioned writing as a soulful and spiritual practice, no matter what we happen to write about. As long as what we are writing about comes from our heart and is something we genuinely care about, then it channels our spirit and soul.

The Heart of Self and Other Acceptance

 Albert Ellis, the famous psychotherapist, has this to say about self-acceptance: "You rate and evaluate your thoughts, feelings, and actions in relation to your main Goals of remaining alive and reasonably happy to see whether they aid these Goals. When they aid them, you ate that as "good" or "effective", and when they sabotage your Goals you rate that as "bad" or "ineffective". But you always--yes, always--accept and respect yourself, your person, your being , whether or not you perform well and whether or not other people approve of you and your behaviors" (xiii)

I think the most important element of Ellis's approach is not to globally rate ourselves based on what we have already done, are doing, and will do in the future. The difference between being reasonably discerning and unreasonably harsh or judgmental seems to lie in not tying our identity to anything that we do. I may perform a task poorly, but that doesn't make me a "poor worker" or a "poor person in general". The point of this exercise is that we don't reify any action we engage in as something that we "are". Nothing ever has to boil down to a sense of fixed self. In fact, we know from life experiences that there is hardly anything about the self that is fixed. We are always learning new things and taking in new experiences all of the time, so which of these experiences completely defines or encapsulates who we are?

 What's interesting about this approach is how we can turn it into a mindfulness practice. How often, in the course of doing work, do we think, there is a "me" who is doing this work and taking the credit or blame for it? Most often yes. And then a person might start to think, "because I did this so badly, that must make me a bad worker" or even "a bad person". This process where we imagine there to be a self that is embodying these so-called good and bad qualities is actually a delusion based on the notion of a fixed sense of self. To know that there are only good and bad actions, not "good and bad persons" behind it, is one way of relating to faults without attaching them to a sense of selfhood.

Secondly, we can become more aware of how we often attach to the approval of others. This creates a dynamic of wanting to be approved, or to feel that sense of being "ok" in others eyes, which can lead to a sense of withdrawal or deprivation when we don't get the validation we feel we need for completing a task. Again, I think it comes down to not being attached to the outcome of things, and learning to let go of praise or blame as the main motivations for performing a task.

Ellis, A, How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable about Anything, Yes Anything! Citadel Press

Mental Decluttering

   There has been a recent trend in what's called "decluttering", which we can see in Mary Kondo and other experts in the field of Feng Shui. There is something refreshing, at least to my thinking about how we periodically declutter our apartments and houses, about the idea of getting rid of old things in order to make way for the new. But can we also mentally declutter?

   I think the more interesting question is to ask: is there a relationship between what we have and what we think? Can the contents of our mind be affected by our possessions? Knowing that we have a lot of things in our cupboards taking up space can also create an unnecessary burden on the mind. The more we have to take care of, the more cares we tend to have. It's as though the corners of our mind get cobwebbed with the accumulation of ideas.  Perhaps we even subconsciously associate clutter with some kind of unfinished business that needs to be resolved or sorted out.

   Having things means identifying with them. For every book I have, there is a hidden story pertaining to what the book means to me and where I got it from. Some books have been read and absorbed years ago, and there is no intention whatsoever of rereading them. Others become useful reference tools. The point is that we need to figure out which of these are just holdovers from a previous time that we don't want to let go of, and which are truly needed today. I book I cherished many years ago, a movie I enjoyed as a child, or something that moved me when I am young may have less meaning and relevance today. Sometimes the process of decluttering means to honestly reappraise what is meaningful for me today, knowing that my sense of self is continually changing and being reconstructed.

    Decluttering reminds me that even though we might like to have possessions, most of our possessions fall into disuse. They gather dust eventually and may even sit in our closet for years without being used. The nature of desire is that we see new things as though they will always look and feel new. But what we don't realize is that this sense of novelty--the brightness we experience when seeing something new--is actually a reflection of awareness itself. This awareness can be found at every moment, if only we did not attach to objects of any kind and were able to see the luminosity, that sense of lightness and ease the comes from not attaching or taking anything as an external object that exists separately from mind. It's only because we are habituated to seeing things based on our previous memories that we become addicted to "new" things, and this results in more accumulation of things.

Three Levels of Facing Challenges

  I have been reflecting lately that whenever we encounter difficulties in life, there are various levels of solutioning that we can attempt. One is to "solve" or "resolve" the issue in some way through some kind of fix or "lesson learned". For instance, we often ask ourselves, what lesson did I learn from this difficult situation, and what can I do better going forward? I think this is a bit like trying to use a cork to stop a hole in a bucket. We can stop that particular issue from happening again, but of course there is no guarantee that we won't encounter a similar situation that has different nuances or consequences to it. A problem-solution orientation aligns well with a technical/rational model of education, which suggests that every problem has a solution that can be gauged through changed attitudes or behaviors.

  A second level of encountering difficulties is to negotiate a way around a conflict, such as through compromise or communication. This is usually what happens in therapy or when we bring up a grievance in front of an arbitrator. This level acknowledges that problems don't necessarily have unilateral solutions that satisfy every need there is. Knowing that most problems are relational in nature, we seek compromises that maximize the outcome for everyone with as little sacrifice as possible. This is similar to a transactional model of education which relies heavily on dialogue and cognitive reframing to achieve workable solutions.

  The third level is more transformative or holistic in nature, and that is, to ask ourselves how the problem can be used break down the barrier of self and other. This involves transforming the way we think about self, to the point where we let go of attachment to a single self or point of view. Here, the goal is not to arrive at a tangible solution, but rather to use the experience as a way of seeing beyond the limitations of a subject-object perspective. Difficulties, according to this view, are invitations to wake up to the fact that we are not separate from what we perceive: there isn't a subject who is overseeing or controlling the unfolding present. It's only when we turn inward to the source of our perceptions that we can soften and loosen the need to always control situations. Thoughts and "issues" are seen as only one part of an infinitely changing and unfolding present moment that does not have a beginning or an end, that is timeless, and encompasses being.

All of these "levels" are essential to living well in the world, but I think the third option is the deepest way of looking at our problems, which allows us to be less reactive and more immersed in the present moment. But it's through the clarity of the third level that we can better assess how we can compromise to achieve harmony of views (second level) and how to most efficiently solve a problem (first level). The three work together in the optimal situation.

Lost Innocence

As we age, we tend to think of ourselves as accomplished beings who are measured by our responsibilities and roles. But I think we need to always reflect on the fact that our roles and responsibilities aren't who we are.  A lot of this seem to stem from the way we see ourselves according to our resume, and tend to buy into an acquisitive model of the self. The more we can accumulate in terms of accomplishments and accolades, the better we tend to feel about ourselves. But if we are able to see that these roles are passing, what is it that endures beyond these roles?

  I once heard it said that meditation is compared to "regaining lost innocence" (see Mark Epstein's outstanding book Zen of Therapy for a deeper discussion on this). I think what that means is that we tend to have a cynical view of ourselves and life. People are seen as like players on a chess board, vying for position and power, rather than as beings who all want to belong in some way or another. "Wounded innocence" happens when some original part of us feels violated: for instance, we are carelessly dropped by a caregiver when we're young, or something happens that makes us feel that the world is impersonal. But when we are able to see ourselves as like children who are really looking for belonging in the best way we can find, we are no longer stunted by the view that we are somehow just players on a chess board (again, a kind of metaphor that suggests or even reduces our connections to power plays).

Recovering lost innocence means being able to convert the language of "power and persuasion" to the language of "belonging and love". Yes, we do seek to be powerful in the world, but power is not necessarily a bad thing, and nor does it necessarily signal ego, dominance, selfishness, and so on. Sometimes the urge for power is really a disguised (or not so disguised) wish to feel we belong in the world, when there wasn't enough evidence in our childhood to suggest that we unconditionally belong in the world. We don't need to "prove" this to ourselves or to those around us.

To recover our original innocence, it seems that we need to adopt the idea that we are unconditionally loved and accepted as we are, and nothing can destroy that original sense of acceptance.