MYSTICISM AND TIME

I am somewhat preoccupied with the idea of time and how we perceive it in our lives. I am fascinated by how time sometimes seems to slip by unnoticed and at other times becomes the focus of our most immediate thoughts. When we are young, summers unfold endlessly into the future, but when we are older, summers are of such short duration that we wonder where time has flown. We are enveloped by our perceptions of time. Our lives are lived in time. We experience our livelihoods and our retirements in a sequence of time. We measure our productivity and our leisure in terms of time. We dwell in memories and anticipations of future times alike—all wound and bound up in perceptions of time. We have individual and family histories. We study history in school with the idea that we might find some wisdom in the untidiness of how other people lived their lives and how time treated their behavior and activities. We identify ourselves in a relationship with time, a relationship that changes as we age.

Our perceptions of time continue to influence how we observe our lives unfolding. In a previous blog post, I worked with the idea of linearity and how we see the world and construct our own cosmologies according to our concepts of linear time. We have come to feel that cause and effect in most things should connect point A with point B in a straight line. This is the scientific method incorporated into our perception of all things. Yet, it has been shown that creativity and the flow of time are often punctuated by what are termed paradigm shifts, jumps in insight that lie outside what we assume are normal ways of thinking. But linear thought has not always been the norm. Fragmented time sequences have been part of older cosmologies. If artistic trends can reflect social norms, then art history has had periods in which reality was broken into thousands of mosaic pieces, each reflecting some smaller aspect of a total picture. Stained glass windows were constructed of hundreds of brilliant sources of light, each transmitting a different color and intensity. Early textual writings were composed by multiple anonymous authors, each contributing to the whole. The whole was the point and not who had written which part.

So, my fascination with time and its expression in all aspects of our lives has taken me in different directions, not the least of which is to contrast notions of time and its influences with what it might be like to live with a sense of timelessness. What would it be like to adopt a world view that allows for a mental space in which there is no time? What would that feel like and what would it mean? In these times of so much chaos and fast living, such a feeling might offer us some peace and calm we can't find in the commotion all around us. In an old book, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (1957), D. T. Suzuki (pictured nearby), a Buddhist scholar, examines the idea of mysticism in the works of Meister Eckhart (also pictured here) and compares and contrasts his ideas with his own understanding of it. It is an examination of the idea of “emptiness” that is typical of Buddhism and of “infinity,” which is the Christian term for the same thing, he says. In both cases, the idea is that there is a place, a mental concept at least, where time does not exist. It is immovable and fixed but serves as the ideal space in which to dwell. Accessing this space is a matter of chance and circumstance and is described as insight or enlightenment, depending on one's orientation.

We are living in times that have invited exploration of what is termed “mindfulness.” This seems to be a response to the pressures of our time-focused lives. I am not certain that its full meaning and implications are realized by those who are looking for a quick fix to their confusions and fears. It is a beginning to some sort of relief but it has also become a somewhat superficial approach to a matter that begs for greater depth and commitment. Mindfulness is easy or difficult, depending on one's view. It represents a short-term pause in activity, but it is also a long-term commitment to changing one's perception of time. Mindfulness can be a suspension of time. Isn't that, after all, what is hoped for as a refuge from the pressures of time management and demand? There is in the minute point of time suspended a perception of infinity. It isn't necessary to posit a space outside daily reality that represents this unmoving and stable mental place. If one thinks of infinity as a place above earthly activity, somewhere in a “heaven,” then it becomes an ideal and unavailable to most of us as we go about our daily toil. However, if mindfulness is another face of infinity, then one only has to pause and connect with it in the course of a life full of distractions and interruptions. It is a place where time can stand still, if only for a brief sequence. Is this useful?

I think it is useful to think of mindfulness in this way. It avoids having to subscribe to a place that is so very remote for most of us to imagine. We are less attached these days to the religions and spiritual traditions that have in their dogmas ideas of heaven and hell or their equivalents. Suzuki writes about Meister Eckhart's notion of the Godhead, a static and immovable source from which emanates the spiritual energy he calls God. Suzuki equates the essence of the Godhead with the Buddhist idea of egolessness. He says that our time consciousness will never be abolished because that is the way we as humans perceive our lives in this world. However, he says that it is useful to have a concept of empty space with potential to realize a freedom we don't receive in the activities of our surface and relative lives. And it is useful to have some relief from our own egos, if only for brief periods. We benefit from this interruption personally in being reminded of our humanity and, in the ways mindfulness can be taught and shared with others, we cultivate a deeper sense of community. This is no small thing in times when we are faced with the consequences of individual power and the sense of entitlement that we derive from it. The more we are separated from each other, the greater the chances that our biases and prejudices will lead to tribalism and despotism. We will be divided from our best selves and from all those on whom we depend for so many aspects of our lives. Infinity is for everyone.

Yes, that small point of eternity in the moment can yield up to us benefits that are outside of time and all its tyrannies and joys alike. We can experience a deep freedom that gives us courage and strength to continue along the timely path until the next mindful moment. We are reminded that we are not alone in this effort of historical motion but we see ourselves differently in the process. We see that we are capable not only of continuation in our efforts along our paths, but also capable of participating in minute paradigm shifts and punctuations that lead to greater creativity and deeper relationships. We are not victims of time so much as actors in its long sequences, participants in the process of its flow. If we were to imagine a new metaphor for time in our lives, then the idea of a stream would be a good one. A stream is ever-changing and continuous with energies that vary. There are straight channels of flow and there are eddies and pools. There are rapids and there are indolently slow movements. No part of a stream remains static and unchanging, yet its substance is defined and characteristic of it. We are in the flow of time but our human agency and our talents at conceptualization open us to the possibilities of imagining the stream as a still point, a point of mindfulness in which there is the freedom of its motion and direction. We are given the capacity “to see a world in a grain of sand. And a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour.” These words of William Blake echo what both Christianity and Buddhism share in their concepts of mystical freedom brought down to how we might conduct our lives in our desire for shared freedom from the tyrannies of time.

We will not escape history and we won't escape time. We will continue to move in a stream from birth to death and we will continue to age, get sick, and eventually die. But I suggest that within that process of streaming time there are moments of infinity and emptiness that bring to us refuge in dark and troubling and distracted times. This is no escape maneuver but a conscious effort of mindfulness that can lead to the hard work of deliberate self-care and the sharing of self with other. What do we have to lose in the effort? What do we have to gain? Are we not interested in a more fully whole life in which all people can participate? Are we not able to share infinity? And isn't infinity easily accessible to all of us?

 

LINEARITY

I am really thinking about non-linearity when I begin with linearity. We live in times in which we assume linearity and take it for granted, to our own distress quite often. Humans have so constructed their world view that to think in any way other than linearity is not to think at all. I believe our present way of thinking has to do with the preeminent status science in general has in our lives. By science I also mean to include the technology that results from scientific endeavors. The technology includes all the equipment and devices upon which we have come to depend in our lives. It seems only natural that we would take a superficial view of all that surrounds us and impinges on our daily living. What is embedded in our culture (civilization?) is the assumption that for every cause there is an associated direct effect, that point A leads directly to point B. I think this is what science has taught us to believe. And so I believe that way of thinking has permeated our mental processing about everything. There are implications for formal education and for the educational emphasis right now on the big four areas of concentration: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); all solidly linear subjects based on linear thinking.

Creativity seems to subvert the idea of linearity. To the extent that we do not entertain non-linear thinking is the extent to which we are not creative at different levels of our lives (I am thinking here of creators such as Leonardo da Vinci, pictured close by). Being linear in thinking brings us much in the way of what we term “progress.” But it is also recognized that leaps of thought (paradigm shifts, by way of Thomas Kuhn's work) and exploration of the edges of accepted dogmas also open up creative realms. Some call this shifting of mental processing “combinatorial” thinking. It is a way of combining ideas from multiple disciplines to sift out new combinations and coalescences of ideas that would not have occurred with linear thinking. It is what is referred to as “thinking outside the box.” The “box” is a place with defined walls and dimensions and it also represents a place of tight confinement. People are encouraged to think outside these restrictions when there is a need for some breakthrough in planning or innovation or as an avenue to the deeper levels of creativity.

The examples of linear thinking are as vast as the disciplines or concerns that occupy humans. We are designed by social structures and behavior patterns to think in ways that link one thing directly with another. This happens in science of all stripes, in medicine and the understanding of physiological processes (I refer here to my own experience with the development of diabetes and how difficult it is to escape the idea that patterns of food consumption affect directly the processing of sugars in the body), in education and adopting the structures of learning and testing that have become constrictive and unproductive, in industry where new technologies replace old ones but impose their own orders of linear organization, in economics where analysts pin a highly complex and variable system of global monetary policy to the daily gyrations of stock markets (resulting in a comical set of explanations that don't make any common sense), in human relationships where we equate a human action with a single cause. All of these are just examples of the many ways in which we assume linear cause and effect.

However, the truth in my own experience is quite different. It seems to me that thinking linearly (and superficially, as it turns out) brings us to the matter of the assumptions we make and the expectations we have of how things operate. I have noticed that my own expectations of how the world should work are set against the realities I encounter every day. The degrees of separation of these two mental constructs or perceptions create gaps that are filled with the tensions I experience. I am always pushing against reality in hopes of realizing a situation closer to my expectations.

The truth of it all is that my perception of the world is becoming more and more non-linear and I am noticing the areas of my life that do not conform to linear thinking. When I notice one of those areas and explore its non-linearity, I discover that it has been non-linear all along and my discovery is merely understanding its true nature. For instance, in politics I assume that all politicians operate from a set of shared values of fair play and service but the reality is that politicians operate from a base of deep self-interest. This is especially stark in the Trump era in which it has been so difficult to understand why his supporters cling to him in the face of his erratic and dangerous behavior. It is in this gap between what I think should be and what really is (even if I can't explain it) that I formulate biases, prejudices, and judgments that feed the tension that exists in the gap. Right now, this is the most obvious gap/tension situation for me. There are others but I think because the media push their stories of drama and suspense and reactivity so hard that it is almost impossible not to perceive the gap/tension that results.

The areas of my life that I perceive to be essentially non-linear are of more concern and excitement for me than the events of the day, the surface or relative life. Most of my thinking any more is very non-linear. What interests me are all the more enduring aspects of my individual existence and my communal sharing. I have many interests and they sometimes come to me in variously sized packages and intensity. I welcome them as they come and consciously look for those overlaps and unusual combinations that are out of the box (maybe out of Pandora's box, too). When I sit to meditate, my mind is in a non-linear state of openness and exploration, if there is any content at all. And some days there is little to none of it. I do have some structure to my days but I am attempting to be more sensitive to the match between my activities and my circadian rhythms, allowing for a greater sense of flow beyond the constrictions of habit and routine. This, too, is very non-linear. I believe that there are miracles of body and soul that will always be non-linear and maybe even unyielding to common understanding.

We should not abandon linear thinking, for it is the means and the map to all other dimensions of thought. On the other hand, it need not be a refuge from exploring all those other dimensions. To give up linear thinking would be to open ourselves to the sorts of thinking that now prevail in our society, thinking that represents an anarchy of the mind where ego and self-interest prevail. I am suggesting that linear thinking opens up spaces for non-linear explorations based on moral values that lead to prosocial behavior, equality, fairness, and compassion for one another. I am advocating for nurturing the inner life and for a world in which communal relationships can flourish among all the peoples.

This brings me to the actual content of my non-linear life. While the structures of daily living are loosening for me, the content of thought, the topics, are also becoming more non-linear. For instance, I have mentioned how the physiological processes of the body are non-linear in ways that confound simple explanations of cause and effect. I have also gleaned from my studies of neuroscience that there are frontiers of understanding that haven't been reached at which the mechanisms of neural channeling and recruitment lie beyond what we already know. Technology has enabled us to see how the brain lights its way with certain stimuli but the encompassing networks of recruitment and toggle switching are still profound mysteries. When I think about what we know of conception, intrauterine human development, and birth, I imagine we think we understand most of what there is to know. However, the initial “big bang” of the process can only be conjectured. What forces existed in the first place to allow sperm and egg to fertilize? What atomic configurations needed to be in place for this to happen?

In the spiritual realm, and at the other end of the life spectrum, there is the mystery of death. There are the speculations about what happens after the skin bag drops off. We avoid thinking about it, in part I believe, because we cannot connect directly what we know of life to the fact of death. We can't make it a linear connection. Death comes as it does and as it will, regardless of our attempts to describe the preexisting conditions that lead up to its universal appearance. Death is the ultimate non-linear concept and reality that doesn't yield to our linear minds—and never will because of its final hard drop off from how we think of our lives. There is a huge gap between what we imagine death to be and the unknowable fact of what it is to experience it. We avoid thinking about it to reduce the tension the gap creates for all of us. Another concept that is non-linear is that of God, or whatever one calls the transcendent force that endures beyond our surface lives. It is what might be imagined behind the cosmic “big bang” that created all of the matter now existent in the universe. “Big bang” is a convenient way to refer to an event behind which is an unimaginable force, a non-linear force that doesn't yield to a linear explanation. It is in this gap/tension that we experience existential fear and anxiety.

What is to be done? How can we cultivate an appreciation of non-linearity that opens us to the ground of peace, calm, and contentment? Is it even possible to so structure a mindset that we are able to accept the apparent randomness and entropy and uncertainty of the universe more fully? Is there any way to come to terms with death—our own death? Is that the place to begin our experimentation with uncertainty? Would a daily practice of death awareness bring us to this understanding of our non-linear lives? If we can accept more of the reality of death, would that help us reduce some of the tensions that are inherent in our surface lives? Would we have a different perspective of the actor-network philosophy of Bruno Latour? Would we see our own thoughts and ideas and actions in different ways and eventually include only those that contribute to a holistic and wholesome benefit for all creatures and things? Would we then know that the mysteries of love and compassion are fruitful non-linear forces that aren't dependent in any way of the linear structures of our daily lives?

Of course, the questions abound and with few easy answers. The questions are infused with non-linearity and the act of inquiry itself invites thinking that moves us beyond the constrictions of “normal” thought. We are liberated from our attachments to commonly held methodologies of thought and action. We are truly creative in this new freedom. We have lessened our fears and we have narrowed the gap between what the surface world anticipates and what the world actually is. It is in this narrowing that we get closer to the truth of our existence as humans on a planet that seems to be a lone traveler in the universe with life like ours. Sharing the expansions of non-linearity brings all of us closer to one another in our shared experience of cosmic loneliness. We belong to one another in our emergence from the shadows of isolation and fear that generate our aversive behaviors towards one another.

Winding down this little essay on linearity and its permutations brings me to wonder how we might act toward one another that could make the world in which we live more nourishing. How can we loosen the grip of our linear thinking that is at the root of all that we do? I am not advocating that we foster existential anarchy. I am advocating for a deeper and broader acceptance of uncertainty and the determination to move ahead as we see the shared concern for each other and the welfare of all play out. I am advocating that each person notice the gaps/tensions of the linear world s/he inhabits and decide how they might change. It is in this approach to individual balance that changes will occur. So, yes, let us engage our linear thinking to make room for thinking that is necessarily non-linear. Let us be creative. Let us be kind to ourselves and each other. What else do we have?

TROPISM

“Time is being and being time, it is all one thing, the shining, the seeing, the dark abounding.”

Ursula K. LeGuin

Perhaps I am coining a word when I use “chronotropism” to refer to a response an individual makes to the passage of time. The word “tropism” is defined as “the responsive growth or movement of an organism toward or away from an external stimulus.” The word is derived from the Greek word for turn or turning. In biology, there are a number of tropisms related to how plants respond to the environmental conditions, including sunshine, water, and even the proximity of other plants and non-sentient beings (think rocks). At its base is the idea of process, of adaptation, of resilience. Process and progress.

Chronotropism came to mind as I was thinking about how our lives are played out within the progress of time. If we move at all, we are acting in a stream of time. If we engage in recalling memories, we are within the envelope of time. And just at this time of year, the last day of one year on the cusp of a new one, I am thinking about how we express it as the “turn” of a new year. And it is a tropism in its own way, is it not? Our minds are turning towards the future and away from the year (actually the moment) just passing away. We are always in the stream of time, always turning, always moving in ways that are responses to the stimuli of life as we live it on a daily basis.

A recent article on the management of time as it relates to one's organic circadian rhythms also plays into this consideration of chronotropism. The article was directed at the young and restless who hold jobs and are developing their lives in ways that now drift away from older people, such as me. The article had all the jargon associated with the business/work world. There were references to productivity and efficiency and maximizing effort. There were suggestions about timing one's activities to match in some more harmonious way the rhythms of the body. For instance, it was suggested that one experiment with the time of day to see how certain periods allowed for sharper focus for more demanding work and other periods when such work would constitute mental overload. It is in these latter periods that one might engage right brain activities or even participate in some physical activity.

It seems to me that human biology has its built in circadian rhythms that relate to neurochemical balances and that these effects will be operative no matter what one's intentions are to overcome them. But having said that, it is useful to think about the times of day, the energy stores, wakefulness/sleepiness, and to make an effort to pace oneself within those innate biological constraints. After all, the body requires the miracle of sleep in a variety of manifestations in order to maintain robust health. This is true no matter how one might shave off hours from sleep in the hope of becoming more “efficient.” There are limits to what we can manage by intention alone.

When I think about chronotropism, I imagine that the tasks of the day, including all uninvited distractions and interruptions, are the stimuli that cause us to respond. The definition above states that the stimuli cause movement or growth in the organism and the metaphor of tropism the way I am using it also applies to how we respond to the stimuli we experience in the course of our daily stream of time. I suppose that all stimuli are not of equal potency for plants responding to their external forces and that there are some that are, in balance, negative and do not promote growth. They might, in fact, be detrimental to the organism's welfare. I think the same is true for humans.

The stimuli that we experience are as vast and complicated as all of life. We are sensitive to the pressures of economics, politics, the work place, relationships inside and outside of the nuclear family, the dynamics of community, the effects of climate change on how we behave and construct our homes and cities, for instance. One can name factors in all aspects of our lives that serve as stimuli for us. Not all of them, of course, are positive in the sense that we learn from them and make positive changes in how we understand and move ahead in our lives. Moving ahead implies growth with the passage of time, just as Darwin understood evolution to underscore changes in morphology over long expanses of time. The dynamic of change suggests that only those responses to stimuli persist because they represent some benefit to the survival of a species. Along the way to some persistent change in morphology or behavior patterns there will probably be certain traits that appear but that are washed out of the system over time.

When I think of the human trajectory over time I imagine that what we think are permanent changes in our patterns of life and our relationships to human constructs, like government or economic systems, will in the long run wash out and some other changes we can't predict will emerge as the ones that bring the greatest accommodation and growth for survival of the species. If one takes this longer view of life and of time, then it is possible to manage the troubling events of the day in a way that dials down fear and anxiety. What we think is dramatically affecting our lives today will lessen and perhaps dissolve altogether over our a short or longer span of time.

I also think we tend to imagine that the stimuli that affect us so noticeably and that we think are stand-alone events are actually manifestations and permutations themselves of multiple stimuli acting to change their character. For instance, we isolate such things as stock market gyrations and political election results as signal events when, in fact, they are just the swings of the pendulum that have been set in motion by global markets and socially agreed upon structures of governance, respectively.

I use the examples of economics and politics because they are so obviously followed by so many people and are used to evaluate the health of a society. But, of course, there are millions of other factors that play into our individual and communal health. In my meditation courses I introduce the idea of what I call the wholeness axis. By that I mean the holistic notion of what it is to be a human being. I tease it apart to work with how body, mind, and spirit contribute to an integration of parts to the whole. In the realm of chronotropism there might be stimuli directed at only the body or only the mind, or spirit. Yet, the entire organism responds in various ways to adjust to the stimulus. From the onset of the stimulus to its being experienced, to the changes that result from it, there is the passage of time. The stimulus causes effects and these effects, in turn, cause new and different things to happen. Time flows on in its natural and unemotional streaming.

When we make an effort to coordinate our thoughts and activities with our physiological rhythms, we are engaging our whole self in ways that allow stimuli/responses to manifest in the dynamics of holistic health. One cannot name a philosopher or scientist (what was Einstein, after all?), poet or playwright, dancer, economist, politician, parent, teacher, who has not dealt in some way with chronotropism in the myriad ways that human cognition and achievement manifest. Each of us does the same no matter how our lives are constructed and play out over time. It affects the babe and the elder, it spans birth to death—and beyond. When we are attuned to the world around us, we respond. When we notice how we respond, we can change in conscious ways, in ways that promote a strong and robust environment in which all of us can participate. This is the growth part of chronotropism. It is a tendency to use the stimuli, even the most noxious, in ways that promote growth. It is one of the paradoxes of our lives that what seems most troublesome and harmful can be the seed of growth-promoting change. Humans have this capacity for conscious choice and to choose that which supports all in a common cause.

I use time wastefully sometimes and wish to take this turn from a passing year to a new one as an opportunity to reflect on just how I am in synchrony with the rhythms of the universe in ways that contribute to my own health and that of the billions of others on this planet—and for the planet itself. How much time do we have? How will we spend this most precious non-renewable resource? Perhaps it is my age that prompts these thoughts, but perhaps it is just a swing of the pendulum of consciousness. Over time, may all of us notice the ways in which we are improving so that we may leave a brighter future to those yet unborn. Isn't this what time is for?

A GIFT

This is a story about a Christmas from about 60 years ago. The context of the story is centered on how my family celebrated Christmases for a few years when we children were quite young. We celebrated Christmas Eve with Grandma and her sisters at their house which, as I remember it, was cozy and old-fashioned, a house perhaps built in the 1930s. There was all about abundant dark wood wainscoting and Persian rugs over hardwood floors. The rugs were spacious and resplendent with their indigo blues, soupy creams, and blood-red threads. The adults sat in overstuffed chairs and it was dark enough in the main room to show off the Christmas tree with all its lights, brighter because of the dimly lit room. When one is young enough, it is the sensual pleasures of the holiday that gather attention and so it was for me to be enveloped in the warm and the dark. But at this time of year in a Quaker household the emphasis on Christmas Eve was the ceremony of readings and silent prayers. We read the Christmas story from the Bible in the book of Luke and then Henry Van Dyke's essay, Keeping Christmas, from his1905 collection of seasonal essays, The Spirit of Christmas. (His impressionistic image appears here.) This year, I was selected to read the Van Dyke piece and can remember the dread I had of stumbling and the embarrassment before all the adults when I actually did hesitate and backtrack with the unfamiliar text. Of course, the silent prayers that followed always took too much time for a young kid. Yet, it was in this stillness that I grew to understand more of the depth of the holiday, which I yearned for in poorly articulated ways. It was in this stillness and in this depth that there emerged more of the story of one particular Christmas those few years at Grandma's.

It was very intimidating to be among so many adults acting so seriously at a joyous time of year. It would take many years for me to grow into that particular holiday mood but the germs of it were planted those years with Grandma and her relatives. The time of year, the early darkness, the serious story about Jesus and his complicated entry into life were juxtaposed with all the mythological and illogical aspects of a confusing holiday. Life at school with my peers had us focused on holiday foods, on glittery decorations, on long gift wish lists, on someone called Santa who made some arbitrary decisions about good and bad among us with all the implied consequences if one fell on one side of the calculation and not on the other, and on the exhausting build-up of anticipation.

My relationship to Christmas was a complicated one as long as I can remember. I think I caught on to the mythology/reality of Santa pretty early and tried hard not to infect my siblings with the reality as the years rolled on. Perhaps it was my exposure to deeply religious elders at a young age that angled me away from the secular elements of Christmas that never seemed to jibe with the rich symbolism of the ancient story. When I got older, it was difficult for me to tell my parents what it was I wanted for Christmas. I remember one year when I tried to steer them away from all the gift-giving, the heaps of presents that took my mom weeks to wrap in secret in the basement. It wasn't possible for them to understand how uncomfortable it was for me to sift through all the presents and not get to what I really wanted for Christmas. What I really wanted was for the family to gather together in the lights of the tree in a time of sacred meaning. The mountain of presents on Christmas morning and my dad's absence when he was called away to the hospital for one of his obstetrical patients prevented that from ever happening. I admit that even when our own children were growing up presents from a wish list were what we gave. But we also gave them the readings that had become a tradition and a symbol of the sacred meaning so important to me.

One of my Grandma's oldest, dearest, and most loyal friends was a woman her age who asked us to call her “Nana.” Her name was also Byrd Lomax. She was from Texas and I think she and Grandma became linked for life there in the early years of the 20^th century. Nana might have been someone who nursed Grandma through a serious bout of tuberculosis those early years. When Grandma got old and debilitated from a series of strokes, Nana moved from her home in Texas to Boulder, Colorado, to be a live-in caretaker for Grandma. That is when I got to know her better. But when I was about 11 or 12 years old, the one Christmas Nana shared with all of us, I received a gift from her that I have to this day on my dresser. It was in the embracing aura of the age-encrusted old house and after all the readings had been completed that we received the presents from Grandma. I don't remember what Grandma gave us that year (it was actually dad who decided what presents we should receive with Grandma paying for them), but I will never forget what Nana gave me. It was a very small package, the size of which appealed to me in the face of the mountain we had piled up at our house. I didn't understand what it was at first and reflexively thought it to be such a small and insignificant gift, but then it opened up like the wings of an angel and inside this small nut-like housing was a miniature detailed carving of the Madonna. The housing was as dark as walnut but the Madonna was bright white in contrast. (An image of this magic gift is attached here.). She glowed in her long gown and her head was encircled with a halo, all carved in detail, etched in its own way. I don't know what Nana's religious tradition was and the Quakers had never made any fuss over the Madonna, but I felt an instantaneous affiliation with the spirit of this gift. I felt that Nana had actually seen me in my sadness and a precocious overreaction to the over-glow of an exaggerated and misplaced consumption. I felt she had reached down to me and placed in my hands a gift of great value, perhaps a gift she herself had cherished on her own personal altar and had thought I might also cherish. I have cherished it all these intervening years and not just at Christmastime. The intervening years have been filled with Quaker traditions and commitments, studies of all the major faith traditions, as well as training as a chaplain in Zen Buddhist forms. Yet, this little Madonna shines today just as she did when I opened the wings of her grotto. She houses Nana's sensitivity to one young boy's deepest need many years ago and represents an ideal for me today as I strive to be faithful. When I think about it now, the gift was a miniaturized version of the room in which we all sat. Just as the room and its deepened dark had opened up to this wonderful gift, so the gift itself had opened up into a mysterious realm when its shell-like doors had swung open on their little hinges. The lights of the tree and the glow of the Madonna in her retreat had opened up into a newly forming consciousness.

I would like to think that I have the sensitivity to know what another little child's deepest need is at any time but particularly at Christmas when the magic of a spiritual life began. But we don't know what is in another person's heart or what a small gift at a certain time will mean over a lifetime. We can listen and keep our eyes open and make the best guesses we can. We can lean down and notice and consider. We can celebrate and make joy and love the greatest gifts. We can be ready for not-knowing and for the mystery at the heart of things.

11-24-18

SIN

What does sin have to do with anything? Let's get the definition from the dictionary. Sin is a transgression or a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate. In theology it is a condition of estrangement from God as a result of breaking his law. It can be any offense, violation, fault, or error. I have had sin on my mind the past few days. Actually, it has been on my mind more often over the last two years since Trump was elected. Of course, I have calculated the wages of sin in my own case almost all my life and I think it is the persistence of sin that has kept me on the path of right behavior, to the extent it is possible for me to do that. Much depends on my mental life and experiences and those have shaped my idea of sin.

Sin has been a weighty topic for me in my Christianity and less so in my Zen Buddhism. As a Christian one is forever reminded of what price Jesus paid for all of our sins. The foundation of the Christian faith is based on the story of Adam and Eve and how now everyone born to the earth is born a sinner—all because our spiritual progenitors ate an apple. I suppose that supposition of a sinful beginning infused my initial experiences in Christianity and in Quakerism. It wasn't so noticeable in Quakerism as practiced in an unprogrammed way. There wasn't anyone to reinforce one's sinfulness. What sins one had were taken before God in silent worship and dealt with there. I think this is how I have come to the idea of sin.

Now, what has gotten my curiosity is a combination of some promptings from the likes of Krista Tippett and David Brooks. They were included in my musings in this week's letter to the kids. I tend to churn some ideas for a while and try to see them for different angles to better understand them and me. My recent reading of David Brooks' The Road to Character and a Krista Tippett interview with Anand Giridharadas in which they talked about aspects of spirituality related to the economic system we live under. David Brooks calls for a heightened “moral ecology” in his book, all of it devoted to profiling the lives of a few people whom he thought had lived a moral life, given different life circumstances. Both sources probe the question of sin in indirect ways, just as we now acknowledge sin in ways that do not directly name it.

Krista often laments (I think that is the best word to describe her frustration and tone of loss) that we don't have adequate language to talk about some of the most troublesome problems in our society in the 21^st century. She says we don't have the words to create common ground, words that people on different sides of the political and economic divides can agree upon to discuss their biases. My thoughts are that we do have the words and they are common words with many definitions and nuances. We are limited to the words that have always been used to describe everything we now share or experience. I don't think Krista would want to invent some new words for concepts that lie at the heart of our differences. New words in this context would make no sense and would be a return to the Tower of Babel. There would be no way to create a context of sharing in which warring parties could communicate. So, what is the lamentation all about?

I think some of the answer to that question stems from having words with robust meanings drop out of our lexicon. The word “sin,” for example, is a word with meanings almost everyone on the planet can agree on. But in my recent experience, I don't read or hear anyone using it in daily discourse. I don't hear anyone using it in the contexts of politics, economics, social media, medicine, law, journalism, or commerce. In some ways, sin has become a relative term in an age in which the president has normalized sin. He has deceived his own followers with talk that is blatantly false. He has claimed that the media publish “fake news.” He has as much as admitted to acts of misogyny and molestation that in the public square for common citizens have resulted in indictments and convictions. He has criticized and pilloried those he suspects of being “disloyal” to him. He has in this way committed acts of character assassination and outright defamation of character. He infringes on the rules of law and those of globally recognized human rights. He is rude and coarse in his language (not that that is a sin, apparently) and demeaning of others. When his behavior is highlighted in the media (as it is every single day now for two years) there is rarely a reference to his evil nature. The word “evil” can't be used by those who recognize the behavior for what it is, but themselves have some internal proscription against using it in public.

I think we are co-opted by this man and by our own ambivalence with concepts like evil and sin. He has intimidated almost everyone into accepting his normalized sinful and evil behavior. I think we can use the power of these two words in ways that uphold their opposites. We can reinforce the strength of making moral and ethical choices by once again using powerful words to defeat the ideas Trump's alternate reality promulgates. I think these evil ideas and motivations have always been a part of our human condition but over the centuries they have sulked into the woodwork and then resurfaced—over and over. We have had a period with Obama in which they were solidly in the woodwork but now they have emerged once again and they have a voice of a president to give them power they don't deserve in a civilized country. I see this happening in different societies across the globe and an emergence in one place reinforces its appearance somewhere else in the world. Anti-semitism is one of these tools of the aggrieved and it is now on the rise in America. It has always been part of our national character, an evil occurrence at any time. It is not clear to me why the Jewish people have been so targeted over the centuries and it is even less clear to me why it should be reignited now. In any case, we ought not attach the word “evil” only to the killing of Jews in their synagogues, but to call it evil when the slightest hint of anti-semitism arises in conversations, in print, or on the walls of the synagogues themselves.

I have been thinking about the extent to which language and social structures intersect and interact to shape one another. I have curiosity about how language evolves along with society and the parameters that change the way societies change. In what ways has society changed now that has us normalizing evil and sinful acts and speech? If we haven't had a need for the words “evil” and “sin,” then why should that be if the facts of their existence are part of human behavior, albeit an unseemly and primitive aspect? Who can help me understand this?

I recalled reading a Jonathan Edwards (his image graces this post) sermon titled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in my high school class on American history/literature, the “combined class” of my junior year. Even then, there were no yawning pits of hell described or subscribed to in the Christianity of my youth. In fact, the sermons of Billy Graham I heard on the radio on Sunday mornings were more intimidating and threatening than what I read of Jonathan Edwards. With that in mind, I reread that sermon and tried to reposition myself in the mindset of his times. We have had layers of centuries to bury the fear and trembling that must have been part of daily life in the early colonies. On this side of life there were fears and threats of a subsistence existence that made a life in heaven desirable. Thinking that all of that safety and comfort from pain and suffering could be wiped away by one's sins on earth must have kept the attention of the faithful. What in our society today could equal the conditions under which morals, ethics, and a faithful life would be the desirable path? What would our hell look like? And to whom would we turn to save us from it?

I read today that a Pew Center for Research poll found that 90% of Americans believe in God or some transcendent force. This was surprising to me, given that it is also true that many now call themselves spiritual but not religious and attendance at formal places of worship has dropped over time. Apparently, there are new expressions of spirituality. Four new paths were profiled in the article in the Washington Post. One was the Christianity of the rodeo circuit where contestants find their spiritual lives in the arenas. Another was the pursuit of witchcraft. A Buddhist monastery in the South was also included—a nod to spiritual but not religious. Buddhism is a mixed concept for many people because it is non-deist but still considered a religion. It attracts many people who don't feel comfortable with present day Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

I admit to the comforts of Zen in my own life during periods when I questioned the role of Christianity in my spiritual life. I used it as cover for not facing the importance of Christian discipline and commitment in the formation of my own faith. But my own life has evolved and over the years I have found a place for both Christianity and Zen Buddhism. I have been haunted by the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas Merton and have found daily comfort and spiritual direction from the simple faith of Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God). Yet, Zen has opened many doors onto the spiritual landscape for me and I adhere to my bodhisattva vows (vows we took as chaplaincy students in our commitment of service) as a path to right behavior. I don't remember Roshi Joan Halifax, my teacher, discussing evil or sin during our chaplaincy training at Upaya, but it was in the background of the teachings around facing one's obstacles, facing social injustices and transgressions, and developing a habit of social action to combat inequities and suffering. So, once again, the powerful words “evil” and “sin” were there but not used in the robust way they could have been. If one doesn't use the word for what it signifies, then there is some commission and omission in bypassing the essence of what they describe. Buddhists refer to such things as delusions which includes the usual human faults and failings such as lust, greed, anger, etc. But the word “sin” isn't used. Perhaps that is a result of the Buddhist belief that all of us are born pure and without fault and that we spend our lives on a path to redeem our purity after backsliding into those states that characterize human nature.

I don't claim any great insights into this dilemma of making meaning of our present day circumstances and somehow relating them to some sort of redemption. In fact, what I say here is pretentious and assumes more than I know. I am in a state of curiosity and that makes me sound more erudite than I really am. But I want to return to Jonathan Edwards and let you read what he spoke to his timorous flock on July 8, 1741.

“There is laid in the very Nature of carnal man a Foundation for the Torments of Hell. There are those corrupt Principles, in reigning Power in them, and in full Possession of them, that are Seeds of Hell Fire. These Principles are active and powerful, and exceeding violent in their Nature, and if it were not for the restraining Hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same Manner as the same Corruptions, the same Enmity does in the Hearts of damned Souls, and would beget the same Torments in 'em as they do in them.”

“Sin is the Ruin and Misery of the Soul; it is destructive in it's Nature; and if God should leave it without Restraint, there would need nothing else to make the Soul perfectly miserable.”

“But the foolish Children of Men do miserably delude themselves in their own Schemes, and in their Confidence in their own Strength and Wisdom; they trust to nothing but a Shadow.”

“Were it not that so is the sovereign Pleasure of God, the Earth would not bear you one Moment; for you are a Burden to it; the Creation groans with you; the Creature is made Subject to the Bondage of Corruption, not willingly; the Sun don't willingly shine upon you to give you Light to serve Sin and Satan; the Earth don't willingly yield her Increase to satisfy your Lusts; nor is it willingly a Stage for your Wickedness to be acted upon; the Air don't willingly serve you for Breath to maintain the Flame of Life in our Vitals, while you spend your Life in the Service of God's Enemies. God's creatures are Good, and were made for Men to serve God with, and don't willingly subserve to any other Purpose, and groan to their Nature and End. And the World would spue you out, were it not for the sovereign Hand of him who hath subjected it in Hope.”

“The wrath of God is like great Waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an Outlet is given, and the longer the Stream is stop'd, the more rapid and mighty is it's Course, when once it is let loose.”

“... you are in the hands of an angry God; 'tees nothing but his meer Pleasure that keeps you from being this Moment swallowed up in everlasting Destruction.”

“You hang by a slender Thread, with the Flames of divine Wrath flashing about it, and ready every Moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no Interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the Flames of Wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one Moment.”

It is at this point that I turn to the news of the day and the ongoing holocaust wildfire that has destroyed so much of California geography, including the town of Paradise. Its power and ferocity has caught people seeking escape in their cars on clogged roads and incinerated all in its path. How could these people have prepared for such a tragedy? And how about the innocent victims of wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan? And the genocides in Yemen and Myanmar? I think about the catastrophes of Indonesian and Japanese tsunamis and the devastation of hurricanes such as the one striking New Orleans some years back. How does one predict the power of such circumstances and isn't one brought to one's knees without recourse to conventional methods of control?

What is in the offing of a life lived coarsely, deceitfully, evilly, and without regard for the separation that exists between life as a thug on the street (or in the White House) and a life with a view of heaven? What does one turn towards in times of catastrophe and thuggery? Are we not challenged to imagine our lives differently? Isn't Jonathan Edwards pointing towards the inflation of ego that David Brooks names the “Big Me”? It is possible to meet these challenges to ego inflation by reshaping a moral base and reintroducing the words and concepts that “sin,” “evil,”and “soul”, connote. It is possible to formulate a secular and somewhat sanitized “platform” for revising our relationships with the earth and with one another. It is also possible to revitalize the religious base of belief that is still present in the traditional religions as well as the alternative spiritual practices now being explored.

The idea of a newly imagined public theology is surfacing in pockets of discernment. I suggest that we reexamine and reexplore the roots of our American public theology to see if there might be some useful material that could contribute to this dialogue. Is it possible for us to bring Jonathan Edwards and the scientists investigating climate change and its consequences together in the same dialogue about what might be a humane course forward in our fractious world? What do we have to lose by thinking out loud about human pride, acquisitiveness, accountability, and responsibility in light of natural occurrences for which we still have no full explanation, let alone any reasonable means of dealing with their consequences? Public theology must imagine its intersections with science, consumerism, the fate of the earth, as well as the human need, desire, and drive to make meaning of not-knowing and what it means to lack the control over our own destinies that we now assume to possess. Could we turn to faith as a beginning? Could we use our faith not as a way of avoiding our difficult circumstances, but as a way of confronting them and working with them for humane purposes? Could we face sin and evil head on and name them for what they are as a way of deflating their power? What are our intentions for our common fate?

11-22-18

MEDITATION NOTES 8

COLLOQUY FOR CLASS 8

In Class 7, the dualities that are a natural presence in our lives and that dwell at the heart of our emotions, attitudes, and actions were front and center in the meditative space. I tried to show how they provide a useful purpose in defining the “self” and how they also possess shadow sides and dark underbellies. It was my intention to suggest that both sides of a duality can be brought much closer together in many instances, if not unified within us. The unity that contains them is what makes us fully human in our frailties, follies, and failures as well as our greatest and most noble virtues and exertions.

This class is intended to examine the third of the three major questions I posed at the very beginning of the course: What then shall I do? These three questions are the motivation for my daily meditation and their translations into context, relationships, and action/interaction are the framework for my practice. Perhaps they can serve you as usefully in your practices.

The parts of meditation we have explored are all of a piece, with one aspect predominating at one time or another. The tools for stabilizing the wholeness axis and making use of the forces that work to unbalance us on any given day are available for us to use as they are needed. We can pause and find the meditative space and enter it wherever we are. Yet, we remain in a state of relative isolation as we sit or stand or walk. We are prepared for something else. But what?

One of the most powerful mysteries of meditation and, thus, of the human heart and mind is how intense focus on the “self” can transform into care for and care of others. Indeed, just as we noticed in Class 1, all of the steps and stages of self care are part of establishing the healthy ground for acting outside our mental constructions, acting with compassion. Compassion, that transitive step after empathy, emerges naturally from “self” and, ironically, depends on “self” for its active life. When one is able to give up one's self for another, then one has embodied compassion in all its dimensions. We as atomized and singular individuals enter into a physical relationship of care of and for others. How does this happen? What carries us over into compassion?

One of the most difficult of all of life's lessons, it seems to me, is how to manage losses. Loss is one of the most solid and intractable causes of suffering because at its root is fear. Meditative space mirrors the losses we experience in our mundane life. We are not schooled in how to deal with loss and we are never practiced at it enough to be good at embracing it. An often-told story has it that a wise man offered a young boy a priceless treasure if he could find one house in his village that had not been touched by loss. Of course, he returned to the wise man with the news that he couldn't find one house and the wise man offered him the knowledge of loss as the treasure. Yes, and the meditative space will be infused with the shadows and realities of losses. It will be the most difficult of visitors to accommodate. When we get the visit from a loss there is the inevitable pushing back, the attempt to isolate it from our experience, to rationalize it into something else--all the ways we have of turning away from our fear. We separate it from ourselves, once again contributing to the divided self. No matter the origin of loss or its dimensions, we seek to lessen our suffering as a result of it. Maybe we ignore it or distract ourselves from it. My thought is that losses have something to teach us about forgiveness and letting go because they are rooted in fear and fear is a powerful underlying disabling emotion (remember fight, flight, or freeze?).

Losses, our own and others', are powerful because we embody them. We embody our own in our consciousness and we embody the losses of others when we “walk in their shoes” and express empathy. They are blunt force traumas to our wholeness axis, to how we see ourselves and our emotional lives. We are never habituated to loss but receive every one as a surprise, even though we may know something of its context. Our relationship to the final loss of life (death) is always unrehearsed and psychically traumatic. I think this happens by degrees but not because it is absent from life altogether. Everyone in the village has known loss and over a lifetime the losses do mount up. Because losses will show up in meditation, we can use the same tools of preparation for them that we use for monkeys and gorillas or any of the other joys and sorrows or sharp dualities that visit us. We get better at using the tools and better at understanding loss and particular losses. With practice, we are better able to comprehend the biggest loss of our lives—our lives. Any loss we suffer or see someone else suffer reminds us that we will at some point face our own mortality. We may not see it this way when we see what losses a hurricane or a mass shooting create, but our empathic attunement points to the losses in life and our own death that lurk in the background. And where there is loss there is fear.

Because we personalize loss so thoroughly (ours and that of others), we see ourselves as victims of cruel fate. We separate ourselves from what is part of the natural order for humans. Instead of seeing loss as part of human life, we see it as unnatural and cruel. The acts that lead to loss are often cruel and violent but we add suffering to the pain of loss. Can we distinguish the pain of loss from the suffering we personalize? Maybe. Is it possible to work with the pain of loss and to make the choice not to suffer because of it? Can we understand the context of the pain and let go of the suffering? Can we choose to forgive ourselves and others the causes of the pain and not continue to suffer? What would that mean to healing?

The meditative space has room for both the pain and suffering of losses because it contains all possibilities and mirrors everything. Sometimes, there is no way to let go of the suffering accompanying loss. But if we are able to see it for what it is and lessen its hold on us (can we toggle between the loss and our personal resource, as we can do with other traumas?), then perhaps one day it will be possible to let it go. Letting go is as difficult as being adept at losing. We seek the solace of meditation when trauma and loss are at our door, but meditation in its comprehensive inclusiveness also embraces our accomplishments, the causes for our celebrations, and the great joys and triumphs of the human spirit. We employ meditation to assist us in dealing with the darkness but forget that meditation is also a place for great light. But, in the grand scope of human life and death, we know that we will also be letting go of the sources of light as we know them in our mundane lives. We open to not-knowing in what lies beyond our earthly consciousness. While we have explored the necessity and value of each of the class themes, let us briefly notice what we might let go in each, all in service of compassion.

In Class 1 we explored “self” as a subjective experience, but we might be letting go of

its isolation from the world.

In Class 2 we looked at various constituents of the divided self. We might let go of our

ideal version of ourselves.

In Class 3 we cleared space for meditation and enlisted poetry as an entry point to it and as

a resource. We might let go of some of the tautness and dependence we have on our

personal resource.

In Class 4 we looked at how expansive the meditative space could be and how “flow”

sometimes characterizes it. We might let go of this space as defended territory.

In Class 5 we confronted the monkeys in our inner lives. We might let go of their

intimidation.

In Class 6 we braced ourselves against the forces of our outer lives. We might let go of

some of the burden they impose by making choices more supportive of

our resilient zone.

In Class 7 we looked at the dualities that tend to describe and define our lives. We might let

go of their insistence and entertain ambiguity and greater nuance.

In Class 8 we have explored the culmination of light and dark through compassion. We might

let go of some of the suffering of loss and some of the oppression of fear.

What helps with loss is the support we feel from grounding and resourcing. Resourcing may include the support we feel not only from the earth and the context of our present life circumstances, but also from the support we sense from others in community. When we meditate in a public space, we are in interaction with all those present, even though we may be in silence with our eyes closed. We are oscillating between the strength of our inner space and the felt energies of those near us. When we act on that support and reach out, our losses and demons are quieted in the shared experience of being human. We know that our compassion for others is merging with their compassion for us (“are we not of interest to one another?,” asks Elizabeth Alexander) and we know this in a way that is beyond linguistic knowledge. In our meditative space, are we able to imagine someone we know or someone unknown to us who has pain and suffers as we do? One ancient meditative practice is based on this very exercise and it allows us to offer and receive compassion in the interconnected web of human experience.

Sometimes the losses we experience are not of our making and certainly the losses of others most often do not share our own life circumstances. Yet, when we embody the losses, when we attune to them in ways that awaken empathy, we can remain in a state of reactivity until we turn to them and offer forgiveness for the pain and the suffering they have created, whether or not we have caused them or they are our own or belong to someone else. In this way, we transition from empathy to compassion. This is the release from empathic block and exhaustion we looked at in Class 1. The act of forgiveness is the action/interaction opening us to compassion. Forgiving is not forgetting. It is releasing judgment and allowing for care of self and others within a wider context. Within compassion lie all the possibilities for meeting the pain and suffering that accompany loss. Compassion does not necessarily diminish pain and suffering but it does allow for eventual healing. Meditation can be the space in which compassion is accessed and then enacted. In a way, when we offer forgiveness for the conditions and judgments that lead to pain and suffering, this is a form of letting go. Our compassion has allowed for the reality of loss and the natural reactions to it, but forgiveness of causes and conditions brings us into an I/Thou relationship with ourselves and others, as developed by the philosopher Martin Buber in his I and Thou. Isn't compassion at the heart of caring and self care—and meditation itself? I believe that what we can aspire to is a state of greater personal liberation in spite of all the forces that move through our lives because we are human beings.

So, meditation and everything it holds contains self and other in what Martin Buber refers to when he says: birth and death “do depend not on whether I 'affirm' or 'deny' the world in my soul, but on how I cause my attitude of soul to the world to grow to life, to life that acts upon the world, to real life—and in real life the ways of very different attitudes of soul may intersect.”

It is my hope that this course on meditation has offered something that is useful and of benefit to you in your lives. May all of you know peace, joy, and an undivided and healthy life.

11-22-18

MEDITATION NOTES 7

COLLOQUY FOR CLASS 7

In Class 6 we looked at what a “full catastrophe” life might look like and maybe we discovered that it looked a lot like our own. We added the heavy presence of the gorilla from our mundane outer life to the frantic and harried presence of the monkeys of our inner life. It is no wonder that we often think of our lives as zoos. In all of this, I attempted to make something creative and useful out of all the noise and drama. Still, there is the notion that we can divide our lives up into inner and outer and this reinforces how we form dualities in other parts of our lives. Doing this emphasizes even more how divided we feel sometimes as we are compelled to choose one side of a duality over the other. In this class I will attempt to bring some of those dualities into a closer connection within the meditative space.

Meditation merely opens a window on our minds. There is nothing esoteric about the forms of meditation. There is nothing magic to be granted or grasped. Grounding and resourcing are as personal and accessible as anything in our minds could be. If meditation does not lead to eternal Truth and Beauty, to the idealized self or enlightenment, then it can at least lead to a better understanding of who we are, what we are here for, and what we might do as we make our way through our lives.

This course began with an examination of what we could do to take better care of ourselves and, thus, take better care of others. It was on this basis that we proceeded to celebrate the undivided self and to see that there are ways to heal ourselves in instances where we feel divided or imperfect as we compare ourselves to someone whose life context differs significantly from our own. I continued to stress the importance of returning to the body in which we experience ourselves, to practice calming by way of grounding and resourcing and reflecting on the vast choices open to us in meditation. All of these efforts are important and key to using the meditative space as an extension of our conscious lives.

Having said that, some important components of what the meditation container holds for us are still left out of the discussion. While we begin with our “self” primarily in our attentive gaze, we are not who we are without considering the duality of self/other that helps define us as individuals. I think dualities such as self/other often create barriers and boundaries that separate, but the duality of self/other helps clarify what we know about ourselves and how we are different from something or someone else as well as to know what is common to us all. I have mentioned how neuroscience has documented where the protoself is located and how the autobiographical self evolves over a lifetime. Recognition of these important concepts emerging from brain networks helps us develop a sound and healthy sense of self. This leads to emotional stabilization and regulation and resilience in ways that a meditative practice can contribute.

The most immediate duality in our lives is the self/other duality but, just as with the perceived duality we experience between our true self and the idealized self, there can be significant gaps of pain between ourselves and those with whom we interact. How are we to step beyond our own world to consider the world of another? Martin Buber is addressing just this gap in his reference to I/It. We sometimes treat ourselves as objects in a separate and wholly different life and we treat others as objects in the same way. When we take the stance of participant/observer in our lives, we become the subject of our attention. We can do the same thing with others in their lives. Buber says that “when Thou is spoken, there is no thing.” When we no longer treat anything or anyone as an object, then we are better able to consider deeper relationships with them. We are also able to generate feelings of empathy and act compassionately. Buber also writes about how I/Thou relationships are unbounded and like a stream of “continuous happening.” If we don't recognize this about our present-day relationships, then perhaps the contexts of our lives have shifted away from how our lives can be meaningful to one another. If meditation is one's vehicle into the inner space of being, then the work of integrating dualities can happen there. The practice of oscillating between our personal resource and what the monkeys of the inner world bring to us is the same practice of oscillating between our resource and the gorillas of the outer world. When everything is a subject and nothing is an object, then compassion takes an easy path.

At the beginning of the course, the context included the neuroscientific documentation of networks in which “self” can be located. It included as well the idea of an autobiographical self, a self-talk narrative that involves naming and labeling of emotional states and streams of consciousness that allow us to sense, observe, coalesce meaning, and act as participant/observers in knowing what we have experienced and to really know that the experiences are our own. Our relationships to everything in our lives shift from moment to moment and from day to day as the contexts of events, thoughts, and emotions shift. It seems to me that we find it easier to deal with hard divisions, with dualities, than with ambiguity, nuance, and unpredictability. I suppose that our primordial beginnings made choices like that more conducive to survival. Security and territory were more often preserved by choosing one part of a duality, even if it meant choosing the wrong side of it 49% of the time. The odds were on the side of choosing correctly more often than not. But in these times dualities are severely limiting because they eliminate some useful parts of our selves that we could use to our benefit and because, too, survival now is not about an actual saber-toothed tiger. Survival, in fact, might hang on our ability to incorporate dual natures into our concept of self/other and to become more open to what makes others who they are and to see in what ways all of us are similar.

Here is a list of dualities that comes to mind easily but which is in no way inclusive:

devotion coercion

outrage indifference

loyalty subservience

protection oppression

owner slave

independence imprisonment

advertising propaganda

free will manipulation

faith dogma

interdependence isolation

community atomization

birth death

concord war

humility arrogance

abundance poverty

passivity engagement

ego EGO

The list of potential dualities is vastly longer and that we are able to add to it reveals how our minds can easily default to a “this or that” instead of a “this and that” mentality. I am not suggesting here that we can altogether eliminate thinking about and acting on dualities. I am suggesting that dualities can separate useful partners and this can emerge from our thoughts in meditation. Meditation may be the place where dualities dance before us in different combinations. In some sense, maturity in our humanness is manifested in how we are personally able to hold both sides of a duality in contradictory tension.

Here I would like to suggest that the most obvious desirable, comfortable, ethical, and moral choice in a duality also has its shadow side, its dark underbelly. For instance, protection can become dominance, coercion, and oppression—its very opposite in the duality. Free will may tip over into manipulation and anarchy. Faith may take on command and control and wind up as dogma and violence. But, are we not all of these multitudes? And do we not look away when we pick only the side of a duality that suits us or soothes us? And, if we even acknowledge the role both sides play in life, do we notice how we feel it pertains to others rather than to ourselves? Do we not maintain the self/other duality at the cost of our own integration, one of the wonderful benefits of meditation and attentive self care?

I suppose I am trying to make the case for integration, for “believing in the world,” as Buber puts it. He speaks to the healing power of integration of all aspects of what it is to be human. That said, there will always be gorillas and monkeys with which to contend. If we know of their presence and acknowledge them as pieces of ourselves and do not keep them on the other side of who we think we are in the self/other duality(“that is not the real me,” “what right do they have to be here?”), we are closer to healthy integration. Just as we wake every day to who we think we are, they will be there to contend and occupy. With grounding and resourcing we will be up to the task of moving them to the side or quieting their insistent chatter. Don't let them force you out of your meditation so they can wreck the house. When looking at yourself in the mirror (which is what meditation is, after all), will you be able to say “I accept you”, or, as Franz Wright says in his poem (“The Only Animal”), “I do not condemn you”? How much do we accept and how much can we learn to accept? How can the habit of meditation assist us in seeing more clearly the necessity and value of honoring the dualities in our lives? And, then, how are we called to work with them in the work we do every day?

The last class in this course will explore how the meditative space honors the the self/other duality as a way of knowing ourselves better ( Who am I?), of understanding the relationships we have with the life events and people that appear in our daily lives (What am I here for?), and transition into a consideration of what it means to fully integrate our lives by our own choices and actions. (What then shall I do?) Meditation is a sacred space of the self but it is also a preparation for respecting and caring for others. Perhaps there is a possibility for fusion of inner and outer worlds and for a closer connection between self and other.