Saturday, May 8, 2010
Secular Humanism
The Lovely State of Observation
by Vimala Thakar
There are two parts of life. Motion and motionlessness. Movement is one part of life but to be in a state of no movement is also a substantial part of our life. Speech is one aspect, one part of life, unconditional silence is also a substance of life. Form and formlessness, sound and silence, motion and motionlessness, light and darkness, birth and death, the two together constitute the wholeness of life. Man has created a contradiction between the two, man looks upon them as an opposition to life. Is there a contradiction between birth and death or is life a continuity, an eternal ocean of ISNESS on which there are bubbles of birth and death?
Meditation is a way of living that introduces us to that other part of our life. The silence, the motionlessness, it introduces us to our pure ISNESS which have never been conditioned and shall never be conditioned. […]
Meditation is coming home, to relax, to rest. If that takes place and one finds that though one has withdrawn and retired from activity, the inner movement goes on, thoughts come up, memories come up, then you begin to observe them. Till now you were busy carrying out functional roles, you were either the doer or the experience. From these two roles you have set yourself free voluntarily. You are now the observer. The inner movements come up, the involuntary movement comes up though the voluntary has been discontinued. You sit there quietly, you do not prepare to see, but if thoughts appear, then they are seen by you. It is a lovely state, the state of observation.
--Vimala Thakar, from "Meditation In Daily Life"
What is Most Important in Life? A Lesson from Tolstoy
There is a story by Leo Tolstoy of a king who had everything he needed, but he had three questions that nagged at him.
What is the right time to do any one thing?
Who are the right people to listen to and work with?
What is the most important thing to do at all times?
He figured that if he knew the answers to these questions, he would be free of any anxiety and never have any issues.
He called upon all his countrymen to a contest to see if anyone had the answers. Hundreds of people came in.
For the first question there were a variety of answers. Some people told him he needed to fill out a calendar and follow it to the tee and then he would know what the right thing to do was. Others had other theories.
For the second question, again, some people listed religious leaders; others said he needed a wise counsel to rely on, while others said the military is who he should surround himself with.
The third answer brought similar responses from science to religion to the military.
Underwhelmed by all these responses, the king dressed in peasant clothing and walked up to visit a wise hermit on top of the mountain, for he may have the answer.
The hermit was busy plowing a garden and the king said, “Excuse me, wise hermit, you do not know me, but I have come to ask you three questions.”
After asking the questions the hermit smiled, patted him on the back, and continued on. The king soon saw that the hermit looked tired and offered to help and began plowing himself. After some time, the king asked the questions again and was interrupted by the sight of a naked man running through the hills with blood spilling from his stomach.
The bleeding man made his way to the hermit and king and the king swept into action and began tearing his own shirt to dress this man’s wound. The hermit and king went to lay the man down to rest in the cave where the hermit stayed and the king’s eyes began to close from exhaustion.
When he awoke he saw the man lying next to him and the man said, “Please forgive me.”
“What have you done that needs forgiveness my son,” said the king.
He continued, “You do not know me, but I was your enemy and after the last war you took my house and killed my brother. I came here for revenge to kill you, and had been waiting for you down the hill for quite some time. But after you didn’t show up, I decided to run out from where I was, but your men found me and gave me this wound. If it wasn’t for you, I would have died out there, so please forgive me and I will be in your debt forever. The king was surprised how easy it was to reconcile with a former enemy and pledged to give the man his house and land back. The man then went on his way.
The hermit came back in the cave and the king once again asked him these three questions to which the hermit replied, “You already know the answer.”
The king gave him a confused look.
The hermit said, “Don’t you see, if you didn’t take pity on me yesterday and help me plow the garden, you would have been attacked by that man and likely died. So the most important time was with me helping me plow those gardens and I was the most important man to be with and to do this good deed was the most important thing to do at the time. After this, the most important time was dressing the wound of that man, for if you had not done that he would have died and you would have never made peace with him. So he was the most important person to be with and what you did for him was the most important thing to do.
So what can you take away from Tolstoy’s story today? We are all looking for the next best thing or the most important thing to be doing and what we often don’t realize is that maybe what we’re doing RIGHT NOW is actually the most important time and who we’re with is the most important person and what we’re doing in the moment is the most important thing to do.
Joker
"The guy goes into the hospital, okay? His wife's just had a baby and he can't wait to see them both. So he meets the doctor and he says, 'Oh, Doc, I've been so worried. How are they?' And the doctor smiles and says, 'They're fine. Just fine. Your wife's delivered a healthy baby boy and they're both in tip-top form. You're one lucky guy.' So the guy rushes into the maternity ward with his flowers. But it's empty. His wife's bed is empty. 'Doc?' He says and turns around and the doctor and all the nurses wave their arms and scream in his face. 'April fool! Your wife's dead and the baby's a spastic!!'" (he executes an asylum orderly with a gunshot to the head) "Get it? Oh, what a senseless waste of human life!" - Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
"Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the… little… emotions. You see, in their… last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way...I knew your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?"
"Harvey Dent/Two-Face: You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time…but you were wrong! The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased, unprejudiced, fair. His boy has the same chance she had: 50/50
13. I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you…stranger.
12. All right. So, listen. Why don’t you give me a call when you want to start taking things a little more seriously? Here’s my card.
11. Joker: Oh, you. You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptible, aren’t you? Huh? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
10 . Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?
9. Batman: Then why do you want to kill me?
Joker: I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You… you… complete me.
Batman: You’re garbage who kills for money.
Joker: Don’t talk like one of them. You’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don’t, they’ll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilized people, they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.
8. This city deserves a better class of criminal. And I’m gonna give it to them.
7. Joker: If you’re good at something, never do it for free.
6. Batman: Let her go!
Joker: [holding Rachel out of a window] Very poor choice of words…
5. Joker: [to Gambol's thugs, being held helpless by his own] Now, our operation is small, but there’s a lot of potential for “aggressive” expansion. So, which one of you fine gentlemen would like to join our team? Oh, there’s only one spot open right now, so we’re gonna have…Tryouts. Make it fast.
4. How about a magic trick? I’m gonna make this pencil disappear. Ta-daa! It’s… it’s gone.
3. Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just… do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon’s got plans. You know, they’re schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So, when I say… Ah, come here.
When I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I’m telling the truth. It’s the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and look where that got you. I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know… You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan.” But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair!
2. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are tonight’s entertainment! Well, you look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got ‘em? Come here. Hey! Look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful, like you, who tells me I worry too much. Who tells me I ought to smile more. Who gambles and gets in deep with the sharks… Look at me! One day, they carve her face. And we have no money for surgeries. She can’t take it. I just want to see her smile again, hm? I just want her to know that I don’t care about the scars. So… I stick a razor in my mouth and do this…to myself. And you know what? She can’t stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I’m always smiling! A little fight in you. I like that. Batman: Then you’re going to love me.
1. [holding a knife inside Gambol's mouth] Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was… a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn’t like that. Not-one-bit. So - me watching - he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it! Turns to me, and he says, “why so serious, son?” Comes at me with the knife… “Why so serious?” He sticks the blade in my mouth… “Let’s put a smile on that face!” And…Why so serious?
Mindfulness is Ignorance (Bliss) on Demand
Ignorance, they say, is bliss. As I see it, there are 2 kinds of ignorance:
- ignorance of un-awareness (mindlessness of something that can be known)
- ignorance by choice (a conscious decision to ignore that which cannot be known)
Which type of ignorance is bliss and which is existential loss?
Let’s see if we can briefly sort this out.
You’ve heard this: the past has already happened, therefore it doesn’t exist; the future hasn’t happened, therefore it doesn’t yet exist; thus, here’s nothing but Now…
So, here we stand, sandwiched between the Past that’s already gone and doesn’t exist, and the Future that hasn’t yet happened and therefore doesn’t exist, in the proverbial and pre-verbal here-and-now. This is all there is!
To ignore this “Now” (the only “thing” that exists) would be the ignorance of un-awareness. This kind of mindlessness (lack of awareness of the present moment) is an existential loss. How come? Because here’s this moment: here it is, it can be known but, if untapped, it remains un-lived.
To ignore what’s outside of this “Now” (i.e. to ignore what cannot be known) would be the ignorance of bliss… Can this kind of bliss be available on demand? Sure. How? Through mindfulness.
Mindfulness is a commitment to what is (i.e. to this Now), accompanied by a conscious choice to ignore whatever isn’t (i.e. what cannot be known such as the future or what no longer exists, such as the past). Mindfulness is a form of ignorance on demand, i.e. a form of bliss on demand.
Pledge allegiance to the Present! Ignore the rest.
Not always, of course. Can’t live in the now 100% (got to reminisce a bit, dwell a bit, plan a bit, worry a bit – that’s all natural mind-stuff). But whenever you feel like it. On demand, that is.
Tend Your Mind's Garden
---
We choose our world. Plato suggested humans select a life prior to birth, then live it in a state of amnesia. Perhaps that’s true, but that’s not the point of this essay. For the moment, consider the inner experience. When you think about it, doesn’t what happens inside our brains have a bigger influence on our contentment than what happens outside? And aren’t the two more separate than we appreciate in day-to-day life? Even though the environment constantly touches our senses, and so shapes our minds, it is not hard to make a distinction between the inner world and the outer one. And it’s the inside that makes us happy, or drives us insane.
Somewhere ‘out there’ sits the cosmos. It consists of things we call ‘matter’ and ‘energy’. Outside of our minds, substances and forces move, fluctuate, and interact. We have good scientific descriptions of how this works, but we don’t experience it directly. All we have access to are the patterns of nerve signals that enter our brains by way of nerves. These nerve signals come from complex sense organs such as eyes and ears. They also arrive from scattered sensory cells (in our skin, organs, and tendons) that provide our sensations of touch, bodily condition, and movement.
It takes effort, but try for a moment to fully acknowledge these facts about the separation between the mind and the physical world. Scientists and philosophers debate about the nature of the ’self’ that makes use of incoming data. But even without understanding the ’self’, it is helpful to grasp that our minds depend on sense organs for contact with the universe. Sensory systems are the windows through which we view our lives.
These concepts can be used to improve mental comfort. As a personal example, the teeth in my upper jaw sometimes throb, probably because of jaw clenching. But for some reason, my lower teeth feel fine. So here’s where I get to choose my world: in my mind, I can either attend to the upper molars, or the lower ones. It used to seem like the aching was outside my control; it shouldered its way into my consciousness. Not that the pain was awful, life disrupting agony. The discomfort meant little more than annoyance. But whether I wanted to suffer with it or not seemed irrelevant.
A few days ago, I remembered something taught in chronic pain classes. Rather than paying attention to the upper teeth, I shifted my focus to the lower ones. Very quickly the toothache abated. Discomfort persisted, but without me centering on it, its intensity died. I’m not talking about pushing sensation away, only about shifting attention.
I hope this example makes clear how readily we can alter experience by attending to different sensory input, such as lower jaw versus upper. Or we could look at the flowers on the roadside rather than the litter. What’s more, we can use selective attention in other ways: we can turn toward pleasant memories, and create helpful thoughts. Recently, in the midst of one of my depressions, I listened to a friend’s advice to remember happy times when feeling sad. Naturally, it seemed like the facile suggestion of someone never tormented with true despair. But he did have a point. Just as we can choose which tooth to listen to, we can select which memories to replay in our heads. Similarly, we can decide whether to dwell on our fears, or imagine our dreams for the future.
Sound familiar? These days, most people treated for mood disorders learn about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It’s been proven to help people who suffer from anxiety and depression. It teaches how to steer the mind away from troubling waters. The goal is not to live in denial or avoid problem-solving. But why dwell on situations we cannot change, or worry about stuff that we can’t prevent, and that hasn’t happened.?
Many religions promote mental discipline. Buddhism literally makes a science of it. But spirituality is not required to gain the benefit of self-guidance. There are many books that teach CBT, and the idea of ‘positive thinking’ has been written about for at least a hundred years. My goal in this note is to give the perspective that humans exist in biological structures of unthinkable complexity, and that consciousness (whatever it really is) can direct inner experience. Gentle tuning of attention and thought can aid our perpetual search for peace. Rather than succumbing to the dreaded ‘bipolar’ label, or suffering hopelessly with the onus of ‘depression’, we can begin to take charge of our interior worlds.
Obviously, these techniques by themselves will not resolve severe mood crises. Much can be written about how to gain the self-love necessary to embrace strategies that promote contentment. But recognizing the distinction between inner world and outer reality is a useful step on the path toward ease of mind.
Smileys
:-) smiling; agreeing
:-D laughing
|-) hee hee
|-D ho ho
:-> hey hey
;-) so happy, I'm crying
:'-) crying with joy
\~/ full glass; my glass is full
TEASING, MISCHIEVOUS
;-) winking; just kidding
'-) winking; just kidding
;-> devilish wink
:*) clowning
:-T keeping a straight face
AFFIRMING, SUPPORTING
:^D "Great! I like it!"
8-] "Wow, maaan"
:-o "Wow!"
^5 high five
^ thumbs up
:] Gleep, a friendly midget who wants
to befriend you
(::()::) bandaid; offering help or support
UNHAPPY, SAD
:-( frowning; boo hoo
:( sad
:-< name="11b6b305e2e73af6_ANGRY">ANGRY, SARCASTIC
>:-<>:-<> bitingly sarcastic
TRYING TO COMMUNICATE
:-& tonguetied
:-S incoherent
:-\ undecided
:- I "hmmm..."
:-, "hmmm "
:-# "My lips are sealed"
:-X "My lips are sealed"
:-Y a quiet aside
:-" pursing lips
:-W speaking with forked tongue
:( ) can't stop talking
FEELING STUPID OR TIRED
:~/ mixed up
%-) braindead
(:I egghead
<:-I dunce =:-) hosehead :-] smiling blockhead :-[ un-smiling blockhead |-O yawning |-I asleep :-6 exhausted; wipeout SURPRISED, INCREDULOUS, SKEPTICAL
:> What?
:@ What?
:Q What?
:-o "uhh oh!" OR surprise
;-) sardonic incredulity
:O shocked
8-| eyes wide with surprise
:-/ skeptical
8-O "Omigod!!"
:-C just totally unbelieving
|-{ "Good Grief!" (Charlie Brown)
HUGS AND KISSES
: * kisses
:-X a big wet kiss!
:-x kiss kiss
:-{} blowing a kiss
[] hugs
(( )):** hugs and kisses
((((name)))) hug
MISCELLANEOUS
:-* Oops!
:-I indifferent
\-o bored
:-P tongue hanging out in anticipation
O :-) angelic; being an angel (at heart, at least)
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(Robert Frost)
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. (Albert Einstein)
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Albert Einstein)
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. (Winston Churchill)
It is not the number of breaths you take that matter, it is the number of moments that take your breath away. (unknown)
When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams are destroyed. (unknown)
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell)
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish. (Quintilian)
A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top. (unknown)
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. (William Shakespeare)
The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.(George Eliot)
Everything I do I rush through so I can do something else. (Dean Koontz)
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. (John Lennon)
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. (Chinese Proverb)
As for me, I looked at him and felt nothing else. His every movement, his manners, the sound of his voice made me tremble. When a passion like this gets hold of you, it never lets you go, never till your last breath. It burns all in you, and still flames when there is nothing more to burn... But then, how happy, oh how happy I was!
It's not that I can't live without you, it's just that I don't wanna try.
The heart has its reasons, Whereof reason knows nothing.
She opened up a book of poems, And handed it to me. It was written by an Italian poet, From the thirteenth century. And every one of them words rang true, And glowed like burning coal Pouring off of every page Like it was written in my soul from me to you.
Take me back into the arms I love. Need me like you did before. Touch me once again and remember when there was no one that you wanted more.
When I think about rain, I think about singing. When I think about singing, it's a heavenly tune. When I think about heaven, then I think about angels. When I think about angels, I think about you.
I don't want to lose this feeling. If I could choose a place to die, it would be in your arms.
It is not only necessary to love, but also to say so.
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman!
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.
Every time I see you, I try to hide away. But when we meet it seems I can't let go. Every time you leave the room I feel I'm fading like a flower.
Your words are my food, your breath is my wine; You are everything to me.
Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime and never let go till we're gone.
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
You could do so much for me if you just would. If you just knew. I am I and you are you and I know it and you don't know it and you could do so much for me if you just would and if you just would then I could tell you and then nobody would have to know it except you and me.
A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.
Only as high as I reach can I grow,
Only as far as I seek can I go,
Only as deep as I look can I see,
Only as much as I dream can I be.
- by unknown
if u win, u need not xplain
if u loose, u should not be there to xplain
- by Unknown
"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
- by Unknown
"You don't have to be great to start.
But u have to start to be great"
- by Unknown
Civilization
What particularly caught my interest was the idea of calling civilization, and even the social networks between people, facilitated by communication technology (anywhere from verbal and gestural communication, to the internet), can be observed as a single organism, using the metaphor of the cells in our body making up the moving, talking, thinking construct that we call ourselves. Dan Dennet, in his
TED talk on consciousness (I have yet to read his book on his interpretation of consciousness), made a similar point: all of the neurons interacting with each other as interconnected, yet individual organisms, and unaware of their collective product, generate the perception of consciousness, though we consider the neurons themselves unconscious. Within the cell as well, the systems can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts.
Taking the example of the brain, the individual nodes making up the whole are not fully 'aware' of their collective society, and that that society seems to imagine itself as conscious, we can apply it to human society in the same way, and we humans, mere cells in the system, cannot fully understand what the 'consciousness' of the complete system may be. As is well covered in these posts, the information transfer rate is accelerating, and increasingly more effective means of information and goods transfer are evolving, as a trend of culture and technology. It seems almost inevitable that in a not so distant future, every one of us will be linked intimately with every single other, through modes of technology not yet foreseen, but that would allow for instantaneous, effective, and adapting information flow in the collective network of the human species. Forms of life, made up of all the humans in existence today, perceive and exist in planes that we literally cannot imagine. As is often useful to do when discussing evolutionary systems such as this, the phenomenon can be described as having intention and desire: "What does technology want?" Obviously, evolution has no intentions or desires, but merely trends, that within certain fractal scales of time and space, are relatively constant.
Links:
http://www.celldeath.de/
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/
NIHILIST
A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought NOT to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos — at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.
– Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 585, translated by Walter KaufmanOn Good and Evil
Contemporary understanding of matter and energy also suggests a new way of thinking about good and evil. Evil in human affairs is analogous to the process of entropy in the material universe. We call evil that which causes pain, suffering, disorder in the psyche or the community. It usually involves taking the course of least resistance, or operating according to the principles of a lower order of organization. For instance, when a person endowed with consciousness acts in terms of instincts alone, or when a social being acts selfishly even when a situation calls for cooperation. When scientists work on perfecting means of destruction they are succumbing to entropy even if they use the latest and most sophisticated knowledge. Entropy or evil is the default state, the condition to which systems return unless work is done to prevent it.
What prevents it is what we call “good” -- actions that preserve order while preventing rigidity, that are informed by the needs of the most evolved systems. Acts that take into account the future, the common good, the emotional well-being of others. Good is the creative overcoming of inertia, the energy that leads to the evolution of human consciousness. To act in terms of new principles of organization is always more difficult, and requires more effort and energy. The ability to do so is what has been known as virtue.
But why should one be virtuous when it is so much easier to let entropy prevail? Why should one want to support evolution without the promise of eternal life as a reward? If what we have said so far is true, eternal life is actually part of the package of existence -- not in the way cartoons represent the afterlife, with haloed characters in nightgowns standing around in clouds, but in the fact that our actions in this life are going to reverberate through time and shape the evolving future. Whether our present consciousness of individuality is preserved in some dimension of existence after death or disappears completely, the inalterable fact is that our being will forever remain part of the warp and woof of what is. The more psychic energy we invest in the future of life, the more we become a part of it. Those who identify with evolution blend their consciousness with it, like a tiny creek joining an immense river, whose currents become as one.
--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, from "Finding Flow"