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 If that takes place and one finds that though one has withdrawn and retired from activity, the inner movement goes on, thoughts come up, memories come up, then you begin to observe them.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
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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.