Category Archives: mindfulness

Musings re “The Secret”

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As indicated yesterday, Rhonda Byrne‘s book, The Secret, has been helpful to me.   But, I do have reservations.

For example, I do wander about using the “Law of attraction” to obtain a parking spot or
fabulous wealth. Though, true enough, perhaps if I felt differently I would be
wealthy and would readily find a parking spot each time I needed!  Oh me of
little faith!

The issue is the unconscious dimension of our experience. The real, the
essential negative self-talk takes place beneath the surface in the form of old
recordings buried deep in our neurological structure. And, yes, since they are
“unconscious” we can’t see them because then they would be conscious! BUT, we
can be self-aware and be honest about the images that flutter through our
conscious mind and about the poor choices that we make. Then, we can ferret out
what these old recordings are.  Or at least some of them.

I’m casting doubt on just how much impact “the power of positive thinking” can
play when our wounds are buried deeply in our subterranean depths. But, it
can’t do any harm to become conscious of “stinkin thinkin” and practice new
refrains or mantras. In other words, it can’t do any harm to attempt to
re-program our brain. It won’t do any harm to attempt to “brain-wash” ourselves
anew with positive and affirming thoughts. For, “brain-washing” is what
happened in the first place.

Let me share something that has been personally useful. I think it was Rumi who
noted once, “The only antidote to depression is praise.” Here, I’m going to
exercise literary license and replace “praise” with “offering thanks.”  Then I
can apply a couple of admonishments from the Bible, such as, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

What Rumi had in mind was that when life gets grim, we can still exercise choice
and focus on the many good things that are present in our life, even if it is
nothing but the blessing of the very breath of life itself. It has helped me,
when despair beckons, to “pray the alphabet” which Mary Karr taught me in her
memoir, Lit. “Praying the alphabet”, in this context, means going down the
alphabet and making yourself find something or someone starting with each letter
of the alphabet for which you can give thanks. This gets interesting with X, Z,
and Q; but I manage! The beauty of this strategy is that it is on some level a
simple cognitive behavioral therapy strategy. You can’t whole-heartedly focus
on more than one thing at a time. So, focusing on the wonderful things in your
life can pre-occupy you for a moment and take your attention away from that
gnawing despair.

Communication Perils and “Penetrable” hearts.

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“Let go of your mind and come to your senses.”  This 70’s era bromide, from Fritz Perls I think, is very astute.  Perls was encouraging us to discover our ability to forego our comfort zone—that safe cognitive haven we have created—and enter the world of sensual experience, the world of feeling.  That “cognitive haven” is the egoic consciousness that Eckhart Tolle has popularized.

And, I admit that this is easier said than done, especially for us who are so firmly ensconced in the cognitive domain.  I practice meditation but it is very hard to quiten that “monkey mind” that the Buddhists speak of—that mind that is always shrieking, chattering, and cavorting about, absolutely unable to embrace the present moment, Tolle’s “Now”.

Shakespeare recognized the need of feeling and its primacy over cognition.  In the famous scene in which his mother is compulsively wringing her hands, he admonished her to “cease wringing your hands and I will wring your heart.  And so I will if it be made of penetrable stuff, if damn custom hath not bronzed it o’er so that it be proof and bulwark against sense” (sense-experience, or feeling).  Here Shakespeare is noting how cognition, one dimension of that “damn custom”, tends to “bronze o’er” the heart and make it “impenetrable.”  When the heart is open to the feeling mode, it is full of “penetrable stuff” and communication can take place.  But when this “damn custom” or cognition predominates, there is only a robot-like exchange of data.  It makes me think of the scene in the movie Rain Man where two autistic men are engaging in a conversation.  But the “conversation” consisted of each man delivering a spiel to the other only to have the other respond with a spiel of his own, a spiel having nothing to do with the other spiel.  I’m reminded from a line from one of T. S. Eliot‘s plays, in which he describes people locked in formulaic, rote conversations as “people too strange to one another for misunderstanding.”

And note the lyrics from the beautiful Simon and Garfunkel song,  “Sounds of Silence”:

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening.

And I close with the words of the Psalmist (Psalms 115:4)

They have mouths but they speak not:

Eyes have they, but they see not;

They have ears but they hear not.

 

 

Conservative faith and fear of difference

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Yesterday I noted my reluctance to read Ram Dass even though I stumble upon his teachings often and always find them very insightful.  I attributed this reluctance to my conservative youth when he and his ilk were roundly demonized by my conservative faith.  I often find little intrusions into my life by this conservative past, little themes that are resurrected by day-to-day events in my life and the life of my culture.  For example, I was raised in a racist Southern culture but have gone far beyond racism ever since I made my escape from that culture in the early 70’s.  But from time to time that demon just faintly resurrects itself in my heart with some passing thought.  And, I don’t then berate myself or “confess my sin” to God; I merely exercise “mindfulness” for a moment and then go on with my life, recognizing that all of us have these haunts in our past

It is interesting that Ram Dass and “his ilk” were so hated by conservative Christian culture back then and that it continues today.  I know it had to do with the “foreignness” of it all—trekking to India, studying in an “ashram”, receiving teachings from guys with names like Meha Baba and Maharaja Ji.  And there was all this talk of “foreign gods” and holy literature when I knew there was only one “holy literature” available—the Bible.  They talked a different language than I did and it made me uncomfortable.  And, of course, there was this issue at the root of it all—they did not believe in Jesus and would one day rot in hell for their unbelief.

Perhaps the core issue there was simply “difference.”  I was raised to fear and loathe difference.  I was taught that everyone should be just like me and if they didn’t, it was merely an issue of them getting right with God and joining the Christian fold.  But, this exploration has been deeply enriching to my faith….my “Christian” faith…to learn of different ways to approach spirituality. Not that I have to adopt any of them!  When I explore these other religions I am made more aware of reality and I can bring this increased awareness to my faith.  But in conservative religion, there is no need for ‘awareness”.  There is merely the need to accept the dogma being presented to you, swallow it uncritically, and then regurgitate it the rest of your life.  (This “regurgitation” brings to my mind a cow chewing her cud—-the cow just stands there nonchalantly chewing her cud, apparently just as happy as a bug-in-a-rug.)

Ram Dass

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I keep running across Ram Dass in my readings.  And I still have not read him and his name still rings slightly dissonant in my heart.  But I recognize that this dissonance speaks volumes about me and my conservatism in the 1970’s (when he first surfaced on the cultural scene) and nothing about him.  Though I have not read any of his books, I have discovered numerous quotes all of which speak to his insight and courage.  For example:

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

 Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.

 Religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.

 Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it–just don’t get lost in it.

 I recognize why I was so averse to him in my youth and why conservative spirituality still is averse to him and all Eastern religions—he recognized a spiritual reality that is not reduced to the conceptual and which, consequently, cannot be owned and controlled.  That posed a threat for me as it brought into question everything I assumed about spirituality…and I have discoursed here several times re the “tyranny of assumptions.”

One task I have before me is to start reading Ram Dass, probably starting with his book, Be Here Now

Emptiness and religion

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I’m sure you have noted that my posts have a heavy emphasis on Eastern religious, Zen-themes, emptiness and “such.”  This is the result of, first of all, the alienation that has been my blessing/curse all of my life.  Second, it reflects the extensive reading I have done in world religions and philosophy.  These two considerations have left we with strong convictions (i.e. a “bias”) toward the notion that this world is ephemeral and that reality lies beneath the surface of day to day life….or “out there” or “beyond the grasp of cognition” or however you wish to put it.  And to “find it”, you have to “lose” your own grasp of reality or, in the words of Jesus, you have to lose your life to find it.

Western Christian culture often fails to consider that Christianity itself is an Eastern religion that has been dragged kicking and screaming to the West.  And we have done a thorough job on westernizing this spiritual tradition, i.e. reducing it to dogma and mindless ritual.

I’d like to share with you two different translations of one of Lao Tzu‘s verses relevant to the subject of emptiness:

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use

 

Thirty spokes are united around the hub of a wheel,
but the usefulness of the wheel
depends on the space where nothing exists.
Clay is molded into a vessel,
but the usefulness of the vessel
depends on the space where nothing exists.
Doors and windows are cut out of the walls of a house,
and the usefulness of the house
depends on the space where nothing exists.

Therefore take advantage of what exists,
and use what does not exist.

Wrestling with God

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One of my favorite contemporary novelists is Marilynne Robinson.  Housekeeping is my favorite of he novels and it has been made into a movie with the same name.  It was a wonderful movie and the novel is even better.   She has also written Gilead and in that novel she made the following observation:

In every important way we are such secrets from one another, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable – which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, intraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us. (my emphasis)

It is the “spaces between us” that intrigues me and compels me.   Human culture is the contrivance that unites us, it is the “veil we spin to hide the void” (Norman Brown) but spirituality is a quest to delve deeper, to penetrate that very necessary and essential fiction of our enculturation and dance, from time to time, with the emptiness.  I insist that it is in this “emptiness” that we find our Source.  Or, better stated it is in the wrestling with that emptiness, i.e. “wrestling with God” that we find our Source.  Technically, it is not even “human culture” that unites us, it is the emptiness.  Very Zen, huh?

Tebowing explained

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Have you heard of Tebow-ing?  Rabbi Joshua Hess (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-joshua-hess) defines it as “kneeling to pray even though it has nothing to do with what is going on around you.”  And, of course, I make reference to the ceremonial prayer in the end zone that Quarterback Tim Tebow makes after scoring a touchdown.  I personally think other religious expressions should follow suit.  Perhaps we could see a brief communion service in the end zone, or perhaps a feigned circumcision, perhaps a few strokes of a Tai Chi ritual, or even the sacrifice of a goat.  Actually, I hope that eventually this non-sense will be forbidden and anytime piety overcomes the football hero and he forgets and trots out his ceremony, the referee would drop a flag, and instead of hand gestures to describe the offense, he would quickly kneel, and looking up to heaven as if in prayer would intone, “15 yard penalty on No. 15, Tebow-ing, penalty to be assessed on following kick off.”

Seriously, I’m glad that Tebow has the gift of faith and I hope this faith continues as he matures.  And as he matures, I hope he will realize that ostentatious displays of piety are just that—ostentation—“Hey, everyone look at me!  Not only did I score a touchdown, but I am pious.”  Now, I’m sure this is what going on.  I know.  Been there and done that…..well, I mean I have trotted out the ostentatious piety though certainly not after having scored a touchdown!  I conjecture that Tebow “wears” his faith right now.  In time to come it will become more personal and he will not have to trot it out when it is completely unrelated to the context.

Knee-deep in relativism

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I am knee-deep in relativism, a term that was roundly denounced from the pulpit in my youth, and a term that is still roundly denounced from conservative-Christian pulpits.  And I still fill a tinge of guilt for having departed so far from the fold.  But only a tinge!

I also feel very strongly that relativism, like any notion, carried to its extreme becomes absurd.   Aristotle is credited with saying, “Moderation in all things.”  I am really an extreme relativist but somehow, by the Grace of God, I realize this perspective is not for all and that it can be problematic for anyone, including myself.  I believe that the beliefs that we hold say less about what is “real” and more about how our mind operates.

Let me give an example of this aforementioned Grace at work in my heart and life.  When I pray I step away from the ether in which I dwell intellectually/spiritually and simply pray along the vein of, “My father, which art in heaven….”  In prayer there is no need to be complex and to engage in sophistry.  I simply pray to God.

Let me apply this to moral codes, say the Ten Commandments.  Though I think moral codes a relative, I don’t believe we should ever espouse to dispense with them.  Without moral codes…and the much-related guilt…we can’t function as a social body.  I do think there needs to come a time in one’s spiritual/emotional life where he/she goes beyond the “letter of the law” and recognizes as did Paul, that “all things are lawful.”  But that does not mean one should let his/her impulses run amok.

Let’s take one fundamental human impulse and fundamental component of any moral code, summarized in the Ten Commandments as, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”  I really think that at some point in adulthood one needs to exercise good judgment, or as we say, “make good decisions” in sexuality and do so not merely be clinging tenaciously to a biblical prohibition.  If, at that time, this biblical prohibition is the only thing keeping our sexuality under control, then there is a personal issue that needs to be addressed.

And I think moral codes have value for the modern world, even in a liberal society such as ours where sexual mores are in flux.  For example, I think the simple prohibition, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” should give anyone, even in our culture, pause from time to time and make him/her wonder, “Now why did they come up with this notion back then?  Why was it important then to put limits on the sexual impulse?  Does this have any relevance to me and the modern world?”  (And I realize there are some valid anthropological/sociological answers to this question.)  And many will answer their query with, “Well, no it has nothing to do with me in this modern world.”  But I still think it was, and is valid, to ask the question.  It reflects self-awareness and I fear our culture often lacks this quality.

There must be limits.  There must be “moderation in all things.”

 

Richard Rohr on ideologogy

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Following up on yesterday’s post, and on a recent post on ideology, I offer you the daily-posting of Richard Rohr:

We are all powerless, not only those physically addicted to a substance. Alcoholics simply have their powerlessness visible for all to see. The rest of us disguise it in different ways and overcompensate for our more hidden and subtle addictions and attachments, especially our addiction to our way of thinking.

We all take our own pattern of thinking as normative, logical, and surely true, even when it does not fully compute. We keep doing the same thing over and over again, even if it is not working for us. That is the self-destructive nature of all addiction, and of the mind in particular. We think we are our thinking, and we even take that thinking as utterly “true,” which removes us at least two steps from reality itself.

Addiction to our mind is subtle but its reach is incredible.  We then find ourselves failing to adhere to the wisdom of Buddha, who said, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”  The “word” is not the “thing.”  Words are but pointers.  We don’t own “the Truth”.  But, this does not leaving me doubting the presence of Truth in this void, doubting only grasp of it.  Or, as said yesterday and so frequently, “We see though a glass darkly” or “we hold this treasure in earthen vessels.”

Humility, finitude, limits

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A passionate concern of mine is that we don’t see reality, we only “see through a glass darkly” at best.  One might even say that I am obsessed with this notion as I have found it a valuable insight in my life and believe that it could be relevant to others.  This insight has an humbling impact on me, helping me to realize that when I discourse, or “hold forth” as in this blog, I am not presenting Truth but merely my own perception of “truth.”  If suddenly, the world discovered me and understood this perspective and said, “Aha, this is It!”, then civilization as we know it would immediately collapse.  For this is a perception that is not valid for everyone and certainly not valid for the billions and billions of people who keep this “dog and pony show” afloat with their “less enlightened” outlook on life.

I’ve quoted Anais Nin before, “”We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”  And so what we see in the world, what we say about the world, says a whole lot about us.  Our version of reality is just that, “our version.”  Just yesterday in Huffington Post, I discovered Gangaji who noted: 

People who live their lives unaware that they are telling themselves a story consider their thoughts to be descriptions of reality. If someone else has a conflicting description, that person is considered just to be wrong. It is a leap into maturity to realize that our descriptions of reality are our versions of reality. Certainly there is nothing wrong about a version of reality, but the recognition that it is a version, rather than reality itself, is humbling to our version of ourselves!

And so it all comes down to humility.  Can I find the Grace of God which will allow me to humbly accept that I am a finite being, with a finite grasp on the world, and therefore be a bit more open-minded about those who see the world differently?  T. S. Eliot declared, “The only wisdom we can hope to find is the wisdom of humility.”  And then he added, “And humility is endless.”