Category Archives: Reason

Buddhism, Wisdom, and Cognition

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“A lot of thinking without wisdom will lead to suffering.” This Buddhist wisdom cuts right to the heart of life.  Yes, “thinking” or “reasoning” are Divine gifts but they are dangerous without some wisdom.  Let me put this in personal terms.  I have spent my life in the category of humans that W. H. Auden described as “logical lunatic..”  With this spiritual imbalance, I’ve had the illusion that I could “figger” things out with my mind.  This did not include the belief that I knew more than anyone else, that others were “stupid”, this was more of a personal matter.  I now realize that in the depths of my soul I had the illusion that with my mind I could “assess” most situations and know how to respond appropriately.  This stemmed from a hyper-vigilance attitude I took very early in life, having realized that I was born into a “crazy” reality that skewed reality to fit its own unquestioned premises.  With the intuition, and wisdom that comes with age, I realize that I made the conclusion that the pain that was my reality could be mitigated if I would pay close attention to what was going on and learn what the rules were.  Then, I could make sure that I was doing “the right thing” which simultaneously became “thinking” the right thing.  But I was keenly sensitive even then and realized that it was impossible to remember all the rules as the rules were always changing.  But, with that hypervigilance I must have assured myself that I was better off making the effort and could then at least lessen the blows (emotional/psychological) when they came. Thus my early life put me on a course of “seeing” and categorizing (diagnosing), life, eventually leading to a career in the social sciences…history and psychology…as I adopted the stance of Emily Dickinson, saying, “Life is over there, on a shelf.”  And, this has done me well in life…but certainly with a significant price as far as authenticity.

Just today I discovered the Buddhist wisdom displayed above and immediately had a light bulb turn on in my soul.  Somehow, this quality of “wisdom” is slowly sinking into my thick skull, allowing me to see…and feel…the limitations of rationality and understand even further that, “we see through a glass darkly”; my rational grasp of this world is limited.  This understanding is introducing me to my finitude and the humility that comes with it.  Wisdom is to realize that you might “know” a whole lot, but that bank of knowledge is always self-serving and thus destructive to self and others. And yes, as noted above, suffering is accompanying this wisdom.  To understand and “feel” finitude always brings one to his knees; there we have the opportunity to appreciate what one poet noted about this moment, that there we can, “glory, bow, and tremble” as we face the Otherness that we have avoided. If we don’t at least hunger for this wisdom, and realize that we will never “own” it, our thinking will produce great suffering, the pain of which is usually avoided with distractions, one of which is,“them.”

 

A “Coronavirus” Has Struck Our Political Heart

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The coronavirus has struck our nation’s political heart.  I here am alluding to news from China that the physician who first attempted to alert his country to the presence of that virus, Wi Linliang, a 34 year old opthamologist, has now died of that virus.  When he first attempted to sound the alarm, he was told to stop and was detained for “rumor mongering” which, according to the Washington Post, is what happens in China with any news that threatens the social order.  In an autocratic political regime, fear abounds and any information that might create unrest is quashed…even if that “unrest” might be a temporary necessity.  An autocratic regime, or mindset, is just a two year old ego on steroids.

Mitt Romney mustered up the courage to warn the Republican Party, and the nation, of the “virus” of certainty which has found a voice in the person of donald j. trump. The problem with certainty of this ilk is that it is so rigid, based upon internal frailty and vulnerability, that it cannot allow any contrary thought.  In the history of this blog, I have likened it unto a group who might think that the moon is made out of cheese; once its members have invested heart and soul into that belief, they cannot be dissuaded. Any outside perspective that might deign to “intrude” will be disallowed, castigated and even attacked in favor of unexamined premises and preconceptions, regardless of how foolish or insane they might appear to others. This is because these “unexamined” premises and preconceptions are merely a house of cards, lacking any firm foundation in the “bowels” of the heart.  The more this cauldron of reptilian brain energy is confronted, the greater will be the venom and opprobrium that will be offered in response.  It does not have to be “reasonable”; it just has to be teeming with the vim and vinegar of certainty which will always be validating to those who lack existential, i.e. “spiritual” grounding.  And now the speciousness, the vacuity of the American soul has found a mouthpiece in the person of “the donald” who is the veritable “toy of some great pain.” (Ranier Rilke)  This “pain” is the anguish which spiritual teachers, such as Jesus, offered “the balm of Gilead” but not in the form of a “rational” palliative, but one in the form of faith.  This faith, however, is more than a rational construct and obsessive devotion to dogma, but something that springs from the depths of the heart.  And you cannot “think” your way into that mysterious dimension of life that drives us all; “faith” begins to blossom when you tap into that “Mystery.”

I will never forget that Mitt Romney moment.  He is deeply conservative and deeply religious; but in that moment his religiosity reached deeper into his heart than his political affiliation.  Conservatism is a vital dimension of any body politic; my country’s conservative voice is deeply frightened and has resorted to an autocrat to find its footing.  There must be other “Mitt Romneys” who will dig into their heart and find that courage to speak up if our country is to get out of this “two-year old ego mania” that we are now witnessing.

Grace vs. “Creedal Religion”

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A POEM BY MAURA EICHNER

A bird in the hand
is not to be desired.
In writing, nothing
is too much trouble.
Culture is nourished, not
by fact, but by myth.
Continually think of those
who were truly great
who in their lives fought
for life, who wore
at their hearts, the fire’s
center. Feel the meanings
the words hide. Make routine
a stimulus. Remember
it can cease. Forge
hosannahs from doubt.
Hammer on doors with the heart.
All occasions invite God’s
mercies and all times
are his seasons.

Someone in my past noted so casually, “Our name is just a sound we learned to respond to.”  But that is an intrinsic feature of language, words are just sounds that we learn to associate with subjective experiences we are having.  “God” is one of these words, part of the verbal soup into which we are born and in which we swim and which eventually accrues meaning.  So often this word “God” is associated with a harsh, punitive notion who offers love only after slavish devotion and penitence, and rarely with one who offers unconditional love and grace.  The guilt and shame that is so intrinsic to the nature of human existence is so profound that it is hard to accept the simple grace of God when it is so much easier to accept the bondage of a guilt-ridden slavish devotion to creedal religion.

 

Knowledge is Capricious

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Daniel Boorstin, a noted American historian declared in his book, “The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself,” that, “More appealing than knowledge itself is the feeling of knowing.” Boorstin in this quote had gleaned from his study of history that the comfort of “the feeling of knowing” often, if not most of the time, would triumph over knowledge itself.  Throughout history we have records of cultures in which “the feeling of knowing” proved to lead to their demise while letting that “feeling” give way to some critical thinking could have allowed them to continue, though with a moderated view of reality.

It is comforting to feel that one knows, permitting one to “know” that one knows.  It is so comforting that human nature has hard-wired us to prefer “knowing that we know” in the interest of preserving our tribe.  But when the world grows so small…as we are now experiencing…then “knowing what we know” begins to compete with other tribes who “know that they know” with equal conviction. Then violent conflict ensues unless leadership is available which will direct us to tolerate the notion that diametrically opposing ideas of reality can co-exist. There is no need to attempt to obliterate “them” just because we see “them” as, “not knowing correctly.”

The core issue is the comfort of “feeling that we know” not understanding the wisdom of poet W. H. Auden who told us that, “feeling knows no discretion but its own.”  Auden knew that our view of the world is not a rational matter, but one whose origin lies beneath the surface in the murky realm of feelings, closely akin to the unconscious.  But to recognize this truth is to take away the certainty that we can have in believing our beliefs and discounting anything or anyone that threatens them.  Another word for this realm of feelings is the heart, that center of our being which is unlocked only when we are willing to forego the tyranny of rational thinking and permit the grace of a non-tyrannical rationality which is quickened with the intuitive wisdom of the heart.

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Here is a list of my blogs.  I invite you to check out the other two sometime.

https://anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com/

https://literarylew.wordpress.com/

https://theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com/

“Be Best,” Don’t Bully!”

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In clinical practice, I often had to deal with bullying, though mainly the more “mature” variety as seen with teen-agers.  Younger children, however, would occasionally present to a counselor in her office, plaintively asking, “Why don’t they like me?”  The counselor would first offer some reassurance and then begin to offer coaching on basic social deportment, how to behave in a less obnoxious manner, not rudely and intrusively.  The young bully who actually sought help of this sort, who could ask the question, “Why don’t they like me?” was demonstrating that he had the maturity to be aware of the problem and therefore was probably amenable to being helped.  The real problem lay with those children who could not imagine the possibility that there was anything wrong with their behavior and then lash out at those who appeared to not like him.

Self-awareness is an essential dimension to the bullying issue.  Most children who get to the playground age in public schools already have social antennae so that they are amenable to feedback from the social context in which they find themselves.  They even will feel a sense of shame if they breach the unwritten rules of the social contract and then amend their ways in an effort to fit in.  Some, however, will not have internalized a sense of healthy shame and will brazenly stomp on social convention and find themselves frequently in trouble with the principal and eventually in a residential treatment facility.  Some will not be amenable to the rules even then and will grow into adulthood and begin to “rock n roll” with their anti-social attitude and behavior until they find some conflict-habituated place in the social structure.  Some, perhaps, will even become successful businessmen and/or politicians and maybe even find themselves as the leader of their country.

This “self-awareness” is the gift of the neuro-cortex which gives us the Shakespearean, “pauser reason,” a filter with which we check our impulses.  For example, if one encounters a belligerent bully as an adult he will usually know that he cannot respond with bullying behavior without risking severe conflict.  This makes me think of an old Jim Croce tune from the 1970’s, “You don’t tug on superman’s cape/ You don’t spit into the wind/You don’t pull the mask of the old lone ranger,/And you don’t mess around with Jim.”  If you remember the famous tune, you recall that a man wandered into town who did not regard the admonishment, “You don’t mess around with Jim.”

Yes, I’m curious what is gonna happen this Tuesday in Singapore.

Emily Dickinson and the Imprisonment of Specious Truth

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The subject of truth continues to fascinate me with the term “fake news” becoming synonymous with any viewpoint that does not fit with ours.  Truth appears increasingly to be very relative with no real standard being applicable.  Oh sure, I’m a “relativist” myself but then I continue to believe in some basic standard of veracity which, should I breach it, I would evoke some sense of shame and an attempt to apologize.

But the wonderful 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson knew that it was possible for the human soul to select its constituent elements and fashion a private, “society” that would be, “proof and bulwark” (borrowing a term from Shakespeare) against truth.  She was a keen observer of the human situation in her day and noted how people tended to create a very private reality for themselves, congregate with like-minded souls, and then repel any contrary viewpoint.  Here is how she put it:

The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —

Note that Dickinson observed that after constructing this autistic shell of a world view, the individual would, “shut the door” and then assume a “Divine majority,” that is assuming a Divinity to which nothing could be “presented” any more.  She knew that at this point an individual had said, in the depths of his heart, “My mind is made up.  Don’t confuse me with facts.”

But often in this closed-minded world, Dickinson knew that Truth often visited and “kneeled at her low-gate,” bidding for admission.  But she had already pledged her troth to a particular viewpoint and “closed the valves of her attention like stone.”  The imagery of valves of attention, “closing like stone” is powerful, evoking an auditory image of the gates of attention clanging shut with finality.  When one has barricaded him/herself into a prison of specious certainty, and labeled it Truth, there is no way for those chariots that are always passing by to breach the force-field it faces.  The poison that results inside such a prison always makes me think of Westboro Baptist Church, David Koresh and his disciples, and Jim Jones and the Jonestown, South Africa disaster.

W. H. Auden offered relevant wisdom, “And Truth met him, and held out Her hand. And he clung in panic to his tall belief and shrank away like an ill-treated child.”

John Masefield Sonnet on Mystery of Life

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A centipede was happy – quite!
Until a toad in fun
Said, “Pray, which leg moves after which?”
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.

This witty and insightful little poem has amused me for nearly three decades, helping me to maintain caution given a tendency myself to overthink. But this “thoughtfulness,” combined with deep-rooted passion is what has produced poetry of the sort found here in a John Masefield sonnet, showing it can have value! (My commentary below is in italics.)

What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt
Held in cohesion by unresting cells,
Which work they know not why, which never halt,
Myself unwitting where their Master dwells.
I do not bid them, yet they toil, they spin;
A world which uses me as I use them,
Nor do I know which end or which begin
Nor which to praise, which pamper, which condemn.

The “unresting cells” are seen to both drive mankind on, to use us even while simultaneously giving us agency to “use them.” Modern science was captivating this young poet. When only 13 years of age, his guardian aunt sent him to sea to break an “addiction” to reading. Thus her “cells” were using her to introduce him to a major dimension of his literary opus, the sea.

So, like a marvel in a marvel set,
I answer to the vast, as wave by wave
The sea of air goes over, dry or wet,
Or the full moon comes swimming from her cave,
Or the great sun comes north, this myriad I
Tingles, not knowing how, yet wondering why.

“Like a marvel in a marvel set” made me think of a line from W. H. Auden poetry in which he described life as “a process in a process, in a field that never closes.” Masefield did not see life as static as his ancestors certainly had. The “tingling” of his “I” made me think of what Kierkegaard described as the “giddiness of freedom” which others have described as simple existential anxiety. Human awareness, “not knowing how, yet wondering why” will introduce one to giddiness.
 

The Intoxication of Lunacy!

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Colorado has a group of people who are apparently serious about the notion of a flat earth.  When I started reading this I suspected it was a spoof but the more I read I realize that these people are serious.  They really do believe the earth is flat and they have “proof” that this notion is valid!  )  I have often in my “career” as a blogger used the flat earth notion to illustrate complete lunacy, a private world view for people who have lost contact with reality and created their own little imaginary world which, at the extreme, is collective psychosis.  Ideas can carry us away and because of their intoxicating effect on our mind-set we can lose all critical capacity, believing our pet “idea” even when all evidence suggests it is self-delusion. (See Denver Post story at following link:  (http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/07/colorado-earth-flat-gravity-hoax/)

I have my own personal spoof of this lunacy in which I facetiously and sarcastically postulate a world in which “the moon is made out of cheese.” Yes, suppose during the night I am the victim of a neurological convulsion in my brain and awakened the next morning to know, with great passion, that “the moon is made out of cheese.”  If this should happen, I might take this very seriously and suddenly realize that it is the truth, that the darkness I’ve lived in has finally lifted, and I see clearly that, yes, “the moon is made out of cheese.”  Furthermore, some friends might try to intervene and set me straight but they would make no progress because, “when you know the truth, you just kinda know the truth” and no one is going to dissuade you.  Of course, finding truth always requires that others be convinced so I would start evangelizing and before long I would have a congregation of like-minded souls and we would then have the solace of validation, a solace which would be enhanced by the realization that only we saw the truth and that any “truth” is always rejected by those who are enlightened.  This insight would give us the comfort of borrowing a theme from fundamentalists of every stripe and sadly and piously understand that “we are being persecuted for His sake.”

I am here addressing one of my pet themes, best described as a toxic version of group-think, a private referential system in which validation is found only in those who have found our view of the world amenable to theirs.  When this toxicity infects any idea, ideas which might otherwise have value to others is immediately rejected by these “others” as they have no meaning to them whatsoever.  The resulting ideology, a passionate belief system that has become delusional becomes a private prison guaranteed to repel anyone who looks on from the outside.  But the rejection itself is perversely rewarding as it leaves the “true believers” with the smug satisfaction of owning “truth” which only they have apprehended.  What has happened is that very unhappy people have crafted a belief system which isolates them even further than they were to begin with and they slowly die from the suffocation that always comes from what Paul Tillich called “an empty world of self-relatedness.”  Emily Dickinson described it as “a mind too near itself to see distinctly.”

In my clinical career this phenomena was known as “insanity,” succinctly capsulized in a clinical bromide, “Mental illness is a reference problem.”  The individual who is completely mad…and we are all mad to some degree…has cut himself off from all external reference and finds great comfort in his delusional system.  For the intoxication of self-delusion resists any sobering-up that critical thinking would afford. It is easy for an out-sider, i.e. a non-believer, to quickly isolate the premise of a delusional system but just dare try to challenge that premises and you will meet great resistance.  For this “premise” represents an emotional investment the person/persons have made which cannot be relinquished without great pain.  Hypothetically, if one could reach into the heart of these people and surgically extirpate the premise, one would witness a complete melt-down.  For this premise is an existential anchor which holds its victims prisoners in a fortress from which they dare not escape.

I conclude with, still again, my favorite bumper-sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.”

A Prophetic Word from the NYT

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I love Bill Maher and especially his emphasis of the “imaginary friend” of Christians.  I completely get and understand his point.  But I think there is a way in which Jesus must be our “imaginary friend” if He is to have any value to us, value other than mere rhetorical, dogmatic escapism.  Here is a link to an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday in which Nicholas Kristof used his imagination to apply the teachings of Jesus to the darkness that currently abounds in Washington D.C.  I don’t know anything about Kristof’s religious affiliation, and don’t care, but he took the teachings of Jesus and applied them to what is underway in our government and, in doing so, offered a prophetic word to a country that needs one.

Trump Inauguration is Upon Us!

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The inauguration of Trump this week, and the multitude of problems that are already attending his presence on the stage has me really alarmed.  And the greatest concern I have is his supporters who have chosen to be oblivious to his mental instability and lament re people like myself, “Why don’t you just stop being “sour grapes” and get behind our new President”.  Some of them even have the audacity to then describe him as “elected fair and square,” completely disregarding the overt chicanery that went into getting him elected.  Ordinarily, “sour grapes” would be a legitimate complaint and I always do feel it myself when my “pony in the race” loses.  But his supporters have overlooked their own recent contempt of Trump and recognition of his mental instabiliand expect the rest of the country…and world…to do the same.  Now all of us are “conflicted” as in having a few “bats in the belfry” and that is certainly true for myself.  But Donald Trump has given us so much insight into his flawed psyche that it is apparent to anyone willing to be honest with himself that he is seriously mentally ill.

Last weekend Saturday Night Live skewered Trump on life television again.  It sunk in on me that they are humiliating him as are most of the other comedians and that is so easy to do as he is such an humiliation to my country and to the world.  We are being laughed at and should be.  But what I realized as I watched the comedy sketch is that the ridicule only exacerbates the problem as his supporters who even catch a glimpse of the ridicule will then feel ridiculed and humiliated themselves making it even more unlikely that they will lessen their support for him.  For, when facing ridicule and humiliation, it is human nature to defend himself rigorously, staunchly defending what to others is his lunacy as the pain of humiliation, of being “wrong” is more than the ego can bear.  Yes, have been there, done that!  Trump’s absurd refusal to acknowledge that he has made a mistake, to utter the words “I was wrong” reflects why he is the choice of so many people in the country who, I allege, cannot acknowledge themselves being wrong in critical dimensions of their life.  And, it is no accident that early in the campaign Trump, even as he vied for evangelical Christian creds, admitted that he had never felt the need to ask God for forgiveness.  His shame base is so intense that on that note he flunked the “Christian test” as he has consistently done…though evangelical leaders have continued to fawn over him and evangelical Christians have lined up behind him religiously.

I’m not for sure what ridicule accomplishes other than exacerbating the cultural divide that is now so apparent.  It makes people like me appear contemptuous and arrogant.  And anyone with my latent insecurity certainly is not free of those qualities.  But what can one do?  Write a meaningless blog post like this and “piss into the wind.”?  Well, that is better than reasoning with Trump or his supporters as “reason” has nothing to do with this matter and at least tossing this blather into the cyber void gets it somewhat off my chest.  Why in the hell can’t people just set down and be reasonable like myself?  Chuckle, chuckle!  Once again, this is not about reason.  Perhaps that is something we could realize from this mess, that there is a dimension of human experience that is beyond the grasp of mere reason.  However, those who most need to learn this are the least likely to know and experience it.  It would be too scary to experience and it is easier for them to scream their platitudes and certainties a little louder and blame Obama or “them” a little more.

(Here is the link to an hilarious spoof of Trump’s inauguration.  https://qz.com/885900/saturday-night-live-the-last-snl-before-trumps-inauguration-of-course-featured-alec-baldwin-in-the-cold-open/)