At the 3/4s point in a too-long SAT preparation course (for the SAT college entrance exam), I'm learning about teenagers and how to score better on standardized tests. Working with the kids is, well, odd more than anything else. Probably as strange for them as it is for me. (In teenage language, that "strange" translates to "boring", I'm sure.) But some things stand out more clearly, more detailed. They're getting better at the test, and I'm reminded about developing formal conceptual abilities. Some of the details about transitioning between the developmental levels of Understanding and Appreciation are standing out more clearly to me.
Wistelligence
Monday, January 28, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Liberation, Not Levels
Kristin told me recently that a mutual friend said, "Wow, he's really into levels, isn't he?" Not at all. Liberation is different than freedom. Existential freedom is like the basis or firmament of living. Awareness is freedom. Liberation, though, is a privilege. Rather than being the basis of life, it is something we might grow into, something we may develop in our awareness, something we might continually return to until it becomes consistent with our experience of life.
In this sense, "freedom" may be something fairly ephemeral concerning individual awareness of freedom. It's hard to grasp what can be meant by saying that freedom is the basis of living or life, and that's an arguable perspective when it's formed into concepts. I'm not much interested in talking about freedom. But liberation is something we can grasp, something we feel very distinctly, something anyone can be aware of. Liberation is something like the movement into and with freedom. What is it like to move into freedom or openness? It sometimes feels like being released, sometimes feels like grace.
Another way of coming at it is to say that there is no way to or need to structure freedom. It's already ready already. "It's in there"--Prego. You don't add freedom. But, depending on where we're coming from at any given moment, we may want to devise a way out of delusion, dissatisfaction, suffering, greed, animosity, victimization, shame, pressure, etc. If you're already feeling graceful in this moment, good for you--you're moving with/in freedom. If you're not, there's some way to open mind, some way to liberate the individual experience of this moment.
The levels I talk about are one way of bringing vichara, self inquiry, into one's ideation. Ramana Maharshi suggested a simple type of self inquiry. Like freedom, because it is simple, it applies to almost anyone or to anyone. But--also like freedom--direct self inquiry can be hard to grasp for some of us. So Maharshi went as far as to recommend belief in God for folks who could not feel or grasp or utilize self inquiry directly and tangibly. These are the ways he structured and spoke about liberation.
While I have great respect for Ramana Maharshi, I believe it can be helpful to have a general structure that fits this time period, that begins in people's lived experience of society as we know it. That is why I believe it is worth making the relationship between self identity and globalization explicit. It's an interesting tension that influences most people of our time period directly or more indirectly. But beyond the benefits that one can come to by recognizing this tension and dealing with it consciously and intentionally, there is the "fourth level" or ubiquitous possibility of not being identified with or feeling locked into this tension.
My own manner of structuring the relationship between self-identity and liberation is to make explicit the growing awareness and tension between self(jiva)-identity and globalization, but then to also recognize, state, and (often) feel that freedom is within or contiguous with all the identification, thinking, and the rest of our personal activity. Why all this extra structure? Well, realizing Self or freedom may be fine and good, but it can also be helpful in dealing with one another to be aware of many ways of moving into a sense of freedom, many ways of experiencing liberation from over-identification.
If one can follow the question, "Who is asking/doing/being?" through to the end/beginning, talk about levels is optional and may be superfluous. If one feels the need for some tangible sense of progress towards freedom, then any method of structuring or feeling liberation is just fine. It's mostly a question of what works. If you can state and feel what works, you can easily recognize that it is possible to ask whether it is important to work. "Who is the doer?" It's possible to be free in doing and in doing non-doing. Beyond or within a distinction between levels or a distinction between liberation and freedom, something lives right now. What is that? It's as prosaic and straightforward as, "Good morning to you, too. Have a nice day."
In this sense, "freedom" may be something fairly ephemeral concerning individual awareness of freedom. It's hard to grasp what can be meant by saying that freedom is the basis of living or life, and that's an arguable perspective when it's formed into concepts. I'm not much interested in talking about freedom. But liberation is something we can grasp, something we feel very distinctly, something anyone can be aware of. Liberation is something like the movement into and with freedom. What is it like to move into freedom or openness? It sometimes feels like being released, sometimes feels like grace.
Another way of coming at it is to say that there is no way to or need to structure freedom. It's already ready already. "It's in there"--Prego. You don't add freedom. But, depending on where we're coming from at any given moment, we may want to devise a way out of delusion, dissatisfaction, suffering, greed, animosity, victimization, shame, pressure, etc. If you're already feeling graceful in this moment, good for you--you're moving with/in freedom. If you're not, there's some way to open mind, some way to liberate the individual experience of this moment.
The levels I talk about are one way of bringing vichara, self inquiry, into one's ideation. Ramana Maharshi suggested a simple type of self inquiry. Like freedom, because it is simple, it applies to almost anyone or to anyone. But--also like freedom--direct self inquiry can be hard to grasp for some of us. So Maharshi went as far as to recommend belief in God for folks who could not feel or grasp or utilize self inquiry directly and tangibly. These are the ways he structured and spoke about liberation.
While I have great respect for Ramana Maharshi, I believe it can be helpful to have a general structure that fits this time period, that begins in people's lived experience of society as we know it. That is why I believe it is worth making the relationship between self identity and globalization explicit. It's an interesting tension that influences most people of our time period directly or more indirectly. But beyond the benefits that one can come to by recognizing this tension and dealing with it consciously and intentionally, there is the "fourth level" or ubiquitous possibility of not being identified with or feeling locked into this tension.
My own manner of structuring the relationship between self-identity and liberation is to make explicit the growing awareness and tension between self(jiva)-identity and globalization, but then to also recognize, state, and (often) feel that freedom is within or contiguous with all the identification, thinking, and the rest of our personal activity. Why all this extra structure? Well, realizing Self or freedom may be fine and good, but it can also be helpful in dealing with one another to be aware of many ways of moving into a sense of freedom, many ways of experiencing liberation from over-identification.
If one can follow the question, "Who is asking/doing/being?" through to the end/beginning, talk about levels is optional and may be superfluous. If one feels the need for some tangible sense of progress towards freedom, then any method of structuring or feeling liberation is just fine. It's mostly a question of what works. If you can state and feel what works, you can easily recognize that it is possible to ask whether it is important to work. "Who is the doer?" It's possible to be free in doing and in doing non-doing. Beyond or within a distinction between levels or a distinction between liberation and freedom, something lives right now. What is that? It's as prosaic and straightforward as, "Good morning to you, too. Have a nice day."
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Emotions--What's Love Got to Do, Got to Do With It?
A friend of mine recently asked, "So what about love, then?" What's not to know, right? To me, being uncertain about a basic emotion like love is similar to being uncertain about a basic emotion like rage. In a moment of full-blown intensity, most people aren't acting all that rationally, and the uncertainty doesn't come up. Some people say, if you're in love, then you know it--there's nothing to ask. Ahh, to be young and foolish again (and again, and again...)
In response, I wonder, "Do I want these passionate states directing my life?" If the answer is an unequivocal yes, then, there is nothing further to wonder about; do your thing. If the answer is equivocal, it may make more sense to look at HOW to answer/respond/live well than to come up with some conclusive sort of answer that is ultimately unsatisfying. I certainly want passion to be a driving force in my life, but I'm not sure I want passion alone steering.
Nonattachment allows all things, allowing each thing to be as it is. The New Testament, 1Cor. 13:4-7 says, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
In my own words, I'd say that it is difficult to hold onto a clear sense of what one wants if we do not include some feeling of connection to what I've called fourth level self-identity (what many people have referred to as religion or spirituality). It's good to have some of these Biblical sorts of reference points that feel like they are bigger in some way than my current desires and deliberations. Before I was around, Paul the propagandist--call him a saint or not--was writing on these topics that people have considered since the beginning of time. Dramatists have made much of the difficulties involved in love from Oedipus Rex to Romeo and Juliet to Grosse Point Blank and beyond.
So there is this tension between what we feel in our bodies and "hearts" and genitals (first level), what we live in our daily lives as adult citizens and perhaps professionals (second level), how we see ourselves as global citizens at this point in time (third level), and what we deem to be worthy spiritual aspirations and experience (fourth level). When we are muddled on how our take on these various levels can integrate, our choices feel confused and the results seem random. Even in the best of circumstances, everything constantly changes.
This is where, beyond a personal appreciation for passion and love, beyond how all of this influences my professional and civic roles, beyond how I'm influenced by our time period in history and our global ecology, and beyond or within what I believe in and experience as spiritual, RIGHT NOW COUNTS. Regardless of what I know and regardless of what I don't know, life is happening. What do I have to say on love?
1. Love. Yes, do it, it's who we are.
2. Be aware that everything we do affects our reputation and situation. Be smart and act well. Deceit and jealousy always bring a heavy cost. Sometimes honesty and openness do too.
3. Times change. We can learn from history but not relive it. Every moment is new. Feel the newness whether you remain with someone, remain with no one, or change the people you are with as you go.
4. Find the space within your heart for freedom within relationship and beyond or through relationships. When we find clarity and balance, they are never something separate, they aren't add-ons.
Paul said love believes all things; what does your heart believe? Ramana Maharshi said that the intellect is only helpful so far as to make one sink the intellect into the ego, the ego into the Self; what is there? Ghalib wrote, "The drop grows happy by losing itself in the river./ A pain when beyond human range becomes something else." And Chogyam Trungpa said that wisdom is, being given a hint, we spontaneously pick it up. What is your truth?
In response, I wonder, "Do I want these passionate states directing my life?" If the answer is an unequivocal yes, then, there is nothing further to wonder about; do your thing. If the answer is equivocal, it may make more sense to look at HOW to answer/respond/live well than to come up with some conclusive sort of answer that is ultimately unsatisfying. I certainly want passion to be a driving force in my life, but I'm not sure I want passion alone steering.
Nonattachment allows all things, allowing each thing to be as it is. The New Testament, 1Cor. 13:4-7 says, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
In my own words, I'd say that it is difficult to hold onto a clear sense of what one wants if we do not include some feeling of connection to what I've called fourth level self-identity (what many people have referred to as religion or spirituality). It's good to have some of these Biblical sorts of reference points that feel like they are bigger in some way than my current desires and deliberations. Before I was around, Paul the propagandist--call him a saint or not--was writing on these topics that people have considered since the beginning of time. Dramatists have made much of the difficulties involved in love from Oedipus Rex to Romeo and Juliet to Grosse Point Blank and beyond.
So there is this tension between what we feel in our bodies and "hearts" and genitals (first level), what we live in our daily lives as adult citizens and perhaps professionals (second level), how we see ourselves as global citizens at this point in time (third level), and what we deem to be worthy spiritual aspirations and experience (fourth level). When we are muddled on how our take on these various levels can integrate, our choices feel confused and the results seem random. Even in the best of circumstances, everything constantly changes.
This is where, beyond a personal appreciation for passion and love, beyond how all of this influences my professional and civic roles, beyond how I'm influenced by our time period in history and our global ecology, and beyond or within what I believe in and experience as spiritual, RIGHT NOW COUNTS. Regardless of what I know and regardless of what I don't know, life is happening. What do I have to say on love?
1. Love. Yes, do it, it's who we are.
2. Be aware that everything we do affects our reputation and situation. Be smart and act well. Deceit and jealousy always bring a heavy cost. Sometimes honesty and openness do too.
3. Times change. We can learn from history but not relive it. Every moment is new. Feel the newness whether you remain with someone, remain with no one, or change the people you are with as you go.
4. Find the space within your heart for freedom within relationship and beyond or through relationships. When we find clarity and balance, they are never something separate, they aren't add-ons.
Paul said love believes all things; what does your heart believe? Ramana Maharshi said that the intellect is only helpful so far as to make one sink the intellect into the ego, the ego into the Self; what is there? Ghalib wrote, "The drop grows happy by losing itself in the river./ A pain when beyond human range becomes something else." And Chogyam Trungpa said that wisdom is, being given a hint, we spontaneously pick it up. What is your truth?
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