When I was finishing my master's program in counseling psychology, I was shocked at how few therapists felt solid with their ability to address traumatization. The state and nonprofit agencies that hire counseling and social work masters tend to focus on addictions and family treatments. These lend themselves to operational systematization to some extent. But even though we were encouraged to choose--drugs or families--it seemed to me that traumatization was fundamental to both types of problems as well as depression and anxiety (the most common complaints seen at outpatient clinics). While interning at the local Veteran's Administration hospital, I asked my supervisor what percentage of therapists he'd guess were capable of addressing trauma. He estimated 1:7.
Wow. An entire field devoted to the study of human psychology yet avoidant (the other 6:7) of the most basic problem in human psychology. What's more, as inexperienced interns, most of us were thrown into crisis situations we were not prepared for--situations that were difficult enough that our elders in the field generally avoided whenever they could. They didn't teach much crisis management in our program because that was just case management--social work--not insight therapy per se. Clients in crisis were deemed not appropriate for insight therapy (because they were struggling with intense day-to-days). What's more, many clients were deemed "resistant" to conversation about feelings when they tried to insist on addressing more external issues like paying the rent and coming up with enough gas money to get their kids to school. Inappropriate and resistant because of crisis.
Anyway, it seems helpful to me to see a few different stages in therapy and recognize psychological responses that seem appropriate to the varying situations. The stage that is often most intense and potentially harmful is crisis management. This occurs when people are concerned about making it through the night, through the weekend, through the next encounter with their spouse. When I'm in crisis mode, it's back-to-the-wall time. You're basically in a fragile situation where desperate times may call for desperate measures. Desperate thinking in these situations may not be most helpful, but it is certainly normal. Crises can make people feel crazy or fragmented even though they aren't necessarily crazy. Crisis management was most lacking in my education and traumatization during crises often results when they are not handled well. (Our field has struggled to come up with an agreed-upon definition of "resilience" partially due to not differentiating some of these stages and psychological responses clearly.) If you survive crisis, that is all that can really be expected. Insight therapy is generally inappropriate to crises.
At the next stage, we are dealing with case management--making sure that the physical needs can be met on a regular basis. So in crisis management, you may be trying to find some place to sleep tonight. With case management, you are looking for finding a place to sleep on a consistent basis. Desperation is not called for at this point (but can result from unrealistic expectations or prior traumatization). This is part of where Americans are generally spoiled rather than tough. We think of these situations as crises when they are not. Durability is called for, mental toughness, grit, persistence, whatever you want to call it. This grit is the same thing that many therapists consider to be resistance in insight therapy. Low income-clients (myself included in this economic class) are often deemed inappropriate or resistant because they tend to be insistent that what they need more than a focus on their emotional state is a consistent job, place to live, source of income and therefore food, etc. Farmers and blue-collar workers need to make grit part of their personalities, something they bring to work every day, and it is inappropriate to consider that grit to be inappropriately resistant or antisocial. At this stage, we are not even dealing with emotional resilience yet. We are hammering in mental toughness, tempering one's will and character for difficulty.
Between these two stages, we begin to differentiate between definitions of resilience. One common definition focuses on the ability to handle adversity without being traumatized. Another common definition focuses on the ability to handle adversity and come out stronger, better, healthy, whole, etc. Because this differentiation already exists, I'll call the first durability and the second resilience. By this definition of resilience, there is a certain "spring" to one's emotional response, a healthy tension and room for healthy shifts in emotions as one's situation changes. This is different from--but may coincide with--a consistent toughness that may have little "spring" to it. Some people are tough but not optimistic, and I'll call them durable; they may or may not be "resilient" as it is often meant in psychology circles. We can see where an attitude of opportunism may look like resilience from one angle and it may look like idealism from a more "realistic" angle, depending on circumstances. Looking for opportunity often goes with a positive affective tone, so opportunism may be mistaken for resilience, and a lack of opportunism may be mistaken for "resistance" or lack of resilience. Generally, then, opportunism and apparent resilience will correlate, but caution should not be mistaken for a lack of resilience.
Beyond case management, once clients are in a stable economic and relatively stable emotional setting, we can start talking about therapy with a focus on insight. There is a shift away from survival and continuity towards optimization of experience. Many therapists would like to ignore the first two stages, and while it is fine for many to focus on insight therapy, it would be helpful to interns and clients in case management or crisis management situation for those in the field to learn the whole continuum. With insight therapy, we're mostly focused on sensitization of emotional awareness, reducing reactivity, improving communications and connection, and enriching experience. Mindfulness will be helpful for achieving some of these goals, but most clients do not take up consistent meditation at this point.
When we speak of optimization of psychological experience, regardless of whether one is more internally or externally focused, we are talking about moving from competence to expertise in being able to structure one's life and psyche so as to achieve consistent flow. Affluence and professional expertise help set the context for optimization, but adversity will also bring out the best in some individuals. This is another class that helps define another unique definition of resilience. There are a rare number of individuals who are something like "adversity superstars". These folks need more pressure than most to perform at their peak. We recognize them when they grow up in, or find for themselves, situations that are demanding enough to draw out their best. They are analogous to athletes who perform best in the big games in that they may do very well under great duress; they may also be under-stimulated and perform poorly without it.
But other than the adversity superstars, most of us will look our best (feel it too) within a supportive context. We will want enough challenge but not too much. And besides challenge, we will mostly look for physical, emotional, and social comfort. The right physical and social situations will support that pursuit of optimization or flow. (And flow is the general point of most of the rest of this blog.)
So rather than having some definition of resilience that lacks contextualization, we can say that there are different types of contexts that make wildly varying psychological responses "reasonable". At worst, it is a do-whatever-it-takes mentality during crises; this can look crazy to outsiders. Up one step, durability can look like stubborness, cynicism, antisocial behavior, and an avoidance of emotionality. It is--evolutionarily--a luxury to get to the point of economic and emotional stability and resilience. And beyond that, optimization of experience takes a different type of expertise than simple emotional awareness and normal communicational effectiveness. Trying to introduce emotional resilience in a crisis may not be effective, just as trying to introduce optimization to a couple that just wants to be able to communicate with one another may not take hold.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Going Clear
In his book THE WISDOM PARADOX, Elkhonon Goldberg states that sometimes you have to make things more complicated before finding the simple way through, before finding the inherent simplicity. For me, life has been about finding some simple, apparently irreducible something. And while Joseph Campbell talked about "following your bliss", i would say I have more followed my silence.
Life, people, and all the confused motivational stirrings have tended to strike me as unnecessarily noisy. Psychologically, and socially, people most often strike me as murky. And experiencing one's critique of life, people, oneself as primarily aesthetic, ethics and any moral sort of high ground have seemed less unreachable and more irrelevant to me. When one looks for simplicity, the complications that come from acting unethically most often make those options seem about as palatable as eating your own refuse, which is essentially what is happening in such a case. Many people feel like they get strong by feeding themselves on their own shit, and they do in a certain way, but it also maintains unhappiness...seemingly categorically. Consumerism of planned obsolescent "goods" is an obvious example of eating our own shit; for a while, we had the strongest economy that could be built on shit and we are starting to face the effects. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
In this interest of finding silence or simplicity, meditation once seemed like a fruitful path. After years of studying all kinds of methods, techniques, and research, I have found myself wanting to divest myself of the excess cultural baggage that can come along with the pursuit of meditation, silence, simplicity, personal peacefulness. I think it is possible, and perhaps valuable for someone else as well, to strip away the majority of accoutrements. The medium is the message. It looks to me that there are two ideas that are helpful and necessary in finding clarity. Everyone's path, and therefore method, of finding clarity is unique; whatever anyone might do with clarity is also unique. Having too much extra baggage seems to only slow us down in getting there.
The first idea is that meditation is the willingness to return. No one can tell you what it is a willingness to return to and have the telling be an actual return. So if you think of meditation as balance, you can always ask yourself what would return you to balance. Sometimes rest returns me to balance, sometimes humor, etc. When we get used to the idea that it can be almost anything, depending on the situation and our current state of mind, we can begin to look for what that thing is in any given moment. And of course, we can learn from and share with others. (Sometimes communion is what returns me to balance.)
The second idea is one that describes balance. I find that it is helpful to think of six points, each one connected to one other, making a sort of line. The front/back directions/line involve whatever might be seen/felt as going forward or going back. So one part of balance involves moving forward enough, moving back enough, and being able to be still enough. When we're off-balance forward, we're too aggressive or needy of something. When we're off-balance backward, we're fearful or depressed, feeling victimized rather than competent. The second pair of points involves the up/down directional. At the base lies play and creativity, abiding consciousness is at the top, and there is a full range in between. Many theorists, teachers, and systems have presented this sort of spectrum. When, in any given moment, I'm responding from too low on the spectrum, I will be missing the big picture in some way, acting too immaturely or too impulsively or too bluntly. When I'm responding from too high, I'll seem to be stretching, seem preachy, come across as too conceptual or irrelevant by showing up with something that may be subtle but not effective. And the left/right points involve tight focus (like self-focus) or open awareness. When I'm too focused on one thing, I'll have trouble appreciating the overall situation. When I'm too focused on many things, I'll be distracted and uncertain, finding it hard to make decisions that seem to work.
The actual "point" of psychological balance is so small it isn't there; it's precise as a needle that reaches a point of nothingness. Because my mind and my situation always move, the point is always somewhere but never fixed. The more I intend to find that point and move to as well as "from" that point rather than something noisier or murkier, the more affinity or resonance I have with it, the more balanced I feel and act. When I am willing to do what it takes to return, whether I am moving or relatively still, the more I feel balanced, the more life seems clear, the more meditation seems to arise on its own. I stop feeding the imbalance that feeds on itself.
Two ideas. Balance and the willingness to return to balance.
Life, people, and all the confused motivational stirrings have tended to strike me as unnecessarily noisy. Psychologically, and socially, people most often strike me as murky. And experiencing one's critique of life, people, oneself as primarily aesthetic, ethics and any moral sort of high ground have seemed less unreachable and more irrelevant to me. When one looks for simplicity, the complications that come from acting unethically most often make those options seem about as palatable as eating your own refuse, which is essentially what is happening in such a case. Many people feel like they get strong by feeding themselves on their own shit, and they do in a certain way, but it also maintains unhappiness...seemingly categorically. Consumerism of planned obsolescent "goods" is an obvious example of eating our own shit; for a while, we had the strongest economy that could be built on shit and we are starting to face the effects. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
In this interest of finding silence or simplicity, meditation once seemed like a fruitful path. After years of studying all kinds of methods, techniques, and research, I have found myself wanting to divest myself of the excess cultural baggage that can come along with the pursuit of meditation, silence, simplicity, personal peacefulness. I think it is possible, and perhaps valuable for someone else as well, to strip away the majority of accoutrements. The medium is the message. It looks to me that there are two ideas that are helpful and necessary in finding clarity. Everyone's path, and therefore method, of finding clarity is unique; whatever anyone might do with clarity is also unique. Having too much extra baggage seems to only slow us down in getting there.
The first idea is that meditation is the willingness to return. No one can tell you what it is a willingness to return to and have the telling be an actual return. So if you think of meditation as balance, you can always ask yourself what would return you to balance. Sometimes rest returns me to balance, sometimes humor, etc. When we get used to the idea that it can be almost anything, depending on the situation and our current state of mind, we can begin to look for what that thing is in any given moment. And of course, we can learn from and share with others. (Sometimes communion is what returns me to balance.)
The second idea is one that describes balance. I find that it is helpful to think of six points, each one connected to one other, making a sort of line. The front/back directions/line involve whatever might be seen/felt as going forward or going back. So one part of balance involves moving forward enough, moving back enough, and being able to be still enough. When we're off-balance forward, we're too aggressive or needy of something. When we're off-balance backward, we're fearful or depressed, feeling victimized rather than competent. The second pair of points involves the up/down directional. At the base lies play and creativity, abiding consciousness is at the top, and there is a full range in between. Many theorists, teachers, and systems have presented this sort of spectrum. When, in any given moment, I'm responding from too low on the spectrum, I will be missing the big picture in some way, acting too immaturely or too impulsively or too bluntly. When I'm responding from too high, I'll seem to be stretching, seem preachy, come across as too conceptual or irrelevant by showing up with something that may be subtle but not effective. And the left/right points involve tight focus (like self-focus) or open awareness. When I'm too focused on one thing, I'll have trouble appreciating the overall situation. When I'm too focused on many things, I'll be distracted and uncertain, finding it hard to make decisions that seem to work.
The actual "point" of psychological balance is so small it isn't there; it's precise as a needle that reaches a point of nothingness. Because my mind and my situation always move, the point is always somewhere but never fixed. The more I intend to find that point and move to as well as "from" that point rather than something noisier or murkier, the more affinity or resonance I have with it, the more balanced I feel and act. When I am willing to do what it takes to return, whether I am moving or relatively still, the more I feel balanced, the more life seems clear, the more meditation seems to arise on its own. I stop feeding the imbalance that feeds on itself.
Two ideas. Balance and the willingness to return to balance.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Koans and the Matrix
In continuing to work on descriptions of balance and Clarity, an interesting thought experiment developed in an imagined conversation. Also playing in was a koan that I've carried around for a few years. With koans like this one, the ones that have struck a chord without bringing any more particular response from me, I have often circled around them, coming to different interpretations and points of insight. The more you get to know certain koans, the more you get out of them.
The one I'm speaking of struck me as fairly brief, as if there were one point to it, although that single point seems to mean different things depending on how you relate to it. "Standing at the top of a hundred-foot pole, what is your next step?" It is something like that. In relation to trying to describe six points of psychological balance, my next conceptual step with this koan is to remove the pole. This sort of process is like following the trajectory of an arrow. First there is a hundred-foot pole and the impossibility of taking a next step. Then there is no pole. Next, no you. So no one, and what's more, standing at the top of nothing.
This begs the question, is there a next step? (And I'm assuming that, if you could actually focus in on the koan enough to include only the pole, the hundred feet, and your next step, then the world around your predicament is already out of focus enough to consider it so insignificant that it was already as if the world wasn't there back when you were facing the dilemma of which next step to take. And, since there are lots of ways to relate to this koan, feel free to pick it up and see what happens for you that might be different than this description from me.)
Everything that you could possibly bring up around/within this spaciousness is your associational matrix. Being able to return to or rest in this spaciousness is what I would consider to be the quintessential experience at the level of Clarity. Being unencumbered by anything and yet taking some step gives rise to the feelings of inspiration and engagement. There being no need for "you" here opens one's self to the experience/reality of anatta. And this place or point may help one see what Dogen might have meant at times by "thinking nonthinking" or imagining nonimagining. Everything other than this spaciousness involves imagining, and imagining this spaciousness without adding more content from one's associational matrix is imagining nonimagining.
From right here where nothing is excluded a priori because no a priori thinking exists here, what step is not possible? While that question may be interesting in some way, the full-bodied answer to, "What is your next step?," is so much more fascinating. While we don't always think of this sort of spaciousness, it is as if this question is constantly posed and as if everything we do is our answer. Whether you ask yourself the question or not, we are watching and interacting with how you answer. Because everything comes "through" this no-self spaciousness, nothing that any of us do is not our true selves.
There is one single quality-feeling that encompasses all of what is written here, and that quality is exemplary of Clarity, included in inspiration. (With whom was the conversation that sparked this in me?)
The one I'm speaking of struck me as fairly brief, as if there were one point to it, although that single point seems to mean different things depending on how you relate to it. "Standing at the top of a hundred-foot pole, what is your next step?" It is something like that. In relation to trying to describe six points of psychological balance, my next conceptual step with this koan is to remove the pole. This sort of process is like following the trajectory of an arrow. First there is a hundred-foot pole and the impossibility of taking a next step. Then there is no pole. Next, no you. So no one, and what's more, standing at the top of nothing.
This begs the question, is there a next step? (And I'm assuming that, if you could actually focus in on the koan enough to include only the pole, the hundred feet, and your next step, then the world around your predicament is already out of focus enough to consider it so insignificant that it was already as if the world wasn't there back when you were facing the dilemma of which next step to take. And, since there are lots of ways to relate to this koan, feel free to pick it up and see what happens for you that might be different than this description from me.)
Everything that you could possibly bring up around/within this spaciousness is your associational matrix. Being able to return to or rest in this spaciousness is what I would consider to be the quintessential experience at the level of Clarity. Being unencumbered by anything and yet taking some step gives rise to the feelings of inspiration and engagement. There being no need for "you" here opens one's self to the experience/reality of anatta. And this place or point may help one see what Dogen might have meant at times by "thinking nonthinking" or imagining nonimagining. Everything other than this spaciousness involves imagining, and imagining this spaciousness without adding more content from one's associational matrix is imagining nonimagining.
From right here where nothing is excluded a priori because no a priori thinking exists here, what step is not possible? While that question may be interesting in some way, the full-bodied answer to, "What is your next step?," is so much more fascinating. While we don't always think of this sort of spaciousness, it is as if this question is constantly posed and as if everything we do is our answer. Whether you ask yourself the question or not, we are watching and interacting with how you answer. Because everything comes "through" this no-self spaciousness, nothing that any of us do is not our true selves.
There is one single quality-feeling that encompasses all of what is written here, and that quality is exemplary of Clarity, included in inspiration. (With whom was the conversation that sparked this in me?)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Social Aspects: Back to the Depths III
In Buddhism, the "someone" as well as the "taking away" (see last post) has something to do with seeing into the nature of things as they are (rather than as how I might want to frame them). While the metaphors may differ culture to culture, some of the common positive outcomes are similar from brain to brain and from person to person. When we fulfill drives (like hunger), we are content in relationship to that drive (feeling full enough). But there is also the possibility of rising above, beyond, or through drives. That is generally what I talk about in terms of actualization from Clarity through Abiding. But sometimes we don't fulfill a drive and we don't transcend it either--we deny, avoid, and ignore it. Freud talked about this in terms of repression. A lot of what he said made good sense and a lot of what he said was crackers, so I prefer to to talk about submerged expectations. These submerged expectations are often misinterpreted as "assumptions". Just as Freud wasn't necessarily wrong but wasn't necessarily precise and clear on this stuff, calling submerged expectations assumptions is politically loaded--and I'd generally prefer to set aside politically loaded language when trying to actually get somewhere.
Submerged expectations may be "expectations" that people are aware of or not. Essentially, because our cortexes (conceptual part of brain) are connected to our limbic systems (more emotional part of brain), emotional drives activate psychological energy or momentum. This energy happens at a cellular level and is part of what I call action potentials. Once the emotional drive is stoked, we may look to understand, explain, and justify our emotional feeling and the actions driven by that feeling. When we can consistently connect the energy, the feeling, and a particular set of actions, I'll call this a "drive". A drive is motivation (physical/emotional action potential) and the ideas that may or may not accompany motivation. Those ideas, when paired with motivations may be used to explain and justify actions to oneself or others. I don't care whether people like to say the ideas cause the emotions or vice versa; with the idea of distributed processing, identifying cause can be a secondary pursuit. Often, once we get a clear sense of what we're dealing with in terms of psychological motivation and relationships, cause becomes irrelevant. (Think of the last time you argued with your boyfriend or girlfriend and couldn't agree on the cause of the argument but you still wanted to win in some way. We can sometimes work on how people disagree while trying to dig out the causes of conflict can be an unending and degenerative spiral.)
Okay. One of the most basic "drives" is for comfort. We experience psychological comfort in relationship, when it is caused by another person as soothing. (This whole line of thinking is causing me to re-evaluate my steps of actualization and attentional abilities; I may have to add one lower step so I can separate receptivity to being soothed as one ability and creative/communal play as another.) I recently found a kitten by the side of the road and brought her home. She was distressed at being alone and soothed by being taken in. Sometimes soothing feels more like what we conventionally call comfort (I'm comfortable around my friends), and sometimes it is more like love and what psychologists romanticize as "attachment". I'm becoming somewhat attached to this kitten.
In a healthy family, there is allowance/space/relationship that causes--nurtures at least--attachment and some degree of comfort. If you feel wary of your family, that is common but not healthy. Either way, for psychological well-being, we need to be able to rest. Since we are almost constantly surrounded by people, we need to feel a degree of distance or comfort with those people. Think of trying to sleep in a prison where they left cell doors open at night. Not soothing.
Since we have a drive towards rest and feeling soothed, that drive ends up "being there" in the same way that hunger is always potentially "there". Blood sugar levels need refreshing and we similarly need sleep. People who don't feel comfortable when they're awake tend to sleep too much or too little. And people who sleep too little tend to feel even more uncomfortable and socially anxious than they would if they could get decent sleep. This feeds the same sort of cycle that eating poorly can create. You can't admit weakness to dangerous people who threaten your safety and status, so you eventually try to convince even yourself that you're not really that tired, that you don't actually need more sleep, and you spend your life trying to convince yourself that you can be satisfied without ever being genuinely happy. That sort of trying rules out happiness categorically.
So soothing and relaxation are basic. When we don't get them, we may realize it's not someone else's job to provide them to us, but we may be in such a situation that we feel like we have to take on the denial of needing them in reasonable amounts. The denial creates a chronic lack, and because the drive never goes away and is denied, it can never be fulfilled OR transcended. It becomes a constant companion, a perverse lover twisted by our refusal to attend to it like a marriage gone bad. We have to relate to our drives: "Capacities are needs."
When a drive is purposefully ignored, avoided, and denied like this, it may become mostly submerged--mostly unnoticed by conscious functioning. When that happens, it is as if some part of us ("inner child" is popular here) expects that other people should provide some degree of comfort. The drive exists, the denial of the drive is enforced, but the drive pops up inevitably like a cork in water. Push it down, it pops up somewhere else. Addictions work as one way of supporting denial or avoidance of what we lack socially. Because the drive is never met and can't disappear any more than a cat can stop being catty, the addiction will keep popping up when the drive pops up. Physical dependence is often added (as another motivator) to that psychological reality.
Is your "inner child" actually a selfish, evil little ego for wanting "attachment" with other people? I think it is perverse--though understandable as a disordered type of thinking--to think so. In this way, even spiritual traditions take what is best in us (our desire to love and be loved) and turn it against us. But this frustrated desire to be cared for, to be soothed, is a very passive and fundamental expression of who we are. At the next level up the scale, we have purpose, power, and status. When we can't feel an abundance of a basic need (like love) we sometimes direct our energy (that action potential that will cycle until the cycle is satisfied) to the next best thing. In this case, if we can't feel safe and accepted, it is best to feel powerful and glorified. The conceit of our own power allows us to psychologically defend ourselves while glory allows the conceit that others will also rally to us once they see the light. In this way, purpose and concentration are healthy versions of this level of psychological states. They are most likely to be healthy when the lower level (soothing and social play) are met. Otherwise, we take our psychological disturbances upwards in such a way that even the attempt at transcendence can be a form of disordering. For the majority of us, we have a mix of healthy motives and unhealthy denials.
So soothing is basic. Power and glory are second. At the level of Understanding, we want to be treated as at least equals. If our power and status expectations aren't met well enough (and if we aren't loved and loving, they are never enough), we may try to be extra intellectual or abuse positions of social power. Think of going to the DMV. If the person behind the desk smugly tells you that you'll have to fill out a form again--correctly this time--and go to the back of the line, when they could just fix the form right there, it is different than a toddler or bully trying to physically enforce his will. But it is the same drive for power and status in a slightly different form. Using your intelligence or education to put others down is similar. When we're loved and have some valuable place in society, all that struggle becomes less significant. Not insignificant, but less troubled, less of a loaded situation.
At the level of mindful Appreciation, we want awareness of differences and appreciation of our individuality as well as of the unique situation of the moment. At this level, you have people sometimes trying to show off how "spiritual" or "aware" or calm they are. "It's very Zen of you." In Zen circles, they talk about still having the "stink of Zen" on you if you haven't gotten over yourself. This holier-than-thou attitude tend to be patronizing/matronizing and offensive to anyone who has reached the level of Understanding. We all want to be equal, and you shouldn't be holier than me. For those who have actually achieved the level of Appreciation, one's own faults are in obvious evidence, so the whole competition over who is holier falls away in the face of one's own fallibilities. When we try to only show that we aren't patronizing and offensive, this is some form of modesty--the social presentation. When we actually keep our own imperfections in mind (and if we are loved, valuable, equal, and appreciated, those imperfections aren't horrible to face), humility is the only reasonable response. Humility allows me to accept and affirm actual inequalities without employing the one-up/one-down positioning that it instinctually comes with. In other words, I can say and be okay with someone else being smarter, nicer, holier, etc. without putting myself down in comparison to their excellence. When that happens, I can actually accept my own genetically given temperament (I'm okay, but not naturally the nicest person) and work on my weaknesses by leaning on my strengths. (I have to put more effort than some into being nice but can relax about being intelligent. Others may have to put more effort into getting equal grades, but they might be able to relax into and enjoy their sociability.)
At the level of Clarity, if humility and precise awareness of one's own fallibilities is not established (or if one feels under-appreciated), extra energy goes into the ecstatic aspects of flow-states. This increases the intensity of the feeling of clarity but diminishes one's actual clarity concerning wisdom. In other words, you can then be beautiful and famous but you may feel the need to always perform. That makes sense if you are lacking in humility and appreciation of others, a sense of equality, value of self and others, and loving acceptance. If you are not lacking in those things, the ecstatic aspects are simply icing on a layered cake. You don't mistake the icing for the substantive food, and because you offer substance, you don't have to convince others that sugar fluff is substantive. There may still be effort then, but you don't spend your life chasing or stretching for one more star.
When clarity, ecstasy, and inspiration are part of your spiritual life, you end up enjoying life too much to have a world-denying or human-denying spirituality. You know things can be good because you live well. You become the example you want to be while living within your own means psychologically. Rather than trying to leave people and situations better than when you found them, the feeling that we remain connected grows. We feed other people by our own psychological health, and we get from them what we want in exchange as equals-in-potential: love, value, equality as persons, appreciation, clarity and inspiration lead to harmony. We treat others as the best that is actually in them because that best is real. And we do so in a way that "lands" with where they are at in the moment because we aren't idealizing some spiritual vision of how things should be or embracing some reductionistic denial of our real potential.
But if these drives aren't expressed and affirmed in society, the energy or action potential that could be directed towards joy, harmony, and perhaps peace turn in upon itself in a cannibalistic manner. If the drive is not fed what it wants, it eats itself. When we cannot express our love for life and people and have that love affirmed, it turns in and eats itself like a nest of rats that can't escape a confined space. We have the action potential and it will out. When we deny the drives, they come across as expectations. When we see other people as denying our reasonable expectations and as having unreasonable expectations of their own, we turn on one another and on ourselves. That's a different manner of going back to the depths.
Submerged expectations may be "expectations" that people are aware of or not. Essentially, because our cortexes (conceptual part of brain) are connected to our limbic systems (more emotional part of brain), emotional drives activate psychological energy or momentum. This energy happens at a cellular level and is part of what I call action potentials. Once the emotional drive is stoked, we may look to understand, explain, and justify our emotional feeling and the actions driven by that feeling. When we can consistently connect the energy, the feeling, and a particular set of actions, I'll call this a "drive". A drive is motivation (physical/emotional action potential) and the ideas that may or may not accompany motivation. Those ideas, when paired with motivations may be used to explain and justify actions to oneself or others. I don't care whether people like to say the ideas cause the emotions or vice versa; with the idea of distributed processing, identifying cause can be a secondary pursuit. Often, once we get a clear sense of what we're dealing with in terms of psychological motivation and relationships, cause becomes irrelevant. (Think of the last time you argued with your boyfriend or girlfriend and couldn't agree on the cause of the argument but you still wanted to win in some way. We can sometimes work on how people disagree while trying to dig out the causes of conflict can be an unending and degenerative spiral.)
Okay. One of the most basic "drives" is for comfort. We experience psychological comfort in relationship, when it is caused by another person as soothing. (This whole line of thinking is causing me to re-evaluate my steps of actualization and attentional abilities; I may have to add one lower step so I can separate receptivity to being soothed as one ability and creative/communal play as another.) I recently found a kitten by the side of the road and brought her home. She was distressed at being alone and soothed by being taken in. Sometimes soothing feels more like what we conventionally call comfort (I'm comfortable around my friends), and sometimes it is more like love and what psychologists romanticize as "attachment". I'm becoming somewhat attached to this kitten.
In a healthy family, there is allowance/space/relationship that causes--nurtures at least--attachment and some degree of comfort. If you feel wary of your family, that is common but not healthy. Either way, for psychological well-being, we need to be able to rest. Since we are almost constantly surrounded by people, we need to feel a degree of distance or comfort with those people. Think of trying to sleep in a prison where they left cell doors open at night. Not soothing.
Since we have a drive towards rest and feeling soothed, that drive ends up "being there" in the same way that hunger is always potentially "there". Blood sugar levels need refreshing and we similarly need sleep. People who don't feel comfortable when they're awake tend to sleep too much or too little. And people who sleep too little tend to feel even more uncomfortable and socially anxious than they would if they could get decent sleep. This feeds the same sort of cycle that eating poorly can create. You can't admit weakness to dangerous people who threaten your safety and status, so you eventually try to convince even yourself that you're not really that tired, that you don't actually need more sleep, and you spend your life trying to convince yourself that you can be satisfied without ever being genuinely happy. That sort of trying rules out happiness categorically.
So soothing and relaxation are basic. When we don't get them, we may realize it's not someone else's job to provide them to us, but we may be in such a situation that we feel like we have to take on the denial of needing them in reasonable amounts. The denial creates a chronic lack, and because the drive never goes away and is denied, it can never be fulfilled OR transcended. It becomes a constant companion, a perverse lover twisted by our refusal to attend to it like a marriage gone bad. We have to relate to our drives: "Capacities are needs."
When a drive is purposefully ignored, avoided, and denied like this, it may become mostly submerged--mostly unnoticed by conscious functioning. When that happens, it is as if some part of us ("inner child" is popular here) expects that other people should provide some degree of comfort. The drive exists, the denial of the drive is enforced, but the drive pops up inevitably like a cork in water. Push it down, it pops up somewhere else. Addictions work as one way of supporting denial or avoidance of what we lack socially. Because the drive is never met and can't disappear any more than a cat can stop being catty, the addiction will keep popping up when the drive pops up. Physical dependence is often added (as another motivator) to that psychological reality.
Is your "inner child" actually a selfish, evil little ego for wanting "attachment" with other people? I think it is perverse--though understandable as a disordered type of thinking--to think so. In this way, even spiritual traditions take what is best in us (our desire to love and be loved) and turn it against us. But this frustrated desire to be cared for, to be soothed, is a very passive and fundamental expression of who we are. At the next level up the scale, we have purpose, power, and status. When we can't feel an abundance of a basic need (like love) we sometimes direct our energy (that action potential that will cycle until the cycle is satisfied) to the next best thing. In this case, if we can't feel safe and accepted, it is best to feel powerful and glorified. The conceit of our own power allows us to psychologically defend ourselves while glory allows the conceit that others will also rally to us once they see the light. In this way, purpose and concentration are healthy versions of this level of psychological states. They are most likely to be healthy when the lower level (soothing and social play) are met. Otherwise, we take our psychological disturbances upwards in such a way that even the attempt at transcendence can be a form of disordering. For the majority of us, we have a mix of healthy motives and unhealthy denials.
So soothing is basic. Power and glory are second. At the level of Understanding, we want to be treated as at least equals. If our power and status expectations aren't met well enough (and if we aren't loved and loving, they are never enough), we may try to be extra intellectual or abuse positions of social power. Think of going to the DMV. If the person behind the desk smugly tells you that you'll have to fill out a form again--correctly this time--and go to the back of the line, when they could just fix the form right there, it is different than a toddler or bully trying to physically enforce his will. But it is the same drive for power and status in a slightly different form. Using your intelligence or education to put others down is similar. When we're loved and have some valuable place in society, all that struggle becomes less significant. Not insignificant, but less troubled, less of a loaded situation.
At the level of mindful Appreciation, we want awareness of differences and appreciation of our individuality as well as of the unique situation of the moment. At this level, you have people sometimes trying to show off how "spiritual" or "aware" or calm they are. "It's very Zen of you." In Zen circles, they talk about still having the "stink of Zen" on you if you haven't gotten over yourself. This holier-than-thou attitude tend to be patronizing/matronizing and offensive to anyone who has reached the level of Understanding. We all want to be equal, and you shouldn't be holier than me. For those who have actually achieved the level of Appreciation, one's own faults are in obvious evidence, so the whole competition over who is holier falls away in the face of one's own fallibilities. When we try to only show that we aren't patronizing and offensive, this is some form of modesty--the social presentation. When we actually keep our own imperfections in mind (and if we are loved, valuable, equal, and appreciated, those imperfections aren't horrible to face), humility is the only reasonable response. Humility allows me to accept and affirm actual inequalities without employing the one-up/one-down positioning that it instinctually comes with. In other words, I can say and be okay with someone else being smarter, nicer, holier, etc. without putting myself down in comparison to their excellence. When that happens, I can actually accept my own genetically given temperament (I'm okay, but not naturally the nicest person) and work on my weaknesses by leaning on my strengths. (I have to put more effort than some into being nice but can relax about being intelligent. Others may have to put more effort into getting equal grades, but they might be able to relax into and enjoy their sociability.)
At the level of Clarity, if humility and precise awareness of one's own fallibilities is not established (or if one feels under-appreciated), extra energy goes into the ecstatic aspects of flow-states. This increases the intensity of the feeling of clarity but diminishes one's actual clarity concerning wisdom. In other words, you can then be beautiful and famous but you may feel the need to always perform. That makes sense if you are lacking in humility and appreciation of others, a sense of equality, value of self and others, and loving acceptance. If you are not lacking in those things, the ecstatic aspects are simply icing on a layered cake. You don't mistake the icing for the substantive food, and because you offer substance, you don't have to convince others that sugar fluff is substantive. There may still be effort then, but you don't spend your life chasing or stretching for one more star.
When clarity, ecstasy, and inspiration are part of your spiritual life, you end up enjoying life too much to have a world-denying or human-denying spirituality. You know things can be good because you live well. You become the example you want to be while living within your own means psychologically. Rather than trying to leave people and situations better than when you found them, the feeling that we remain connected grows. We feed other people by our own psychological health, and we get from them what we want in exchange as equals-in-potential: love, value, equality as persons, appreciation, clarity and inspiration lead to harmony. We treat others as the best that is actually in them because that best is real. And we do so in a way that "lands" with where they are at in the moment because we aren't idealizing some spiritual vision of how things should be or embracing some reductionistic denial of our real potential.
But if these drives aren't expressed and affirmed in society, the energy or action potential that could be directed towards joy, harmony, and perhaps peace turn in upon itself in a cannibalistic manner. If the drive is not fed what it wants, it eats itself. When we cannot express our love for life and people and have that love affirmed, it turns in and eats itself like a nest of rats that can't escape a confined space. We have the action potential and it will out. When we deny the drives, they come across as expectations. When we see other people as denying our reasonable expectations and as having unreasonable expectations of their own, we turn on one another and on ourselves. That's a different manner of going back to the depths.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Social Aspects: Back to the Depths II
One of the most basic drives is discomfort-avoidance. Babies gretz and cry when they're uncomfortable without necessarily knowing what causes their discomfort or how to stop it. Before they have a clear goal, they have a basic drive--something pushing them towards something even if they don't know what. We have a basic drive for life to be interesting and wonder-filled but we don't necessarily speak of it as such. But comfort, wonder, and love/acceptance are huge motivators we don't always recognize. Many adults aren't any better than infants at recognizing what they actually want. The research is actually conclusive on this point, and we say this more colloquially when we call people "stupid". People are stupid.
Part of what happens in our lives is that we encounter/create conflict between drives, identity, and our situation. Originally, in response to that conflict/chafing, we want only to be soothed or distracted. Between the ages of 2 and 10, let's say, we should learn the lesson that some other people actually don't see it as their purpose in life to soothe or appease us. But that lesson doesn't make the desire go away. It teaches us to express that desire in moderated ("appropriate") ways. Some folks believe that we can learn to not express that desire, and they're wrong. When desires can't be expressed in a straightforward manner, they twist. This is part of what I mean by action potentials. Action potentials are expressed. That's how it is. Drives are action potentials. Let's say you try to not verbalize a desire for food when you're hungry. You've learned to not simply scream endlessly until someone feeds you, and that's all to the good. But if you don't get food, blood-sugar levels drop. Does the desire for comfort disappear? No. But your ability to concentrate and the likelihood that you'll feel in a good mood rather than grumpy ("Does someone need a nap?", "It's that time of the month again") does diminish. Will your decreasing energy, mood, and ability to concentrate come out (be expressed) in some way? Of course.
There is a difference, then, between verbalizing and expressing. There is also a difference between verbalizing the desire for food and having an expectation that someone else should provide for an expressed desire. So your blood-sugar is dropping, mood and concentration are waning. Since we're taught not to expect everyone else to parent us, and because we often conflate expression with expectation, we try to not even verbalize that we're hungry. We even know that if we continue to obsess on our hunger, it will seem worse, so we might deny even to ourselves that we are hungry. And this is considered socially acceptable and relatively mature. Our society actually takes it as a sign of maturity that someone deny something as basic and simple as hunger. And most people do not question this on a daily basis! We create, then, a "social reality"--a socially accepted representation of reality--that is horribly skewed. It is skewed against your happiness when it is skewed against reality. You may not believe me yet, but it's true.
And everything that we do to deny reality goes directly against human happiness.
We can sometimes act as if this is not the case because it happens in a distributed manner.
If you are sharp or clear, this is not anywhere close to being open to question.
So, in the moment your mood is waning, you may try harder to "stay focused". This extra focus takes up more energy (brains use about 25% of our metabolic energy) and wears you out even faster, using up your diminishing internal resources on simply not getting worse. Getting better now is nowhere in sight. Getting food has been given up on, and the goal is to not lose focus. Of course, in your diminished capacity, almost anything can distract you. When it happens, you are prepared for blaming because you're primed with: diminished resources, the frustrated goal of staying focused, and an internal milieu that sets you up for petty expressions of the negative mood that might have been avoided by a sandwich. Once this happens a few times, you can see it coming, so you prepare yourself by keeping coffee around. That spins the stress/insomnia cycle, making it harder to get going and harder to keep going. Your discomfort increases while your ability to address discomfort decreases and you are left with little besides the myth that it is worth denying what you want because you are clearly unable to get what you want (rest, recuperation, and the potential for consistent happiness) by the methods you know. You are now on your way to completely trying to deny your lack of happiness. As I said, this is a poor recipe for happiness--trying for the denial of the desire itself since the actual thing is unattainable to you by this way of being.
Your desire for comfort and wonder have come up from the depths, so to speak, and has been sent back from whence it came. We end up saying about the desire that could point us to happiness, "Get that shit out of here--we're all stocked up!" And it's true. When your warehouse is stocked full of shit, everything begins to smell like shit to you, and there is no room for any more shit.
Rumi said anyone can bring gifts; I want for someone who will take things away.
Sometimes we have to take our focus away from "that shit" in order to apply our minimal resources for focusing on the housekeeping (clearing the warehouse) involved with getting rid of "this shit". We own it, accept what is, before we can address what is. Or we spend our lives trying to get shit "out of my face" while trying to pretend to not be unhappy. No one wants to spend their life pushing shit out of their face. Ewww. I want for someone who will take away. (No, it's not Calgon I'm missing.)
Part of what happens in our lives is that we encounter/create conflict between drives, identity, and our situation. Originally, in response to that conflict/chafing, we want only to be soothed or distracted. Between the ages of 2 and 10, let's say, we should learn the lesson that some other people actually don't see it as their purpose in life to soothe or appease us. But that lesson doesn't make the desire go away. It teaches us to express that desire in moderated ("appropriate") ways. Some folks believe that we can learn to not express that desire, and they're wrong. When desires can't be expressed in a straightforward manner, they twist. This is part of what I mean by action potentials. Action potentials are expressed. That's how it is. Drives are action potentials. Let's say you try to not verbalize a desire for food when you're hungry. You've learned to not simply scream endlessly until someone feeds you, and that's all to the good. But if you don't get food, blood-sugar levels drop. Does the desire for comfort disappear? No. But your ability to concentrate and the likelihood that you'll feel in a good mood rather than grumpy ("Does someone need a nap?", "It's that time of the month again") does diminish. Will your decreasing energy, mood, and ability to concentrate come out (be expressed) in some way? Of course.
There is a difference, then, between verbalizing and expressing. There is also a difference between verbalizing the desire for food and having an expectation that someone else should provide for an expressed desire. So your blood-sugar is dropping, mood and concentration are waning. Since we're taught not to expect everyone else to parent us, and because we often conflate expression with expectation, we try to not even verbalize that we're hungry. We even know that if we continue to obsess on our hunger, it will seem worse, so we might deny even to ourselves that we are hungry. And this is considered socially acceptable and relatively mature. Our society actually takes it as a sign of maturity that someone deny something as basic and simple as hunger. And most people do not question this on a daily basis! We create, then, a "social reality"--a socially accepted representation of reality--that is horribly skewed. It is skewed against your happiness when it is skewed against reality. You may not believe me yet, but it's true.
And everything that we do to deny reality goes directly against human happiness.
We can sometimes act as if this is not the case because it happens in a distributed manner.
If you are sharp or clear, this is not anywhere close to being open to question.
So, in the moment your mood is waning, you may try harder to "stay focused". This extra focus takes up more energy (brains use about 25% of our metabolic energy) and wears you out even faster, using up your diminishing internal resources on simply not getting worse. Getting better now is nowhere in sight. Getting food has been given up on, and the goal is to not lose focus. Of course, in your diminished capacity, almost anything can distract you. When it happens, you are prepared for blaming because you're primed with: diminished resources, the frustrated goal of staying focused, and an internal milieu that sets you up for petty expressions of the negative mood that might have been avoided by a sandwich. Once this happens a few times, you can see it coming, so you prepare yourself by keeping coffee around. That spins the stress/insomnia cycle, making it harder to get going and harder to keep going. Your discomfort increases while your ability to address discomfort decreases and you are left with little besides the myth that it is worth denying what you want because you are clearly unable to get what you want (rest, recuperation, and the potential for consistent happiness) by the methods you know. You are now on your way to completely trying to deny your lack of happiness. As I said, this is a poor recipe for happiness--trying for the denial of the desire itself since the actual thing is unattainable to you by this way of being.
Your desire for comfort and wonder have come up from the depths, so to speak, and has been sent back from whence it came. We end up saying about the desire that could point us to happiness, "Get that shit out of here--we're all stocked up!" And it's true. When your warehouse is stocked full of shit, everything begins to smell like shit to you, and there is no room for any more shit.
Rumi said anyone can bring gifts; I want for someone who will take things away.
Sometimes we have to take our focus away from "that shit" in order to apply our minimal resources for focusing on the housekeeping (clearing the warehouse) involved with getting rid of "this shit". We own it, accept what is, before we can address what is. Or we spend our lives trying to get shit "out of my face" while trying to pretend to not be unhappy. No one wants to spend their life pushing shit out of their face. Ewww. I want for someone who will take away. (No, it's not Calgon I'm missing.)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Social Aspects: Back to the Depths
Besides connecting the dots in new and interesting ways, along with things rising up out of murky depths or becoming clearer as they emerge from a fog, stuff also returns from whence it came. Things that we stop thinking about and working with don't disappear--no energy or mass is lost--rather, they fade or submerge.
Certain things that are easy to mentally hold onto, concrete things like the lesson to be careful around hot stuff, fade when we don't re-member it or work with it. In other words, cooks aren't more aware in a oogley-googley meaning of awareness, but they consistently work with the lesson to be careful around hot stuff so they tend to more practiced with being aware of hot stuff. Any of us who aren't primed for that awareness when we should be--BAM!--we are immediately reminded when skin comes in contact with a hot pan. That involves priming and engagement more than subtle awareness. If you're cooking, you re-mind yourself (you put into your active mind again) to be careful when you're around hot stuff. This is fitting when you're around hot stuff.
Not remembering or reminding oneself is different from what happens with those things that do not completely solidify in our consciousness and understanding of the world. For instance, physical balance never completely "solidifies" because it must constantly move as we constantly move. Emotions should generally change throughout the day unless we get stuck in personality-disordered habits that lock in moods to too great a degree. So some things are not necessarily "solid" even though they are salient and apparent. Balance is always about the present, and the present is in motion; emotions are fitting for "moments" in our lives but should not determine our personalities. (If you see yourself as an "angry person" or a "happy person", you're probably avoiding some of your emotions and getting "stuck" in others.)
For some people algebra never really solidifies, never becomes obvious, apparent, and familiar to work with. For others, things like racism seem to be clear at one moment but confusing at another. What is racism really? These sorts of topics are often also context-dependent. Just as we remind ourselves about heat in the kitchen but not necessarily in other places, we remind ourselves of the relevance and meaning of racism in mixed crowds, exploitative or bigoted groups, exploited groups, and racially mixed groups. Social items, like racism, fit into a different category than physical items and forces like hotel pans and heat. Psychological phenomena may have a physical basis, but these can generally be categorized as similar to social phenomena in the sense that you can touch a hotel pan but not your racism or joy.
Think of your fight-or-flight response. It remains "there" as only potential most of the time. It is a physical potential and involves instincts that fit extreme situations. Ostracism is "there" potentially in social groups. It is fitting in extreme situations--the old eskimo that wanders off into the cold in order to allow enough food for the young (historically), rapists and murderers are often ostracized, the diseased may be quarantined, etc. When we're at war, we want to find out who is definitely on our side and who is not. When we take these potentials that are fitting for extreme situations and prompt for those responses too often, the effects are psychologically and socially deleterious. Post-traumatic stress, hypervigilance, exhaustion, and insomnia can result from physical overstimulation. When we take ostracization as an ideology--racism, sexism, age-ism, whatever--we tend to wear out and/or ignore our ability to remain alert to and balanced in the present. We pre-judge then--give up our judgement in the present in favor of stable abstractions. Eternal vigilance may be the price of freedom, but the costs of eternal vigilance include paranoia, prejudice, poor judgement, and exhaustion.
But let's say that we don't idealize and abstract or over-utilize these sorts of potentials. There will still be stuff that comes to mind at certain times but is otherwise "out of sight, out of mind". Affection can be like that. If you're not completely infatuated with your dog, you may not think about Sparky much while you're at work. Out of sight, out of mind. But when you walk out the door at the end of the day and think about getting home, you may smile in anticipation of the mutual excitement and affection that meets you at the front door of your house. If someone said it was your job to always think about how much you love your dog, you'd probably get worn out trying to do it. Just ask a parent! Besides, your wife or husband might feel undervalued if you were always and only going on and on about your four-legged, best friend. So we are psychologically built for things like emotions, wakefulness, and attention to come and go. Rest is good, vacations are good.
All this means that relevance counts and so do our attentional limits. It doesn't make you a bad parent to need time away from your kids. It doesn't make you racist or gender-biased to need time away from groups that feel diverse or not intimate. Enjoying deep sleep or moments of solitude doesn't mean you're antisocial. We all have limits that are expressed in terms of political awareness, social boundaries, and psychological tolerances. In order to keep those boundaries, types of awareness, and tolerances all in the same head, we shift focus as well as shifting some things in and out of focus. Lots of ins and outs, man, a lot of what-have-yous. Some psychological drives are prevalent at times but then mostly fade back into the depths. The ways they come out and what we do with them fascinates me.
Certain things that are easy to mentally hold onto, concrete things like the lesson to be careful around hot stuff, fade when we don't re-member it or work with it. In other words, cooks aren't more aware in a oogley-googley meaning of awareness, but they consistently work with the lesson to be careful around hot stuff so they tend to more practiced with being aware of hot stuff. Any of us who aren't primed for that awareness when we should be--BAM!--we are immediately reminded when skin comes in contact with a hot pan. That involves priming and engagement more than subtle awareness. If you're cooking, you re-mind yourself (you put into your active mind again) to be careful when you're around hot stuff. This is fitting when you're around hot stuff.
Not remembering or reminding oneself is different from what happens with those things that do not completely solidify in our consciousness and understanding of the world. For instance, physical balance never completely "solidifies" because it must constantly move as we constantly move. Emotions should generally change throughout the day unless we get stuck in personality-disordered habits that lock in moods to too great a degree. So some things are not necessarily "solid" even though they are salient and apparent. Balance is always about the present, and the present is in motion; emotions are fitting for "moments" in our lives but should not determine our personalities. (If you see yourself as an "angry person" or a "happy person", you're probably avoiding some of your emotions and getting "stuck" in others.)
For some people algebra never really solidifies, never becomes obvious, apparent, and familiar to work with. For others, things like racism seem to be clear at one moment but confusing at another. What is racism really? These sorts of topics are often also context-dependent. Just as we remind ourselves about heat in the kitchen but not necessarily in other places, we remind ourselves of the relevance and meaning of racism in mixed crowds, exploitative or bigoted groups, exploited groups, and racially mixed groups. Social items, like racism, fit into a different category than physical items and forces like hotel pans and heat. Psychological phenomena may have a physical basis, but these can generally be categorized as similar to social phenomena in the sense that you can touch a hotel pan but not your racism or joy.
Think of your fight-or-flight response. It remains "there" as only potential most of the time. It is a physical potential and involves instincts that fit extreme situations. Ostracism is "there" potentially in social groups. It is fitting in extreme situations--the old eskimo that wanders off into the cold in order to allow enough food for the young (historically), rapists and murderers are often ostracized, the diseased may be quarantined, etc. When we're at war, we want to find out who is definitely on our side and who is not. When we take these potentials that are fitting for extreme situations and prompt for those responses too often, the effects are psychologically and socially deleterious. Post-traumatic stress, hypervigilance, exhaustion, and insomnia can result from physical overstimulation. When we take ostracization as an ideology--racism, sexism, age-ism, whatever--we tend to wear out and/or ignore our ability to remain alert to and balanced in the present. We pre-judge then--give up our judgement in the present in favor of stable abstractions. Eternal vigilance may be the price of freedom, but the costs of eternal vigilance include paranoia, prejudice, poor judgement, and exhaustion.
But let's say that we don't idealize and abstract or over-utilize these sorts of potentials. There will still be stuff that comes to mind at certain times but is otherwise "out of sight, out of mind". Affection can be like that. If you're not completely infatuated with your dog, you may not think about Sparky much while you're at work. Out of sight, out of mind. But when you walk out the door at the end of the day and think about getting home, you may smile in anticipation of the mutual excitement and affection that meets you at the front door of your house. If someone said it was your job to always think about how much you love your dog, you'd probably get worn out trying to do it. Just ask a parent! Besides, your wife or husband might feel undervalued if you were always and only going on and on about your four-legged, best friend. So we are psychologically built for things like emotions, wakefulness, and attention to come and go. Rest is good, vacations are good.
All this means that relevance counts and so do our attentional limits. It doesn't make you a bad parent to need time away from your kids. It doesn't make you racist or gender-biased to need time away from groups that feel diverse or not intimate. Enjoying deep sleep or moments of solitude doesn't mean you're antisocial. We all have limits that are expressed in terms of political awareness, social boundaries, and psychological tolerances. In order to keep those boundaries, types of awareness, and tolerances all in the same head, we shift focus as well as shifting some things in and out of focus. Lots of ins and outs, man, a lot of what-have-yous. Some psychological drives are prevalent at times but then mostly fade back into the depths. The ways they come out and what we do with them fascinates me.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Social Aspects: Psyche is Distributed
In the same way that dreams can be meaningful, we can see our "selves" as coherent wholes or as collections of different influences. To the same extent that dreams, ideals, and imaginings are real, it can be helpful to shift from one perspective on self to the other. Let me just be clear that it makes no difference to me whether we focus on this meaning (whatever we might see as meaningful) as coming from God or collective social archetypes or whether we say we create it. If we can see it and affirm it, I am curious about how it works and Jesus can have all the credit for all the good that might come out of the curiosity and abundance.
When I say psyche is distributed, I am referring back to my essay on Self-Identity and Globalization. In this case, the distributed part means a few different things. The first is that the influences from the four "collections" which bombard, support, and/or direct us do not come pre-packaged as coherent and integrated. Sometimes our genetic temperament is helpful and sometimes not; sometimes our family histories and roles are helpful and sometimes not; sometimes our national cultures and stupidities are helpful and sometimes not; sometimes our beliefs and experiences with ultimate meanings or spirituality are helpful and sometimes not. What's more, most of the time these different influences push and pull us in a variety of directions. By putting together what we know of each of these four collections, we can say that they have a certain shape. And while maybe no one know exactly all of what goes into genetic code or American culture, for example, we can say that some things are a significant part of American culture at any given time (road trips, NYC, and big sky country) and some things are not (enlightened--or even respectful--political debate).
The various influences will sometimes lend themselves to counteracting influences from other levels. (The customs that fit with being trained as a therapist do not jive with the vitriollic nature of political talk radio shows.) And at other times or other instances, the influences will potentiate one another. (The customs that fit with being trained as a therapist align with a general emphasis on global equality over 16th century nationalism and racism.)
Naturally, we find that a distributed description tends to fit societies as well as individual people. My people are American, but I don't provide southern comfort or an educated New England liberal emphasis on history and debate. Nor would I expect them to cook me a shoo-fly pie should I visit. The whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts are interesting in and of themselves. That's distribution. Not all the wonder goes to the overall picture or one of the parts.
When I say psyche is distributed, I am referring back to my essay on Self-Identity and Globalization. In this case, the distributed part means a few different things. The first is that the influences from the four "collections" which bombard, support, and/or direct us do not come pre-packaged as coherent and integrated. Sometimes our genetic temperament is helpful and sometimes not; sometimes our family histories and roles are helpful and sometimes not; sometimes our national cultures and stupidities are helpful and sometimes not; sometimes our beliefs and experiences with ultimate meanings or spirituality are helpful and sometimes not. What's more, most of the time these different influences push and pull us in a variety of directions. By putting together what we know of each of these four collections, we can say that they have a certain shape. And while maybe no one know exactly all of what goes into genetic code or American culture, for example, we can say that some things are a significant part of American culture at any given time (road trips, NYC, and big sky country) and some things are not (enlightened--or even respectful--political debate).
The various influences will sometimes lend themselves to counteracting influences from other levels. (The customs that fit with being trained as a therapist do not jive with the vitriollic nature of political talk radio shows.) And at other times or other instances, the influences will potentiate one another. (The customs that fit with being trained as a therapist align with a general emphasis on global equality over 16th century nationalism and racism.)
Naturally, we find that a distributed description tends to fit societies as well as individual people. My people are American, but I don't provide southern comfort or an educated New England liberal emphasis on history and debate. Nor would I expect them to cook me a shoo-fly pie should I visit. The whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts are interesting in and of themselves. That's distribution. Not all the wonder goes to the overall picture or one of the parts.
Social Aspects: Up from the Depths
I like that science tends to be an attempt to go from one dot to the next, checking something that is obviously there and then seeing if and perhaps how it connects. Another type of distributed processing is more like seeing some dark mass rise up form the depths of the ocean or someone walk out of the fog. In this way, we don't begin with concrete points. We begin more with a somewhat vague shape and that shape solidifies, becoming clearer as we come closer to it. Just to be clear, I like applying each method to the other. Science helps us throw out a lot of bullshit and dealing in a more diffuse sort of distribution of things helps forward science by encouraging imaginative hypotheses. (Keep in mind that most hypotheses come up false or unproven and those also tend not to get published. In other words, most of science is lost--even to the scientific community that doesn't see fit to publish the things that even they have found that they do not understand.)
So this type of distributed processing is less like learning algebra--which actually does make sense once you can connect the dots--and more like dreaming or imagination. This fits with what Eugene Gendlin calls FOCUSING--noticing the changes in one's felt sense of body, mind, and world. This may bring us into murky areas that genuine scientists are fascinated by and pretenders deny out of hand. Shamans are at home here, but they too often seem to deny science or accountability. Well then, I guess it is up to reasonable and intelligent folks to figure it out.
Most simple this sort of distributed processing begins with hints, glimmers, tracks. We start with some hair on a treebranch, a track on the ground, but not the animal itself. We see something that our imagination tells us could be the Lock Ness monster but is probably not and we are left wondering about ripples. Every intelligent mammal is interested by these things that they recognize as signs--the only exception being humans who have been taught to be reductionists and animals so exhausted as to have no energy to sustain their curiosity.
If we apply the mammal intelligence given us by God, Charles Darwin, and Mother Earth (a fascinating menage a trois as ever there was), we pay attention. Now, the sort of attention that tends to lead to discovery in these types of cases is more like that song lyric, "Hold on loosely...but don't let go," than it is like the sort of focus we need in order to cram for that freshman-year physics final. It is more like the long-term focus it takes to parent than the short-term lazer-focus of the lion about to pounce. In the moment, we recognize that if we try to crush the potential butterfly in a bear trap, we may get nothing more than an indistinct smudge. Hopes are often like that butterfly, dreams for the future, ideals, the visions we have of what might be best within ourselves. I tend to prefer the people who use a net (not a bear-trap) and go after actual butterflies to those who only imagine butterflies and fairies and whatnot, but we need some of all types I'm sure. I'm also sure that I was stabbed by a vampire assassin last night in my dream; while I eventually killed him because he was too slow, the knife he used infected me in some way; it was a very fun dream, and I woke wondering if it meant anything useful or if it was "just a dream".
In the same way that I might be prompted by the energy and imagery of that dream to add some meaning to it, we can be prompted socially to move towards something like racial and gender equality by dreaming of the possibility and feeling energized by that hope. So there is this sort of distributed processing in response to psychological glimmers and also some sort of fumbling forwards due to idealization. Fumbling forwards when we can't really plan what will happen at Kent St., for example, is also distributed processing. This type of movement encompasses the sorts of questions like, "But did the Vietnam protesters really act in solidarity with the civil rights movement?" The answer, as often as not with this sort of process, is, "Sort of." To the same extent that dreams might motivate people if those people ascribe meaning to them, social acts are interpreted from different angles and propagandized by different sides. Sometimes it works out to be David or Vietnam, but Goliath usually wins. The bear trap is less likely to end as a smudge than the butterfly. The question is, if you are Goliath, do you want to be the villain? If you are not Goliath, you will most likely finds that imagination counts.
So this type of distributed processing is less like learning algebra--which actually does make sense once you can connect the dots--and more like dreaming or imagination. This fits with what Eugene Gendlin calls FOCUSING--noticing the changes in one's felt sense of body, mind, and world. This may bring us into murky areas that genuine scientists are fascinated by and pretenders deny out of hand. Shamans are at home here, but they too often seem to deny science or accountability. Well then, I guess it is up to reasonable and intelligent folks to figure it out.
Most simple this sort of distributed processing begins with hints, glimmers, tracks. We start with some hair on a treebranch, a track on the ground, but not the animal itself. We see something that our imagination tells us could be the Lock Ness monster but is probably not and we are left wondering about ripples. Every intelligent mammal is interested by these things that they recognize as signs--the only exception being humans who have been taught to be reductionists and animals so exhausted as to have no energy to sustain their curiosity.
If we apply the mammal intelligence given us by God, Charles Darwin, and Mother Earth (a fascinating menage a trois as ever there was), we pay attention. Now, the sort of attention that tends to lead to discovery in these types of cases is more like that song lyric, "Hold on loosely...but don't let go," than it is like the sort of focus we need in order to cram for that freshman-year physics final. It is more like the long-term focus it takes to parent than the short-term lazer-focus of the lion about to pounce. In the moment, we recognize that if we try to crush the potential butterfly in a bear trap, we may get nothing more than an indistinct smudge. Hopes are often like that butterfly, dreams for the future, ideals, the visions we have of what might be best within ourselves. I tend to prefer the people who use a net (not a bear-trap) and go after actual butterflies to those who only imagine butterflies and fairies and whatnot, but we need some of all types I'm sure. I'm also sure that I was stabbed by a vampire assassin last night in my dream; while I eventually killed him because he was too slow, the knife he used infected me in some way; it was a very fun dream, and I woke wondering if it meant anything useful or if it was "just a dream".
In the same way that I might be prompted by the energy and imagery of that dream to add some meaning to it, we can be prompted socially to move towards something like racial and gender equality by dreaming of the possibility and feeling energized by that hope. So there is this sort of distributed processing in response to psychological glimmers and also some sort of fumbling forwards due to idealization. Fumbling forwards when we can't really plan what will happen at Kent St., for example, is also distributed processing. This type of movement encompasses the sorts of questions like, "But did the Vietnam protesters really act in solidarity with the civil rights movement?" The answer, as often as not with this sort of process, is, "Sort of." To the same extent that dreams might motivate people if those people ascribe meaning to them, social acts are interpreted from different angles and propagandized by different sides. Sometimes it works out to be David or Vietnam, but Goliath usually wins. The bear trap is less likely to end as a smudge than the butterfly. The question is, if you are Goliath, do you want to be the villain? If you are not Goliath, you will most likely finds that imagination counts.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Social Aspects: Connect-the-Dots
Distributed processes are all about connecting the dots. If you'll remember back to first grade or kindergarten (or earlier), opening one of those new coloring books with a rough newspaper sort of paper, smelling the paper and ink, and tracing the connections between dots to form an image, you understand what I mean.
The dots being separate is the "distributed" part and the process of connecting them is the "process" part: distributed processes. When we do this psychologically, essentially, we pull a few dots together to form some shape that we can see as a whole or Gestalt. This happens when brainstorming (more distributed) moves towards applications (more cohesively formed). When something forms up quickly and/or decisively, we experience what we call "insight". (It is possible to feel hints or flickers of insight and also something more akin to "being hit in the head with a hammer it was so obvious once I saw it--wow!".)
This overarching process of making things form shapes or wholes is part of how we create meaning. Each whole can connect with other wholes, in which case they are also parts (which Ken Wilber likes to call holons to signify that they are wholes on their own but also parts when seen in context). In a positive tone, we say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and in a negative tone, we talk about getting lost in a crowd should the wholeness/individuality of parts gets lost in their part-ness ("you're just a number like everyone else").
Distributed processing is a big part of how we construct a self-identity, how we know ourselves as individuals (wholes). Since we learn about ourselves in a physical and social context, we come to know ourselves as parts or relational wholes (wholes-as-parts/holons). This essay breaks down a few of the phisycal-social "collections" that we draw from in constructing our self-identities. We can consider all of what is going on around and in us to make up our associational matrices.
Each preceding paragraph is an individual point that I want to now draw together to form into a single, cohesive shape. I will "connect the dots" by drawing lines between these points. Hopefully, as I move forward with my narrative thread, there will be the feeling in my readers that things are "coming together". There may be a somewhat vague sense of my purpose early on, but that should solidify as we go. So this exchange between us is an example of a distributed process, an example of how the "stuff" in my psyche interacts with my social milieu. You may get the sense that everything that is said here has been said in different ways before, but hopefully, this way/moment/post will also seem unique in itself. If each paragraph connects, then the post makes a Gestalt or whole.
Depending on my genetic endowment, family of origin, local neighborhood, education, regional cultures, exposure to diversity, nation, and generational cohort, I will be more or less likely to refer to different things. Shamans say that their bodies are the universe. In other words, our nervous systems "re-present" or filter the universe of physical stuff through our sensations. Sensations are filtered through and organized by perceptions, thoughts, and habits. Perceptions, thoughts and habits are shaped by our physical and social environment. Most of us can agree on what a physical environment is, and I believe it can be helpful to talk about the four collections that add up to put together the associational matrices we draw from in feeling motivated and making decisions.
If I am not taught or do not learn how to see and value certain "shapes" or forms, then I won't know how to understand what someone else means if they use those forms. This happens obviously with words (if someone else uses words I don't know), but it also happens with ideas. Furthermore, it happens with perceptual experiences. For example, shamans are familiar with drawing on perceptual experiences that other folks generally are not. Of course they are, because they KNOW that their bodies are the universe. It is true for everyone that our bodies represent the universe, but shamans know this, and that can make a great deal of difference.
The dots being separate is the "distributed" part and the process of connecting them is the "process" part: distributed processes. When we do this psychologically, essentially, we pull a few dots together to form some shape that we can see as a whole or Gestalt. This happens when brainstorming (more distributed) moves towards applications (more cohesively formed). When something forms up quickly and/or decisively, we experience what we call "insight". (It is possible to feel hints or flickers of insight and also something more akin to "being hit in the head with a hammer it was so obvious once I saw it--wow!".)
This overarching process of making things form shapes or wholes is part of how we create meaning. Each whole can connect with other wholes, in which case they are also parts (which Ken Wilber likes to call holons to signify that they are wholes on their own but also parts when seen in context). In a positive tone, we say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and in a negative tone, we talk about getting lost in a crowd should the wholeness/individuality of parts gets lost in their part-ness ("you're just a number like everyone else").
Distributed processing is a big part of how we construct a self-identity, how we know ourselves as individuals (wholes). Since we learn about ourselves in a physical and social context, we come to know ourselves as parts or relational wholes (wholes-as-parts/holons). This essay breaks down a few of the phisycal-social "collections" that we draw from in constructing our self-identities. We can consider all of what is going on around and in us to make up our associational matrices.
Each preceding paragraph is an individual point that I want to now draw together to form into a single, cohesive shape. I will "connect the dots" by drawing lines between these points. Hopefully, as I move forward with my narrative thread, there will be the feeling in my readers that things are "coming together". There may be a somewhat vague sense of my purpose early on, but that should solidify as we go. So this exchange between us is an example of a distributed process, an example of how the "stuff" in my psyche interacts with my social milieu. You may get the sense that everything that is said here has been said in different ways before, but hopefully, this way/moment/post will also seem unique in itself. If each paragraph connects, then the post makes a Gestalt or whole.
Depending on my genetic endowment, family of origin, local neighborhood, education, regional cultures, exposure to diversity, nation, and generational cohort, I will be more or less likely to refer to different things. Shamans say that their bodies are the universe. In other words, our nervous systems "re-present" or filter the universe of physical stuff through our sensations. Sensations are filtered through and organized by perceptions, thoughts, and habits. Perceptions, thoughts and habits are shaped by our physical and social environment. Most of us can agree on what a physical environment is, and I believe it can be helpful to talk about the four collections that add up to put together the associational matrices we draw from in feeling motivated and making decisions.
If I am not taught or do not learn how to see and value certain "shapes" or forms, then I won't know how to understand what someone else means if they use those forms. This happens obviously with words (if someone else uses words I don't know), but it also happens with ideas. Furthermore, it happens with perceptual experiences. For example, shamans are familiar with drawing on perceptual experiences that other folks generally are not. Of course they are, because they KNOW that their bodies are the universe. It is true for everyone that our bodies represent the universe, but shamans know this, and that can make a great deal of difference.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Social Aspects--Psyche is Society
In the same way that we couldn't talk about psychological characteristics without the physical action potentials that support them, we can't reasonably speak of social aspects without recognizing that psyches support and create them. That means, then, that psychological potentials will tend to shape or direct social customs. The potentials we support by our choices and actions will have greater influence in our societies--not surprisingly. But taking this as common background can tell us about how to intentionally shape (affirm, ignore, or limit) certain social practices.
In other words, if we want psychologically healthy neighbors and fellow citizens, we need to support the things that make people healthy. Meaning...we can consider whether standard social practices are in line with playful and creative selves, able selves, good and right selves, mature selves, true selves, etc. We can also see how to motivate others based on their own success and happiness rather than on emotional reactivity. Generally, when people have a solidly creative self with lots of energy, they will look for purpose. When they have a solidly able self, they will look for being right (and perhaps good if their society encourages goodness). When there is plenty of energy (action potential), one step follows another unless there is some sort of problem. [If there is some sort of problem, we can look to address the situation as well as the individual's attitudes and actions, although it is generally better to take a comprehensive perspective on increasing vitality rather than emphasizing corrective measures when possible.]
This also gives a measuring stick for our own decisions and interventions. If you want someone to be mature, mindful and appreciative, but you deny meaning, a system of understanding the world, or the possibility for progress, you stab yourself in the foot while putting your foot in your mouth. Better to not interfere when you can't be part of the solution. The important aspects lower on the developmental scale need to come first. Belief systems that deny the value of the lower levels may be lofty but will add social instability and encourage unsustainable change whether the goal-state is admirable or not.
So we want to be able to model actions and communications for whatever our goals are as well as expressing solidarity with whatever levels someone else is at. Essentially, experience with higher level perspectives should provide a wider view. Wisdom involves being able and willing to shift between addressing problems, encouraging progress, and focusing on the moment at hand as called for. Again, we are talking about how to recognize and utilize opportunities, and supporting healthy aspects of self feeds into resilient and inspired socializing. Healthy socialization feeds into resilient and inspired individuals.
All of this taken together means that we must create expectations (train ourselves to recognize opportunities) around progress. And in order to support progress, we want to act upon the opportunities these expectations point out. In very complex situations where we cannot adequately design progress, we can support the healthy emergent qualities presented in any given situation. In relatively simple situations where we can design progress, we can catalyze that progress by supporting healthy qualities and limiting unhealthy qualities. This is somewhat different than (but works hand-in-hand with) focusing on quantities. (Focusing exclusively on quantities tends to spiral diverse and divergent groups into resentment, entitlement, power analyses, and resource competition even when social coordination is possible and would be beneficial.)
The psychological qualities we support become the society that surrounds us. Therefore, we might as well have increasing input concerning what qualities we support. To do so, we will want to create customs, standards of communication, and expectations that fit with the variety levels while providing an integrated framework that embraces each level, the current physical/political situation as rich with opportunity, and progress.
In other words, if we want psychologically healthy neighbors and fellow citizens, we need to support the things that make people healthy. Meaning...we can consider whether standard social practices are in line with playful and creative selves, able selves, good and right selves, mature selves, true selves, etc. We can also see how to motivate others based on their own success and happiness rather than on emotional reactivity. Generally, when people have a solidly creative self with lots of energy, they will look for purpose. When they have a solidly able self, they will look for being right (and perhaps good if their society encourages goodness). When there is plenty of energy (action potential), one step follows another unless there is some sort of problem. [If there is some sort of problem, we can look to address the situation as well as the individual's attitudes and actions, although it is generally better to take a comprehensive perspective on increasing vitality rather than emphasizing corrective measures when possible.]
This also gives a measuring stick for our own decisions and interventions. If you want someone to be mature, mindful and appreciative, but you deny meaning, a system of understanding the world, or the possibility for progress, you stab yourself in the foot while putting your foot in your mouth. Better to not interfere when you can't be part of the solution. The important aspects lower on the developmental scale need to come first. Belief systems that deny the value of the lower levels may be lofty but will add social instability and encourage unsustainable change whether the goal-state is admirable or not.
So we want to be able to model actions and communications for whatever our goals are as well as expressing solidarity with whatever levels someone else is at. Essentially, experience with higher level perspectives should provide a wider view. Wisdom involves being able and willing to shift between addressing problems, encouraging progress, and focusing on the moment at hand as called for. Again, we are talking about how to recognize and utilize opportunities, and supporting healthy aspects of self feeds into resilient and inspired socializing. Healthy socialization feeds into resilient and inspired individuals.
All of this taken together means that we must create expectations (train ourselves to recognize opportunities) around progress. And in order to support progress, we want to act upon the opportunities these expectations point out. In very complex situations where we cannot adequately design progress, we can support the healthy emergent qualities presented in any given situation. In relatively simple situations where we can design progress, we can catalyze that progress by supporting healthy qualities and limiting unhealthy qualities. This is somewhat different than (but works hand-in-hand with) focusing on quantities. (Focusing exclusively on quantities tends to spiral diverse and divergent groups into resentment, entitlement, power analyses, and resource competition even when social coordination is possible and would be beneficial.)
The psychological qualities we support become the society that surrounds us. Therefore, we might as well have increasing input concerning what qualities we support. To do so, we will want to create customs, standards of communication, and expectations that fit with the variety levels while providing an integrated framework that embraces each level, the current physical/political situation as rich with opportunity, and progress.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Good is Better than High
As a general rule, along the spectrum of development, good is better than high. This works out in more particular ways at each step. It's worth making this point since idealization seems to push for achieving an actualization of heights sometimes at the expense of overall health, happiness, and connection. In other words, you can have your cake and eat it too, but you have to learn to bake. This guideline particularly helps define practical wisdom: good is better than high.
Developmentally, there are three major problems. The first is reductionism or the Peter Pan complex--a refusal or inability to continue to grow. The second is stretching--trying too hard to be too high, too mature, too good, too something that without the "too" part is good on its own. The third problem is fragmentation or a lack of integration. This comes from being able to experience multiple levels of consciousness (being able to intentionally influence which states and levels one responds or acts from) but not feeling that and also how they are connected. The second and third problems often go hand in hand; if you're stretching too far, it may be hard to see how your roots are important for supporting where you're headed.
Overblown Purpose feels like the driven or compulsive need to "do something" or fanatically address some task. The problem here is an inability to feel playful or "loose" in one's efforts. Mentally, not being able to loosen up reduces our creativity while increasing the likelihood of fear, anxiety, irritation, and aggression. Creativity is the base, playfulness is one expression of it, and we cannot incorporate new information as well when we feel all uptight in our focus. This uptightness also lends itself to physical tension which creates mental strain in a self-catalyzing cycle. I'm a big fan of discipline, but we can take it too far. All things being equal, it's healthier to be playful and creative rather than compulsively driven even though playfulness and a diffuse creativity are actually more rudimentary than having an obvious purpose and sticking to it.
Overblown Understanding is summed up in the phrase, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Teaching is great, study is great, philosophy is great, but we can overdo it. There are some of us who are better at memorizing the manual than fixing the toilet, but if you've got a broken toilet and only a textbook understanding of what to do with it, you'll eventually agree that "good is better than high" in certain regards. Piaget pointed out that the abstract learning is more developmentally advanced (we have to reach a certain age and apply a rich associational matrix) than concrete learning, but most people will recognize the value of a good plumber, mechanic, contractor, etc. Just think of the last time you had trouble with someone who thought they knew how to fix your car or put in windows that wouldn't leak during heavy rain.
Overblown mindfulness lacks accountability and consistency--roots. And, since you can't have ethics that are recognizable as ethics without some sort of consistency, mindfulness without principles may also lack ethics. (On that note, think of the gurus who consider themselves too enlightened and wonderful to be burdened by ethics.) Certain systems like laws and self-identities may be less subtle than mindfulness-per-se, but systems allow for the communication of meaning as well as a certain degree of predictability in relationship that allows for intentional collaboration. Many of the "I'm spiritual, not religious" folks like the escapism that mindfulness can allow. The screwy logic is that, if I'm always living in the moment, do I really have to be held responsible for past actions? (Sooo cumbersome.) Mindfulness without a foundation leads to all sorts of weirdnesses including an inability to connect--or at least communicate--with others. A few cosmic clowns, drifters, and saints may be fine, but without some social cohesion, we end up with very mindful parents not bringing home the bacon. If we are going to parse time into increasingly precise and finite moments, and if we want some of those moments and the relationships they hold to contain meaning, there needs to be some solid context. I'd rather have my children grow up around good neighbors who haven't necessarily achieved the majestic highs of human consciousness than "enlightened" a**holes who are not accountable for their real-life actions with their real-life consequences. For anyone selling, "But can we truly know what is really real?" I'm just not buying.
Overblown Clarity is all about me reaching my sense of inspiration, flow, etc. Without mindfulness of my own reactivity here, I may be a genuinely inspiring and beautiful yet also a fully-blown narcissistic prima dona. My mantra will be that the world just doesn't get my genius or something along the lines of demanding that someone bring me a bowl full of only green M&Ms because I deserve whatever I may want. Genuine expertise, artistry, and beauty end up being "tooled" and demeaned when mindfulness isn't present. This faulty perspective is willing to unquestioningly or hypocritically hold privilege over meritocracy as long as I am in the haves rather than the have-nots. Here we may have pride without an understanding or experience of dignity. This is the cult of personality. Better to be mindfully appreciative of life than made famous one minute just to be hated the next. Consistency in clarity and inspiration comes from practiced mindfulness.
Overblown Nonconceptuality is about subtlety without connection to the rest of the world. It is like someone who has known the worthlessness of the prima dona's fame and moved away from society instead of decreasing the false distance from others. Subtlety or any sort of religiosity has less joy when it has less communion. Here we can look at what Trungpa talked about as spiritual materialism taking precedence over ethically and joyfully connecting. Some meditators miss the foundational aspect of mindfulness practice and appreciation or try to rush through or bypass the stage of Clarity in order to experience spiritual highs, subtlety, or oneness. The highs themselves are fine unless they cause disruption in one's connections--which tends to happen without an adequate foundation. When spirituality doesn't connect to one's actions, you can also have the sort of problem that St. Theresa of Calcutta had in feeling that she was doing what she was called to do...but...she seriously questioned her faith in and connection to God. The personal inspiration of the previous stage is an important part of spiritual life. If one opts for subtle spirituality over that inspiration, it leads us away from our own humanity.
Overblown Abiding involves too much of a focus on oneness while diminishing or dismissing joy and the rubbing of elbows with Creation that comes into full bloom at the stage of Nonconceptuality. We can't support a truly nondual standpoint if we value peace over joy (that's duality). Feel free to disagree, but that's how it is. Siddartha Gautama talked about false views, and a preference towards peace or joy is a false view. Dogen spoke of "buddhas together with buddhas". Shams and Rumi had their thing going. Christians mention "communion of the saints". While we need time away from the bustle of the everyday in order to cultivate peace, we also feel most full--abundant as well as serene--when we can embrace the peace and the bustle with clarity, finding inspiration in our own joy and also in shared vitality.
Oneness states are great, but so is throwing the old pigskin around at the end of the summer. When we're willing to drop our weight as far down the scale as necessary, the Weeble people may wobble but they don't fall down.
Developmentally, there are three major problems. The first is reductionism or the Peter Pan complex--a refusal or inability to continue to grow. The second is stretching--trying too hard to be too high, too mature, too good, too something that without the "too" part is good on its own. The third problem is fragmentation or a lack of integration. This comes from being able to experience multiple levels of consciousness (being able to intentionally influence which states and levels one responds or acts from) but not feeling that and also how they are connected. The second and third problems often go hand in hand; if you're stretching too far, it may be hard to see how your roots are important for supporting where you're headed.
Overblown Purpose feels like the driven or compulsive need to "do something" or fanatically address some task. The problem here is an inability to feel playful or "loose" in one's efforts. Mentally, not being able to loosen up reduces our creativity while increasing the likelihood of fear, anxiety, irritation, and aggression. Creativity is the base, playfulness is one expression of it, and we cannot incorporate new information as well when we feel all uptight in our focus. This uptightness also lends itself to physical tension which creates mental strain in a self-catalyzing cycle. I'm a big fan of discipline, but we can take it too far. All things being equal, it's healthier to be playful and creative rather than compulsively driven even though playfulness and a diffuse creativity are actually more rudimentary than having an obvious purpose and sticking to it.
Overblown Understanding is summed up in the phrase, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Teaching is great, study is great, philosophy is great, but we can overdo it. There are some of us who are better at memorizing the manual than fixing the toilet, but if you've got a broken toilet and only a textbook understanding of what to do with it, you'll eventually agree that "good is better than high" in certain regards. Piaget pointed out that the abstract learning is more developmentally advanced (we have to reach a certain age and apply a rich associational matrix) than concrete learning, but most people will recognize the value of a good plumber, mechanic, contractor, etc. Just think of the last time you had trouble with someone who thought they knew how to fix your car or put in windows that wouldn't leak during heavy rain.
Overblown mindfulness lacks accountability and consistency--roots. And, since you can't have ethics that are recognizable as ethics without some sort of consistency, mindfulness without principles may also lack ethics. (On that note, think of the gurus who consider themselves too enlightened and wonderful to be burdened by ethics.) Certain systems like laws and self-identities may be less subtle than mindfulness-per-se, but systems allow for the communication of meaning as well as a certain degree of predictability in relationship that allows for intentional collaboration. Many of the "I'm spiritual, not religious" folks like the escapism that mindfulness can allow. The screwy logic is that, if I'm always living in the moment, do I really have to be held responsible for past actions? (Sooo cumbersome.) Mindfulness without a foundation leads to all sorts of weirdnesses including an inability to connect--or at least communicate--with others. A few cosmic clowns, drifters, and saints may be fine, but without some social cohesion, we end up with very mindful parents not bringing home the bacon. If we are going to parse time into increasingly precise and finite moments, and if we want some of those moments and the relationships they hold to contain meaning, there needs to be some solid context. I'd rather have my children grow up around good neighbors who haven't necessarily achieved the majestic highs of human consciousness than "enlightened" a**holes who are not accountable for their real-life actions with their real-life consequences. For anyone selling, "But can we truly know what is really real?" I'm just not buying.
Overblown Clarity is all about me reaching my sense of inspiration, flow, etc. Without mindfulness of my own reactivity here, I may be a genuinely inspiring and beautiful yet also a fully-blown narcissistic prima dona. My mantra will be that the world just doesn't get my genius or something along the lines of demanding that someone bring me a bowl full of only green M&Ms because I deserve whatever I may want. Genuine expertise, artistry, and beauty end up being "tooled" and demeaned when mindfulness isn't present. This faulty perspective is willing to unquestioningly or hypocritically hold privilege over meritocracy as long as I am in the haves rather than the have-nots. Here we may have pride without an understanding or experience of dignity. This is the cult of personality. Better to be mindfully appreciative of life than made famous one minute just to be hated the next. Consistency in clarity and inspiration comes from practiced mindfulness.
Overblown Nonconceptuality is about subtlety without connection to the rest of the world. It is like someone who has known the worthlessness of the prima dona's fame and moved away from society instead of decreasing the false distance from others. Subtlety or any sort of religiosity has less joy when it has less communion. Here we can look at what Trungpa talked about as spiritual materialism taking precedence over ethically and joyfully connecting. Some meditators miss the foundational aspect of mindfulness practice and appreciation or try to rush through or bypass the stage of Clarity in order to experience spiritual highs, subtlety, or oneness. The highs themselves are fine unless they cause disruption in one's connections--which tends to happen without an adequate foundation. When spirituality doesn't connect to one's actions, you can also have the sort of problem that St. Theresa of Calcutta had in feeling that she was doing what she was called to do...but...she seriously questioned her faith in and connection to God. The personal inspiration of the previous stage is an important part of spiritual life. If one opts for subtle spirituality over that inspiration, it leads us away from our own humanity.
Overblown Abiding involves too much of a focus on oneness while diminishing or dismissing joy and the rubbing of elbows with Creation that comes into full bloom at the stage of Nonconceptuality. We can't support a truly nondual standpoint if we value peace over joy (that's duality). Feel free to disagree, but that's how it is. Siddartha Gautama talked about false views, and a preference towards peace or joy is a false view. Dogen spoke of "buddhas together with buddhas". Shams and Rumi had their thing going. Christians mention "communion of the saints". While we need time away from the bustle of the everyday in order to cultivate peace, we also feel most full--abundant as well as serene--when we can embrace the peace and the bustle with clarity, finding inspiration in our own joy and also in shared vitality.
Oneness states are great, but so is throwing the old pigskin around at the end of the summer. When we're willing to drop our weight as far down the scale as necessary, the Weeble people may wobble but they don't fall down.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Segmentation in Mindful Appreciation
As moments, characteristics, and options keep coming faster and faster, many lose their individual gravitas and meaning. This most often happens to degrees--not all at once. But there is certainly the possibility in meditation for depersonalization and derealization. Even without that feeling of a little too much limbo, you can practice moment-to-moment mindfulness and look around at some point as if you're standing in the middle of a field somewhere, wondering how you got there and where to go. You can get a similar effect sitting in a small apartment and spending lots of time online: searching, browsing, chatting, moving on. It's happening in "real time" but eventually doesn't feel all that real because it isn't apparently rooted. Mindfulness should actually bring us in closer touch with our roots while allowing us to be less defined and delimited by them.
The same sort of thing happens in a different context with hierarchy. It's how accountability disappears from big government and big corporations. If, say, the job of massacring Jews is broken down so that everyone in the chain is a specialist with some separation from the previous and subsequent steps, most of them will simply do their jobs and stop thinking about the overall result. "I just drive trains." Never mind that those trains are carrying cars full of people to death camps. You get cheating accountants and investors and Michael Vick saying stuff like, "It didn't seem real," until they end up in jail, and, "That's when it hit me." Aren't those Jews, those dollars, those mortgages just numbers on papers or a monitor?
So when we deal in hierarchy and segmentation, we want to look at integration and rootedness. We want to keep some awareness of the foundation that our space shuttle mover is built upon; we want to know that if we're going to spend a gazillion dollars that someone is sure of how one part made by one manufacturer fits with the parts around it made by all other manufacturers involved with creating a huge crawler. As we climb higher in most endeavors, we have to consider how the center of gravity also tends to move upwards, making the entire structure a little less stable unless we plan for that shift at the core. In constructing a skyscraper, the first step after design and planning for materials is to dig--dig it deep.
The flipside is that, when you're deep into your stupidly righteous anger (if you happen to be somewhat like me) or affected by an addiction or OCD or whatever, it can be really helpful to segment time--to take one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time. Overall, it's good when a feeling of being rooted or centered is accessible and it's good when a feeling of openness is accessible. So along with having some aspiration for growth, it's great to have an appreciation for the way that things already are and have been. Zimbardo did some interesting work on time perspectives.
One of the strangest things that can happen with meditation groups is that they take up the idea of being only in the present. Being lost in the present is similar to being lost anywhere else. If you only look at the present--or "be" in the present--then, in the present, you're intentionally ignoring a lot of your potential, intentionally ignoring. If you're in a monastery or it works for you otherwise, congratulations, but it won't work for most people. Aesop said so, and I think he was right. It's good to plan for winter.
The interesting thing about planning and experience, though, is that they can take the form of heuristics, general ideas about how to go with the flow in such a way as to set yourself up for success without being rigid. Precise mindfulness and the ability to be in the present complements that experience, those heuristics, and any planning that we can actually follow through with based on experience and the ability to plan.
One of the most fascinating things that occurs in how our brains and minds work is the corner we turn at about 10,000 hours of experience with some particular field or endeavor. When I talk about an associational matrix, I'm leaning towards this qualitative change that comes with expert experience because even though you may not realize it, you want an associational matrix of experience to draw from. When we intend to learn and improve, it sometimes takes time, but we can usually do it. If we stick with that intention and practice for long enough, we get to a point where the effort pays off mentally. Things just start coming more easily. The book THE WISDOM PARADOX gets into it a little bit. A common example is driving. When you start learning how to drive, you're always thinking about checking mirrors, the gas gauge, other drivers, wondering whether you're going to get the clutch right on your next shift, etc. But at some point, over a period of time, you ease into driving. You do most of those same things but not all the time and with less effort and less stress. Driving begins to seem pretty easy and natural for most of us. Like riding a bike. And then we conveniently forget how difficult it was to learn. Same thing happens when talented high school athletes think they know a sport, only to find that it is faster, harder, and more complex at the college level...and then there are the pros.
So actually, there are at least two major corners that we turn. With driving, most of us get to where we are competent but not expert. Competence brings that sense of ease and most of us are relatively safe drivers. But we aren't professional stunt drivers or Nascar-quality competitors. Those folks get familiar with performing at a high level, an expert level, whereas the rest of us tend to get comfortable with competence. No longer newbies, but no Mario Andretti.
Keeping one foot in the present, so to speak, can become as practiced as shifting gears. We get used to looking at various mirrors, other cars, pedestrians, street signs, etc. We can similarly get used to looking at memories, impulses, expectations, creative plans, feeling disciplined, being present, etc. As the moments "shorten" and experience with intentionally shifting attention accrues, the moments and circumstance can blend together. Some people talk about this blending and flow as "process". Once we have a rich enough associational matrix and enough practice with the contents, we can shift our focus from comparatively slow-footed emphasis on content to a comparatively fluid awareness of process. But when we start practicing this shift, we have to put the effortful and incompetent practice into following briefer and smaller aspects of content. In the same way that our brains and minds turn a corner at about 10,000 practice hours, we eventually can become familiar and easier in our mindful attention of the present. It's 10,000 hours to get to the expert level, but we can usually achieve a journeyman's competence long before that. So we're looking for a fluid process that is connected to the present but also something other than a segmentation of time that leaves us rudderless, lost, and without meaning (solid reference points as context). Even in the midst of a fast-flowing mountain river, we can know where the banks and the river bottom are.
The same sort of thing happens in a different context with hierarchy. It's how accountability disappears from big government and big corporations. If, say, the job of massacring Jews is broken down so that everyone in the chain is a specialist with some separation from the previous and subsequent steps, most of them will simply do their jobs and stop thinking about the overall result. "I just drive trains." Never mind that those trains are carrying cars full of people to death camps. You get cheating accountants and investors and Michael Vick saying stuff like, "It didn't seem real," until they end up in jail, and, "That's when it hit me." Aren't those Jews, those dollars, those mortgages just numbers on papers or a monitor?
So when we deal in hierarchy and segmentation, we want to look at integration and rootedness. We want to keep some awareness of the foundation that our space shuttle mover is built upon; we want to know that if we're going to spend a gazillion dollars that someone is sure of how one part made by one manufacturer fits with the parts around it made by all other manufacturers involved with creating a huge crawler. As we climb higher in most endeavors, we have to consider how the center of gravity also tends to move upwards, making the entire structure a little less stable unless we plan for that shift at the core. In constructing a skyscraper, the first step after design and planning for materials is to dig--dig it deep.
The flipside is that, when you're deep into your stupidly righteous anger (if you happen to be somewhat like me) or affected by an addiction or OCD or whatever, it can be really helpful to segment time--to take one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time. Overall, it's good when a feeling of being rooted or centered is accessible and it's good when a feeling of openness is accessible. So along with having some aspiration for growth, it's great to have an appreciation for the way that things already are and have been. Zimbardo did some interesting work on time perspectives.
One of the strangest things that can happen with meditation groups is that they take up the idea of being only in the present. Being lost in the present is similar to being lost anywhere else. If you only look at the present--or "be" in the present--then, in the present, you're intentionally ignoring a lot of your potential, intentionally ignoring. If you're in a monastery or it works for you otherwise, congratulations, but it won't work for most people. Aesop said so, and I think he was right. It's good to plan for winter.
The interesting thing about planning and experience, though, is that they can take the form of heuristics, general ideas about how to go with the flow in such a way as to set yourself up for success without being rigid. Precise mindfulness and the ability to be in the present complements that experience, those heuristics, and any planning that we can actually follow through with based on experience and the ability to plan.
One of the most fascinating things that occurs in how our brains and minds work is the corner we turn at about 10,000 hours of experience with some particular field or endeavor. When I talk about an associational matrix, I'm leaning towards this qualitative change that comes with expert experience because even though you may not realize it, you want an associational matrix of experience to draw from. When we intend to learn and improve, it sometimes takes time, but we can usually do it. If we stick with that intention and practice for long enough, we get to a point where the effort pays off mentally. Things just start coming more easily. The book THE WISDOM PARADOX gets into it a little bit. A common example is driving. When you start learning how to drive, you're always thinking about checking mirrors, the gas gauge, other drivers, wondering whether you're going to get the clutch right on your next shift, etc. But at some point, over a period of time, you ease into driving. You do most of those same things but not all the time and with less effort and less stress. Driving begins to seem pretty easy and natural for most of us. Like riding a bike. And then we conveniently forget how difficult it was to learn. Same thing happens when talented high school athletes think they know a sport, only to find that it is faster, harder, and more complex at the college level...and then there are the pros.
So actually, there are at least two major corners that we turn. With driving, most of us get to where we are competent but not expert. Competence brings that sense of ease and most of us are relatively safe drivers. But we aren't professional stunt drivers or Nascar-quality competitors. Those folks get familiar with performing at a high level, an expert level, whereas the rest of us tend to get comfortable with competence. No longer newbies, but no Mario Andretti.
Keeping one foot in the present, so to speak, can become as practiced as shifting gears. We get used to looking at various mirrors, other cars, pedestrians, street signs, etc. We can similarly get used to looking at memories, impulses, expectations, creative plans, feeling disciplined, being present, etc. As the moments "shorten" and experience with intentionally shifting attention accrues, the moments and circumstance can blend together. Some people talk about this blending and flow as "process". Once we have a rich enough associational matrix and enough practice with the contents, we can shift our focus from comparatively slow-footed emphasis on content to a comparatively fluid awareness of process. But when we start practicing this shift, we have to put the effortful and incompetent practice into following briefer and smaller aspects of content. In the same way that our brains and minds turn a corner at about 10,000 practice hours, we eventually can become familiar and easier in our mindful attention of the present. It's 10,000 hours to get to the expert level, but we can usually achieve a journeyman's competence long before that. So we're looking for a fluid process that is connected to the present but also something other than a segmentation of time that leaves us rudderless, lost, and without meaning (solid reference points as context). Even in the midst of a fast-flowing mountain river, we can know where the banks and the river bottom are.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
CT from M2G
I think I've finally come to a point where it's possible to make solid sense of my blog's name: cultural technology from meditation to globalization. Essentially, my topic today is about bringing together an Abhidhamma approach to time and consciousness with Marshall McLuhan's point that the medium is the message.
One of the functional aspects of Abhidhamma descriptions and practices of how time and consciousness unfold is a certain precision in how one pays attention to moments and the flow of moments. For a gross oversimplification, we can think of Abhidhamma meditation as focused on increasing the precision of one's ability to take in details and to notice increasingly minute instances. One effect of many types of meditation is that one moves from emphasizing thoughts in one's attentional field to noticing the progression of thoughts. If one does not identify with the thoughts themselves or their meanings, one familiarizes with the flow of that progression. Let me expand the same basic structural movement to cultural change on a global scale.
People in all societies are aware of the direction of cultural change. Those who like that direction tend to think of change as progressive and they also tend to think of themselves as progressive. People who challenge that the change is good usually think of themselves as traditionalists or cultural conservatives. Progressives and traditionalists in our society similarly experience what we call a generation gap. Generation gaps happen with types of technology as well as with people. In proto-human prehistory, when technological generations turned over more slowly than humanity's ancestors' generations did, there was no need to notice the speed of technological advancements. Societies formed relatively stable cultures with solid assumptions and circular myths about how the world is, and kids' generations could basically agree with their parents' generation on how it is.
Now that cultural exchange has become relatively speedy and commonplace, the generation gap is not only noticeable but unavoidable. As the speed of technological change blows by the rate of human reproduction and maturation, societies are having to face innovation itself as one of the solid assumptions about how our world is. One way of thinking about this is to talk about technology and innovation as the common global "language". Although we all come from somewhat distinct societies, we have in common an ability to adapt. That ability to adapt, especially when paired with the rate of technological advance, is creating a new sort of homogenization. From my perspective, from a structural viewpoint, the way this is happening is much more influential than any type of particularist cultural input (although I will not deny the importance of inputs from our relatively distinct cultures). Because there are so many cultures to draw from, no one of them will dominate. It is the structure that predominates, and that structure is roughly analogous to what happens when people stop identifying with thoughts, begin watching how thoughts and moments tend to unfold, and familiarize themselves with the progression of thoughts. Familiarity with this progression trains one to follow directions and qualities instead of looking primarily at stable structures and assumptions and competing "sides". Where you are from and where you are now take their place alongside the importance of where you're headed.
The basic laws don't really change, but the state of the union might. It seems roughly analogous, again, to the state change between solids and liquids. We can still rely on the laws that govern physics, but we cannot continue to rely on the properties that define solids when we are dealing with liquids. The basics that govern how people function are the same when dealing with meditation or globalization, but the experience of what determines what in our lives may be as different as standing on a frozen lake ("stable" ancient cultures) or swimming in the spring thaw (present). Progressives and kids will tend to say that spring is good, while traditionalists will tend to point out that it is nice to have somewhere solid to stand. Most times they argue, they argue ostensibly about issues that are actually secondary to the fact that one tends to choose stability of or return to a golden past (which never existed as it is sentimentally portrayed) while the other favors embracing a golden future (which will be more detailed and nuanced than is usually idealistically portrayed). Both the past and future unavoidably accept without difficulty solids and liquids. That is suchness in any timeframe.
As innovation, technological change, and cultural change become increasingly obvious and unavoidable, we will tend to focus less on relatively stable assumptions while relying more on our ability to move, interact, and coordinate (which, since it is consistent, can feel "stable"). This will not in the least change that some things are solid, but we will become increasingly accustomed to giving up fictions that once seemed solid because we will be increasingly driven to give up many realities that once seemed so important; newspapers and radio and universal, institutionalized education were once breakthrough products, and newspapers are fading into obscurity. Just as the press has become less hierarchical, less professional, and less edited, education is becoming less institutionalized. That which does not grow in our culture(s), dies. It happens at a fast enough pace now that our grandparents saw it in less than a lifetime and we see it within less than a generation. Just as this affects individuals noticeably, it affects groups, companies, institutions. And just as Abhidhamma meditation can bring increased vitality and awareness and appreciation to one's life, creating and playing with this process is both the fundamental aspect of humanity and also our future.
One of the functional aspects of Abhidhamma descriptions and practices of how time and consciousness unfold is a certain precision in how one pays attention to moments and the flow of moments. For a gross oversimplification, we can think of Abhidhamma meditation as focused on increasing the precision of one's ability to take in details and to notice increasingly minute instances. One effect of many types of meditation is that one moves from emphasizing thoughts in one's attentional field to noticing the progression of thoughts. If one does not identify with the thoughts themselves or their meanings, one familiarizes with the flow of that progression. Let me expand the same basic structural movement to cultural change on a global scale.
People in all societies are aware of the direction of cultural change. Those who like that direction tend to think of change as progressive and they also tend to think of themselves as progressive. People who challenge that the change is good usually think of themselves as traditionalists or cultural conservatives. Progressives and traditionalists in our society similarly experience what we call a generation gap. Generation gaps happen with types of technology as well as with people. In proto-human prehistory, when technological generations turned over more slowly than humanity's ancestors' generations did, there was no need to notice the speed of technological advancements. Societies formed relatively stable cultures with solid assumptions and circular myths about how the world is, and kids' generations could basically agree with their parents' generation on how it is.
Now that cultural exchange has become relatively speedy and commonplace, the generation gap is not only noticeable but unavoidable. As the speed of technological change blows by the rate of human reproduction and maturation, societies are having to face innovation itself as one of the solid assumptions about how our world is. One way of thinking about this is to talk about technology and innovation as the common global "language". Although we all come from somewhat distinct societies, we have in common an ability to adapt. That ability to adapt, especially when paired with the rate of technological advance, is creating a new sort of homogenization. From my perspective, from a structural viewpoint, the way this is happening is much more influential than any type of particularist cultural input (although I will not deny the importance of inputs from our relatively distinct cultures). Because there are so many cultures to draw from, no one of them will dominate. It is the structure that predominates, and that structure is roughly analogous to what happens when people stop identifying with thoughts, begin watching how thoughts and moments tend to unfold, and familiarize themselves with the progression of thoughts. Familiarity with this progression trains one to follow directions and qualities instead of looking primarily at stable structures and assumptions and competing "sides". Where you are from and where you are now take their place alongside the importance of where you're headed.
The basic laws don't really change, but the state of the union might. It seems roughly analogous, again, to the state change between solids and liquids. We can still rely on the laws that govern physics, but we cannot continue to rely on the properties that define solids when we are dealing with liquids. The basics that govern how people function are the same when dealing with meditation or globalization, but the experience of what determines what in our lives may be as different as standing on a frozen lake ("stable" ancient cultures) or swimming in the spring thaw (present). Progressives and kids will tend to say that spring is good, while traditionalists will tend to point out that it is nice to have somewhere solid to stand. Most times they argue, they argue ostensibly about issues that are actually secondary to the fact that one tends to choose stability of or return to a golden past (which never existed as it is sentimentally portrayed) while the other favors embracing a golden future (which will be more detailed and nuanced than is usually idealistically portrayed). Both the past and future unavoidably accept without difficulty solids and liquids. That is suchness in any timeframe.
As innovation, technological change, and cultural change become increasingly obvious and unavoidable, we will tend to focus less on relatively stable assumptions while relying more on our ability to move, interact, and coordinate (which, since it is consistent, can feel "stable"). This will not in the least change that some things are solid, but we will become increasingly accustomed to giving up fictions that once seemed solid because we will be increasingly driven to give up many realities that once seemed so important; newspapers and radio and universal, institutionalized education were once breakthrough products, and newspapers are fading into obscurity. Just as the press has become less hierarchical, less professional, and less edited, education is becoming less institutionalized. That which does not grow in our culture(s), dies. It happens at a fast enough pace now that our grandparents saw it in less than a lifetime and we see it within less than a generation. Just as this affects individuals noticeably, it affects groups, companies, institutions. And just as Abhidhamma meditation can bring increased vitality and awareness and appreciation to one's life, creating and playing with this process is both the fundamental aspect of humanity and also our future.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Lalita: the Dance
At first, most people are impressed with the open spaces involved with clarity. With experience and familiarity, some people begin to identify more with the space than with any limited sense of self. Mahamudra philosophy expresses this stage really well, speaking of the union between openness and the blissful awareness that it allows. The self and world can take on a very consistently bright quality that "enlightens" so-called negative emotions and experiences just as clarity can make ordinary situations seem fascinating and important.
Chogyam Trungpa said that we go up the mountain for ourselves but we come down the mountain for others. We strive for the peak experiences partially because they are simply worth experiencing, but then there is the further step of making the two one or bringing about the perspective where we are able to experience peak and ordinary or "negative" experiences as similarly vital and unique. When we can consistently bring the awareness that ordinary is good and extraordinary is good, we're looking at moving beyond good and bad and into a way of living in which we do not feel apart from the people around us and the moments we are in right now. In this sense, in bringing this awareness and sharing the vitality, we end up living for others and with others. As we exhibit grace in the presence of adversity and abundance, we become the example we would choose while living in an unadulterated communion with those people and circumstances which surround and enrich us. In John Daido Loori's words (commenting on the Bodhisattva vows): you cannot save all sentient beings without being saved by all sentient beings. In more Christian language, we speak of service to others, stewardship of God's Creation, that everything was originally created through the divine Word which is also Messiah, and we recognize that the Holy Spirit is everywhere-existent while being inseparable from the Father and Son.
Here, rather than having some clear purpose like a well-oiled machine, we sometimes seem to have purpose and sometimes seem to have no purpose in the particular dance steps we are taking right here and now. Before this step, we have not taken the full measure of joy that is possible in this universe. This step is complete harmony and joy. If there is a further step, the experience of it may be influenced by one's ideas and experience up through this point, but there will be no need to explain how openness, communion, and reality-as-is have never been separate from any beginning.
Chogyam Trungpa said that we go up the mountain for ourselves but we come down the mountain for others. We strive for the peak experiences partially because they are simply worth experiencing, but then there is the further step of making the two one or bringing about the perspective where we are able to experience peak and ordinary or "negative" experiences as similarly vital and unique. When we can consistently bring the awareness that ordinary is good and extraordinary is good, we're looking at moving beyond good and bad and into a way of living in which we do not feel apart from the people around us and the moments we are in right now. In this sense, in bringing this awareness and sharing the vitality, we end up living for others and with others. As we exhibit grace in the presence of adversity and abundance, we become the example we would choose while living in an unadulterated communion with those people and circumstances which surround and enrich us. In John Daido Loori's words (commenting on the Bodhisattva vows): you cannot save all sentient beings without being saved by all sentient beings. In more Christian language, we speak of service to others, stewardship of God's Creation, that everything was originally created through the divine Word which is also Messiah, and we recognize that the Holy Spirit is everywhere-existent while being inseparable from the Father and Son.
Here, rather than having some clear purpose like a well-oiled machine, we sometimes seem to have purpose and sometimes seem to have no purpose in the particular dance steps we are taking right here and now. Before this step, we have not taken the full measure of joy that is possible in this universe. This step is complete harmony and joy. If there is a further step, the experience of it may be influenced by one's ideas and experience up through this point, but there will be no need to explain how openness, communion, and reality-as-is have never been separate from any beginning.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Like a Well-oiled Machine
What does it take to move beyond customs and interactions based on mindful appreciation--and what is that like anyway? Mindfulness gives people a real, genuine taste of emptiness, spaciousness, like that old cowboy song, "Don't fence me in." If you can imagine spending your whole life on horseback out in the truly wilderness-wild of the old American west, tending barbed wire fences that stretched almost farther than you could ride in a month, moving cattle with a few quiet ol' boys during the summer and wintering pretty much alone on the high plains of Wyoming--if you can get that feeling of a dry wind off the plains that smells of sage and blows on through your soul, then you get some sense of what emptiness can feel like. If you take the social aspect out of mindful appreciation, the applied aspect, mindfulness can introduce that feeling of cleanliness which is right up there next to godliness. And over time, you become familiar with the existential certainty that there is no bucket, no type of fence, no prison that can really contain that in our souls which is the ether of the universe.
If you're more of a THE BIG LEBOWSKI type than a fan of Sam Elliot's earlier movies and handlebar mustache, the feel or accoutrements may be different, but the thing itself is the same. Gautama Buddha said that mindful awareness itself would get you there, and it will.
Mindfulness practice allows us to actually turn away from--in Buddhist literature, to stop "feeding the fires" of--the things we do to create unhappiness and distaste in our own lives. That's the therapeutic side. But it also brings that openness into big and small aspects of what we do, and that is what I see as the real value of it, the sati of sati.
When we're free of disturbances and distractions enough to really focus with gentle intensity on something as un-extraordinary as tying our shoes, at that point, we're really sinking into something that is sinking into us. We get beyond the boundaries of a concretely definable ego and into something spiritual-without-pretense. The ego itself isn't necessarily good or bad--like the habit of wearing shoes--but it works the way it works and we bring our presence right there. When we turn mindfulness inwards, we begin moving into responding to how our own egos work with spaciousness and equanimity. Over time, mindfulness becomes commonplace--like getting used to Big Sky in Montana--but it becomes no less valuable for being there. It is foundational, hard to imagine after a time, how anyone could or could want to live without it. Rather than being something to be feared or worked at, it is like the feeling of taking a hot leather hat off your head and taking in the breeze.
I call this clarity. Beyond mindful, effortful concentration and somewhere before grace, we incorporate this openness into who we are. Taking openness with you into big situations and small allows a certain personal balance and clarity, an easygoing way even with difficult people and work. Well, it lends to being easygoing if you also believe in the intentional relaxation I talk about elsewhere; it also lends to being intensely focused and determined when that is called for.
In order for people to bring that to a group, the group will need to feel in some ways like a well-oiled machine. Think about this as a comparison. Cognitive psychologists talk about the difference between experts at some field--say chess, it's something I know a little--and amateurs. They have found that, across the board, something significant changes once people reach a point where they have put in 10,000 quality hours of practice in their chosen field. In my language, the associational matrix at that point is so familiar (like the back of my hand) and so rich (after somewhere around 8 years of near-fanatical practice) that things "just come together". Without extraneous effort, things "click". Michael Jordan blows by defenders, jet fighter aces feel like there is no one else even in the sky with them--just the goal, and this is genuinely a "peak" experience like stepping to the top of Everest and feeling that the only higher elevation is more space.
There are few groups, if any I've seen, that perform at this level. It goes beyond good customs and being supportive of one another's mindful appreciation. More often, there may be one or a few stars that bring openness, flow, and superior performance into a group situation. The other people in their group say of them, "He/she's on another level." How can it be when experts take enough time working together to get to a point where their team functions like their individual expertise does? Whatever else that would be, it would be inspiring. If you create this in a group, you won't want to leave.
The individuals who are capable of consistently operating at such a high level still often irritate others with their behavior and are irritated in turn by others' comparatively poor performance. While clarity is still new, it's like a favorite Christmas present that we are somewhat jealous of. We can get distracted by or frustrated with anyone who screws up our mojo. It's also possible to have one "well-oiled machine" fighting with a similarly well-oiled machine over which is best. The next step can seem somewhat modest in comparison with the potential star power of this stage, but it is impressive in its own right. (Here we will have to extrapolate almost completely from the behavior of a few rare individuals.)
If you're more of a THE BIG LEBOWSKI type than a fan of Sam Elliot's earlier movies and handlebar mustache, the feel or accoutrements may be different, but the thing itself is the same. Gautama Buddha said that mindful awareness itself would get you there, and it will.
Mindfulness practice allows us to actually turn away from--in Buddhist literature, to stop "feeding the fires" of--the things we do to create unhappiness and distaste in our own lives. That's the therapeutic side. But it also brings that openness into big and small aspects of what we do, and that is what I see as the real value of it, the sati of sati.
When we're free of disturbances and distractions enough to really focus with gentle intensity on something as un-extraordinary as tying our shoes, at that point, we're really sinking into something that is sinking into us. We get beyond the boundaries of a concretely definable ego and into something spiritual-without-pretense. The ego itself isn't necessarily good or bad--like the habit of wearing shoes--but it works the way it works and we bring our presence right there. When we turn mindfulness inwards, we begin moving into responding to how our own egos work with spaciousness and equanimity. Over time, mindfulness becomes commonplace--like getting used to Big Sky in Montana--but it becomes no less valuable for being there. It is foundational, hard to imagine after a time, how anyone could or could want to live without it. Rather than being something to be feared or worked at, it is like the feeling of taking a hot leather hat off your head and taking in the breeze.
I call this clarity. Beyond mindful, effortful concentration and somewhere before grace, we incorporate this openness into who we are. Taking openness with you into big situations and small allows a certain personal balance and clarity, an easygoing way even with difficult people and work. Well, it lends to being easygoing if you also believe in the intentional relaxation I talk about elsewhere; it also lends to being intensely focused and determined when that is called for.
In order for people to bring that to a group, the group will need to feel in some ways like a well-oiled machine. Think about this as a comparison. Cognitive psychologists talk about the difference between experts at some field--say chess, it's something I know a little--and amateurs. They have found that, across the board, something significant changes once people reach a point where they have put in 10,000 quality hours of practice in their chosen field. In my language, the associational matrix at that point is so familiar (like the back of my hand) and so rich (after somewhere around 8 years of near-fanatical practice) that things "just come together". Without extraneous effort, things "click". Michael Jordan blows by defenders, jet fighter aces feel like there is no one else even in the sky with them--just the goal, and this is genuinely a "peak" experience like stepping to the top of Everest and feeling that the only higher elevation is more space.
There are few groups, if any I've seen, that perform at this level. It goes beyond good customs and being supportive of one another's mindful appreciation. More often, there may be one or a few stars that bring openness, flow, and superior performance into a group situation. The other people in their group say of them, "He/she's on another level." How can it be when experts take enough time working together to get to a point where their team functions like their individual expertise does? Whatever else that would be, it would be inspiring. If you create this in a group, you won't want to leave.
The individuals who are capable of consistently operating at such a high level still often irritate others with their behavior and are irritated in turn by others' comparatively poor performance. While clarity is still new, it's like a favorite Christmas present that we are somewhat jealous of. We can get distracted by or frustrated with anyone who screws up our mojo. It's also possible to have one "well-oiled machine" fighting with a similarly well-oiled machine over which is best. The next step can seem somewhat modest in comparison with the potential star power of this stage, but it is impressive in its own right. (Here we will have to extrapolate almost completely from the behavior of a few rare individuals.)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Types Beyond/Within Types
Types, roles, and identity politics. As much as I like Buddhism for illustrating various points, vichara is a type of contemplation that I ran into through Advaita ("not-dual" or "anti-dualistic") Vedanta. And as much as all types of Buddhism include an emphasis on mindfulness, vichara presents a wonderful illustration of what I mean by the stage of Mindful Appreciation.
When one practices vichara, one is essentially looking deeply into the question: who/what am I? After calming the mind to some extent, one says to oneself something along these lines (the gist here is more important than the details--try letting each of these sentences sink in before moving on to the next):
When we get caught up in the stream of daily life, we most often act as one of these things. Professor Gates talked about different peoples' internal narratives--the thoughts that are paired with explanation, narrative, and feeling. When we identify as our narratives, our situation, whatever, it is like letting something else drive you or like being possessed for a moment. We even say, "I got caught up in the moment; I wasn't myself." Who were you then? Well, when we aren't "ourselves", we're usually responding to some basic drive and/or narrative. The interesting thing is that we also usually identify ourselves as the roles, characteristics, and narratives that we like or that benefit us in some way.
With vichara, we take a step into these identifications--into the process of identifying (forming a self-concept that is described or bounded by something). Instead of taking that step unmindfully, we take it mindfully. Vichara is one way of getting some space between and within the things that usually push you. Do you feel pushed by identifying yourself as a black man in America? If that is how you identify yourself, probably, at least at times such as when the cops show up at your house. Do cops identify with their roles? (Sorry for the horrendously rhetorical questioning here.) Of course they do, we all do to some extent. We also fall into identifying others as their roles. Did Gates respond to Crowley showing up thinking that here was a helpful race relations teacher coming to make sure his house and its owner was safe? It doesn't seem like he did. Did Crowley show up with the attitude about Gates that he expressed immediately following their rendezvous at the White House (which apparently went much better than their rendezvous at the yellow house)? It doesn't seem like he did.
Vichara "ends" with the question: who am I? We have plenty of time to mull this over in a contemplative manner if we take the time. But when we meet other people, we usually ask and have to decide to some extent, "Should I treat you as a who or a what? And if a what--some role--then which role or roles? If I should treat you as a who, then which who?" Certainly, just as with contemplative self-inquiry a contemplative and interested exploration of another who will tend to take time, and if we bring our good nature and take the time, we can usually get something valuable out of the experience. Essentially asking, "Who are you?" verbally or not allows the other who to answer for themselves rather than leaving us to choose from only our presuppositions and role responsibilities in determining who we think they are and thereby determining how we should treat them.
Beyond the neutral tolerance of other roles and potentially interacting in mutual self-interest, we deal in a greater degree of mindfulness and a greater degree of extending ourselves to meet others in this interesting world. Simultaneously, in exploring with others who they are, the equal "flipside" is inviting them into that mindful self-inquiry that we might practice with ourselves. And in a diversity of perspectives, we find a richer abundance to draw answers and experience from.
This is especially where it becomes important to bring up awareness of the self/other divide as well as our expectations. If I am used to people telling me I am very smart and of benefit to my people as well as "other" people, I'll come to expect that sort of treatment. It's human nature. I identify with my roles and status because it allows me to answer the question of how I should interact with others. If I am used to people showing some degree of respect or at least deference based on fear, I'll come to expect that sort of treatment. When the expected treatment (or "narrative" of treatment) is positive, I will begin to feel entitled to that status, protective of that status. It defines me as a social being; it is my precious. If you are my wife, brother, friend, etc., I may allow you close to what I hold dear. But if you are not, a sense of threat will mingle with fear and entitlement and possessiveness to present me a ready-made reaction to you being all up in my grill.
When that happens, I may be educated enough to know that you maybe aren't coming to take away my entitlements, I may be trained in not aggressing just because I am feeling aggressive. And, if I am not driving in the moment when we interact, the training and education go right out the window. The more often I am in the driver's seat, and the more often I bring my good and right self to the table, the more people will tend to form the general impression that I am mature. People who are not mature may be good in many ways, but if they aggress against others in order to protect the good show involved in their reputations, they will tend to come across as aggressive pricks.
The interesting thing is that it is appropriate to create laws around physical aggression but it is important to create customs around verbal aggression and social respect and appreciation. In a pluralistic society, we should be able to enforce laws against physical aggression, but we will never be able to enforce laws against feeling slighted. If the white man slights first or in retaliation, I call both men immature pricks. I don't mean that to say I am a better person; I say they are pricks for not acting as persons although that is their legal right to be pricks as long as it doesn't go too far.
What's more, people can feel when they are either pulled back or moved ahead by social interactions. Eckhart Tolle made the point that adverse situations tend to bring mostly conscious people to a greater degree of consciousness but that adversity tends to push mostly unconscious people into their unconscious ("ready-made") reactivity. Vichara helps us separate the people from their prickish actions. I can say, "You are being a prick now even if you aren't generally a prick." That is the truth of many situations in our lives. Mindfulness practice helps us gain some degree of dis-identification from our roles, narratives, etc. If we include appreciation in that practice, it can also help us become better at identifying as the good and right selves that we can be. And the more I am actually aware of deciding how I choose to act and acting well, the more I will support a mature and mindfully appreciative self as well as maturity and appreciation as social customs and part of my reputation.
Until we begin to move beyond tolerance and speak about as well as enact appreciation and maturity, we can throw stones from our glass houses until the "chickens come home to roost", to use a memorable phrase. If I want you to treat me as a mature and decent individual, however I choose to identify and whatever my roles are, I will have to be able to line up my intentions and actions during moments of adversity. Someone once said, "Only the tested can inspire the fearful." (Test yourself: are you really a prick to black homeowners or white cops? Is that genuinely who you are?) That seems a much better example to me than, "Do as I say, not as I do." We must teach one another to act from within roles or types while going beyond those types themselves. I may not be completely described by my body or emotions or roles, but they are what I have to work with for now!
Enforcement of laws needs the domination that literal power brings to a situation. Support of customs has a different feel than legislation and the execution of laws by folks in uniforms that show them to be the enforcers. Appreciation and the equanimity it takes to get through adverse situations is supported by mindfulness practice and experience with social diversity and a diversity of value systems. Without being present, we are not living in real time. When that happens, we lose ourselves for the moment and are left with potentially competing roles and narratives. In reality, we are not so socially and spiritually poverty-stricken.
When one practices vichara, one is essentially looking deeply into the question: who/what am I? After calming the mind to some extent, one says to oneself something along these lines (the gist here is more important than the details--try letting each of these sentences sink in before moving on to the next):
I have a situation, but I am not my situation.
I have roles, but I am not my roles.
I have a body, but I am not my body.
I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.
I have emotions but I am not my emotions.
When we get caught up in the stream of daily life, we most often act as one of these things. Professor Gates talked about different peoples' internal narratives--the thoughts that are paired with explanation, narrative, and feeling. When we identify as our narratives, our situation, whatever, it is like letting something else drive you or like being possessed for a moment. We even say, "I got caught up in the moment; I wasn't myself." Who were you then? Well, when we aren't "ourselves", we're usually responding to some basic drive and/or narrative. The interesting thing is that we also usually identify ourselves as the roles, characteristics, and narratives that we like or that benefit us in some way.
With vichara, we take a step into these identifications--into the process of identifying (forming a self-concept that is described or bounded by something). Instead of taking that step unmindfully, we take it mindfully. Vichara is one way of getting some space between and within the things that usually push you. Do you feel pushed by identifying yourself as a black man in America? If that is how you identify yourself, probably, at least at times such as when the cops show up at your house. Do cops identify with their roles? (Sorry for the horrendously rhetorical questioning here.) Of course they do, we all do to some extent. We also fall into identifying others as their roles. Did Gates respond to Crowley showing up thinking that here was a helpful race relations teacher coming to make sure his house and its owner was safe? It doesn't seem like he did. Did Crowley show up with the attitude about Gates that he expressed immediately following their rendezvous at the White House (which apparently went much better than their rendezvous at the yellow house)? It doesn't seem like he did.
Vichara "ends" with the question: who am I? We have plenty of time to mull this over in a contemplative manner if we take the time. But when we meet other people, we usually ask and have to decide to some extent, "Should I treat you as a who or a what? And if a what--some role--then which role or roles? If I should treat you as a who, then which who?" Certainly, just as with contemplative self-inquiry a contemplative and interested exploration of another who will tend to take time, and if we bring our good nature and take the time, we can usually get something valuable out of the experience. Essentially asking, "Who are you?" verbally or not allows the other who to answer for themselves rather than leaving us to choose from only our presuppositions and role responsibilities in determining who we think they are and thereby determining how we should treat them.
Beyond the neutral tolerance of other roles and potentially interacting in mutual self-interest, we deal in a greater degree of mindfulness and a greater degree of extending ourselves to meet others in this interesting world. Simultaneously, in exploring with others who they are, the equal "flipside" is inviting them into that mindful self-inquiry that we might practice with ourselves. And in a diversity of perspectives, we find a richer abundance to draw answers and experience from.
This is especially where it becomes important to bring up awareness of the self/other divide as well as our expectations. If I am used to people telling me I am very smart and of benefit to my people as well as "other" people, I'll come to expect that sort of treatment. It's human nature. I identify with my roles and status because it allows me to answer the question of how I should interact with others. If I am used to people showing some degree of respect or at least deference based on fear, I'll come to expect that sort of treatment. When the expected treatment (or "narrative" of treatment) is positive, I will begin to feel entitled to that status, protective of that status. It defines me as a social being; it is my precious. If you are my wife, brother, friend, etc., I may allow you close to what I hold dear. But if you are not, a sense of threat will mingle with fear and entitlement and possessiveness to present me a ready-made reaction to you being all up in my grill.
When that happens, I may be educated enough to know that you maybe aren't coming to take away my entitlements, I may be trained in not aggressing just because I am feeling aggressive. And, if I am not driving in the moment when we interact, the training and education go right out the window. The more often I am in the driver's seat, and the more often I bring my good and right self to the table, the more people will tend to form the general impression that I am mature. People who are not mature may be good in many ways, but if they aggress against others in order to protect the good show involved in their reputations, they will tend to come across as aggressive pricks.
The interesting thing is that it is appropriate to create laws around physical aggression but it is important to create customs around verbal aggression and social respect and appreciation. In a pluralistic society, we should be able to enforce laws against physical aggression, but we will never be able to enforce laws against feeling slighted. If the white man slights first or in retaliation, I call both men immature pricks. I don't mean that to say I am a better person; I say they are pricks for not acting as persons although that is their legal right to be pricks as long as it doesn't go too far.
What's more, people can feel when they are either pulled back or moved ahead by social interactions. Eckhart Tolle made the point that adverse situations tend to bring mostly conscious people to a greater degree of consciousness but that adversity tends to push mostly unconscious people into their unconscious ("ready-made") reactivity. Vichara helps us separate the people from their prickish actions. I can say, "You are being a prick now even if you aren't generally a prick." That is the truth of many situations in our lives. Mindfulness practice helps us gain some degree of dis-identification from our roles, narratives, etc. If we include appreciation in that practice, it can also help us become better at identifying as the good and right selves that we can be. And the more I am actually aware of deciding how I choose to act and acting well, the more I will support a mature and mindfully appreciative self as well as maturity and appreciation as social customs and part of my reputation.
Until we begin to move beyond tolerance and speak about as well as enact appreciation and maturity, we can throw stones from our glass houses until the "chickens come home to roost", to use a memorable phrase. If I want you to treat me as a mature and decent individual, however I choose to identify and whatever my roles are, I will have to be able to line up my intentions and actions during moments of adversity. Someone once said, "Only the tested can inspire the fearful." (Test yourself: are you really a prick to black homeowners or white cops? Is that genuinely who you are?) That seems a much better example to me than, "Do as I say, not as I do." We must teach one another to act from within roles or types while going beyond those types themselves. I may not be completely described by my body or emotions or roles, but they are what I have to work with for now!
Enforcement of laws needs the domination that literal power brings to a situation. Support of customs has a different feel than legislation and the execution of laws by folks in uniforms that show them to be the enforcers. Appreciation and the equanimity it takes to get through adverse situations is supported by mindfulness practice and experience with social diversity and a diversity of value systems. Without being present, we are not living in real time. When that happens, we lose ourselves for the moment and are left with potentially competing roles and narratives. In reality, we are not so socially and spiritually poverty-stricken.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Right Understanding, Right Self
One of the things I enjoy about Buddhism is the variety. The oldest type is Theravada Buddhism. Theravada means something like "wisdom of the elders". The Theravadins stick to a minimal canon of sutras and are considered by many Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists to teach the Hinayana--"the small vehicle"--style of Buddhism. This style can be respected for its thrift, simplicity, and universal applicability. It is similar to the passage in Christianity that says the Way is steep and narrow. It's old school--figuratively and literally. The Mahayanists consider themselves proponents of the "Great Vehicle", opening their canon up to an almost unending set of sutras and commentaries on sutras. The Vajrayanists consider their way most complete and exalted (although some Vajrayanists will say that the three ways are equally good). Vajrayana means something like "the diamond way", and a vajra is Indra's thunderbolt. Vajrayana is also known as tantric and can be seen as the most esoteric--full of ritual, magic, and the abundance of the world. Very different feel to it than Theravadin straightforward simplicity.
Anyway, one of the Buddhist teachings that I appreciate is the outline of the "Eightfold Path" to awakening. The eight things one is expected to work on are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. When we look to relate with others a step beyond hierarchical status or power positions, this usually involves some set of principles, rules, guidelines, or whatever you want to call them. Moving up the ladder from Purpose level interactions to Understanding level interactions, we run into the "good and right" self-identity. Jeffrey Alexander speaks about this sort of relating on a social level in THE CIVIL SPHERE. On pages 228-234, Alexander talks about legitimacy of power, not just power. Between equals who work towards shared understandings and a social contract, power is subjected to the dictates of legitimacy. Fellow citizens and neighbors want to be known as "good and right" people. Being good is socially valuable, and in debates about what is good, one wants to come across as right as well as good.
At this stage, we take one step away from a magically-imbued ideal self--and an animalistic amped self--and a step towards an actual inspired self. The distance between who we are and our ideals now becomes a problem to be addressed--often by attempting to perfectly apply principles. The principles we choose to validate make up our personal sense of "right understanding". At this point, because people test the idea of a civil self among equal civilians, legitimacy becomes important and power is no longer considered to be an acceptable end in itself. And, in a circular but not meaningless way, we put our social weight behind the system of principles we choose while being measured as fallible and lacking by those legitimizing principles. We are "right and good" in our own eyes to the extent we live as examples of our principles, and our principles look right and good to the extent that our actions seem so.
At this point, though, we still are not fully integrated, inspired selves. We have moments of inspiration, but inspiration does not necessarily come on a regular basis just from being authentic. We still put effort into being good, but we are trying to become more graceful about it. There is often the feeling that I could be better if my society were better as well. But having a right framework, a right understanding, may help me work on being a "good" person. We may still look for competition and status, but we may be less likely to believe that physical power is legitimacy, so competition also takes the form as valued debate. The abstraction utilized here helps me recognize that a shitty Christian is a worse neighbor than a good and righteous Muslim even if I believe that Muslim is going to hell for his infidelity and he believes the same of me for my opposing religious beliefs. We may tolerate a good citizen even if he has "false" mythical beliefs (compared to my "right" mythical beliefs).
When two adults--let's stick with the Gates/Crowley couple for now--interact as good and right citizens, they speak to each other as equals rather than competing for status in ways that illegitimately attempt to utilize the power in their positions. This highlights an important shift. We begin to recognize--at least, hopefully, in a pluralistic country--that sometimes I want to be treated as a "person", but the frustrated cashier may treat me as a role (just one more customer). And, as long as the cashier follows the generally agreed-upon laws, I may not like being treated as only a customer, but I can understand it. You can even do the same as a professor and a cop. If you're willing. Now, during stressful moments, we are likely to act less maturely than we do in our best moments. When that happens, we compete for status and the one-up position. The go-to human method is to remember myself as good and righteous and everyone who I see as competing to put me down or put themselves up I see (often correctly) as illegitimately trying to abuse whatever power they can get their grubby hands on. That is only half of right view, though, which means that I'm taking a wrong view. Because I am also trying to get my grubby little hands on whatever advantage I can garner in the situation, influencing the other person to not treat me as good or right. I'm actually asking to be treated as bad and wrong (illegitimate even by my own principles)--which Gates and Crowley did with one another.
Both introjected the righteousness of their ideals but it seems that neither was mindful enough in the stressful situation to actually apply their ideals. A common failing, for sure. Right mindfulness, then, is a huge part of the "mature" self. Neither of this couple seemed to be making mature decisions in this situation even if both might argue about how they were "right". It just goes to show that over-valuing a "right self"-identification keeps us from being good and mature along with being able to claim rightness. As equal citizens, it is sufficient that they can agree to disagree after a beer with the President, but many of their fellow citizens have figured that out without an executive beer order.
Anyway, one of the Buddhist teachings that I appreciate is the outline of the "Eightfold Path" to awakening. The eight things one is expected to work on are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. When we look to relate with others a step beyond hierarchical status or power positions, this usually involves some set of principles, rules, guidelines, or whatever you want to call them. Moving up the ladder from Purpose level interactions to Understanding level interactions, we run into the "good and right" self-identity. Jeffrey Alexander speaks about this sort of relating on a social level in THE CIVIL SPHERE. On pages 228-234, Alexander talks about legitimacy of power, not just power. Between equals who work towards shared understandings and a social contract, power is subjected to the dictates of legitimacy. Fellow citizens and neighbors want to be known as "good and right" people. Being good is socially valuable, and in debates about what is good, one wants to come across as right as well as good.
At this stage, we take one step away from a magically-imbued ideal self--and an animalistic amped self--and a step towards an actual inspired self. The distance between who we are and our ideals now becomes a problem to be addressed--often by attempting to perfectly apply principles. The principles we choose to validate make up our personal sense of "right understanding". At this point, because people test the idea of a civil self among equal civilians, legitimacy becomes important and power is no longer considered to be an acceptable end in itself. And, in a circular but not meaningless way, we put our social weight behind the system of principles we choose while being measured as fallible and lacking by those legitimizing principles. We are "right and good" in our own eyes to the extent we live as examples of our principles, and our principles look right and good to the extent that our actions seem so.
At this point, though, we still are not fully integrated, inspired selves. We have moments of inspiration, but inspiration does not necessarily come on a regular basis just from being authentic. We still put effort into being good, but we are trying to become more graceful about it. There is often the feeling that I could be better if my society were better as well. But having a right framework, a right understanding, may help me work on being a "good" person. We may still look for competition and status, but we may be less likely to believe that physical power is legitimacy, so competition also takes the form as valued debate. The abstraction utilized here helps me recognize that a shitty Christian is a worse neighbor than a good and righteous Muslim even if I believe that Muslim is going to hell for his infidelity and he believes the same of me for my opposing religious beliefs. We may tolerate a good citizen even if he has "false" mythical beliefs (compared to my "right" mythical beliefs).
When two adults--let's stick with the Gates/Crowley couple for now--interact as good and right citizens, they speak to each other as equals rather than competing for status in ways that illegitimately attempt to utilize the power in their positions. This highlights an important shift. We begin to recognize--at least, hopefully, in a pluralistic country--that sometimes I want to be treated as a "person", but the frustrated cashier may treat me as a role (just one more customer). And, as long as the cashier follows the generally agreed-upon laws, I may not like being treated as only a customer, but I can understand it. You can even do the same as a professor and a cop. If you're willing. Now, during stressful moments, we are likely to act less maturely than we do in our best moments. When that happens, we compete for status and the one-up position. The go-to human method is to remember myself as good and righteous and everyone who I see as competing to put me down or put themselves up I see (often correctly) as illegitimately trying to abuse whatever power they can get their grubby hands on. That is only half of right view, though, which means that I'm taking a wrong view. Because I am also trying to get my grubby little hands on whatever advantage I can garner in the situation, influencing the other person to not treat me as good or right. I'm actually asking to be treated as bad and wrong (illegitimate even by my own principles)--which Gates and Crowley did with one another.
Both introjected the righteousness of their ideals but it seems that neither was mindful enough in the stressful situation to actually apply their ideals. A common failing, for sure. Right mindfulness, then, is a huge part of the "mature" self. Neither of this couple seemed to be making mature decisions in this situation even if both might argue about how they were "right". It just goes to show that over-valuing a "right self"-identification keeps us from being good and mature along with being able to claim rightness. As equal citizens, it is sufficient that they can agree to disagree after a beer with the President, but many of their fellow citizens have figured that out without an executive beer order.
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