Don't Go Blindly

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.  Immauel Kant 

I have posted a similar quotation before.  I thought of it this morning when I sat down for meditation.  I can’t imagine meditation having any meaning without a theory of practice behind it.  I try to continue studying meditation theory.  It helps keep the practice fresh.

I’m guessing that most areas of our lives are supported by theory of some kind though that theory may be unconscious and dictated by the culture around us.  This Valentine’s Day, I want to remind myself that there are theories that can support my desire to be a loving compassionate person.  There's always time to see more clearly.

Quotation for Today

Meditation, simply defined, is a way of being aware. It is the happy marriage of doing and being. It lifts the fog of our ordinary lives to reveal what is hidden; it loosens the knot of self-centeredness and opens the heart; it moves us beyond mere concepts to allow for a direct experience of reality.

- Lama Surya Das, The Heart-Essence of Buddhist Meditation

I Practice

I practice meditation. The people in my meditation group (sangha) call it sitting practice or just sitting. I don't talk about it much, but sometimes I'll mention to a friend that I met with my meditation group.  I’m often kind of surprised that they don’t ask questions about it, but I’m relieved too.  I'm not sure what to say about a decision to sit in silence just trying to focus on my breath.

Media reports talk of how meditation improves blood pressure, stress, and health in general.  I always find these reports alarming.  They seem to imply that without meditation, I would be even sicker and crazier than I am now.

Last week I attended a meditation retreat from Wednesday evening until Sunday noon.  Most of that time, I did not speak.  There were a lot of scheduling difficulties involved in going away for these days, so I talked about my plans more than usual, and people did comment.  It sounded like they pictured me spending that time in a peaceful trance.  Actually some of the time was wonderfully peaceful.  But sometimes, it was boring—so boring.  And tiring too.  I’m not used to sitting so much and for the last meditation after dinner, I could hardly get comfortable.  I did find it interesting how well I slept—I thought this an indication of what hard work meditation is.

So, why do I do it?  One of the basics in the introduction to meditation is, we meditate to discover our true nature and to learn that we are not separate from anything.  Does that happen?  Did it happened last week?  Yes and no.  I was in touch with great feelings of tenderness toward the people in the meditation room, tenderness toward the house we stayed in and the beautiful snowy grounds. But I knew I would go home and struggle to hold onto that tenderness.  As I expected, it doesn’t come as easily in the "real world," but it hasn’t gone away either.  And the memory of the retreat’s intense tenderness speaks to me of a reassuring truth about my connectedness to the world.  I am very moved and nourished by that.

Do I recommend meditation practice?  Yes, if it speaks to you, check it out.  If you think it should speak to you, but it doesn’t quite, you might read about it to help you make your decision.  I probably read about meditation and the philosophy that goes with it for three or four years before I actually seriously tried it.  I personally think it’s not the cure-all touted in popular media with claims of relaxation and pain relief.  Paradoxically, I think it’s better than those claims.  It has given me a sense of belongingness to this life, both to the “good” and “bad.”  I think this will get stronger. That's good.

This video "The Fruits of Zen Practice" explains it in a more organized fashion than I do.

               

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."  That's a good quotation from Camus that seems appropriate for our South Bend weather. I stumbled across it today, but I don't know the context.  I assume he was being hopeful.

At the New Yorker site, Sasha Weiss discusses the counter claims of Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen.  In her discussion she says,

These things are difficult to talk about, which is why they are worth talking about. 

What a useful idea.  It could apply to so many things we don't want to talk about.

Living with Fiction

I finished the novel The Signature of All Things a couple of weeks ago, and ever since, Elizabeth Gilbert’s story has been floating in and out of my mind and inspiring once again, the question, what is the relationship between fiction and reality?  Beyond entertainment, what are the possibilities with a novel like Signature? 

The novel’s main character, Alma Whittaker, is a 19^th century naturalist whose specialty is studying and writing about moss.  She develops both a great curiosity and appreciation for mosses and the ways they grow and adapt.  You might say she develops a tenderness for moss; you might say, her tenderness takes her into a mysticism that leads her to feel connected to all of nature.

I suppose this novel allows me to feel this tenderness as well, not necessarily toward moss, but toward the beauty and mystery of nature.  I too can feel the love exper- ienced by this fictional woman for the natural world.  That’s all I can make of it.  I think it’s enough.

"I Am Fortunate..."

Here’s another short passage from The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert spoken by the main character, Alma Whittaker:

I do truly believe I am fortunate.  I am fortunate because I have been able to spend my life in study of the world.  As such, I have never felt insignificant.  This life is a mystery, yes, and it is often a trial, but if one can find some facts within it, one should always do so—for knowledge is the most precious of all commodities.

From Pope Francis

“A religion without mystics is a philosophy.”

What We Need to Know about Poverty

Do you live in poverty?  Do you know anyone who does?  Does poverty exist in another world from the one you live in?

Last week I attended a workshop called “Building a Sustainable Community:  Why Poverty Matters.”  I attended because it was sponsored by the Bridges Out of Poverty organization (Bridges), and I have been intrigued by their work. I learned that “4 out of 5 adult Americans will experience economic uncertainty during their lifetimes.”  And I learned how different that experience can be, depending on a variety of factors.  Bridges has a “dynamic” definition of poverty: “The extent to which an individual does without resources.”

There was a period in my life where my financial resources were low, but my educational and family resources have always been high.  People in generation poverty are usually “under resourced” in many areas.

Some facts from the day...

I have just finished reading The Signature of All Things, a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Here is one of my favorite sentences:

 A person cannot marvel in dumbstruck amazement forever…

The Long View, from the President

What Barack Obama said in an interview with David Remick:

I think we are born into this world and inherit all the grudges and rivalries and hatreds and sins of the past. But we also inherit the beauty and the joy and goodness of our forebears. And we’re on this planet a pretty short time, so that we cannot remake the world entirely during this little stretch that we have....But I think our decisions matter.  And I think America was very lucky that Abraham Lincoln was President when he was President. If he hadn’t been, the course of history would be very different. But I also think that, despite being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that at the end of the day we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.

The Perfect Song

Usually, I post songs on Sunday, but I can’t wait.  This one is too perfect!

You Can't Be Cool"

"Never  try to look cool and learn something at the same time. You must have an awkward phase. All of us would like to skip that awkward phase. That is not how it works. Here is how it works: Get your ass in the water. Swim like me."  Na-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates (my favorite blogger) has been reading Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, Timothy Snyder's book about millions of murders in Europe between 1933 and 1945.  The details shared by Coates are horrific.  The book lists so many atrocities, Coates worries it might numb the reader.  Still he says,

...I think Snyder frames the questions correctly--How can men commit such acts? The question is not answered by empty invocations of "evil" or vague invocations of "sociopathy." The question is not answered by memorializing victims (though this has its place) or the construction of national oaths (though that too might have its place.) On the contrary the question might best be answered, not by identifying with history greatest victims, but by identifying with its killers. This is in fact, as Snyder argues, the moral position.

He then quotes Snyder:

It is easy to sanctify policies or identities by the deaths of the victims. It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never that one might become a victim but that one might be a perpetrator or a bystander.

Coates concludes,

I think that allows for a skeptical morality. I think that allows those of us on the socio-economic bottom to give up our righteousness, to understand that there is nothing super-moral, or blessed, or prophesied in being down here. The bottom is just the bottom. Can we truly say we'd be much different were we on top?

Yes You Can

For Christmas my daughter gave me a mix CD with a variety of songs.  The first time I listened to it, I was driving to meet with my meditation group.  In that frame of mind, I concluded that most of the songs she had selected were Zen songs, and I found the Zen label made "You Can't always Get..." more moving than usual.  The video, from 2013, is of mediocre quality, but I like that it is done with the University Of Southern California Thornton Chamber Choir as the first recording, released in 1969, was done with the London Bach Choir providing some of the background.  

Change the law. Change the numbers.

The chart above was posted today on The Dish and it shows one of the worst flaws of current drug policy.  Most sources say that blacks and whites use marijuana at about the same rates.  Yet, look at the above incarceration rates.  Let’s not raise the arrest numbers for whites; let’s reduce arrests. Period.

Me, Me, Me

From Pema Chödrön:

There is a saying that is the underlying principle of tonglen and slogan practice:  Gain and victory to others, loss and defeat to myself.”  The Tibetan word for pride or arrogance, which is nya-gyal, is literally in English “me-victorious.”  Me first.  Ego.  That kind of “me-victorious” attitude is the cause of all suffering.

She goes on to explain that “loss and defeat" does not mean allowing ourselves to be beat up.  It means “you can open your heart” to feeling bad and “know what defeat feels like."  It’s the me-victorious attitude that intrigues me.  It reminds me of times when even in a conversation about nothing very important, I was striving for victory.

The View from My Front Porch

Around 8:15 AM, January 5, 2014

In this example "Cool Ad" is not an oxymoron

Readers of The Dish chose the ad above as the second coolest ad of 2013.  The coolest ad is also good, but the ad above relates to one of the themes of this blog, the need for better gun laws. It has been called the "best gun control commercial ever produced" and makes an interesting point about the Second Amendment.

Different Democratic Manifestations

As a United States citizen, I tend to think of our two-party system as typical of democracy, even though I hear, from time-to-time, of many political parties existing in other democracies.  Frances Moore Lappé explains:

[I]t’s worth noting that our two-party stranglehold is an anomaly.  In Germany, five major parties participate in parliament; in Sweden, it’s seven parties; and in the Netherlands, eleven.  In fact, in most of Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, and in a majority of the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, a party can win a certain minimum of the national vote—in some countries as low as 4 or 5 percent—and still participate in the government.

I'm jealous.

(From Democracy's Edge)