beth I wrote you a long comment yesterday then my hotel connection timed out....
anyway, the gist being, I know you know this but when there are no more words with someone you love, it is wonderful to listen to music together.
also to say that mourning, which process I imagine you are already starting, always sheds a light on a new space in life where a new seed - whether actual or creative - is born. Your weeping is washing that space clean.
Jude, I hope the headache dissolves and you are free of it...
Beth, you and your mother and your family are in my heart all the time...
Dale, let's keep talking...
Yesterday I finished my creative writing presentation on my daughter's current obsessions with sculpting her body into a fashionable slenderness, a route I, too, took as a teen and young woman and worked through with much pain and difficulty and hoped that she would be able to be free of these issues and problems. She isn't. It's a personal story...
Today I have to work on the more academic piece.
I find that if I meditate deeply when I come out of that state I can write more easily. All of the photopoetic pieces were written in the deeply relaxed state of post-meditation.
It'll be an experiment today to see if I can organize and structure 2 1/2 pages on evolutionary ethics research that will surround a section from my novel that I'll read.
Meditation and the creative state seem aligned. Whether that extends to the discursive rational I don't know.
I'm sorry I came across as chiding, Brenda. I really don't like meditation to get identified as a left-wing thing -- it drives people away from it that could benefit from it. And I simply don't think we (speaking as a Leftist here) are that much more likely to be right. Politics is a matter of guessing what actions will produce what results. We're bound to be wrong about some things, and we may be wrong about everything. I conscientiously take my best guess, but that's all it is. I have much more confidence in the efficacy of meditation than I do in the efficacy of political action.
Nothing has opened me more to people who hold right-wing views than meditation, and I hope the opposite would be true, as well.
I'm curious about what you mean by "not believing in satori," -- do you think all the people who report it are lying, or self-deceived? Or do you mean that talk about it is usually embedded in a teleology you don't accept?
In any case, if controversy drives people away, so be it. So long as people are civil and listen to each other, I hope they'll say whatever is on their minds. A necessary part of keeping up a meditation practice, I think, is being able to speak up and say "my practice doesn't mean that and can't mean that!" when you start feeling coopted or misconstrued, so it's part of 100 days' mission to air that sort of thing. That's how I see it, anyway.
Brenda, I don't know of course, what other people think. But personally I'm either engaged or not engaged by particular comments and have never had a strong negative reaction to anything said here. Probably because neither you nor anyone else ever comments in a bullying or off-putting way - expressing thoughts and feelings can widen a circle or narrow it. I've never felt that anything you said narrowed it. Same with Dale, really. The most I ever think is 'oh gosh, they're having an intellectual discussion again - why don't I ever have any intellectual thoughts about meditation?' It's fine.
Not believing in satori. It's a utopian teleology, for one thing. It sets up a heirarchy of sentient beings for another. It upholds the master/apprentice model that as we know from Hegel (master/slave) is potentially exploitive. These are among the problems I have with it as a concept removed from other concepts.
It as a universalizing concept is particularly troubling to me.
To me, satori, enlightenment, only indicates mastery in that one area, one tradition. A person with a PhD in English Lit has achieved a mastery level of English literature, but that degree holds different weight, is different if it's from Harvard or some obsolete 3rd world university. Likewise satori in any one of the many Buddhist traditions don't necessarily equal one another. And then a person with a PhD in Eng Lit isn't automatically a 'master' in, say Quantum Chemistry. Likewise, an enlightened Korean Zen master isn't automatically equivalent to a Catholic saint. One doesn't give passport into the other.
I believe that you can achieve mastery in specific areas, and I herald that effort and achievement and respect it greatly, but that that mastery is only relevant to that area.
Since I, myself, don't belong to any tradition or area, concepts like satori or enlightment hold no meaning for me.
The closest I have allowed myself to come to believing in it with all its inherent problems is that at death surely we all experience an 'enlightenment' on the meaning of life, existence, us, the whole. At that moment surely we are fully unified and whole.
But, again, that is a utopian ideal, isn't it. The end being more important than the means. Whereas perhaps the means, the tao, the way, becoming is simply more attractive...
Dale, sorry to identify meditation as left wing... it was in a whole list of words that were less loaded. I've had lots of people in my yoga classes who were right wing, and use meditation to relax even while they're upholding the status quo. It doesn't matter at all. Where it really counts is that we're all people with beating hearts who love. We're all caring for the world and giving of the excesses of our gifts.
For me personally meditating is an ultimately liberating activity.
No dictatorship or imprisonment could take that away from me.
Hence it's being a 'subversive' act, and act of individual freedom.
I've had 17 mercury amalgam fillings replaced with no freezing (I over-react to novocaine) by using meditation.
Ruth, thank you for mentioning music. My experience singing to my mother as she died taught me that shared music can be more powerful than words ever could be. And most useful in the right circumstances — when, for example, there are no words. I am grateful to be called back to that memory.
Beth, continuing love to you and yours.
Atom, welcome.
Jude, Devon... that makes 3 of us contending with head pain today. Misery loves company and 3 is company. May we each be pain-free soon!
Brenda, for the record, my quietness has had nothing to do with you (nor anyone else here), just been busy. I very much appreciate your contributions. The discussions that periodically arise here — whether or not they've included you and whether or not there has been disagreement — have all been interesting, thought-provoking, and conducted with respect, it seems to me. As such, I feel they definitely have, deserve, and need a place here. Please, carry on!
Jean, your comment The most I ever think is 'oh gosh, they're having an intellectual discussion again - why don't I ever have any intellectual thoughts about meditation?' made me laugh because it was as if you have sometimes read my thoughts. And I'm with you... it's fine!
I forgot to say hello to Atom. So nice to see you here!
I've had a bad headache for the last couple of days too, and didn't therefore meditate this morning or yesterday morning. Not because I can't sit with pain. More that the pain makes me out of sorts and I end up late and disorganised. Will try to sit this evening, and will send loving kindness to all our poor heads.
Brenda, I'm probably misusing the word satori; it's not native to my tradition, & it's always dangerous to wrench these terms out of their context. A better word, since it's native to both of us and I'm sure I've experienced it, is "bliss." I do think -- probably inaccurately, come to think of it -- of enlightenment as a stable and enduring experience of bliss. But I'm actually agnostic about enlightenment, and not even as confident as you that any opening happens at death; we might just go out like candles, as I was brought up to believe. I don't care, really; I can't think of any difference it would make in how I practice.
I do (cautiously) believe in the universality of bliss -- it's described with remarkable unanimity in traditions as widely separate as medieval Christian contemplation and Sufism and various strains of Buddhism. I'm not sure what mastery has to do with it, though -- we've got some disconnect here, which I'm guessing is semantic.
As far as master/disciple relationships, this I think is the only place where we really part ways. I agree that they're dangerous (especially for "masters") and easily abused -- I don't know of anyone who disputes that, actually -- but they've been indispensible to me and to many people I know. (Some dance steps you just can't do without letting someone else lift you off the ground.) But I watched them closely and suspiciously for many years before I came around to that, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.
And I'm glad that there is respect and understanding here ...I find meditation quite extraordinarily difficult to discuss, but it is good to know that is just fine. I love the fact that we can all meet on an equal footing in our practice wherever we are coming from.
Welcome Atom!!
Aware of my dark places and compulsions recently, not in a condemnatory way but just feeling it may be time to try and explore and reclaim them through paying more attention, being aware, being willing to go a little deeper in meditation than I have been doing. I'm so tired of the hold they have.
Speaking for myself I would like to find a master/spiritual guide/mentor - one of the reasons I have decided to take meditation classes. Maybe if the pupil is ready the teacher will appear ....?
Just come in from a yoga class - a peaceful meditation sequence at the end. It's very warm here tonight and walking home the air was filled with scents from the flowers in the gardens I passed. Life felt good.
Thanks again to all who've sent good wishes. We brought Mom home from the hospital today and it was good to see her perk up as she re-connected with her own home. She's eating almost nothing, so that is my challenge - to very gently coax her to eat a bit more and find little appetizing things she might try. Applesauce was good at dinner. All of this is bringing me down to "core things" and I do see it as practice, though this was somewhat unexpected. I am intensely aware right now, very observant, and certain things feel like they burn into my memory - like the feel of her so-familiar hand in mind as we slowly walked the hospital corridor yesterday. Ruth, be sure that we will include music. The piano is right in the living room and I will play every day and sing a little with my father, who has a fine tenor voice. She loves that. If things stabilize, I will leave for a bit and come back again soon. Oddly, I am actually enjoying being here and feel quite calm and as though it is good for me, not a drain - even though I'm pretty tired.
May all the headache-afflicted be free of pain soon! This must be somethign else we share here. I don't get migraines, but have had bad headaches all my life - but many less if I don't drink much alcohol. Isn't it wonderful when they finally leave?
Beth how beautiful to think of your ma at home listening to her daughter and husband make music.
the teacher/Pupil/ master disciple debate! ha! have to put on my ha'pth worth. As a musician I feel so blessed to have been a student of at least three great masters. these people can be philosophers; teachers, parents, guides, spiritual teachers. I remember my teacher, with whom I had an 'apprenticehip' for four years in the us, meeting me as i came off stage after playing a bach aria saying, simply, and unconditionally "Ruthie. I love you". In those few seconds of him receiving what I had given I understood for the first time how very much my father had always loved me, but had never been able to express it in the way I 'expected' him to.
In the east it is ok to have a guru. Older, Wiser people are respected, and their knowledge is passed on. We have lost this. Trades were a way to pass this wisdom on but we are losing that too. I feel priveliged to be in a profession where the wisdom of the master is still valued. It doesn't have to be disempowering, and can be quite the opposite.
here's to teachers who make us see the beauty which is around us, and teach us to appreciate and express it.
Brenda, hoping your presentations go very well. I loved what you posted on your blog - this type of combination of artistic representaton and scholarly analysis is new to me and I find it beautiful, heartening, and more likely to meaningfully enhance my understanding than an approach through the intellect only. Bringing the two together is hard for me. I guess that's why I find it difficult to have an intellectual discussion of meditation. But softening these barriers seems fundamental.
17 Comments:
beth I wrote you a long comment yesterday then my hotel connection timed out....
anyway, the gist being, I know you know this but when there are no more words with someone you love, it is wonderful to listen to music together.
also to say that mourning, which process I imagine you are already starting, always sheds a light on a new space in life where a new seed - whether actual or creative - is born. Your weeping is washing that space clean.
You are in my heart.
welcome atom.
Jude, I hope the headache dissolves and you are free of it...
Beth, you and your mother and your family are in my heart all the time...
Dale, let's keep talking...
Yesterday I finished my creative writing presentation on my daughter's current obsessions with sculpting her body into a fashionable slenderness, a route I, too, took as a teen and young woman and worked through with much pain and difficulty and hoped that she would be able to be free of these issues and problems. She isn't. It's a personal story...
Today I have to work on the more academic piece.
I find that if I meditate deeply when I come out of that state I can write more easily. All of the photopoetic pieces were written in the deeply relaxed state of post-meditation.
It'll be an experiment today to see if I can organize and structure 2 1/2 pages on evolutionary ethics research that will surround a section from my novel that I'll read.
Meditation and the creative state seem aligned. Whether that extends to the discursive rational I don't know.
I'm sorry I came across as chiding, Brenda. I really don't like meditation to get identified as a left-wing thing -- it drives people away from it that could benefit from it. And I simply don't think we (speaking as a Leftist here) are that much more likely to be right. Politics is a matter of guessing what actions will produce what results. We're bound to be wrong about some things, and we may be wrong about everything. I conscientiously take my best guess, but that's all it is. I have much more confidence in the efficacy of meditation than I do in the efficacy of political action.
Nothing has opened me more to people who hold right-wing views than meditation, and I hope the opposite would be true, as well.
I'm curious about what you mean by "not believing in satori," -- do you think all the people who report it are lying, or self-deceived? Or do you mean that talk about it is usually embedded in a teleology you don't accept?
In any case, if controversy drives people away, so be it. So long as people are civil and listen to each other, I hope they'll say whatever is on their minds. A necessary part of keeping up a meditation practice, I think, is being able to speak up and say "my practice doesn't mean that and can't mean that!" when you start feeling coopted or misconstrued, so it's part of 100 days' mission to air that sort of thing. That's how I see it, anyway.
Brenda, I don't know of course, what other people think. But personally I'm either engaged or not engaged by particular comments and have never had a strong negative reaction to anything said here. Probably because neither you nor anyone else ever comments in a bullying or off-putting way - expressing thoughts and feelings can widen a circle or narrow it. I've never felt that anything you said narrowed it. Same with Dale, really. The most I ever think is 'oh gosh, they're having an intellectual discussion again - why don't I ever have any intellectual thoughts about meditation?' It's fine.
Thank you, Dale, and Jean. I do worry.
Not believing in satori. It's a utopian teleology, for one thing. It sets up a heirarchy of sentient beings for another. It upholds the master/apprentice model that as we know from Hegel (master/slave) is potentially exploitive. These are among the problems I have with it as a concept removed from other concepts.
It as a universalizing concept is particularly troubling to me.
To me, satori, enlightenment, only indicates mastery in that one area, one tradition. A person with a PhD in English Lit has achieved a mastery level of English literature, but that degree holds different weight, is different if it's from Harvard or some obsolete 3rd world university. Likewise satori in any one of the many Buddhist traditions don't necessarily equal one another. And then a person with a PhD in Eng Lit isn't automatically a 'master' in, say Quantum Chemistry. Likewise, an enlightened Korean Zen master isn't automatically equivalent to a Catholic saint. One doesn't give passport into the other.
I believe that you can achieve mastery in specific areas, and I herald that effort and achievement and respect it greatly, but that that mastery is only relevant to that area.
Since I, myself, don't belong to any tradition or area, concepts like satori or enlightment hold no meaning for me.
The closest I have allowed myself to come to believing in it with all its inherent problems is that at death surely we all experience an 'enlightenment' on the meaning of life, existence, us, the whole. At that moment surely we are fully unified and whole.
But, again, that is a utopian ideal, isn't it. The end being more important than the means. Whereas perhaps the means, the tao, the way, becoming is simply more attractive...
Dale, sorry to identify meditation as left wing... it was in a whole list of words that were less loaded. I've had lots of people in my yoga classes who were right wing, and use meditation to relax even while they're upholding the status quo. It doesn't matter at all. Where it really counts is that we're all people with beating hearts who love. We're all caring for the world and giving of the excesses of our gifts.
For me personally meditating is an ultimately liberating activity.
No dictatorship or imprisonment could take that away from me.
Hence it's being a 'subversive' act, and act of individual freedom.
I've had 17 mercury amalgam fillings replaced with no freezing (I over-react to novocaine) by using meditation.
It's powerful stuff.
Meditation.
Ruth, thank you for mentioning music. My experience singing to my mother as she died taught me that shared music can be more powerful than words ever could be. And most useful in the right circumstances — when, for example, there are no words. I am grateful to be called back to that memory.
Beth, continuing love to you and yours.
Atom, welcome.
Jude, Devon... that makes 3 of us contending with head pain today. Misery loves company and 3 is company. May we each be pain-free soon!
Brenda, for the record, my quietness has had nothing to do with you (nor anyone else here), just been busy. I very much appreciate your contributions. The discussions that periodically arise here — whether or not they've included you and whether or not there has been disagreement — have all been interesting, thought-provoking, and conducted with respect, it seems to me. As such, I feel they definitely have, deserve, and need a place here. Please, carry on!
Jean, your comment The most I ever think is 'oh gosh, they're having an intellectual discussion again - why don't I ever have any intellectual thoughts about meditation?' made me laugh because it was as if you have sometimes read my thoughts. And I'm with you... it's fine!
Oh, God, I can't tell you how much I wish I didn't have intellectual thoughts about meditation! It's no blessing, I can tell you that :-)
I forgot to say hello to Atom. So nice to see you here!
I've had a bad headache for the last couple of days too, and didn't therefore meditate this morning or yesterday morning. Not because I can't sit with pain. More that the pain makes me out of sorts and I end up late and disorganised. Will try to sit this evening, and will send loving kindness to all our poor heads.
Brenda, I'm probably misusing the word satori; it's not native to my tradition, & it's always dangerous to wrench these terms out of their context. A better word, since it's native to both of us and I'm sure I've experienced it, is "bliss." I do think -- probably inaccurately, come to think of it -- of enlightenment as a stable and enduring experience of bliss. But I'm actually agnostic about enlightenment, and not even as confident as you that any opening happens at death; we might just go out like candles, as I was brought up to believe. I don't care, really; I can't think of any difference it would make in how I practice.
I do (cautiously) believe in the universality of bliss -- it's described with remarkable unanimity in traditions as widely separate as medieval Christian contemplation and Sufism and various strains of Buddhism. I'm not sure what mastery has to do with it, though -- we've got some disconnect here, which I'm guessing is semantic.
As far as master/disciple relationships, this I think is the only place where we really part ways. I agree that they're dangerous (especially for "masters") and easily abused -- I don't know of anyone who disputes that, actually -- but they've been indispensible to me and to many people I know. (Some dance steps you just can't do without letting someone else lift you off the ground.) But I watched them closely and suspiciously for many years before I came around to that, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.
Left/right, master/pupil, master/slave ...
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" as Sigmund Freud once said, and he as smoker and inventor of psychoanalysis ought to know. :-)
Sweet dreams and good health to all.
Wishing the pain-filled ones relief.
And I'm glad that there is respect and understanding here ...I find meditation quite extraordinarily difficult to discuss, but it is good to know that is just fine. I love the fact that we can all meet on an equal footing in our practice wherever we are coming from.
Welcome Atom!!
Aware of my dark places and compulsions recently, not in a condemnatory way but just feeling it may be time to try and explore and reclaim them through paying more attention, being aware, being willing to go a little deeper in meditation than I have been doing. I'm so tired of the hold they have.
Speaking for myself I would like to find a master/spiritual guide/mentor - one of the reasons I have decided to take meditation classes. Maybe if the pupil is ready the teacher will appear ....?
Just come in from a yoga class - a peaceful meditation sequence at the end. It's very warm here tonight and walking home the air was filled with scents from the flowers in the gardens I passed. Life felt good.
As Udge says, sweet dreams to all.
Thanks again to all who've sent good wishes. We brought Mom home from the hospital today and it was good to see her perk up as she re-connected with her own home. She's eating almost nothing, so that is my challenge - to very gently coax her to eat a bit more and find little appetizing things she might try. Applesauce was good at dinner. All of this is bringing me down to "core things" and I do see it as practice, though this was somewhat unexpected. I am intensely aware right now, very observant, and certain things feel like they burn into my memory - like the feel of her so-familiar hand in mind as we slowly walked the hospital corridor yesterday. Ruth, be sure that we will include music. The piano is right in the living room and I will play every day and sing a little with my father, who has a fine tenor voice. She loves that. If things stabilize, I will leave for a bit and come back again soon. Oddly, I am actually enjoying being here and feel quite calm and as though it is good for me, not a drain - even though I'm pretty tired.
May all the headache-afflicted be free of pain soon! This must be somethign else we share here. I don't get migraines, but have had bad headaches all my life - but many less if I don't drink much alcohol. Isn't it wonderful when they finally leave?
Beth how beautiful to think of your ma at home listening to her daughter and husband make music.
the teacher/Pupil/ master disciple debate! ha! have to put on my ha'pth worth. As a musician I feel so blessed to have been a student of at least three great masters. these people can be philosophers; teachers, parents, guides, spiritual teachers. I remember my teacher, with whom I had an 'apprenticehip' for four years in the us, meeting me as i came off stage after playing a bach aria saying, simply, and unconditionally "Ruthie. I love you". In those few seconds of him receiving what I had given I understood for the first time how very much my father had always loved me, but had never been able to express it in the way I 'expected' him to.
In the east it is ok to have a guru. Older, Wiser people are respected, and their knowledge is passed on. We have lost this. Trades were a way to pass this wisdom on but we are losing that too. I feel priveliged to be in a profession where the wisdom of the master is still valued. It doesn't have to be disempowering, and can be quite the opposite.
here's to teachers who make us see the beauty which is around us, and teach us to appreciate and express it.
Too many headaches! May they all lift...
I've read these fabulous and beautiful and thought-provoking comments, and thank everyone for just being here.
I finished preparing both my presentations, went grocery shopping, now pack and laundry, and perhaps even sleep.
I'll be away for a few days (my daugher well taken care of in my absence)- back on Monday.
Be well, much love, and *blissful* (hey Dale) meditation...
Safe travels, Brenda! And have a great time with the presentation!
Ach, you made me cry, Ruth and Beth.
Brenda, hoping your presentations go very well. I loved what you posted on your blog - this type of combination of artistic representaton and scholarly analysis is new to me and I find it beautiful, heartening, and more likely to meaningfully enhance my understanding than an approach through the intellect only. Bringing the two together is hard for me. I guess that's why I find it difficult to have an intellectual discussion of meditation. But softening these barriers seems fundamental.
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