I’m writing this letter in a tiny room at a tiny desk near a tiny bed next to a tiny bookcase beside a tiny closet, none of which have the slightest decorative touch, and all of which are designed to meet the minimum functional requirements. On the desk is a fluorescent lamp, a teacup, the stationary for writing this letter, and a dictionary. To be honest, I almost never use the dictionary. I just don’t like dictionaries. I don’t like the way they look, and I don’t like what they say inside. Whenever I use a dictionary, I make a face and think, Who needs to know that? Say I look up “transition” and it says: “passage from one state to another.” I think, So what? It’s got nothing to do with me. So when I see a dictionary on my desk I feel like I’m looking at some strange dog leaving a twisty piece of poop on our lawn out back.
Didn’t want to be your ghost
Didn’t want to be anyone’s ghost
Didn’t want to be your ghost
Didn’t want to be anyone’s ghost
But I don’t want anybody else
I don’t want anybody else
Pithy.
When I ask my students at the beginning of my Men and Masculinity course about ‘real men,’ I get responses like, ‘real men aren’t afraid to show affection,’ or ‘real men like to dance,’ or ‘real men can cry in public and not care what anyone else thinks.’ My students want to subvert the traditional ‘sturdy oak’ model of masculinity. They mean well. But all they’re doing is swapping one unattainable ideal for another. Just as ‘real women have curves’ delegitimizes countless slim women, ‘real men aren’t afraid to cry’ shames those men who for any number of reasons are awkward about public displays of emotion. The contemporary ‘real man’ ideal presents itself as inclusive, but it’s just another cultural straitjacket.
(via sexisnottheenemy)
This morning, I’ve had a wonderful experience. Whilst reading The Tell-Tale Brain by neuroscientist VS Ramachandran, a vivid image sprang to mind. I think my mind wove it based on inspirations drawn from the opening paragraph of Ramachandran’s chapter on beauty and the brain, which reads:
An old Indian myth says that Brahma created the universe and all the beautiful snow-clad mountains, rivers, flowers, birds, and trees—even humans. Yet soon afterward, he was sitting on a chair, his head in his hands. His consort, Saraswati, asked him, ‘My lord—you created the whole beautiful Universe, populated with men of great valor and intellect who worship you—why are you so despondent?’ Brahma replied, ‘Yes, all this is true, but the men whom I have created have no appreciation of the beauty of my creations and, without this, all their intellect means nothing.’ Whereupon Saraswati reassured Brahma, ‘I will give mankind a gift called art.’ From that moment on people developed an aesthetic sense, started responding to beauty, and saw the divine spark in all things. Saraswati is therefore worshipped throughout India as the goddess of art and music—as humankind’s muse.
The abstract concept my materialist mind gleans from this is that of a substance being molded and shaped and worked into various forms that go about their business while simultaneously being ignorant of their fundamental substance-nature. Then at some point one of these forms turns reflective and begins responding to the beauty of all forms, bringing it in touch with its own nature and relationship to other forms.
The specific correlate so vividly conjured in my mind is the reflection on the surface of a lake. I look into the water and see a reflection of the world. The sky is there, the clouds are there, the tree tops along the bank are there, my own face is there. But are any of these things actually the sky, the clouds, the nearby trees, or my face? No, they are reflections on the surface of the water.
In a way, I am like the water. I too am reflective, and my reflections (cultural, social, etc) are available to anything that is capable of observing me. I observe the water being still or stimulated, murky or clear, calm or choppy. A Martian observer might note of me:
He woke up a little before 8am and has been lazily enjoying the sleepy, quiet living room of his early-Saturday-morning Chicago apartment. Not much traffic outside. The sun is streaming through his somewhat dirty windows, and the oblique angles of the shadows remind him he is not facing exactly east. His furriest cat naps next to him, while the less furry one lies fat and happy in the sunlight.
Breakfast comprised two eggs from a dwindling dozen purchased at the farmers market a couple weeks ago, toast purchased at his local green grocer, and coffee gifted by his father from a prior visit to Ecuador.
Buena Vista Social Club sparkles through his surround sound via a premium Spotify account on his iPhone. An indie bike zine rests on his coffee table. It begs indulgence, but he is currently geeking out on neuroscience.
However, I am unlike the water in that my reflections are not just expressed outwardly toward external observers. They are also expressed inwardly, fed back into the myriad processes which compose the mind that does the reflecting. I look around me. I call this thing a “computer.” I call that thing a “balcony.” I call that other thing a “tree,” and some of that thing “branches,” and some of those things “leaves.” They are “green.” The sky above is blue. My arms are hairy. My feet are cold. This coffee is strong. My mood is happy and excited. And it’s Saturday—woo hoo!!!
I recognize these things, and I’m as confident as I can be that some of them are really “out there,” and others are really “in here.” I react to all of them accordingly and go about my business of being one of nearly 7 billion similar humans alive today. I am recognizing all of these things that reflect on my mind, and I am engaging with them, and I am trying to be smart and conscientious in doing so.
But wait, am I missing something? Have I lost touch with something fundamental? I am not always so quick to ask myself these questions.
I pause. I consider the objects of my experience and my relationship to them. I consider how they are reflected in me. Taken cumulatively, they are the stuff of my waking narrative, my story about what the world is and how I fit into it. That’s really exciting and unique and feels like it’s exclusively mine. This is all going on, but there is a more fundamental thing also available… awareness of reflection!
I’m not just one form of a substance reflecting the creative, dynamic nature of other forms, and then using those reflections as feedback. I’m a very privileged form! I get to know that I know. I get to be excited about studying neuroscience. I get to have language and culture and society and identity. I get to create a situation for a Martian observer. Every day I get to enjoy this gift. Fuck yeah, Life!
So returning to the lake image, when I look down I am not seeing the world, but only the reflection of the world on the surface of the lake. Likewise in everyday experience, when I look outward at the world I am not seeing the world, but only the reflection of the world on the mind of one human being. And the mind of this human being has the potential to know its own nature and investigate how it all works.
On love and openness
If you really love me as I am, why do you want me to enter your territory? Why this issue of territory and demands at all? What do you want from me? How do I know, if I do march into your ‘loving’ territory, that you aren’t going to dominate me, that you won’t create a claustrophobic situation with your heavy demands for love?Here, Chogyam Trungpa is not attacking love per se. He is criticizing how it’s often proselytized in service of the ego, as it treats the other as a means to its own ends, rather than as an end in and of herself.
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Very interesting perspective. I wonder how often I’ve fallen into this trap. Have you?
An open letter from Mind to Heart
I am so grateful you are here for me, and always have been. I cherish you every day. Without you, I would not be. My dear Heart, I know you are hurting. I know you are in pain. I feel it too. I promise you that it will be ok, we will be ok, and this will all work out fine. We will enjoy happiness and freedom, and revel together in the glorious light of a new day. I am here for you every step of the way.
I love you.
The task of dharma practice is to sustain [existential] perplexity within the context of calm, clear, and centered awareness. Such perplexity is neither frustrated nor merely curious about a specific detail of experience. It is an intense, focused questioning into the totality of what is unfolding at any given moment. It is the engine that drives awareness into the heart of what is unknown.
I’ve posted this text before I’m sure. Mr. Batchelor is very much worth repeating, though.
