#446 Gratitude, Service & Responsibility

     The great philosopher Huston Smith summarized a profound approach to life:

"Infinite gratitude towards all things past;
infinite service to all things present; 
infinite responsibility to all things future."

http://billmoyers.com/content/a-personal-philosophy-the-wisdom-of-faith-with-huston-smith/

     Can we acknowledge how this, and only this, total timeless engagement with life is right, natural, our only home?
     Can we recognize that anything less than such an openhearted mindful embrace of the whole is partial, incomplete, inadequate, and therefore - painfully unsatisfying?
     Can we then reduce suffering by settling for nothing less?
     Can we recognize how this is as plainly reasonable & practical as pulling a splinter out of our thumb?

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/11/personal-deepening-universal-meaning.html

Kristiina Lehtonen - "A Message to Eternity"   http://www.kristiinalehtonen.fi

#234 Shared World of Deep Meaning AND Multiculturalism

     Based on our experience in fifteen 8-week MBSR workshops, with attendees from a wide range of cultures, ages, and educational backgrounds, it's abundantly clear that mindfulness welcomes all to meet in a "shared world" of deep meaning. Mindfulness may well be the Esperanto - the common language - of deeply meaningful connection. As human beings we're all wounded, in need of healing from each other; AND we're all healers through listening deeply, being fully with each other.
     Anything less than such a deep human-to-human connection (see quote below), is a barrier to meaningful communication between individuals, cultures, religions etc (eg doctor-patient, peace talks).

     "Most analyses of traditional healing systems involve situations in which patients and healers share a similar cultural background. In multicultural societies, sufferer and healer may live in different local worlds and may not share the same notions of the roles of patient and healer, the appropriate place and time for healing, the meaning of symbolic acts, and the expected outcome. Where a shared world cannot be assumed, patient and healer must go through prolonged negotiation to define the parameters of an effective clinical encounter. Even when patient and healer find common ground, their co-constructed understandings of illness and healing may run into conflict with larger institutional contexts and the social world. The clinical encounter is embedded in social structures, which may give it unintended meanings and consequences."
       Kirmayer LJ. Asklepian dreams: the ethos of the wounded-healer in the clinical encounter. Transcult Psychiatry 2003; 40(2): 248-77.

Paul Hannon   http://paulhannon.com/

#58 Wise behavior

     In today’s complex global village, we’re finally realizing that we’re each intimately interconnected and interdependent with every other human being, living creature, and ecosystem.
     How long will the human race survive if we continue to use financial, political, tribal, racial, ethnic, color, religious, sexual, & endless other excuses for reptilian self-serving behavior? Neither human civilization nor nature can endure this. It’s either evolve and cooperate – start respecting other human beings (allocentric) and the environment (ecocentric) – or perish.
     Each of us as individuals has thousands of choices each day between being mindlessly egocentric vs fully engaged with humanity, the environment, and life itself. All the alarm bells are ringing - we must live up to our full potential now.
     One definition of wisdom is “the application of intelligence, creativity, and knowledge as mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good through a balance among (a) intrapersonal, (b) interpersonal, and (c) extrapersonal interests, over the (a) short- and (b) long-terms, in order to achieve a balance among (a) adaptation to existing environments, (b) shaping of existing environments, and (c) selection of new environments.”

        Sternberg RJ, Reznitskaya A, Jarvin L. Teaching for wisdom: what matters is not just what students know, but how they use it. London Review of Education 2007; 5(2): 143-58.

Photo: Brigitte Lorenz http://www.brigittelorenz-photography.com/3/Artist.asp?ArtistID=15152&AKey=9a679dkq