#765 From Fear & Suffering - to - Love & Joy

     “Wisdom is deep understanding and practical skill in the central issues of life, especially existential and spiritual issues.
      Existential issues are those crucial and universal concerns all of us face simply because we are human. They include finding meaning and purpose in our lives; managing relationships and aloneness; acknowledging our limits and smallness in a universe vast beyond comprehension; living in inevitable uncertainty and mystery; and dealing with sickness, suffering, and death. A person who has developed deep insights into these issues – and skills for dealing with them – is wise indeed.
      Visionary wisdom sees that conventional ways of living are rife with suffering. Practical wisdom begins when a person recognizes there must be a better way to live and commits to finding it. The quest to awaken begins.
      Wisdom recognizes the awesome power of the mind to both create and cloud our experience, to produce ecstasy and suffering, and to learn or stagnate. Once you appreciate the all-consuming power of the mind, learning how your mind works and how to train it become vital goals.”

     Roger Walsh. “Essential Spirituality. The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind.” John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1999.

     "Our unwillingness to turn towards & relate kindly to negative mind states causes suffering." Bill Morgan

   “Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.” Stephen Levine

 

    "... investigate how resistance turns pain into suffering, the unpleasant into the unbearable." Stephen Levine

      “Our intelligence and dignity themselves are developed by our being alive for everything, including the mundane anguish of our lives. Just our awareness of our sensations, of our experience, with no object or idea in mind, is the practice of not preferring any particular state of mind. Intimacy with our activity and the objects around us connects us deeply to our lives. This connection – to the earth, our bodies, our sense impressions, our creative energies, our feelings, other people – is the only way I know of to alleviate suffering. To me, our awareness of these things without preference is a meditation that synchronizes body and mind. This synchronization, the experience of deep integrity, of being all of a piece, is a very deep healing. It is unconventional to value such a subtle experience. It is not encouraged in our culture. We’re much more apt to strive to feel special, uniquely talented, particularly loved. It’s extraordinary to be willing to live an ordinary life, to be fully alive for the laundry, to be present for the dishes. We overlook these everyday connections to our lives, waiting for the Big Event.
      Because our conditioning to avoid unpleasantness, the hardest thing may not be bearing the unpleasant experiences we have so much as learning how to experience the details of our suffering so thoroughly that ‘suffering,’ ‘stress,’ and ‘pain’ lose their distinctive character and just become our lives, and rich lives at that.”
      Darlene Cohen. “Turning Suffering Inside Out: A Zen Approach to Living with Physical and Emotional Pain.” Shambhala, 2002.

“If this world is to be healed through human efforts,

I am convinced it will be by ordinary people

whose love for life is even greater than their fear." Joanna Macy

      Joanna Macy “discovered that when people opened up to the pain they felt for the world, they began to sense a deeper connection with life.”

     “Wisdom is deep understanding and practical skill in the central issues of life, especially existential and spiritual issues.

      Existential issues are those crucial and universal concerns all of us face simply because we are human. They include finding meaning and purpose in our lives; managing relationships and aloneness; acknowledging our limits and smallness in a universe vast beyond comprehension; living in inevitable uncertainty and mystery; and dealing with sickness, suffering, and death. A person who has developed deep insights into these issues – and skills for dealing with them – is wise indeed.”

     Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield. “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. The Path of Insight Meditation.” Shambhala, 2001.

P. Michael Lovas photograph

#717 Many Contemplative Practices

     There's a bewildering array of ways to intentionally go deeper, to experience and engage more profoundly with this amazing human journey (see illustration below). Nor is this illustration complete - missing are the numerous and varied specific secular mental-health approaches.
     All of these paths can help one function better and live a happier life.
     A small proportion of people elect to follow a path until it leads to complete transformation of heart-mind-body, referred to in some traditions as awakening, enlightenment or liberation.
     

© The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
Concept & design by Maia Duerr; illustration by Carrie Bergman

#698 Father's Day Wish

     On this Father's Day, I fervently hope - for the sake of our beloved children and grandchildren - that each and every one of us commits to living more intelligently, wisely, lovingly every day of our short lives.

     “Each of the enduring religions contains universal principles that transcend time and culture. It’s not easy to extract those values from religions that are not our own, but it can be done Huston Smith says, if we see their followers as men and women who face problems much like our own, and if we rid our minds of prejudice that dulls our sensitivity to fresh insights.”

      Bill Moyers: “The Wisdom of Faith, with Huston Smith” DVD, 2011. 

#673 Forced to Care about Others, the Big Picture

     "When China burns coal, that pollution doesn't just stay above Chinese skies, nor does nuclear radioactivity from Fukushima stay only in Japanese coastal waters. The same is true generally for humankind and the rest of the natural world: when the ecosystems of the earth become sick, we become sick. In short, the ecological crisis is also a spiritual*** crisis: we are challenged to realize our interdependence - our larger 'self' - or else. What the earth seems to be telling us is Wake up or get out of the way."
       David Loy. "Awakening in the Age of Climate Change." Tricycle, Spring 2015.                               ww.tricycle.com


     *** "spirituality ... ‘the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life, about meaning, and about relationship to the sacred or transcendent’."
       Greeson JM et al. "Changes in spirituality partly explain health-related quality of life outcomes after Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction." J Behav Med 2011; 34(6): 508-18.

     Atheists also recognize the critical role of spirituality - see:
       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

#646 The Mindfulness Movement in America: Opportunities and Challenges

“Mindfulness is pure awareness.

First, do no harm. How do you know if you’re doing harm or not? Through awareness.” 

Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD

Listen to Jon Kabat-Zinn's inspiring interview at this weekend's Wisdom 2.0 conference: 

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2635433/events/3845334?origin=stream_live&mixpanel_id=13c72687a227fb-01aeae93db92f7-436f2b42

 

from Jon Kabat-Zinn's 2/28/2015 presentation at Wisdom 2.0

#644 The Word We Fear the Most!

     I frequently email over a hundred people who've previously taken courses in, or have otherwise shown interest in Mindfulness. I point them to a blog I've just posted that I feel is particularly worth reading. Over the next few days, such a highlighted blog gets 60-400+ hits.
     Folks on this list are probably far more interested in deep, substantial topics than the average person. Nevertheless, whenever I include one, specific word, the blog gets the absolute lowest number of hits. And what is this most dreaded of all words? Wisdom!
     Why, even among this select, self-reflective group of people, is "wisdom" such a powerful buzz kill? I'm guessing that non-readers assume that:
          • they themselves lack wisdom, 
          • can't do anything to gain any, 
          • certainly can't ever "become wise". 

     Then there's the long history of corrupt religious authority figures who speak of wisdom, yet do so strictly for personal gain. They insist that human beings are inherently evil, doomed to burn in hell. Our only hope is to buy our way into heaven via the clergy. Corrupt clergy strongly oppose meditation, mysticism, gnosticism etc because these empower people spiritually, eliminating corrupt clergy's power, influence & wealth. Legitimate clergy embody wisdom, inviting & inspiring all to share this most magnificant journey.
     For valid reasons, a large segment of society has lost faith in organized religions, yet the old nonsense about humans being inherently evil remains buried in our collective subconscious, and bubbles forth as our current epidemic of cynicism. Most of us have low spiritual self-esteem, and incorrectly assume that there's nothing we can do about it.
     There is transformative wisdom in the world's wisdom traditions, and more than ever, each of us has ready access to these. Mindfulness provides today's educated, intelligent people easy access to access, cultivate & embody our own inherent clarity & wisdom - where all wisdom traditions meet.

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born
Born to be WISE

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (lyrics slightly modified)

     Wisdom: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2015/01/620-what-is-wisdom.html
     and: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/04/psychospiritual-technologies.html

#620 What is "Wisdom"?

     Wisdom is far more profound than intelligence or long-term practicality. However, wisdom in it's deepest sense, is seldom considered or discussed these days. Though there are many exceptions, overall we tend to stumble a bit closer to wisdom with age. Many consider themselves wiser than their behavior would suggest. Wisdom is complex - perhaps the most profound, critical concept we have.
     Wisdom is the highest human goal, the most evolved way of being. The major religions have been called "wisdom traditions", though the vast majority of both clergy and their followers have minimal knowledge or interest in wisdom. Only a small minority of monks and mystics devote their lives to a disciplined practice of intentional self-transformation towards "sainthood", "enlightenment" ie wisdom.
     Wisdom is “a developmental process involving self-transcendence. Self-transcendence refers to the ability to move beyond self-centered consciousness, and to see things as they are with clear awareness of human nature and human problems, and with a considerable measure of freedom from biological and social conditioning. This ability to move beyond a self-centered perspective is certainly an important component of wisdom. Consistent with this idea, … transcending the self is needed to move beyond ingrained, automatic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to connect empathetically with the experiences of others.”
       Le TN, Levenson MR. Wisdom as self-transcendence: What's love (& individualism) got to do with it? Journal of Research in Personality 2005; 39(4): 443-457.

     According to Buddhism, all of us can and should do our best to become wise. The clearest description and explanation from this perspective that I’ve found:
       Smith R. “Awakening. A Paradigm Shift of the Heart.” Shambhala, Boston, 2014.
 
     There are many other wisdom paths - one to suit every individual: Aboriginal, Hindu, Kabbalah, Christian, Sufi, & many other fine authors eg Joseph Campbell, Laurence Freeman, Thomas Keating, and Huston Smith.
     Atheists also recognize the critical role of wisdom:
       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

     Intentional pursuit of wisdom - by whatever path best suits the individual - is the most effective way to minimize causing suffering to oneself & others, and maximize one’s own & others’ quality of life.

     No path toward wisdom is quick or easy. All require:
          • mindfulness
          • ethical conduct; 
          • progressive letting go of self-centeredness, materialism & other forms of distraction;
          • increasing empathic engagement with others and the environment.

     So why bother to even consider taking such a challenging, life-long journey? Because at some point, everything else will disappoint with respect to feeling: real, authentic, meaningful, valuable, satisfying, joyful, peaceful.
     One would reasonably assume that wisdom occupies a central place in our education system. Sadly, it's virtually absent. Why?

Deepak Kaw   www.dpreview.com

#616 Meaningful Living

     "What moves us to serve humanity, to achieve meaningful change, is genuine empathy; the capacity to feel the pain of others, to experience an intimate shared humanity, to accept discomfort and sacrifice in the path of a greater cause. In entering an authentic communion with others, we also discover a profound expression of our own dignity."

       Payam Akhavan, from the 2014 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture, "Beyond Human Rights: Building a World on Empathy."
       CBC radio interview: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2015/01/06/beyond-human-rights-1/

srb7109   www.dpreview.com

#585 Consciousness, Meditation & "Spirituality"

     "In scientific terms, consciousness remains notoriously difficult to understand, or even to define. In fact, many debates about its character have been waged without the participants' finding even a common topic as common ground. ... spirituality is not just important for living a good life; it is actually essential for understanding the human mind.
     Only consciousness can know itself - and directly, through first-person experience. If follows, therefore, that rigorous introspection - 'spirituality' in the widest sense of the term - is an indispensable part of understanding the nature of the mind."                              

       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

#362 Finding Humanity's Common Core Goals & Values to Make Life Workable

      “In addition to meditation’s use as a self-regulation and self-exploration strategy, it has also been used as a technique for self-liberation and for compassionate service to the world. Within the traditional religious contexts, these four aspects of meditation have been understood as part of a developmental continuum, with the lower levels necessary, but not sufficient, for the attainment of the next level. The goal of meditation at its deepest level has been liberation from the egoic self; developing a sense of harmony with the universe; and the ability to increase one’s compassion, sensitivity, and service to others. These goals may include, but also go beyond, personal self-regulation or self-exploration. For example, meditation as a stress management technique can be learned just for its self-regulation effects (eg to calm the mind) or for its help in deepening caring for others. As a subject in one of our meditation research studies noted, ‘relaxing and clearing my mind helps open my heart.’
     Although there are differences and complexities in efforts to determine unifying principles across spiritual (and secular humanistic) traditions, there are in fact some common goals and values. These include emotional transformation – decreasing unwholesome qualities/evil inclinations, while increasing qualities of love and compassion; service to others, justice, ethical living, right action.”

       Shapiro DH. Examining the content and context of meditation; A challenge for psychology in the areas of stress management, psychotherapy, and religion/values. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1994; 34(4): 101-135. 

Udayan Sankar Pal   www.facebook.com/UdayanSankarPal