The man and his word...

Emmanuel Levinas wrote a famous essay, I love the Torah more than God, after reading a short story written by my grandfather, Yosl Rakover Talks to God by Zvi Kolitz. (Note to self: write a blog entry on Yosl and his story.) The essence of this story, if I remember correctly (it has been a while since I have read it) was that Levinas admitted that he could not comprehend God and his actions (or lack of action) because he could not understand how God as we understand the notion could allow something like the Holocaust to happen.

This is kind of a lead in to what I wanted to write about today - can we admire the work of someone (writer, thinker, author, philosopher, guru, ...) for whom we have no admiration as a person? When you read the writings of spiritual 'leaders' like Osho or Gurdjieff (to name but two) and see wisdom, profundity, inspiring words and ideas, thinking that you recognize as 'right' for you... it is very difficult, for me, to reconcile their spiritual wisdom with their life stupidity. When you read accounts of how they treated people, how they abused their power, their (often) material crassness, etc. then what is one to think of their words? Do you throw out the bath water because the baby is dirty? Or do you do as Levinas has done with God, admitting that he cannot understand the creator while confessing his admiration for the creation?

One person who has taken a good stab at framing this question of 'how is it possible to be so developed and enlightened on one level and a total idiot on other levels?' is Ken Wilber. He has developed a philosophical / developmental framework he originally named after himself but later renamed AQAL (all quadrants all levels). The idea being, in a nutshell, that there are four axes of development we all follow and you can be advanced on one axe and not very far along another - concurrently! Thus it is quite logical that someone can be both spiritually wise and a social idiot, or something to that effect.

The framework looks something like the diagram above which I believe he has revised a bit since, but hopefully the idea is clear: four axes - social, cultural, behavioral and intentional - on which we can develop. In some areas we advance faster and in others slower.

I should mention my take on Wilber. I think he is brilliant but I don't think he is enlightened and I think he would rather be enlightened than brilliant. He is a master synthesist (he now, rightfully, calls his work 'Integral') and he is probably one of the more thoughtful and knowledgeable writers-thinkers-philosophers-psychologists of our times. However, I feel that if he would just stop trying to impress everyone with his spirituality (as he has always impressed everyone with his intellect - apparently that was not enough), his writing would be even more fantastic than it already is. He is also a major contributor to EnlightenNext magazine in which he is the Pandit to Andrew Cohen's Guru (Cohen who suffers from the opposite of Wilber - he is probably enlightened but would like to be brilliant - which makes their partnership even more interesting...).

So what do you think, what takes precedence the creator or the creation? Can one shine without the other? Or do only those that walk the talk, like Thich Nhat Hahn, merit our consideration?

[Still more thoughts on] Peace is every step

I have been reading Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh in small sips, savoring them like a glass of fine wine. And interestingly, that's how I imagine he would like his short thought pieces to be read. Read, think, digest, apply.

He has a small chapter called Hugging Meditation. I will reproduce the first couple of paragraphs as they convey the essential message quite clearly, simply and with an economy of words (as usual):

Hugging is a beautiful Western custom, and we from the East would like to contribute the practice of conscious breathing to it. When you hold a child in your arms, or hugy your mother, or your husband, or your friend, if you breathe in and out three times, your happiness will be multiplied at least tenfold.

If you are distracted, thinking about other things, your hug will be distracted also, not very deep, and you may not enjoy hugging very much. So when you hug your child, your friend, your spouse, I recommend that you first breathe in and out consciously and return to the present moment. Then, while you hold him or her in your arms, breathe three times consciously, and you will enjoy your hugging more than ever before.

Quite simple isn't it?! As in much Eastern spirituality, the importance is "being there", focused on what you are doing. As a Japanese friend once said to me "you have to decide: either you are talking to me or you are making me tea." At the time I did not understand why talking while making tea could be seen as insulting...

Growing up in the States, I always took hugging for granted. While bear hugs are common, and true hugs happen often, hugging in America can also be a superficial affair with minimal contact, or little back taps that hide the discomfort of physical proximity. Thich Nhat's hugging meditation can make those more real. Not that all hugs need to be real, but the ones he mentions - those among parents and children, friends, family, spouses - could probably benefit from this 'focused hugging' approach.

Even though my parents were not American-born they were quick to pick up the custom. I was hugged as a child and so I feel comfortable hugging. But many countries are not hugging countries. France is one of them. People kiss to say hello, even guys, but we don't hug here. There is actually no real word for hugging. The word for embracing, which would be the literal translation, is used for kissing. To differentiate I use the word 'hug' in French, which does not exist and has the double inconvenience of the h which the French do not like to pronounce on its own. Linguistic differences aside, it is interesting to see the cultural differences too.

In France, at least based on my experience, it is not common for parents to hug their children and thus grownups are probably less comfortable hugging too. Despite being very tactile, holding hangs, putting arms around each other's waists or shoulders, public displays of affection, couples do not really hug very often or at all. A hug is usually the prelude to a kiss, not an end in and of its own. I remember one ex-girlfriend who admitted to me that she had never hugged her mother, ever. I tried to coax her to hug but she did not feel comfortable initiating contact. We figured out a way around the problem by me 'sending hugs' to her mother which she would deliver. But even then, she admitted that it was not natural. The things we take for granted!

In any case, truly hugging someone, focusing on the hug, can be an incredible experience. Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that these "hugging meditations" have the power to make serious breakthroughs in relationships in general and especially among couples... and like smiling, it's free!

Happy hugging

Spirituality is kind of banal... and TNH on knots

It's funny, almost no matter what hobby or passion you have you will find that someone has written an article of how [insert your passion or hobby here] is spiritual. Usually these kind of articles, books and blog entries flourish when said hobby or passion is trendy. I remember seeing articles on golf being spiritual and all the reasons it was like meditation, as well as fishing, knitting, washing dishes and other extreme sports... Another rash of more recent articles have been written on spirituality and surfing. How it is about being one with nature, putting your ego aside, operating in the present, being in the here and now, et cetera et cetera. Soon maybe we will see articles that suggest that spirituality is like... spirituality : )

Some of these articles are stretching it a bit but I guess the point is that spirituality can show up anywhere you look for it. As Nisargadatta Maharaj said (or said something like) you won't find what you are looking for by digging shallow holes all over the place; instead pick a spot, any spot, and dig deep.

Still and always reading Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh (I'm taking peace slowly in small steps : ))...

A great chapter in this little book, which strangely enough seems a lot bigger than it actually is (which is probably a good sign, although I am not sure of what), is called "Internal Formations" (page 64 in my paperback version). In it he speaks about the formation of "knots". Basically, every trauma, no matter how big or little can create a knot. If you are insulted, or feel slighted or hurt, or embarassed by someone's behavior ... (you get the point) he suggests that this creates a small knot. By not being aware of the knot, by not immediately working to untie it, it becomes tighter and tighter until it can become impossible to untie. The idea being, for couples especially but also for friends and in working relationships to 1/be aware of the formation of the knot and 2/work to untie it sooner rather than later. This can be done by talking about it with the person in question or through meditation.

In his words, "the absence of clear understanding is the basis for every knot." The knots need "our full attention as soon as they form, while they are still weak, so that the work of transformation is easy."

The work of 'knot awareness' (my phrase not his) means being aware of small knots that form. Some clues to this can be found by pursuing the following questions (or similar questions):

• why did I feel uncomfortable when I heard him say ...?
• why did I say ... to him?
• why didn't I like that character in the movie?
• why do I always think of ... when I meet ...?

Obviously, I guess, although TNH does not mention this specifically, the objective is to attain some form of spiritual progress in which you stop making knots or, maybe, in which you tease those two little strings apart before they actually get intertwined. Personally, I have had the feeling that the truly spiritual are not only impervious to insults (i.e. masters of knot avoidance) but are also indifferent to compliments (step 2 in spiritual mastery?) as the ego knows what it is worth (or not) by then... Tout un programme (~quite the program) as the French would say...

This idea of knot formation reminds me a lot of bioenergetics and somatics (among others), i.e. disciplines of psychotherapy that believe in the body-mind connection in the sense that the body harbors all of our 'emotional traumas' real and imagined in the body, like a squirrel gathering acorns. These emotional hurts go somewhere, can build up into real blockages and until they are released (worked on) it affects both the body and the mind. But that is well beyond the scope of this little blog, so I will end on that aside.

Have a wonderful weekend.

[Living the now] On pain (and pleasure)

Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha, and so many others exhort us to live the now, live the present moment without anticipation, expectation, reservation, preconceived notions, fantasy, judgment, etc.

Just be. Don't name the sunset, don't describe the sunset, don't even watch the sunset, just be with the sunset. Some say be the witness, some say be the observer, some imply detachment, others immersion. Tomorrow does not exist, yesterday is gone, all that we have is the eternal now.

In a recent blog post, I mentioned that Thich Nhat Han (TNH) even says that hope is tragic as it is a projection into the future, which means that we are not correctly living the present. You can't change the future, you can only effectuate change in the present.

Most of these writers, thinkers, spiritual leaders, philosophers who exhort us to live in the present, usually imply that living the present brings us close to bliss, which we imagine to be joyful.

Eckhart Tolle tells us, probably rightly so, that "the mind creates an obsession with the future to escape from the unsatisfactory present." Or "die to the past every moment, you don't need it." That "There is no salvation in time. You cannot be free in the future."

I also find an interesting link between Tolle and TNH and the idea of hope (and goals). The former says, "There is nothing wrong with setting goals and striving to achieve things. The mistake lies in using it as a substitute for the feeling of life, the Being."

And a final quote from Tolle on hope and expectation and waiting for a better day:

When you catch yourself waiting... snap out of it! Come into the present moment.
Just be and enjoy being.

Now all of this sounds nice from the top of Maslow's pyramid, but I have always wondered how being in the now handles things like hunger, cold and, especially, pain.

I am sure that much has been written about it but I don't seem to remember much writing about being in the now which concerns pain management. Pleasure and pain have often been mentioned together as the two river banks in between which we navigate our lives, trying to row our boats closer to the bank of pleasure and inevitably being thrown against the shoals on the banks of pain.

In particular, I do not recall having seen any discussion on the spiritual nature of pain. Why do I call pain's nature spiritual? Well it seems to me like the only time that we are able (or condemned) to completely live in the present moment, a moment that seems like the eternal now.

Take a migraine headache for example. When you have a migraine attack (or just a bad headache) it seems nearly impossible to think of anything else but the present moment (even just thinking is difficult). You just live the present moment and all concentration is on the present moment and the pain. It seems like the pain is so strong that we cannot think of anything else and we cannot imagine a world in which this pain does not exist. It is all consuming, it is blinding, and it does away with the past and the future quite effectively. So is this a spiritual moment? I doubt that anyone would say so... and I haven't seen it written anywhere.

However, it is interesting to read in the lore of many mystics and yogis the mention of bouts of intense, all-consuming, all-body, pain from which the person (I think I have only heard of men having these experiences) emerges enlightened. In one account of a yogi that I read in "What is Enlightenment?" magazine, the yogi says he felt like he was replaced within his body with another entity, i.e. he really was changed by the experience.

So these extreme situations can be enlightening, but what about the migraines?

[Thich Nhat Hanh] Hope as an obstacle

Ever since Barack Obama has come on the scene 'hope' has been bantied around liberally and seems to be back on everyone's lips. An interesting take on hope comes from Thich Nhat Hanh who says:

"When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic."

Not exactly what most of us would have said spontaneously. I mean many people around the world were happy to see one president leave and another come in on the basis of hope, hope for a better future, hope for a better world, hope for a new day, hope for less inequality, hope for less hate and violence, hope for peace in the Middle East, hope, hope, hope. And what could be wrong with that?

Well, TNH explains, still and always in his Peace is Every Step (link), that this is an example of clinging to a future that might never come, rather than focusing energy and resources on now. If I can paraphrase, his idea is not to hope for a better day but to make a better today.

More specifically he says:

Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment... I do not mean that you should not have hope, but that hope is not enough.

TNH warns us that if we put our energy into the energy of hope we are robbing the present moment of our energy, and reminds us that we don't need the future, since it is only in the present moment that we can make a difference.

He also quotes AJ Muste of the American Peace Movement who once said, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way," and goes on to explain that we can contribute in our own way to peace with our actions, smiles, attitude, words and each and every step that we take. "Each step we make should be joy."

A wonderful idea. Let's hope he's right. : )

On Dianetics and Tangerines

I was just given a book on Dianetics, or rather I should say THE book on Dianetics by the famous or infamous L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology fame. I have never really known what to think about the man, the philosophy, the religion that has sprung from it, the press that the Church of Scientology has received, the many reading rooms I have seen around the world... but at least I will be able to read it and react to the underlying "theory" as written by the original author.

It is easier to be skeptical in life than it is to be open to new ideas, especially if they question what we "know", or if they are a long stretch from the ideas we already hold and which we use to construct our own realities. While many people mention 'faith' as a necessary first step towards spirituality, or religiosity, I think faith might be a cop out for many in the sense that it means that you believe in something that you haven't taken the time to figure out. While being open to new ideas is part of what someone like Krishnamurti could have termed 'walking your own path to understanding'. In my mind, this is a more laudable approach than taking a prepackaged religion, no matter how well it has been packaged. Maybe it is no coincidence that faith is often referred to as 'blind' (not just love, an interesting ellipse to my last post).

I don't know what I will find, but I do know that many people have found profound wisdom in Scientology, and as such it is worth looking into. Others have expressed serious doubts and concerns, and this too is worth looking into and understanding. Is it just fear of 'different' ideas or legitimate concerns with the underlying principles? As I read on about Dianetics I also hope to look into some of the more seriously-expressed critiques so as to understand both sides better.
If I do manage to figure anything out worth sharing I will post it here.

On a different subject altogether, I have started reading Peace is Every Step, a book by Thich Nhat Hahn (Amazon link here). Simple messages, powerful ideas. One small anecdote, he tells the story of how children were taught to truly examine a tangerine, the look, feel, weight, the squirt of the peel when it was peeled, to imagine the seed, the tree, the sun, water and earth that went into it... all before taking a first bite. They were given a giant lesson in appreciation. Think about it before your next bite of anything... and it seems that Thich does and is a more content person for it.

Which makes me think that a future post should discuss the difference between Happiness (what we have been taught to want but is probably not sustainable) and Contentment (which is not often discussed, and probably arises from the saintly-feeling of gratitude, and is probably truly sustainable)...

PS I am on vacation so the posts are a bit more spaced out. I hope to be more regular starting in March.