A Map for the Journey || Next Section(Conclusion)
One
day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend
my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations -
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver (1986, p38)
Twenty-five years ago an experience as real to me as any stone splashed into the pool of my life. The effects still ripple across the surface and through the depths. Nothing has been the same since. But then nothing ever remains the same. Since then, I have sometimes ignored the memory of what happened, sometimes surrendered again to the call, and sometimes worked to explore and integrate the joyful aliveness and light into my social relationships.
When I was younger, I worked as a logger on the west
coast of Vancouver Island. I pretended
to be a tough, fearless Macho, but the foundations of that persona were built
on sand, and during my last year there, I could feel them slipping away beneath
me.
There are times when Life seems to snatch us up in its
current and carry us along toward some unknown destination. We feel like spectators watching ourselves
doing unexpected things. We don't know
what, but sense something deep inside calling to us and that we would do well
to not resist unless we want to wither into a hollow shell.
It was like that for me. I sensed I needed time alone.
I watched myself buy a used canoe, ask where I could go into the
wilderness and see no one at all, collect maps, food and supplies for three
months, say good-by to my lover, and finally drive north alone into the
back-country above the Chilcotin.
Solitude is strange and powerful and can be
frightening. I almost lost it out
there. I almost didn't come back. The first six weeks were OK. I filled my days canoeing, camping and
fishing. But by and by, without other
people to help maintain my identity, my facade started to crumble. Fear crept in as I awoke to my vulnerability
not only there in the wilderness, but always - everywhere; how tenuous this
living and how instantly possible death.
I began to hide from life and close off more and more, feeling the world
around me to be a dangerous, threatening place. Or perhaps I had always hidden, and only there with no
distractions, and nowhere to run, I finally had to face my own fear. But I didn't know that yet. I still thought I was afraid of things
outside myself. Bears were my main
worry. I had always been nervous about
them, but now far from other people, they loomed large in my solitary
mind.
The Big Eutsuk is a dangerous lake. It stretches into the coastal mountains and
wind, whistling down off the glaciers, can whip the water into waves in
minutes. I was often forced to the
shore and sometimes had to wait for days until it was calm enough to move
on. My practice was to never paddle
more than a quarter mile from shore.
But one day, hurrying down an exposed arm of the lake, I grew careless
and cut across the mouth of a deep bay.
Nearly a mile from shore, I moved through glassy water
troubled only by a long, oily swell.
High on the looming mountain, I heard a waterfall crashing, and looked
ahead to find the falls. From the
noise, I knew it had to be close, but I could see nothing. Then, finally, I realized that it was no
waterfall, but rather the wind roaring through the pines high on the mountain
ridge. I looked behind me and the world
of color changed to black and white; black sky, white water. I could only run before the storm and hope
to reach the shore. By the time I made
land, the wind was howling and four foot waves crashed on the rocky beach. Some how I made it in without capsizing.
I felt powerless... trapped by the wind, with no
recourse but to wait. I didn't know it
then, but it would be a week before the lake calmed enough to let me
leave. I set up my lean-to, hung my
food bags from a tree, and went to gather firewood. In a muddy patch, I stumbled across fresh bear tracks.
That night I stayed late by the campfire and watched it
burn down to a bed of coals, shivering more from fear than from the cold
wind. Many times I got up to go to bed
only to hear the snapping of branches out in the dark. Anxiously I heaped more branches on the fire
and huddled close. Finally, exhausted,
I made it to my sleeping bag and pulled it over my head, pretending I was safe,
but only really slept when dawn cracked the mountain sky.
This went on night after night, each worse than the one
before as I crouched by the safety of my fire hiding from the dangers in the
darkness beyond. Finally I knew it
couldn't continue. I either had to
return to the safety of civilization or face the darkness alone. If I ran, I would be running for the rest of
my life.
And so I got up from the fire and walked out into the
darkness of the forest inching my way through the trees. I lay down and waited. Time passed, and even the distant glimmer of
the fire had died when I heard the bear. It was moving toward me making almost
no sound at all. Just the occasional
crack of a twig or scrape of a claw across the rocks. Terror struck. Every
fiber in my body screamed at me to run, to save myself. Only a very tenuous thread held me where I
was; the faint but certain knowledge that if I moved at all, even one finger, I
would frantically flee through the night and die. My own panic would destroy me.
Perhaps the bear would not. Eyes
closed, I heard the bear snuffling closer and closer, and could feel myself
losing it and slipping over the edge.
Beyond reason, without reserve, I called for help.
In that moment of surrender, I was lifted and found
myself floating in a pool of pale fire.
I looked down and felt myself lying peacefully on the forest floor. No longer was the world a hostile and alien
place, but my home. Even more than
that, there was no longer any true separation between myself and the
world. The bear and I were family. Just as I needed food to survive, so did
she. If I was to be her dinner, so be
it. I had lived by eating my
neighbors. Why should I refuse my turn
to be eaten? And so I learned (and have
many times since forgotten) that my fear is not an enemy to be projected onto
the world, but a key that when embraced can open the gates to these walls I
build around myself.
After that night, I no longer felt the need to escape,
and stayed three weeks on that rocky shore, woven into the tapestry of life and
glorying in the beauty of lake and wind and mountains. Lost in wonder, cradled and caressed by the
whole universe, my mind and body drifted in the ebb and flow of nature's
rhythms. And there was something else
out there, something beyond the physical and beyond definition. I was part of that too, and felt accepted
and at peace. Yet the pain of
loneliness never left me. Day by day, I
lived each silent dawning with only a squirrel's chatter to ease the ache. I looked ahead down the years and longed for
a mate. But the fierce fire I felt
inside called more strongly and I swore that wherever it led, I would follow.
Eventually I left the magic of the woods and traveled to
Mexico with my lover. In the chaos of
the human world that bright inner light slowly faded. Searching, I sat for long hours
by the sea but caught only brief glimpses of the wonder and joy I had thought
would always be mine. I sank deeper and
deeper into darkness, clinging for security of the hollow memory of what had
been a living flame. My lover tried to
understand, but I could not explain, and finally she left me.
A year of depression and grief for what I'd lost
followed. I felt shame that I had
somehow failed and my cowardice seemed unbearable. But I didn't know what I'd done wrong. Eventually I discovered Buddhist meditation practice and learned
that the joy and loss of peak experiences is inherent to the spiritual
path. It did little to ease the pain,
but the guilt and shame lifted.
Years have passed since then. Sometimes the flame grows strong for a while, especially when I go into the woods alone, and sometimes it smolders nearly forgotten. Looking back, what seems almost as powerful as the actual experiences, are the stories I tell myself about it all. At first I thought that inner flame would be the beacon I would courageously follow anywhere. Then when I lost my way, I told myself I had failed through cowardice. Later I learned to accept these ups and downs as part of the journey.
Recently I have come to see that I began to cling to that spiritual fire
for security and certainty in the same way I had once clung to my camp
fire. In the same way I needed to leave
the safety of the camp fire to face the physical darkness and find freedom
there, so too have I needed to face depression and spiritual darkness to look
there for life and freedom and perhaps yet another kind of fire. And now I watch and wonder what story I am
learning to tell myself next?[i]
The Journey
The
journey has seemed
more
like a meander
of
sometimes overlapping,
sometimes discontinuous,
sometimes
circular byways,
than a linear march.
(Through it all,
has lurked -
at the back of my mind -
the desire to live
a year of my life
alone
in the Wilderness).
This Ph.D. has itself become a strange journey:
Before study,
flying by the seat of the pants.
After study,
flying by the seat of the pants.
I am more and more excited and fascinated as I find the courage to abandon expectations and notions of what a Ph.D. should be and allow the work to emerge in the moment.
Wheeee... This
is living!
Even the dark moments, and there are many, are Alive.
Three
years now into this process
and still
I feel deep resistance to writing this paper.
Why?
Perhaps because I am
still so ignorant.
Yet I know,
have known for a long time,
that my journey is not about getting something or going somewhere, but about
coming back.
To accept where/who I already am.
It is about letting go of where/who I think I should be.
It is about transformation of attitude, of perception.[ii]
I
began with an intuitive sense of what I needed to do:
pay attention...
to just how things are in the moment.
I wandered from that intuition; a good thing I think. During the first year of study I was often confused and angry when I didn't understand what I was reading. I felt frustrated and dumb. Sometime during the second year I began to feel more comfortable with what I thought I was learning, but most of it still didn't seem right to the point of my interest. During these last six months, Carl[iii] has invited and encouraged me to discover a world of writing that begins to feel like home. A world of lived experience, of ambiguity, of possibility.
In the beginning I proposed to spend a year in the wilderness, wait to
see what would happen there, and return to tell a story about it. I thought to rely - perhaps with too little
confidence - on the practice of mindfulness I've developed sporadically during
the past twenty-five years. My notion was that the context of solitude
would itself provide a catalyst for personal transformation and the opportunity
to develop the clarity with which to explore that transformation.
This is still my proposal. I
don't know whether I have resisted change, have changed and come back, or
simply have always known that this is what I want and need to do.
But it does seem like a strange way to get a Ph.D.:
finding justification for continuing to do what I intended to do
on my own,
just living my life.
Or rather, it seemed strange until a few months ago.
Now it makes more sense.
When asked what my Ph.D. is about, I smile and say I don't know, and that
my committee keeps asking me too. I
have been anxious and defensive about this, but am becoming less so as my
comfort with uncertainty grows. How can
I know before hand?[iv] While the shape continues to
change, my deep desire remains intact:
I do not wish to prove anything or help nail the world
down, but rather participate in creating a larger, deeper space for experience,
for possibility, for Life.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...[v]
How did I get here from there? From
where?
Before unfolding the map, I said in the introduction that my lived
experience did not fit into the science I learned as an undergraduate. When I began to search for a biologist with
whom I could do graduate work, I read books and papers, and if I found
something that spoke to me, I wrote to the author. Often the authors replied that they were on the verge of
retirement. My favorite letter came
from a man in England who had given up research on animal cognition and begun
to explore his own mind in a cave in Nepal.
It was as if these professors had waited to write about what truly
interested them until the end of their working lives. I wanted to avoid such a track.
Since no paths were opening into graduate school, I left to travel in
Mexico. I meant to go for a short time,
but was gone nearly two years.
Life
Brought Me Here
The tide was down, water too low to release the ferry
crossing from Argentinean Patagonia to the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego. We waited.
I was used to waiting, having hitch-hiked my way along most of the length
of South America. My current driver was
stretched across the seat of the semi's cab and I was wandering the wind
hammered shore of the Straits of Magellan.
Across the way I saw a green pickup with an insignia I
couldn't make out on its door. Standing
by the truck were four bearded men and a woman - all wearing Levi's and down
vests - also waiting. "Ah," I thought,
"I bet those are biologists." Since
graduating from McGill three years before, I had been considering graduate
school in biology. I'd made a practice
of contacting authors of papers and books I'd read and liked, seeking an
academic home. Nothing had developed,
and by now I had drifted, physically and mentally, pretty far from the academic
orbit. But I still hoped I would
eventually find someone whose orientation toward the natural world and our
experience of it would provide me both the space and the guidance I needed to
develop my own thinking. I felt an urge
to go over and talk with them. So I
did.
They were professors and students from the Universidad
Astral de Chile just across the border and on their way to the Astral Research
Station in Argentinean Tierra del Fuego.
I shared an interesting conversation with one of the professors and
finally asked if he had read a paper by, or met at a conference, anyone from
Canada with similar ideas. He hadn't,
but told me there was a biologist, Humberto Maturana, at the Universidad de
Chile in Santiago that I should definitely talk to.
My intended short visit to Tierra del Fuego turned into
a love affair and it was four months later and mid-winter when I started north
again. I hitched over to the Chilean
coast and caught a boat for the three day trip north through the archipelago
and into Puerto Montt. From there it
was another 1500 km to Santiago. Along the way a name, buried in the frozen
astral earth among a four month growth of roots, drifted up into the warming
air: Maturana. That name became a path
leading to UBC.
Dr. Maturana turned out to be quite famous. When we first spoke, I confessed that I hadn't read any of his work nor previously heard of him. He smiled and said that was no problem, but in that case, what was I doing there. A reasonable question. I told him life had carried me there. He seemed to like that, and after a short conversation suggested I study with him. When I explained that my scholarship would only support me in Canada, he connected me with Pille Bunnell, a biologist here in Vancouver. She is not affiliated with a university, but her husband, David Tait, is in the Faculty of Forestry.
When I arrived
at UBC
the matrix of my journey changed
from physical to mental.
I found myself
in exciting conversations,
traveling through wonderful mindscapes into new ideas.
Language and Consciousness:
I first read Tree
of Knowledge[vi] in Spanish and happily agreed with almost everything said. Only later did I read it in English and
marvel at the seductive power of my desire for engagement combined with weak
reading skills in Spanish. As humans,
we live in language, claims Maturana!
Do we? No, that is not really my
question. My real question is
twofold: do/must we live exclusively in language? For 20 years I had implicitly trusted my
personal insight that consciousness need not be bound(ed) by language. And now I had to question - am still
questioning - the possible naivetŽ of that insight. What ground was I standing on in that inner wilderness when I
told myself I'd broken free from cultural/languaged conditioning? What was the medium of my awareness? What was the basket I used to retrieve the
memory of that insight?
I understand Maturana to claim that when I call something a table, that object and the word for it arise together in the distinction I make between that area of the world and all else. Making such a distinction is a cognitive act that can only take place within the context of a shared linguistic domain. Through the common distinctions we make, we enact a world together. We create distinct objects. When we become aware of this distinguishing and naming process and begin to consciously use linguistic symbols to coordinate our interactions, we move into the domain of languaging and self-awareness. That is, when we make distinctions of the distinctions we make in the linguistic domain, we are operating in language. We cannot perceive the linguistic domain in which we make and name distinctions if we are embedded in it. Languaging is a trans-linguistic domain.
I continue to play/struggle with these questions.[vii] I recently re-read Wilber's
argument that we can only observe myth making from a trans-mythical (rational)
perspective; only explore rational mind from a trans-rational perspective. We cannot explore the process of thinking
using thought itself as the tool. We
need to establish an observational platform outside the thinking mind. There is a wonderful T shirt that says,
"Meditation is not what you Think."
Since thought and language seem to be intimately related, this suggests
that to be outside of thought is to be outside language as well.
I sit still and allow awareness of this whole languaging
process to arise. I do not think about
or analyze, but simply notice the linguistically structured, experiential space
within which interpersonal communication takes place. I am amazed that with infinite possible individual experience we
can communicate at all. I see that
shared experience is not only made possible, but is also constrained by the
structure of our common language. I
quietly observe the process within myself.
Where am I? Is this a
trans-languaging domain of awareness?
What is the relationship between language and
consciousness? [viii] While my lived experience cannot
be fully captured in language, (I need only watch a sunset to realize this)
does the consciousness experiencing the indescribable arise only through
language? How can I explore
consciousness itself? Mind cannot
observe itself. We cannot observe our
own observing self and if we try it leads to infinite regress. Yet we do have a sense of being able to
observe our self observing.[ix]
Questioning the possibility of trans language
consciousness is mirrored in my wondering about where consciousness and
languaging begin? Are animals
conscious? Do they live in language? Do trees? Does the rain? If we enact a world together through the
linguistic distinctions we make, what of pre-linguistic coherence? David Abram (1996) explores the relationship
between language and the signs embodied in non-human nature. Language for him is not essentially a system
of abstract signs, but a manifestation and extension of physical gesture. He grounds his ideas in the work of
Merleau-Ponty to argue that all animate nature exists in a web of physical
signs. Perception is the bodily
interpretation of these signs. As we
have become disconnected from the felt experience of our bodies, we have lost
the sense of living in an animate and meaningful world. We have restricted meaning to the isolated
world of human language.
In solitude, with no human contact, the non-human world
comes vibrantly alive and each call of a loon, each sigh of the wind in the
pines is imbued with possible meaning.
My scientific training warns against anthropomorphic projection, but I
wonder. David is color blind, he can't
tell red from green. Yet he does not
deny that others do. Still, how is one
to tell? Projection is powerful juju
magic.
Once at a silent meditation retreat I fell in love. I began to notice that during walking
meditation a woman and I had spontaneously started to share a secluded area of
the woods. Without word or eye contact
we became engaged at a very deep level and I sensed powerful currents of
passion, compassion, and understanding flowing between us. I imagined we might be married one day. At the end of the three month retreat I sat
beside her at lunch and we talked; I to an intimate friend/lover, she to a
pleasant stranger. I discovered she had been walking alone. My experience of deep connection was not
mutual. Even so, can we be sure...
ever? Just because she hadn't been
aware of a connection between us, does that mean it was not there? Ambiguous indeed this world we share.
Fool loon,
calling to his echo.
And I,
seeking my echo...
Or?
Sandlot
Epistemology and Ontology
As I sit and look in my window I see this journey has
led me toward epistemology and ontology.[x] This perambulation followed
naturally from wandering among and wondering about language. Again I began with Maturana, but once I
discovered Embodied Mind my attention
shifted to this work by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch since it is written in a style
and from a perspective more accessible to me.
I often catch myself still caught in dualism, trying to find my way
between realism and subjectivism. This
path of transformation is not an easy one.
I am slowly relinquishing the dream of a God's Eye View and
rediscovering my physically and culturally embodied existence. I do live in an actual world; my experience
is neither abstract nor imaginary. It
is real to me in this place at this moment, but it is not universal.[xi]
What aspects of my experience are open to contextual interpretation? All aspects. But the contexts for some aspects are more widely shared than are others. Some physical conditions, such as gravity, affect all matter equally. Some perceptual experience, like core primary color identification, tends to be common to all humans. But perception and conception are very closely intertwined, and not only phylogeny, but ontogeny as well as cultural context profoundly affect the meaning of any experience.
Do autopoiesis and structural coupling (Maturana &
Varela, 1987), presuppose a fundamental division between things? If we bring the world into being through the
distinctions we make, then are those boundaries our mind's contribution to the
world that arises in its relationship with the physical? If so, it seems the notion of autopoiesis
and structural coupling might arise in those same distinctions. Is there some deeper level where these
apparent divisions do not apply? The
experience of such unity is very powerful and meaningful. William James (1958) pointed out that if you
question the validity of such an experience, the person who describes it is apt
to respond, "Have you had such an experience?"
If you agree, he will smile and say, "Well then." If you admit to not having had such an
experience, he will reply, "I have," and that will pretty much end the
discussion.
I have included this drawing by Escher because for me it
exquisitely depicts several ideas of interest.
We see two separate individuals floating in space. Both are gazing at the sphere before them,
and it is evident they do not, and can never, perceive the same exact surface
of the sphere. They are each alone in
their own world. But their thoughts
intertwine and together they create a shared world through language. This, it seems to me, is the focus of most
academic writing. Yet looking deeper,
it becomes evident that they are not separate at all but manifest a single
underlying unity. This unity is, I
believe, beyond the reach of words.
Awareness of such unity may arise within a quiet mind, and in solitude
the mind has the opportunity and invitation to become still.
When I began Ph.D. work I intended to do science. I'd felt frustrated and angry as an
undergraduate that the science I was learning did not seem to welcome my lived
experience or metaphysical questions.
On the one hand there were discussions about epistemology and ontology
and on the other, pragmatic scientific studies. The two did not meet, and I wished to integrate them. My idea was to study animal behavior and at
the same time use the study as a mirror to reflect back to me perceptual
changes in myself as observer resulting from extended solitude. Given the partially constructed nature of
experience, it seems interesting, perhaps essential, to explore the process by
which the experiential world arises and attempt to integrate this awareness
into scientific studies. During the
past three years, my intention has remained the same, but its focus has
shifted. My project has become more
intimate, immediate and self-reflexive.
Within an academic setting and in
wilderness solitude, I am exploring the lived experience of exploring personal
lived experience while treating education as spiritual practice.[xii] I have re/turned to what is
really important to me. I have come
back home.
Gee but its great to be back
home
home is where I want to be
I've been on the road so long my friend
And it's the same old story
Everywhere I go...[xiii]
How did this move into circular, self-reflexivity
happen? I think the catalyst was the
paper I wrote last spring, Out Into Wild Aliveness... How do I Pack
for the Journey?. As I wrote I
began to use writing the paper as an example of what I was writing about. As I did so, I sensed something open up in
me, felt a surge of energy and excitement, and thought, "Yes, this is it! This is what I've been looking for. This is the way to bring my own life into my
academic process."
Exploring lived experience from a personal perspective
is vulnerable to criticism. It is often
seen in academic circles as subjective and self-absorbed.[xiv] Yet in spiritual practice
self-exploration is integral to the work.
Wilber points out that inner development is a process of decentering
away from seeing the self as all important.
This leads to broader awareness and deeper connectedness with
others. Mary Oliver (above) writes:
as you strode deeper and
deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.
In saving the only life we can save, we move deeper and deeper into the lives of those around us.
Before discussing methodology, I would like to locate myself and my intentions with respect to spiritual development. Although I have practiced mindfulness meditation on and off for years, and have devoted much time and effort to inner work, I consider myself a beginner along the way. My intention is to develop moment by moment, non-judgmental awareness of being alive in all its rich, ambiguous, mysterious Suchness; to learn to experience the world as it is, not as I would like it to be; to develop the courage to open myself in each moment to impermanence and death as integral aspects of Life; to live and experience my living as a sacred manifestation of the oneness of all beings.
Some spiritual systems categorize stages of development
in great detail. I am too
naturalistically inclined to be very attracted to detailed discussions of
theology. My interest in spirituality
is personal and pragmatic. What
fascinates and beckons to me is direct experience, insight, and analysis into
the mindbody process as lived here and now.
Of particular and intense interest is the experiential shift from an
essentially static and lifeless existence into a world that is vibrantly Alive.
Integral to this shift is the sense of belonging in and to the world.
I am not sure the term spiritual is very useful if it is thought of as something
special and apart from the here and now.[xv] The journey may be no more than
developing into a mature human being. I
believe my own - and our culture's - immediate task is to acknowledge and
integrate our shadowed side, heal the rifts between mind and body, between self
and other.[xvi] It is seductive to project an
abstract idea of spirit out into the ether and seek for salvation in our own
imagination. I believe this to be as
misguided and deadening as it is to deny the existence of spirit. Barbour (1990) discusses two aspects of
spirit--immanence and transcendence--and shows that different spiritual
traditions tend to focus on one or the other of these. Western religions generally lean strongly
toward the transcendent and there is now hunger to redress this imbalance.[xvii] We are beginning to listen for
and rediscover spirit in the physical here and now; in our flesh.
Practicing
Mindfulness.[xviii]
Varela et al (1991) extend the work of Merleu Ponty and
argue that it is important to study cognition not only from the perspective of
an external observer, but also from the perspective of lived experience. In The
View From Within: first-person
approaches to the study of consciousness,[xix] three
methodological approaches (introspection, phenomenology, meditation) from
Western and Eastern traditions are discussed.
The authors claim a useful methodology to systematically explore our own
mindbody experience has been developed in the Buddhist practice of mindfulness
meditation.
Mindfulness meditation practice is a powerful method to
develop the ability to become still and listen. The practice of mindfulness is not limited to the meditation
cushion. That is the training ground
and, in some sense, a sanctuary, but as mindfulness develops it carries over to
everyday life. The practice is not
about intellectual speculation, analysis, or debate. There is nothing esoteric about sitting on a cushion. Very simply, it is intended to reduce the
distractions that prevent clear and direct observation of what is happening in
the moment. It is the practice of
paying attention to immediate experience: bodily sensations, emotions, feelings
of pleasantness or unpleasantness, restlessness, sleepiness, doubt, the sense
of volition or intention to action, the process of thinking.
The first, and in some sense only step, on this journey of exploration is to pay attention to our own breathing. No need to make any adjustments. Breathe in and notice the breath, breathe out and notice the breath. Notice the shallow breaths and the deep breaths, just as they are in the moment. Notice the still moment between the in breath and the out breath. The first realization is how seldom we are actually present to ourselves and our environment. Watch a breath, watch a second breath, watch the beginning of a third and fwoop we're gone. To where? Who can say? We are not even aware we were gone until we wake up seconds or long minutes later and realize we have been lost somewhere in planning, or remembering, or fantasy, or brilliant analytical thought. If we had been aware of where we were, we would have been paying attention to our breathing. We often can't remember where we've been. Use this simple, but definitely not easy, practice of learning to pay close attention to the here and now and all else will follow naturally. Certainly teachers can be important in guiding us over the rough patches and in suggesting avenues for exploration, but our truth is discovered in our own actual, embodied existence in this moment, and this, and this. If spirit exists at all, it will show itself right here, right now.
If we pay mindful attention to the arising of thoughts and bodily sensations, we may gain insight into the relationship between them. So many questions. Does language constrain experience? Must I live in language? Does cultural and personal history condition my life? How solid are my opinions and the stories I tell about who I am and how the world works? Is the way I conceptualize the world inherent to that external world or is it my own reified and projected invention? What lies within or behind these conceptualizations? Is there an I? Am I separate from the world? All of these questions arise and dissolve in the mindbody flow. Sometimes deep insights arise with the questions. Mindfulness meditation expands the space within which both questions and insights arise.
Mindfulness, Thinking,
and Postmodernism
In postmodern discourse, self-reflexivity suggests the same thing as mindfulness. Both terms refer to developing awareness and understanding of the mindbody processes, particularly those aspects that result in the sense of a solid self. Both approaches involve decentering or disidentification; learning to see our many selves as a dynamic vortex of relationships which develops within a matrix of physical, biological, cultural and spiritual conditions. Mindfulness practice and self-reflexivity MAY be profoundly different as well. Meditation is not an intellectual activity grounded in thinking. The source of understanding is insight arising from a still mind rather than from discursive analysis. When thoughts appear, they are noticed as manifestations of ongoing mental activity and released rather than developed toward a logical end.
There are two funda-mental aspects or attributes of
mindfulness: concentration and bare attention.
Mindfulness meditation is intended to develop these qualities of
mind. Mental training is, of course,
not unique to meditation practice. In
academia, great emphasis is also placed on training the mind. But there is a difference. Our usual approach is to train the mind to
think clearly and logically and systematically explore the world.[xx] In meditation, constant thinking is seen as
a symptom of an undisciplined mind. In
the extreme case, Krishnamurti (1968) claims that the thinking mind is
completely self-enclosed and can never come into contact with anything beyond
itself. David Jardine (1999, p 111) in
discussing the reasoning mind writes:
We
live, it seems, in a world of our own making that has ourselves as the
center. With this last move, the
phenomenal world (i.e., the world en-formed by Reason) becomes self-enclosed
and self-referential.
While thinking is a natural part of the mindbody process
which needs to be respected and embraced, care must be taken to not become
caught in the thoughts generated and so lose awareness of the thinking process
itself. An important aspect of the practice
is to cultivate the space of a still mind within which thinking takes
place. It is this space of awareness
that I wish to continue to explore.
I want to explore the relationship between directed
linear, analytic thinking and spontaneous holistic, intuitive insight. My experience has been that directed
thinking operates on one level with the intention of fitting separate pieces of
a puzzle together, while a flash of intuitive insight manifests as a holistic
vision of the subject from a higher level.
I would like to be clear that I am not comfortable with the terms level
and higher, but this is how it seems
which is one of the things I wish to investigate.
It may be a matter of individual difference, but I don't
really Îget' something until I experience the Aha! of holistic
insight. Perhaps thinking can prepare
the soil and also examine the insight to see if it makes sense within my
existing worldview, but I believe deep understanding eludes me without the
experiential flash. The question arises
as to why I believe that. Did I think
it through? Is it an intuitive
understanding?[xxi]
Mindfulness meditation is a powerful tool with which to
explore the questions concerning the relationship of language and
consciousness. Is the space of
awareness structured by language? Does
consciousness arise through language?
In thinking about these questions, I am by definition lodged in language
since I think in language. But if
awareness itself is not language based, then there is the possibility of seeing
the process of mind work from the outside.
Until recently I assumed that language only constrains
experience. Certainly it limits and
structures what we are able to experience, but I am beginning to see that
language not only locks us into a conceptual prison,[xxii] but can also be a potential means of escape. Culler (1997, 59) expresses this clearly:
Language is not a Înomenclature' that provides labels for pre-existing categories; it generates its own categories. But speakers and readers can be brought to see through and around the settings of their language, so as to see a different reality. Works of literature explore the settings or categories of habitual ways of thinking and frequently attempt to bend or reshape them, showing us how to think something that our language had not previously anticipated, forcing us to attend to the categories through which we unthinkingly view the world. Language is thus both the concrete manifestation of ideology-the categories in which speakers are authorized to think-and the site of its questioning or undoing."
However, my questions still hover. In using language to question language categories, one is still operating in language but from a different perspective and with a different awareness than before. If one cultivates a still and empty mind within which insight into the working of language arises, is one still grounded in language or is awareness possible beyond the hegemony of our thinking/speaking minds? If so, can anything be said about it? It seems impossible to explore these questions immersed in the daily ebb and flow of language. During meditation, and more intensively in solitude, where language use is not required by social interaction, the mind gradually slows and becomes still and silent enough to perhaps see what is usually obscured by the constant chatter of words.
Mindfulness, Constructivism,
and Critical Analysis
How solid is the world?
How solid is that/this question?
Is it a real question or a
metaphorical one?
Is it referring
to a
conceptual description,
or
to
the underlying flow,
of the physical world?
I am going to sketch a tentative statement here.
Even before
I write anything
I realize
I am already lost.
in that whatever I say will be partial and ambiguous...
and if
I attempt to
defend "it" I will be girding myself to defend something
I do not really believe.
and if
I claim to
believe I will be telling a lie.
So I ask you to pay
as much attention to what I am not saying as to what I am.
On a physical level, the world is indeed solid but not at all
static. (See, right from the start I
have tripped over my own feat. Any
seventh grade physics student could tell me that no way the material world is
solid. Mostly space she would
chortle.) Let me try again. On a physical (not physics) level, the world
is solid (kick it and feel) but not static.
Change is in the air; in the water; in the rock... in our minds. Everything changes, albeit some things
change damn slowly. BUT what we usually
think is the Real World is a web of concepts that are not at all solid and that
do not appear to change. So, it seems
that beyond our conceptual experience there is something that actually exists.
We are not making that up. It is
our source.
What we are making up are the stories about what that something is or is not. I am not referring to formal theory here,
but to our lived experience on which we build theory. We make up our experience.
This doesn't mean we are free agents to make up what ever we want. We evolved and live in relationship with the
physical and social world. Our
experiential world arises within the context of our current engagement and our
history of engagement. As physical
beings we act on our experiential world and through this action create changes
in the air, water, rock, our minds.
There is no solid foundation anywhere.
Developing insight into this circular process in my own lived experience
and sharing this insight is one aspect of my research.[xxiii]
Positivist researchers who argue for naive realism claim
to study the Real World and assume their perceptual experience (often modified
through the use of instruments) to be identical with that Real World. Hypotheses about how that Real World works
are to be proven true or false.
Post-positivism gives up the claim to certainty about how things are,
but through falsification of hypotheses (comparing hypothesis to experience)
claims certainty about how things are not.
Critical Theory and Constructivism both argue that the experience of our
senses does not mirror a pre-given Real World, but is a construction. The primary goal of these research
orientations is to elucidate the social, psychological, and biological
processes by which these constructions arise, and so to liberate us from the
illusion of certainty. Both agree that
insight into the constructed nature of what has been reified into concrete
social and psychological reality is the key to freedom and change.
There are also differences between Critical theory and
Constructivism. Critical theory focuses
on social power relationships which create and maintain constructions
detrimental to various disenfranchised sub groups defined primarily by race,
gender, economic status or belief/behavioral patterns. Social reality, while originally constructed,
has become entrenched and for practical purposes is now solid and Real. The goal of research is to increase
awareness of manipulation and facilitate political/economic resistance to such
manipulation. I take constructivism to
focus primarily on the internal condition of self-oppression by our own
internal processes; by the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. The goal is personal insight into and
freedom from previously unconscious patterns of construction that limit our
conceptions of who we are and so cause us to suffer. In this, constructivism seems to closely parallel mindfulness
practice.
These two research orientations differ in their foci of
concern, and in their analysis of the underlying causes of suffering. Each orientation is grounded in a particular
political, social, or spiritual matrix of beliefs and assumptions, and may
defend that ground as exempt from questioning.
Marxist theory begins with the assumption that classes are real and
distinct. The primary cause of
suffering is exploitation of one class by another. Feminism may assume not only that men and women have historically
been and remain in deep conflict, but also that the apparent inequality of
social roles reflects relations of absolute inequality. The domination of women by men is seen as
the central cause of suffering.
Constructivist research seeks psychological rather than social or
political solutions to suffering. Since
reality is personally and collectively constructed, the focus is on re-learning
new patterns of thinking and perception.
While both these theoretical perspectives assume the
existence of a real self, Buddhism assumes selflessness, and attributes
suffering to the internal process of creating and clinging to the illusory
self. Existence as a separate entity is
the source of suffering. Students are
encouraged to develop stillness of mind within which direct insight into this
truth may arise.[xxiv]
Another apparent difference between the approaches of
critical theory and constructivism and that of meditation practice is the
method of exploration. The former use
analytical thinking to critically examine usually accepted assumptions and so
develop insight into the psychosocial processes at work. Meditation
goes deeper and explores not only these processes, but the dynamic
qualities of knowing and consciousness as well. Within a still mind, there arise insights into political and
economic injustice which require redress, but there is also awareness of deeper
causes of suffering and a more immediate possibility of spiritual release.
Conceptual
Analysis
The second component of my methodology is conceptual
analysis. Since much of this paper
already reflects such activity, I will add nothing more here. Additionally, End Note #34 of this section
has a hermeneutic interpretation of a sample of my writing.
My first extended retreat into solitude was in naive
response to an inner call.[xxv] I felt I needed time alone and
took my canoe into the wilderness for three months. Sensing intuitively that reading would not teach me what I needed
to learn, I took only two books with me; previously unread copies of the I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes) and
Writings of the Taoist sage, Chuang Tsu.
These were my only formal tools to contextualize and understand the
transformations I experienced.
During that retreat I slipped naturally into the flow of
daily meditation/contemplation. I
became aware of how unbalanced my life had been; rapt in activity, seeking to
aggressively grasp life rather than wait with quietly receptive mind and heart
for life to offer itself to me. This
was not an easy shift to make, since I came from a culture that strongly values
and rewards striving for and securing pragmatic goals. Becoming caught in the flow of living was
joyful and terrifying. It was apparent
to me that my desire for, and belief
in, control was fruitless and illusory.
I could see only three possible responses to this insight: escape back
into illusion; resistance which would end in terror and madness; surrender to the
immediacy of Life and Death. I surrendered.
On returning to the social world:
things came unglued for me;
they went awry;
headed south;
fell asunder;
stopped working;
turned to shit.
I became
an unhappy camper;
a lost
sheep, soul, soldier;
seriously
depressed.
This was normal, but I didn't know that for a
while. I found out by attending a 10
day silent meditation retreat where I learned that Peak experience, like
everything else in life, is transitory.
Surrendering to the flow involves becoming nonattached to even those
experiences of flow. "Well that sucks,"
I told the teacher who shared this bad news with me. Nevertheless, there it was and although I still suffered, at
least I learned that my own sense of loss was not unique or the result of personal
failure. While at the retreat, I also
began to develop tools to systematically explore territory I had discovered in
solitude. There is deep similarity
between mindfulness meditation and solitude.
In some sense one imitates the other.
When sitting with eyes closed in silent meditation, even in a group, you
are alone. Meditation is a conscious
intention to bring the mind into the present to notice whatever arises in a
non-judgmental way. You use
concentration techniques to steady body and mind. Sometimes restlessness prevails, sometimes there is quiet. The intention is not to cultivate any
particular experience, but to develop the equanimity to be with whatever arises
in the moment and to begin to decondition habitual clinging to pleasant experience
and avoiding the unpleasant.
For me, all this tends to happen naturally in
solitude. Cultural obligations are
present only in the mind. Daily I wake
up to myself, live with myself, go to sleep with myself. In the absence of linguistic input, the mind
naturally settles and clears. Awareness
of transience and death[xxvi]
becomes intense in the wilderness. Our
civilization has created deep buffers to provide the illusion of safety and
permanence. Buffering environmental
fluctuations is necessary for survival, but we have lost our balance and become
psychologically disassociated from the vibrantly Alive flux of Life and
Death. These cannot be separated. Without the openness to embrace Death we are
cut off from the most profound experiences of Living.
Red on red:
New life springing from weary death.
Plump berries and Autumn leaves.
There is risk in solitude. Even a three month meditation retreat did not confront me with the immediacy of my own physical death and existential angst to the extent to which I have been forced to face this terrifying experience in the wilderness. There is also the risk of panic. In a controlled retreat setting, a teacher can guide students through personal difficulties, but in solitude you must face your fear alone
Moonlight shapes
this hillock of stunted pine.
A silent shadow swoops suddenly near,
An owl hunting.
Solitude carries me into
profound sensuous contact with my own physical existence and with my bodily
senses.
Soft wind, hard rock
against my skin.
Moonbeams scorch my forehead.
Swift streams seduce my ear.
There is magic and loneliness and longing in solitude.
Is seven
magic?
flying in from nowhere
so low I can count each tail feather.
Geese squawking.
I thought I knew lonely·
until I saw
a single goose fly by,
silently.
Meditation and solitude fit well together. Meditation is a powerful means to stabilize the psychological instability that can arise in the absence of the social matrix. Maintaining mindfulness in the social world is difficult. For this reason, solitude is also a powerful tool. There are few distractions and my mind naturally slows and deepens even without strong self-discipline. Solitude has another advantage too. My mind can be left to freely range and explore until, like a wild animal in a large cage, it ceases to pace restlessly and settles into stillness.
I am interested not only in the internal workings of my
mind, but also in transforming my lived relationship with the non-human
world. In solitude my consciousness is
released from the daily tangle of the social web and free to explore other
levels of existence; free to relax into the rhythms of nature.
One of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of
using mindfulness and solitude as method is the question of who is doing the
exploring and who is being explored. As
far as I can tell, these nodes of experience never hold still. In waiting and listening with a still mind
for insight into the nature of the mindbody process, the mindbody process
itself has changed. Very odd. The platform supporting the viewing scope
and the process under the scope will not hold still. My approach is to: pay
attention (to ongoing moment by
moment experience, to insights into the processes by which experience arises,
and to the social and biological conditions(ing) which constrain/influence
experience) and explore modes of
communication with both myself and with others that not only allow me to
describe what I experience but in themselves enhance mindfulness, encourage
insight, and catalyze transformation.
My research is not apt to result in clear, unambiguous findings. I had high hopes that here at university I would find my way out of the shadowed tangle of a fluid, contradictory, partial, ambiguous worldview, and have been troubled because I seem to have made little progress. I can write clearly, but what I say does not really capture or reflect the complexity of my experience. Lately, however, I have been exposed to thinkers/writers who say similar things about their own experience and this gives me a context and permission (even here in academia) to embrace my actual lived experience just as it is. Happy day, I am still in Kansas after all!
My methodology is autoethnographic. My call is to explore and describe my own
lived experience of myself exploring the spiritual path in academia and in
solitude. I do not wish to separate
myself as researcher from myself as subject.
My intention is personal transformation and to learn how the results of
my research might help catalyze change in others. As Joseph Campbell (2000) said so nicely: "People say that what
we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I think what we're seeking is an
experience of being alive.")
One of the difficulties in shifting from a quantitative
to a qualitative approach was that I didn't have a clear idea of what I was
trying to do. I sensed intuitively that
my training in biology and psychology could not address my own deep interests,
but wasn't sure why. In reading
Polkinghorne's Narrative Knowing and the
Human Sciences, I began to understand something basic about how we
understand and explain the world.
There are two (at least) fundamentally different ways of
explaining events we experience.[xxvii] Logico-mathematical reasoning is
the foundation for quantitative explanation.
An event is thought to be understood when it can be described as
belonging to a category of cause and effect relationships. It is defined as a particular instance of a
more general law that holds irrespective of time and location. Thus, a stone falls on my toe because it has
mass and all mass is subject to the pull of gravity. I can accurately predict this will happen each and every time a
stone is released directly over my poor toe.
In the life sciences, these strict categories become
fuzzy because no two instances are ever completely identical. Statistical analysis is necessary to
describe tendencies to behave in certain ways.
This is particularly so in complex sciences such as ecology and
psychology. The more variables involved
in a system under examination the less likely it is that accurate prediction
will be possible. In an effort to
manage this uncertainty, experimental studies often create artificially simple
contexts into which only a limited number of variables are allowed access. This becomes unsatisfying to the degree that
the artificial context no longer resembles external circumstance. There is sometimes the complaint that such
studies tell me little about the world I actually live in.
At this point the urge to find another means of
explanation may arise. But how? One choice is narrative description. A particular situation is studied and a detailed
story is told about the events leading to the situation in question. Meaning is derived by placing the situation within
a historical context which includes the intentions and goals of the individuals
involved. Thus, if my young nephew
wants me to explain gravity to him, but I am engaged in thinking about writing
this paragraph on different kinds of explanation, and if to attract my
attention he decides to drop a rock on my foot, I am apt to find this second
explanation of the pain in my toe more adequate to my lived experience than I
would a statement that all mass is subject to gravity, this chunk of granite
has mass, therefore...
Narratives exhibit explanation instead of demonstrating it. In this they are open to multiple meanings and celebrate the complexity and ambiguity of life. While narrative explanation may be richer and more relevant to the particular situation under observation, it is difficult to locate this instance within a larger class of similar instances. It can be criticized as having no general relevance to anything else. It tells me nothing about the trajectory of rocks in general.
Polkinghorne says this very clearly:
In
narrative organization, the symmetry between explanation and prediction,
characteristic of logico-mathematical reasoning, is broken. Narrative explanation does not subsume
events under laws. Instead, it explains
by clarifying the significance of events that have occurred on the basis of the
outcome that has followed. In this
sense, narrative explanation is retroactive.
It is important to clearly recognize these distinct ways
of knowing/explaining the world.
Otherwise qualitative research tends to be compared unfavorably with
quantitative research as though the former were just a sloppy instance of the
latter. As though categorization is
still the goal, but vague descriptive words have been substituted for precise
measurement. But this is not the
case. They do not merely show different
degrees of rigor, but are based in very different modes of explanation.
Autoethnography
Recently I had the good fortune to participate in a
writing autoethnography workshop led by Carolyn Ellis.[xxviii] While I was exposed to some new
ideas there, the experience was even more valuable to me because in some
important ways it clarified and validated the direction I have been moving
during the past two years. I feel like
I participated in a sort of homecoming.
The orientation to exploration and writing that has slowly and naturally
been developing in my work is very similar to autoethnography.
Once it is recognized that "everything that is said is
said by an observer,"[xxix] autoethnography follows naturally from that insight. The research is expressly presented as the
personal story of the researcher. There
is no covert assumption that the author speaks with the disembodied "voice of
authority." It is accepted that another
observer would not necessarily experience and interpret events in the same way,
or even frame the same activities in the ongoing flow of life as important
events to be interpreted. Emotional
impact is welcomed and described as a vital aspect of any experience. In writing, the author speaks from his or
her heart and mind directly to the heart and mind of the reader. The primary intention is to evoke resonance
in the reader through first person narrative rather than to provide objective
description and analysis.[xxx]
One delight of Carolyn's manner is that she presents the
development of this approach as flying by the seat of your pants grounded in
common sense. The method is not at all
formal, but rather very open ended. Pay
attention to what is happening and figure out what you need to do to explore,
live, describe the situation. She often
used the same words to describe what she does that I use to describe what I am
trying to do.
There is a trade off here. It is not that one style of knowing and explanation is good and the other bad, but rather that they complement each other. In human life an event is not considered senseless because it cannot be placed in a proper category or because it is seen to break a universal law, but because we cannot fit it into the plot of the story we tell about our lives. If I am asked why I did something, my answer is usually in the form of narrative rather than categorical. However, it is important to balance these modes of explanation in our lives in order to maintain perspective.
I believe the whole committee assumes my dissertation
will be a written document. I am open
to this idea, but am not convinced that in my case an exclusively written
report is necessary, sufficient or even valid perhaps. I am by nature a storyteller.[xxxi] It is how I communicate most
clearly, vibrantly, and enjoyably. Oral
stories are important, not only in traditional cultures, but in our lived
culture too. I think it important to
acknowledge that part of my formal submission may be oral; not just the
defense, but the dissertation - possibly with a video or audio cassette as a
record. Perhaps I will make a tape
during the retreat.
I expect writing to be important during part or all of
the retreat; I will make journal notes about my experience on as many levels as
possible. Writing, like thinking, is
magical. A challenge will be to not
lose myself in the words, but remain mindful of the moment by moment living process
of writing. In writing that sentence,
it popped back into my head that I can only make sense of a lived experience
once it is gone (Weick, 1995).[xxxii]
I feel my body quicken
as I notice what it knows.
Will I read what I have written while I am there? Will this reading change my experience and
my writing about my experience of reading and writing? Perhaps I will do a monthly annal of my
life, or of the retreat itself.[xxxiii]
Writing remains a bone of contention for me. I worry, not about the chewing, but about
burying myself in a hole I might dig.
During mindfulness-meditation retreats, writing is discouraged. Placing importance on the content of
experience is a habit of mind that can be problematic. The core of the practice is to become aware
of the tendency to cling to certain experiences and reject others; to notice
how this clinging leads to suffering.
Clinging to particular opinions, theories, or stories we tell about the
world (even clinging to the stories we tell about clinging) brings
suffering. Writing can point to how
suffering arises, how we structure our experience, to the groundlessness of
self and world. But writing can also
muddy internal waters.
I have spent much of my life traveling and living in
different worlds. I love to tell
stories; sometimes you can't shut me up.
For years friends and family have suggested that I keep a journal, have
given me journals, have asked when I returned from a journey whether I had kept
a journal. I rarely have. Last January, David suggested I begin a
journal as part of this project. I
agreed. It was an excellent idea! I even made two or three entries.[xxxiv] During my first extended wilderness retreat
writing was not part of my daily activity.
There was too much else going on.
Only near the end of my stay did I set down some short, metaphorical
poems. What I wrote seemed to embody or
be iconic of the experience. I later
wished I had, while in that mysterious territory of flowing aliveness, written
myself directions on how to return.
Years later, while deep in another retreat, I remembered my wish and
wrote pages describing what I was experiencing and how to find my way
back. I've never read what I
wrote. I don't know why.
What does this mean for my current project? It is worrisome. My intention is to write daily while in solitude. Will I? Certainly I will tell myself oral stories during the retreat. Those stories will not disappear entirely, and the details may not be important. When writing stories of my life, I never work from notes or journal. I re/member the structure of events that had a powerful impact, and conjure up details to flesh out the story. In a sense this may be clearer since what I want to say, my truth, isn't cluttered up with facts. The process may act as a sort of intuitive filter; only the vital stuff makes it through.
So I wonder...
what if I return from a year in solitude with no field notes at all... what
then?
This is
not a rhetorical question!
Can I tell my story from the heart?
Must I ever write it down?
Or can I video tape an oral account?
Lee suggested I explore how initial blips of wondering
become focused questions and scientific hypotheses. He said I need to write and write and write. These notebooks will become the raw data I
can use in my report and also show others as my field notes. This makes sense. I wonder, will it work.
My guess is that I will write a lot during the retreat and that some of
the writing will be mindful recording of the thoughts that arise in the context
Lee and I talked about. Some will
follow the writing in this paper; description, self-reflexive questioning,
analysis. Some will be a multilevel
recording of what I experience the retreat to be. Some might be sculpted stories, or poems. I might return with my thesis written.
When I think of writing and analyzing my own experience I become a bit confused. Will I write and then analyze what I wrote? Or analyze what my mental experiences are? Or will my mental experiences include analysis? Or will I analyze the analysis? Or all of the above? It seems more direct and interesting, if more difficult, to directly explore the mind body processes and describe and perhaps analyze them directly without the intermediary step of writing and analyzing the writing. But who knows.
Through it all
my intent, my call,
and perhaps my curse...
will be to remain mindful.
As is most of my writing, unless I intentionally narrow
the style, this paper is multiangled and irregular. It is not well-rounded nor nicely squared at the corners;
certainly not linear. It is, and is
intended to be, rough in spots. It is
incomplete, full of unanswered
questions. It is inconsistent -
I am inconsistent,
We are inconsistent, (aren't you ?)
- or rather, it is multivoiced. Who are these voices speaking out? I don't know; I suspect I cannot know (now). Perhaps I can know who I was once I hear
what I said? (Whyte and
Personality) But who I am, and who I am
not is mystery... or it's not. What I hear mainly here are the polished
voices: of insight; of tentative knowledge/analytic critique; of aesthetic
caress. These are voices speaking to
you (and to me) the reader. But there
are other voices here too. Silenced
voices.
:frustrated:
:petulant:
:frightened:
Uncivilized.
Voices howling wild and unheard (perhaps unhearable) echoing down these hallowed halls.
Voices of the writer.
Listen.
Writing is and has been a living process in my life for a long time. So writing as exploration is familiar to
me. That doesn't make it easier to get
started and stick with it though. Recently
I have become more aware of rhetorical techniques. Even so, I do not want to lose my instinctive edge and become
driven by rules and customs, but rather trust the bell that rings for me when
what I write somehow and for some reason sounds just right, and then still
sounds right later.
The dream
is
that I will learn
a more efficient and less painful way
to put the words down
and then sail gracefully up-wind
toward the call of the ringing bell.
But pain and frustration
is another, darker story
that finds its home
in these pages
too.
I stare at the blank page. Joyful and terrifying. I can make whatever I want. Absolutely what ever I want. Eeeeek! Where do I begin? What do I want to make? Let us see:
1) It must be profound
or at the very least really interesting, else why waste paper, my and your time
and energy.
2) It must be clear, even translucent.
I hate reading murky crap and would not want others to feel that way
about my writing.
3) It must be poetic in its use of metaphor and imagery. Most academic writing is Christly Dull.
4) I must be honest and speak to those things I consider of ultimate importance
in my life.
5) It must be fun to write and it must flow freely and spontaneously.
6) The writing must be a process of profound discovery for me.
Whew, that wasn't so hard. Now, what shall I write? I stare at a blank screen and wonder why the
words seem to be bottled up inside.
I am sick of writing.
I want to fish for leaping
rainbow trout.
I want to make
love.
I want
to dive beneath the sea.
I want to stop thinking.
This feels like
beating my head against a wall, dreading it will go on forever.
Tense.
Tight.
Resistant.
Angry.
Frustrated.
It does no good, but Bitching and Moaning is part of
what makes life worth the living.
Or maybe not.
This year again I did not win a major fellowship; a hard
blow to my self-esteem. Why was it a
blow? What's going on? Who is this "I" that suffered the blow? What do I wish to do about/with/to/from this
"I"? Can I - in the sense of
choice/freedom - do anything about it at all?
Most of my life I haven't tried for mainstream social
acceptance, and instead have rebelled and gone my own way. At 40 I began university when the currents
of life carried me there. I found I was
starved for knowledge and success, and loaded up on both. I was a dedicated student, got top marks,
and, just by the way, won summer research grants and a fellowship for two years
of graduate school. I switched from the
Masters to the Ph.D. program, assuming I would win further funding. Why not?
I had been successful thus far with so little effort. I was wrong, and instead have a student loan
which bothers me on several levels.
If, as social beings, we discover ourselves and our
meaning in our multiple relationships, who am I now?
I Feel
diminished; as I walk through the halls and into a class.
Others are polite, but my work and effort to contribute are tolerated rather
than welcomed and valued.
I know about projection, and know lamenting is lamentable, but still·
I Feel
unseen; my work and effort to be honest and true invalidated.
non-existent; a street person wandering homelessly through the uni-verse-city.
Same old same old.
What's vital and important to me has no meaning or value for others.
I Feel
like my girl took off with my best friend,
like my dog got run over by a semi,
like the suits passed a law against guns.
I might as well shoot myself now.
I Feel
like they should write a country-western song about me.
I know only three ways to respond to this feeling: try
harder to help others see my vision, which I doubt will work; give up my path
and do something apparently useful and desired by those around me; drop out
again and work just enough to survive.
I do not know how to participate without aiming to
please.
Do not know how to follow my heart and find you there.
Do not know how to find my heart in you.
I can justify dropping out by saying this "I", this "Self", is illusory. Success and failure are traps. Sorrow and sadness will always arise with the effort to remain engaged. I hear a voice calling softly; telling me this academic enterprise is a distraction, a deadened that sooner or later must be left behind. Is this a healthy voice beckoning me home, or the seduction of dissolution? Who can tell me? Teachers say, "Resist the call, hang in, fight on." But who are these writers and teachers, and what have they to do with me? They are the voices of success. Those who have failed or have turned away have no voice. They have either been silenced, or have seen the futility of scrambling through the market crying "I, I, I."
I have seen futility for myself, and know all writing
and art are either empty celebrations of the Self, or efforts to avoid the deep
suffering brought on by this imagined self.
There is no solace there. The
only real peace is through abandoning the self and all its works. And Yet.
As a vision this might call, but if someone, doesn't gather/prepare the
dinner, where are we?
Other Voices Calling
During the recent "Learning Love" conference here
at UBC I was touched by the voices I heard in women's stories. Strong, tender voices. Voices of patience and courage. Voices that spoke of greeting difficulty and
pain as opportunities to deepen compassion and understanding rather than as
direct challenges to be overcome in pursuit of freedom. In hearing these voices I felt something
soften inside and sensed that part of my work ahead is to welcome my own voices
of difficulty and pain into my living, writing and storytelling.[xxxv] I also heard the voices of First
Nation's people and felt their grief and shame and anger. Individual grief and shame and anger I know
well, but not belonging to any clear cultural group, I usually see cultural
suffering as collective personal suffering.
But perhaps suffering for one's people is not the same as personal
suffering at all. As a white male, I
may be unwilling to experience the shame that my race has inflicted so much
suffering onto others. I question if
laying blame helps. We all have and
continue to suffer. It is integral to
living, and blame deepens rather than heals the chasms between us. Still, these voices call out and ask to be
heard; ask to be written into my stories.
This is, at least in part, what education should be.
Writing
from the Heart
I hope using writing and storytelling processes
of discovery will lead to a creative format and style in my work. As I write this essay, I question what genre
I am using. I slowly realize I cannot
pin it down. This paper, like life, is
ambiguous and just what it is. It
meanders between confessional and impressionist and realist.
The voice I seek embodies many
aspects of writing I enjoy and find important. It includes
realist description that also carries a metaphorical or allegorical load. I might feel most comfortable to have my
whole thesis ramble along like this; realism, constructivism, self-reflective
confessional, poetic description, action, critical analysis, all crowded
together cheek by jowl in every section.
A sharp wind was blowing straight out of the north sending a 6 inch high blizzard of sand roaring off toward Tijuana, Mexico. I looked south, half wishing to get blown away myself. Most anything would be better than studying for and facing up to the Ph.D. comprehensive exams that were hanging like doom over my southern California afternoon. I was hiding in the lee of a sandstone slab fallen from the eroded cliff behind me. This same cliff had dumped a tall eucalyptus, root over crown, and it now leaned down-side-up against the groundless mass. Rain and sea eating away the earth. Time. No doubt about it. Every-thing changes. "Do non-things change too?" I wondered, and then, chiding myself for wasting time, went back to reading about methodology.
Along the
tide-line, shore birds worked the shifting edge of the sea. I watched a solitary whimbrel ratchet its
long, curved, slightly-ajar beak into the sand, root around in the hidden
depths and pull up some tasty morsel.
It tilted its beak up and gobbled it down, then intently examined the
sand again for another ocular sign of the occult. A couple of smaller, shorter-billed dowitchers were skipping to
their own time, and from the look of things weren't doing so well; unless, for
all I knew they were vacuuming up smaller goodies directly, like mosquitoes
sucking blood from a naked mole rat. A
flock of sanderlings seemed to think they were always in the wrong place at the
wrong time. Somehow they all agreed in
the matter and scurried from there to here in apparent unison. This, I thought, might give a radical
constructivist pause to reconsider her position.
My own
posture was causing me some discomfort too, as damp from the sand soaked
through my jeans and caused my butt to itch.
But then, as I settled back into the postmodern perspective of the text,
I lost my certainty of the itch. It was
simply gone, deconstructed in the intricate comings and goings of
sensations. Then I noticed that the
itch was ephemeral; going and coming to its own secret rhythms. Now there's uncertainty, when even your own
constructs won't behave. About then in
the proceedings I got tired of the mental convolutions and went ahead and
scratched.
I was not
alone on the beach, and even if I had been I wouldn't have been. I would have had lots of company in my
solitude. Strange how I can feel alone
in the midst of teeming life and swirling spirit. What is this "me" I build for myself? distinct and separate, not
only from the earth and sea, but also from the birds, sand crabs and even other
people. But I was not alone. Other people tramped the shore, threw sticks
into the surf for their dogs to fetch, or built castles in the sand with their
children this first day of the millennium.
It was a kind and sensible scene around me.
I sat bolt
up when I spied dorsal fins cutting the surface just beyond the waves. A pod of dolphins was cruising parallel to
shore straight into the wind chop. I
counted them - several times - and still couldn't tell how many there
were. Further out, way past earshot,
gulls wheeled and screamed and crashed into a patch of sea aboil with
bait-fish. I looked long and hard
(longing for the field glasses I'd forgotten were in the knapsack beside me)
but couldn't tell if they were being chased up by still more dolphins or by a
school of yellowfin tuna or bonito that sometimes travel fin in fin with
dolphins. I wondered, as I had other
times before, what it must be like to get caught between silent killers below
and squalling mayhem attacking from above.
Do those small fish feel terror?
And if not, how might I, too, not feel terror in the face of my own
impending dissolution? Must I give up
all self-awareness, or is there another way.
What an immense force is this fear of death. There are moments when I think most human endeavor is aimed
toward holding death at bay; at denying our impermanence. Yet even now, the tide was already gobbling
up the castles built so carefully in the sand.
Then I noticed that most people on the beach were actively doing something. Few were just THERE, quietly bathing in the moment. As far as I could tell no one else had noticed the drama of dolphins, gulls and death. I wondered if this was so and what effect solitude has on awareness of the moment? And I wondered where they had been, what beach they were seeing that I would never know?
I
reentered my book and was picked up and went surfing along a brainwave: Instead of describing different methods for
my comp, why not describe this time on the beach from several different
perspectives? There could perhaps be
this free-form approach, most natural to me, which includes some realist
description, some constructivist perspectives, some spiritual wonderings, and a
positivist approach to studying the beach, and a short criticism of that approach.[xxxvi]
Since this project is about personal, lived experience, the underlying tone remains, I hope, one of emptiness. This is at bottom an impressionist tale and there are no claims to objective truth here except for slips of the tongue. My own lived truth of the moment is what I am listening for.
Yet even
as I say that, I sense it isn't completely so.
I look out at the world and my gut feeling is
"of course this is
how the world is
or else
I wouldn't see it this way."
It is then that I must make the effort to put myself in your shoes and admit that if I were you I wouldn't see the world my way, I would see it as you do; your views would be mine. Whose way is the best/test? Ah well, we might talk about that. In the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed the read.
A Map for the Journey || Next Section(Conclusion)
[i] I suppose all stories are in some
sense teaching stories. But if you were
to ask me what lesson this story carries, I couldn't easily tell you, nor would
I want to. Stories come directly or
indirectly from life, and life is too open-ended and ambiguous to be easily
summed up in simple moral teachings. In
any case, such an imposed moral lesson would interfere with your freedom to
take from the story what you wish. The
only thing to remember is that all my stories are true. Of course, the facts might be occasionally
adjusted to allow the truth to shine forth.
Still, these manipulations are not unprecedented. From what we hear, even Gregor Mendel cooked
his data to allow the truth of genetic inheritance to shine through.
I am sometimes asked when
I started to tell stories, and I used to have a ready answer. It was in 1989 in Montreal. But thinking about it I realized it began
some years before that. I used to swap
yarns with an old, degenerate cook in the galley of a derelict sailing ship in
the Dominican Republic. One night he
told me I should become a real storyteller, and I was drunk enough to believe
him. Actually, long before that I had
been telling tales to immigration and customs police while traveling in Latin
America. That's a handy skill
indeed. But recently I have come to
realize that, like all of us, I began to tell my stories when I was still an
infant at the beginning of the world before time began. We all did and do create and constantly
change our stories to make sense of our experience of living. That, in any case, is my current story and
I'm sticking to it... at least for now.
[ii] Using journey as a metaphor carries
some risk with it. It is easy to
imagine the journey as going forth to find something not already here. When I feel I am lost in a
lifeless, conceptual wasteland, it can seem like the real world of direct
experience is Îout there' somewhere. I
imagine I must go on a quest to find that world. This is a mistake of the conceptual mind. There is no other world. There is only experiencing the here and now
(however and wherever I am) just as it is.
By imagining I have to go somewhere else or change something cognitively
or emotionally before I can enter the flow of the Living world, I am
strengthening the idea that I am not already part of the flow. To see through this delusion, I need to pay
attention to my mind-body processes (to my actual experience) just as they are
here and now. The trick is not to make
things different, but to experience how they already are.
[iii] Carl Leggo
[iv] Varela et al (1991, p 241) describing
the enactive approach says "A path is laid down in the walking." David Whyte,
the poet, reminds us of the message from Joseph Campbell -- "If you can see
your path laid out ahead of you step by step, then you know it is not YOUR path."
[v] This expression, "Getting ahead of
myself," is very strange. It's
impossible, like trying to out run our shadow... and Carl Jung (1959) had
something to say about such an endeavor.
Yet we spend a lot of our time trying to doing just that.
[vi] Maturana & Varela, 1987.
[vii] Part of my work is an exploration
into the source of this experience of struggle. Varela et al (1991,.p143) suggest the source of the conflict is
in the desire for certainty, what they call Cartesian Anxiety. If one accepts without question that an
ontological reality exists then two responses are possible: realism which
posits the possibility of discovering that objective reality, or idealism which
argues that all that can be known is subjective experience in which case that
experience becomes solid and real.
Since neither of these approaches provide any certainty, anxiety is
produced. The anxiety is not the result
of uncertainty as such, but rather arises from a particular state of mind. One of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is
that suffering results from grasping for certainty and permanence in an
impermanent world of change. It is
difficult to realize and accept this uncertainty. For a long time I have thought there was something wrong with me
because I have been unable to develop and maintain a clear understanding of
"How the World Is." Over and over I
have become frustrated with my failure and given up the struggle only to cycle
back and begin again. Even years of
meditation practice has not freed me from this pattern since I have never
really identified with the Buddhist world view as an alternative to that of
western culture. I have continued to
view my experience of uncertainty as personal weakness rather than realizing
its source in grasping mind. Even when
not actively engaged in the search for certainty, I have felt I was just
avoiding the problem rather than understanding its source. This is analogous to physical desire. When desire becomes attached to an
unobtainable object, frustration results, and the burning question arises,
"What is wrong with me that I can't get what I want in life?" There is no answer to this question since
desires are inexhaustible. Freedom is
not found in temporary fulfillment, but through insight into the process.
More immediately, as I
write this paper, I recognise that I have been treating Maturana's "cosmology"
not as a stimulating and useful metaphor to play with, but as a sort of gospel
that I must either accept as true or reject as false. Here, I think, it is appropriate to reflect on and admit how
important personal issues are in my academic endeavors. I grew up with a very demanding and critical
father. For more than 30 years I have
been exploring and transforming the effects of that relationship in my
life. Yet still those early experiences
are rooted deep in the soil of my psyche and I continue to rebel against and
seek approval from powerful men (and women) in my life.
[viii] The relationship between
consciousness and language and thought fascinates me, and I discuss it further
in the Methodology section.
[ix] Wallace (1999, p 179) cites the
Indian Buddhist contemplative Santideva's argument that we can not actually be
aware of ourselves being aware. Such an
experience arises from noticing the memory of a conceptual representation of
the previous moment of awareness. For
me, such a notion only has meaning if I can explore it for myself. Solitude encourages development of mental
clarity that allows personal examination of the relationship between language,
thought and consciousness.
[x] Here again I could wish for a few
billion more neurons. My wandering and
wondering across these brambled fields is an ongoing hobby/habit. I question my good sense in including this
section since my understanding, while slowly deepening, is still murky and
inconsistent. But this aspect of the
journey has been very important to me not only here at the university, but
during many years of my life. In some
sense, this may be the core of my search and a main reason I am here. I offer my thoughts not in any way as
definitive, but as an invitation for discussion. Again, I think it is important to be clear that my project is not
primarily philosophical, but rather an exploration within the academic setting
of what it is to be alive in the exploration of what it is to be alive. Aliveness for me includes philosophical
questioning, retreat into solitude, and spiritual longing/transformation.
[xi] While
epistemological and ontological musings are very important to my life, they are
not central to the construction of this paper.
For this reason I include this long section as a note.
According to evolutionary
theory, we humans, like all other known organisms, have evolved on earth
(Darwin, 1959, 1971). Dualism is not
generally accepted in science and we are believed to have emerged from within
the bio-sphere rather than to have been deposited from without. This includes our perceptual processes
(Ornstein, 1991). Neither we nor any
other organism manifest a perfectly optimal design (Gould & Lewontin, 1979;
Sober, 1987). We continue to exist as
individuals because we are adapted well enough to survive. Our lineages continue because we leave enough
reproducing offspring to prevent extinction.
No more no less.
We accept, if not
celebrate, that we are not physically ideal.
Our lower backs often hurt because they originally evolved for a
different posture. Our teeth (except
perhaps from a dentist's financial point of view) are not perfectly
engineered. However, we do not always
carry this awareness into our perception of our perceptions. We often unconsciously assume that we see
the world perfectly, Just As It Is. It is neither intuitive nor easy to confront
this assumption. For example, I have
known for some time that my experience is not a universally accepted, direct
representation of the Real World. I
realize we don't all live in the Îsame world.'
Yet my actual, default experience, unless I consciously challenge it,
remains one of certainty that I am seeing what is Actually Out There.
Both non-technical
meanings of fit are usefully descriptive here.
We are fit enough as individuals to survive and leave offspring, and we
fit into the world well enough to survive and leave offspring. This includes our perceptual processes. What we experience the world to be fits well
enough with Îwhat it actually is' that we survive... or not.
Fit is not the same as
optimal match. Von Glaserfeld (1984)
used the following two analogies to make the point. First, the relation of our experience to the Îworld as it is' is
that of a key to a lock. Many different
keys of different shapes may open the same lock; others do not. Many different experiences of the world will
fit well enough to survive; others do not.
Second, imagine a ship
threading its way on a pitch black night through a passage bounded by rock
cliffs. The pilot cannot see the shape
of the passage and so doesn't know the optimal route to follow. He knows what isn't optimal only when the
ship crunches into a rock. Each time this
happens, if the ship doesn't sink, the pilot will note the position of the
rock. Each time through the passage,
the pilot plots more points until he can make it through without crunching into
the rocks. The pilot at this point may have the illusion that he
now knows the shape of the passage, but this is not so. The passage could have an infinite number of
different shapes that would not block the route followed by the ship.
The same relationship can
describe our experience of the world.
Our perceptual processes construct a version of the world through which
we move without fatal accident. No
more. We cannot know which version
might be the closest representation, we can only know which do not work. We can never know how the world Îreally is',
but only our own experience of it. Even
the notion of fit versus match loses meaning since we have nothing with which
to compare our experience except our own previous experience and the experience
of others. At this point we are left
with no real option but to give up referring to the world As it Really Is (except as a kind of shorthand) and rather refer
only to our personal and collective experiences of the world. The world becomes what we agree that it is.
In the following example I
begin by imagining how a simple object like a table might look to a spider or
an infant. It seems evident that they
would perceive it quite differently than I (adult human) do. At this point, I might say, ÎYes but I see
it as it actually is.' Now I imagine
seeing the table as a physicist might claim it Actually Is; electrons swirling through largely empty space around
jiggling clusters of protons and neutrons.
Their version, they might assure me, is the most accurate. I can also imagine the table as I would see
it if I were the carpenter who had built it: shaped and sanded the surface,
turned the legs on a lathe, assembled and varnished the pieces. I would be aware of every variation in
grain, each small flaw in workmanship, the nearly invisible, bloody stains from
my sliced finger. Compare these
versions to your own. Which is the
correct representation of how the world Really
Is? Or, are they all correct?
As a social example, I
think of my relationship with two different people: one an intimate friend and
the other a lout with whom I have less than congenial relations. I imagine who each of them perceives me to
be. Now I compare those two experiences
of who I am to who I experience myself to be.
Which of the three is objectively correct? Who am I Actually? Is
there an ideal, unbiased, accurate answer?
If so who would be able to know with any certainty that he or she has
that complete and unbiased answer? Or,
am I someone different with each of these people?
This is the position I am
in. I can not coherently claim to
experience the world as It Actually Is. First, my perceptions are constrained by my
biology. My perceptual gear only
receives a narrow band of what impinges on it, and then constructs an
experience from what it picks up (Sekuler & Blake, 1990). My cognitive filters further narrow the
stream of input so my finite attention capacity can deal with those elements
most important to my survival. Cultural
training strongly affects what I perceive and how I interpret it (Hallen.
1988). Finally, my personal epigenetic
history can affect me so strongly that I actually project out what I wish to
see and then interpret my perceptions as existing Îout there' (Freud, 1930;
Jung, 1959).
To this point in my inner
rambling things seem pretty clear, but still incomplete. I suspect I have covertly invited dualism
along with me. The "Unknowable Real
World" lurks in the trees waiting to leap like a monkey onto my back. The idea of being isolated within a world my
own perceptual system constructs is disturbing. In my soul I know that the mystical teaching, "Thou Art That" is
so. We humans did not create ourselves.
We are part of something larger. I
close my eyes and imagine the natural processes of evolution working through
enormous stretches of time, or the formless presence of God dancing creation
into the void. I come from and belong
to that. Truly, I am That. But am I?
Is that felt knowledge any more sure than the positivists dream of
objectivity? And here, the wheels begin
to spin and I lose traction...
I re/turn to the lived
experience of my body. Over and over I
come back to my immediate experience of embodiment in the physical in this time
and place. This awareness not only resists
the assumption of pure objectivity, but also protects against flights of pure
disconnected subjectivity too. My
experience of the world is real. But
that world/experience is neither universal nor permanent. I feel my bodymind relax into this middle
way... until the next time the grasping for certainty arises and my mind begins
to clutch at thoughts in the wind.
[xii] Spiritual knowledge might be summed
up as the deep awareness that, We are all
one. This includes not only other
humans, but the entire universe. This
is not intellectual understanding only, but a transformation of being. Spiritual qualities are manifestations that
reflect this awareness.
[xiii] Simon, 1970.
[xiv] Polanyi, (1958), Maslow (1966) and
Sattler (1986) among others have pointed out that all knowledge is
fundamentally personal knowledge.
Transforming the subjective into valid public knowledge results from
describing personal experience, clearly stating the methods used to generate
the experience, and offering the collective an opportunity to confirm or
disconfirm. The important question is
not what aspects of experience should be accepted as valid for research, but
rather what methods are appropriate for each domain of experience (Clandinin
& Connelly, 1994; Guba & Lincoln, 1994).
To exclude personal lived
experience as a field of exploration is to preclude the possibility of direct,
empirical observation of inner experience by the researcher. In that case, only second hand reports of
such experience would be available for study.
Personal lived experience is located in the upper left quadrant of
Wilber's model. Interpretation of
personal experience will depend in part on cultural contextual meaning
represented in the lower left quadrant.
To study linguistic reports instead of looking directly within reduces
upper left, individual experience to the lower left, language-based, collective
experience. While perhaps not as
violent as reducing all inner experience to right side physicality, this never
the less devalues trans-linguistic aspects of experience. I can see no way of exploring the
relationship between direct experience and language except through the
exploration of personal experience.
[xv] A clear and simple image is that
spirit is the invisible inside of things and the material world is the
outside. The inside cannot be found by
reducing complex entities into their simple components. All that will be visible is the outside of
those simpler components. Pull apart an
ecosystem and you find the outside of organisms. Dissect an organism and there is the outside of organs and
cells. The physical senses can not find
spirit, it is invisible to the senses.
Likewise, thought can not grasp spirit.
Spirit cannot be sought or grasped.
It reveals itself to a quiet mind and soul. Spirit is everywhere; the inner aspect of all things. The ground of being. To be touched by spirit, you must surrender
to things just exactly as they are in the here and now.
[xvi] See Map Section this paper.
[xvii] It is, according to Wilber, vital to
not equate physical nature with spirit.
This is regression into nature worship.
(See Map section.) But it is
equally vital to not focus entirely on the transcendent which results in
disembodied dualism. Spirit dwells in
nature and is the ground of all being, but is transcendent too. This is one of the subtle insights of
solitude that seems impossible to express in language. It is not that spirit is separate from
physical form, nor the same as physical form...
[xviii] The following discussion of
mindfulness meditation is based on my own understanding. It is hybridized primarily from the
Theravadin teachings of Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield (1983, 1987) and
personal insight into my own mindbody process.
This basic mix is seasoned with a sprinkling of Chuang Tsu (1964),
Krishnamurti (1968), Trungpa (1976), Watts (1958)
[xix] Varela and Shear, 1999.
[xx] While all creative exploration and discovery may involve insight as well as logical thinking, I do not remember receiving any training to develop this cognitive faculty during my academic schooling.
[xxi] David has described his own thinking as proceeding by spontaneous, holistic/intuitive insight that reveals a glimpse. The rest of the view is obscured by fog or mental clutter. Directed linear/analytical thinking holds the newly acquired view open and moves clutter around which often reveals a further spontaneous holistic/intuitive insight. While David says this is a poor metaphor, it seems clear and useful to me in that it helps me relax the hard line between intuitive insight and linear analytical thinking.
[xxii] This is the deep base of social power
relationships. It is within the matrix
of language that class and gender identities are maintained. Such a matrix has both positive and negative
aspects. It is the basis for social
cohesion and shared meaning, indeed for living in a common world, but unjust
social structures that damage some members of the population are very difficult
to transform because they are often defined as real by the structure of thought
and language.
[xxiii] It is an important insight that the
world I normally experience consists largely of constructed categories; that
beyond/beneath/within these categories the world flows without fixed
boundaries. As Wilber (1996) puts it,
we can draw but not impose boundaries onto the world. Once we see through/into the process of how we construct objects
by distinguishing them from the surrounding matrix, that without the background
matrix the object cannot exist, that each object is part of the matrix within
which we distinguish each other object... once we see this, we can play. (If we don't take the insight too seriously
and so become trapped in it as though it is as real as the objects we once
believed were real.)
[xxiv] The question-- What drives the
process of categorization and the structure of the particular categories we
construct?-- is central to critical theory.
And here we can get trapped into believing that our particular
perspective on what is really going on is the deepest explanation. As Wilber (1995) points out, there is
insight and value in all these hermeneutic explorations, but proponents of one
theory or another often believe that they have the deepest meaning. Certainly the social power game is often
seen as driving the process. It is
valuable to become aware of how sexism, racism, economic domination, hold
certain social constructions (both physical and mental) in place. But is this the whole story? What of existential angst? Fear of personal and social annihilation? Longing for certainty and stability in the
face of universal change? What about
the misplaced craving to fill the spiritual vacuum by infinitely expanding the
self? Is there an onion of meaning here
that we can peel, a hierarchy of insight into the workings of the mindbody
process? Are spiritual explanations
more profound than political ones? Once
I certainly thought so. Now I wonder if
they are just different windows through which we might explore our lives?
[xxv] See the story Spiritual Fire this paper.
[xxvi] Lee points out that this may be awareness of mortal danger rather than of death. There is definitely the awareness of danger for me too. Perhaps the sense of danger is linked to the terror of ceasing to exist; of being no more.
[xxvii] As I reread this statement, I
question it. Are there fundamental ways
we explain the world? This seems like a
very realist sort of statement that is open to question. So I would like to soften it and, as I have
done with Wilber's model, use the distinction of these ways of knowing as a
creation that helps me think about this issue.
[xxviii] Spring 2000 Institute - Writing
Ethnography.
Conducted by Carolyn Ellis, Dept.
Communications,
University of South Florida.
[xxix] Maturana, 1978.
[xxx] Tales
of the Field (Van Maanen, 1988) is a classic that I have seen cited
everywhere I go. But twelve years can
be a long time, and I sense the book may have become somewhat dated. Van Maanen delineates three main genres of
ethnographic writing: realist tales; confessional tales; impressionist
tales. As he presents these different
styles he gives them all equal weight, and only at the end of the book does he snatch
back this generous gift by pointing out that the realist tale remains the bread
and butter approach. The confessional,
which describes and owns the role the researcher played in gathering data and
writing the report, is made analogous to a methods section which no one much
cares about unless one has come up with interesting results in the form of a
realist description of some interesting piece of the social world. The impressionist tail is hooked onto the end
of a more somber and encompassing description and analysis. Essentially the impressionist tale addresses
the outliers in the data; incidents that analysis cannot make sense of, but
that are often exciting and colorful.
This approach still largely assumes objective reality as central to the
proceedings. Autoethnography weaves
together confessional tales and impressionist tales.
[xxxi] This is not about genetics, but (see
Kuhn, 1962) is an Aristotelian referral to phenotype.
[xxxii] Since sense-making requires a finite
duration of time, I can never conceptually investigate or know the present
moment; only the past. Slowly I am
remembering to value (not understand) the moment by moment experience of
writing; as I would fishing or scuba diving.
Instead of focusing so tightly on the Îso that' aspect (the content/meaning)
of the writing, I am learning to feel my feelings and think my thoughts as they
arise. It is a process, alive and
mysterious in this moment, that I can never grasp. I wonder if it will ever feel as joyful as having a trout on the
line?
[xxxiii] An annal (Clandinin & Connelly,
1994) is a temporally structured schematic divided into moments or segments by
events, years, places, or significant memories. It gives a sense of the individual's life from his or her own
point of view. Since we construct the
meaning of our life in looking back on it (Weick, 1995), changes in our
on-going lived experience will change our personal history. Events that once seemed significant may fade
into the background while actions we had barely noticed leap forward into vivid
focus. What seemed to be vitally
important decisions may become mere blips on the distant horizon as our values
and perceptions of what our lives are about change.
[xxxiv] Actually, during the past 15 months I have written a sort of interactive journal with a close friend in Texas in the form of countless emails. The nature of our relationship is very open and I write to her as if I were writing in a private journal.
[xxxv] In her course, Writing Lives, at South Florida State University, Carolyn Ellis
sets out several objectives which are also aspects of my research, writing,
life I wish to develop: 1) write stories to help understand, cope with, and
communicate my own life; 2) write stories to help understand the experience of
others; 3) learn to connect my stories to the stories of others and, through
writing from multi-perspectives, examine my role as a character in other
people's stories; 4) learn to connect individual experience to stories of group
socialization and culture.
[xxxvi] In this note I want to look at the rhetoric and assumptions written into The Beach. The Idiosyncratic Description tends to slip and slide among different genres. It mixes realist style with impressionist and confessional and sprinkles in a dash of dialogic for good measure. This style can be seen as refreshingly honest, coming straight from the heart of the author, or as sloppy and undisciplined; depending on whether or not the reader finds it interesting and entertaining.
Nor is the underlying perspective anchored in any specific philosophical or theoretical stance. The realist aspect portrays an objective world existing apart from the observing author. It is implied that this is simply the world as it would be seen by anyone who went to the beach to look. Two examples will demonstrate this aspect of the piece. First, the reader is shown a naturalist scene of shore birds, dolphins and seagulls feeding. The author is careful to name the species described. They are not just brown and white birds with long curved, or yellow bills. Nor is the non-scientific reader alienated with Latin names. The move is designed to invite the reader into the author's view of the world by showing expertise without flaunting pompous knowledge. The author is saying, Îthis is a "real world" out there and all of us can see and experience it together.' What is left unsaid is the author's own uncertainty about the identification of the creatures described. In fact, on leaving the beach he studied a field guide, using his memory of what he had seen to identify the birds and dolphins; a highly suspect method. At the same time, the author is poking fun at himself and at convention with his use of the term "bait-fish" instead of anchovy. This is a clue to the reader that all is not consistent even here in the real world. The world of the person seeing bait-fish is likely to have a different tone and focus than the world of the natural historian describing the behavior of anchovies. There is one more twist on the supposedly naturalist description in the use of the words ocular and occult to indicate what is visible and what is not. Occult may simply mean hidden or out of sight, but it often carries a metaphysical load.
We are treated to a benevolent scene of well-behaved humans enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon. Playing with their pets, walking and chatting together, building castles in the sand. In comparison, we are shown non-human nature intently focused on either hunting for food or trying to escape from predators. What is left out of the beach scene is a couple quarreling as they walk together, the sorrowful face of the lone young woman, the man frantically searching for his lost dog. These are individual episodes, perhaps outliers, that do not fit into the package the author is trying to wrap up. More importantly, the author does not mention that the castle building activity is not as Rockwellian as he would have us believe. In this case the mother was actually building the castle to some exacting standard of her own while the child stood by and watched in apparent frustration. By including this last, untold story, the mood of the piece would have been changed to one of social criticism.
Underlying and contradicting this surface realism is the author's awareness, or pretentious flaunting, of self-reflexivity and spiritual questing. This is the predominant tone of the piece. The first paragraph begins with a confessional cry that this academic exercise is anti-life and unadventurous, but for some unspecified, yet evidently important, reason must be faced. The reader is shown that the world is all uncertain flux. Castles built in the sand are not permanent constructions as we are reminded at the end of the piece. The eucalyptus lies at the bottom of the eroding cliffs up-side-down. This clichŽ is sparked up by saying root over crown, making a subtle play toward class struggle being a manifestation of the universal flux. Finally, in this first paragraph the author wonders whether "non-things" change too, and then in a self-deprecating gesture dives back into his academic reading and into the "real world." What can this mean? We are soon to find out as he continues to poke fun at constructivist theory and his own experience of an itchy butt. Apparently the author believes in nothing at all.
Yet there are several pointers toward what the author is trying to say. He is questioning all apparently solid constructs including himself. He asks Îwhat is this me I build for myself; this separate self?' Theoretically he knows the talk, but he does not consistently walk the walk. He remains a separate self as do the other people on the beach. His description of the animals before him refers to them as separate - competing or cooperating - individuals rather than as manifestastions of an underlying flow of life. He recognizes his and (he claims) all humanity's dilemma and questions whether he must give up his own individual self-awareness in order to relax into the death of identity and by extension into spiritual life. He wonders about, yet is actually arguing for, the value of solitude in creating the context for spiritual growth. Still he offers the reader the freedom to choose her own path by admitting that the other non-solitary people on the beach were living in worlds of their own that he would never know.
The description of the beach ends with a dialogic moment in which the author is changed by his relationship with the moment. A wave of thought arises and washes away his gloom about his up-coming exams. He realizes that academic activity can be an exciting adventure. This small transformation suggests to the reader that not only the author, but all of us, are in the process of change and growth and change need not be feared and resisted. We all have the opportunity to walk the walk whatever that may be for us.