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Harmonious-Dichotomies (redo)
Seph
Veteran
[The original thread of Harmonious-Dichotomies would seemed to have had too much of a Christian flavour to it. My apologies. It was written for a different 'audience'. The main gist/points were lost. Here's a edited version.]
We modern day Westerners tend to see everything through some kind of dichotomy. You're either this or you're </I>that</I>; you're either guilty or you're innocent; you're either in or you're out; it's either black or it's white.
Many of us - as we get older - become more mature and attain enough wisdom to come to understand that there exists many shades of gray, eventually realizing the possibility that either extreme is more of a hypothetical and that the world might very well be all various shades of gray. However, this is still functioning within the Western-paradigm of Dichotomies.
I believe there exists Harmonious-Dichotomies; polar opposites that not only co-exist, but co-exist in harmony with one another interdependent one another.
The Japanese have a concept called Mu.
Mu; unask the question. It isn't that we need to choose or find the correct answer, but rather, we need to find the correct question. It isn't that we need to choose or find the correct answer, but rather, we need to find the correct question. I think the problem we're facing here is that we're asking the wrong questions (or allowing the wrong questions to be asked).
I am beginning to see this Harmonious-dichotomy more and more often.
With an extremely simple example, I first saw it manifested concretely in Taekwon-do.
Either you are striking (let's say punching) or you are blocking.
Either you are striking or defending, right?
The correct way to throw a punch (either technically or practically, as in sparring) involves both. (Let's say I'm throwing a left jab punch). My left fist rotates, reaches, and strikes forward. However, my right fist moves up and beside my head, creating a block, protecting my head/face.
The Western-dichotic-paradigm might say you cannot be offensive and defensive. You must be either one or the other. The truth of the matter is it is only functional (it is only true) when both are in harmony.
Another perspective is either you are a 'victim' (let's say you are starving) or you are a 'rescuer' (the one who donates the life saving food to the starving victim). Either you are the 'victim' or you are the 'rescuer'.
Really, these two polarities have everything to do with either "service to self" (I am the victim) or "service to others" (I am the rescuer). This fundamental division makes assumptions (deliberate or not).
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
This is the victim-rescuer paradigm.
If you teach him how to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
You have broken the victim-rescuer paradigm. You have not 'saved' him from starvation, but allowed him to rescue himself from starvation. Ultimately, promoted him to your (erroneous) position of 'rescuer'. He is also no longer the victim.
This becomes a Harmonious-dichotomy.
Service to others should be a voluntary gifting rather than a compulsion driven by the belief that one must serve others to be a 'good person'.
Often we are taught that in order to be a 'good person' we must be generous and charitable. Therefore, ultimately, we must have the resources to be charitable; we must sit in a position of power. We must be – in one form or another – wealthy.
That forces the need to begin in a position power and/or authority; we need to fulfill the role of 'rescuer' in the rescuer-victim paradigm, which necessitates superiority in one way or another.
… so what happens if you're not wealthy, or in a position of power, or don't have the necessary resources? I'll tell you what happens. You struggle with your conscious and guilt (potentially becoming a slave to your religion or you 'morality', making you anything but free). Because, from this Western-Charity point of view, you're not really a good person.
We're not to serve others so that we're a 'good person'. We're to serve others for no other reason than simply voluntary gifting. Anything else is self-serving. Call it spiritual hedonism.
I believe this is breaking this rescuer-victim relationship and I think empowers us to cease being victims, to cease our longing for and searching for a divine rescue (or rescuer) to break the addiction, dependency and bonds of religiosity.
~
I'd be interested in hearing how closely (if at all) does this 'meet up' with Buddhism. Are there any Buddhist values present? It is 'where' I am currently.
We modern day Westerners tend to see everything through some kind of dichotomy. You're either this or you're </I>that</I>; you're either guilty or you're innocent; you're either in or you're out; it's either black or it's white.
Many of us - as we get older - become more mature and attain enough wisdom to come to understand that there exists many shades of gray, eventually realizing the possibility that either extreme is more of a hypothetical and that the world might very well be all various shades of gray. However, this is still functioning within the Western-paradigm of Dichotomies.
I believe there exists Harmonious-Dichotomies; polar opposites that not only co-exist, but co-exist in harmony with one another interdependent one another.
The Japanese have a concept called Mu.
Mu; unask the question. It isn't that we need to choose or find the correct answer, but rather, we need to find the correct question. It isn't that we need to choose or find the correct answer, but rather, we need to find the correct question. I think the problem we're facing here is that we're asking the wrong questions (or allowing the wrong questions to be asked).
I am beginning to see this Harmonious-dichotomy more and more often.
With an extremely simple example, I first saw it manifested concretely in Taekwon-do.
Either you are striking (let's say punching) or you are blocking.
Either you are striking or defending, right?
The correct way to throw a punch (either technically or practically, as in sparring) involves both. (Let's say I'm throwing a left jab punch). My left fist rotates, reaches, and strikes forward. However, my right fist moves up and beside my head, creating a block, protecting my head/face.
The Western-dichotic-paradigm might say you cannot be offensive and defensive. You must be either one or the other. The truth of the matter is it is only functional (it is only true) when both are in harmony.
Another perspective is either you are a 'victim' (let's say you are starving) or you are a 'rescuer' (the one who donates the life saving food to the starving victim). Either you are the 'victim' or you are the 'rescuer'.
Really, these two polarities have everything to do with either "service to self" (I am the victim) or "service to others" (I am the rescuer). This fundamental division makes assumptions (deliberate or not).
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day.
This is the victim-rescuer paradigm.
If you teach him how to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
You have broken the victim-rescuer paradigm. You have not 'saved' him from starvation, but allowed him to rescue himself from starvation. Ultimately, promoted him to your (erroneous) position of 'rescuer'. He is also no longer the victim.
This becomes a Harmonious-dichotomy.
Service to others should be a voluntary gifting rather than a compulsion driven by the belief that one must serve others to be a 'good person'.
Often we are taught that in order to be a 'good person' we must be generous and charitable. Therefore, ultimately, we must have the resources to be charitable; we must sit in a position of power. We must be – in one form or another – wealthy.
That forces the need to begin in a position power and/or authority; we need to fulfill the role of 'rescuer' in the rescuer-victim paradigm, which necessitates superiority in one way or another.
… so what happens if you're not wealthy, or in a position of power, or don't have the necessary resources? I'll tell you what happens. You struggle with your conscious and guilt (potentially becoming a slave to your religion or you 'morality', making you anything but free). Because, from this Western-Charity point of view, you're not really a good person.
We're not to serve others so that we're a 'good person'. We're to serve others for no other reason than simply voluntary gifting. Anything else is self-serving. Call it spiritual hedonism.
I believe this is breaking this rescuer-victim relationship and I think empowers us to cease being victims, to cease our longing for and searching for a divine rescue (or rescuer) to break the addiction, dependency and bonds of religiosity.
~
I'd be interested in hearing how closely (if at all) does this 'meet up' with Buddhism. Are there any Buddhist values present? It is 'where' I am currently.
0
Comments
As one of my teachers, a Scandinavian Buddhist-Quaker, said to me when asking me to sing as he played the fiddle at a Solstice, in answer to my standard joke about my poor singing voice: "There are no wrong notes, only different ones." It takes a mind of conciliation to perceive antagonisms as harmonies. Just such a mind is one of the marks we look for in those with a skillful practice.
The actual practice of non-dualism is as much a mental discipline as any other part of our practice, but once we have realised what Thich Nhat Hanh calls "interbeing" within the View, we can join such people as the poet Rilke in reconciling the apparently irreconcilable. Once done, the apparent dichotomy between "Me" and "That" begins to dissolve.
I've actually had a sort of experience of this when I last visited England (Specifically the Yorkshire Dales). If I can find this post (2 years ago?) I'll post it if anyone's interested.
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I for one value personal stories even above scholarly debate.
Personal journal, written July 22/08, after my return from the Yorkshire Dales, England.
I have been in England for the past 2 weeks. We have spent the first week at my aunt and uncle's estate in a sleepy little town outside of Hull.
During the second week, we had stayed with my cousin and her husband in the Yorkshire Dales and I had the opportunity to spend a few days (and nights) out on the moors.
What is an identity? Is it you name? It's one's mask.
I have found that once they're removed, we can never see them for anything other than exactly what they are: masks.
It doesn't change the fact that we still wear them. But it does change the fact that we still wear them. But it does change our level of awareness. We will no longer mistaken the perceptions and ideas we project to others – we will no longer accept the labels placed upon us by another – the masks we wear – as ourselves. This is simply self-delusion.
It is terrifying and exhilarating and enlightening once we see beneath our masks. It becomes extremely difficult to name the thing we see below the surface.
It becomes difficult to even clearly see any distinctive outline of the being beneath.
Where I end and my wife of 20 years begins - half my entire life - all of my adult life! - becomes blurred. Where my existence is seen as an extension of my children and my existence as an individual can only be expressed through an analogy of a manifestation of identity.
Where my long since dead mother – little more than a dead thing in the ground, dust and bones, continues to exist and live through me, even now influencing me as I speak and write. I am equally a product of the traditions (or lack of traditions) and environment and culture they had brought me up in as I am a product of their specific DNA. I am an indistinct part of a continuum, a living aspect of a century-spanning life form we call humanity; a tiny member of a great gestalt. Individuality is an illusion.
~
On the Yorkshire moors I was surprised at all the wildlife I saw. Giant black slugs the size of my thumb, all racing towards a local congregation for purposes I can only imagine.
Multitudes of brown bunnies, perfectly camouflaged and hidden, visible only when they moved; and when they moved they would run and race, each triggering and affecting another. Pheasants and quail, fowls I could not identity, all going about their daily business. Sheep and rams looking for little more than new grasses to eat. Single individual lone trees standing on cloud-shrouded hilltops, silent witnesses and sentinels of decades.
All this life and activity thriving and existing interdependently and outside of my consciousness and awareness. How truly alien I must seem to them. How truly arrogant I must be in my ignorance to their lives. They exist and live and eat and reproduce and die independent of whether I acknowledge them or not – regardless of whether I believe it or not.
The rains that fell on me; the constant moisture and dampness in the ground; the clouds that would pass and literally kiss the hilltops and engulf me, blocking out all vision. The water I would drink and even the very water that would compose my physical being... all the same... all one.
As alien as I was, I was still part of this unseen world. The giant black slugs, the brown bunnies, the Pheasants and quails, the sheep and ram, the lonely trees and the water that surrounded and permeated us all. We're all composed of the exact same material. Stardust. Fully recyclable. Fully interchangeable. Fully interrelated.
After removed the masks that I wear I could no longer find individual identity in my being – seeing myself as only an “inter-being”.
I can no longer find individual identity in my physical body, being made of the simple raw material we all share; interconnected.
How truly arrogant of me to have entertained the idea that I might have a unique spiritual identity. Why must I think that the bunnies dash and run randomly and without guidance or purpose; victims of chaos? Why must I believe God is not present in the giant black slugs' morning routine of gathering at a certain given plant?
As desolate and lonely as the moors were, there was also an awareness of something pure and holy. Something truly beautiful. It was a place where God walked barefoot. It was a hidden place where God walked naked of our assumed projections. Unclothed in our pretentious theological knowledge. A place where God's only answer to one's questions and mental meanderings was simply and repeatedly ”I am”.
As I returned to the cobblestone and concrete wilderness of civilized towns, I realized that this very same God live and walks barefoot, naked, and unclothed. He/She/It is just more difficult to see because of the masks we wear. They obstruct our vision somewhat, but they don't need to.
One the first morning of my return from the moors I walked through a town. I saw faces and people I do not know, speaking in an accent and dialect that was not my own, living lives I could only imagine.
At first I felt out of place; alien. They would look at me. They didn't know me. I was a stranger but in a far more profound way. They couldn't recognize or understand me for what I was because I wore no mask. Etched on each one of their faces was evidence of their mental meanderings. Imprinted on their expressions was one question: ”Who are you?”
I realized the truest answer was that barefoot-naked-unclothed-God's answer: I am.
I also realized that I had to replace my mask. I realize that we cannot function as a civilization or a society without our masks. I hope we can all realize that our masks are not us. I hope we all can begin to see the seems around the edges of our faces, the edges of our identities – the awareness of our masks.
I hope we can also begin to realize that we dress and put masks on God. Whether it be through projections of what our traditional upbringings have taught us, or what our hopes and aspirations are, or stoically through our acquired theological knowledge, or even through pure pretension. These masks are our personal projections. Little more.
and one more thing
at the end of the day, can you be sure your awareness of 'mask on God' were not forgotten for a moment
then in Buddhism we call it is enlightenment
other wise, this sort of experience can be called the first awakening to the truth
Could you expand on this a little bit, please?
What's the first awakening?
when you involve in day today activities, does this awareness (in your own words, we dress and put mask on God) present?
if the awareness is there, you would not get angry/unhappy/envy etc. when things go wrong
First awakening to the Four Noble Truth of Buddha's Teaching
in Anguttara Nikaya- Catukka Nipatha- Arahatta patti sutta explains a possibility of 'your kind of experience'
(hope someone would provide the link)