Philosophy Piques

Power and View

2009-03-24T20:29:00.003-04:00

Like most of you right now, I'm listening to President Obama discuss his policies and initiatives live on TV. He was just discussing his proposed healthcare investments and the basis for why to invest in healthcare. Catch that part?

One challenge to listening to the President is understanding his view. As citizens, we do not have access to his perspective. It is a privilege of his office that he sees what he sees, that he has the information he has. We can ask: what picture is he looking at, what information does he have? Furthermore, he looks at his information, and his perceptions, his facts and his ideas all in the context of what needs to be done. What needs to be done is ultimately driven by his initiatives, values and his agenda. His is a very different perspective from all of us who are listening to determine, at root, whether we understand (and perhaps agree) with the course of action and choices that he has made.

I find it interesting to think about the "privileged" view of leadership since we mostly focus on "power" and "authority" as the main elements of a job like the presidency. Like most of you, I think it's scary that the President makes choices that could go one way or another - and he has to decide. In fact, he needs to consider the viable alternatives (and he might be missing some). Our fate as citizens lies in part in his hands - we are bound to trust his reasoning and his judgment.

I believe that a part of being informed as a citizen lies in understanding the view of the President and congressional leadership - trying to see the picture they are looking at, putting ourselves in their shoes. This addresses the balance of power, and makes me wonder: how much of the power lies not in the decisions, but in the view.

What's the nature of change?

2009-02-24T20:53:00.002-05:00

The idea of impermanence or change is central to the Buddha's teaching. There is this non-philosophical idea, a simple observation really, that nothing is permanent, all things are constantly in flux and changing. This observation extends to all objects, whether it's trees and flowers or cars and houses or people and places. There is an easy conclusion from this observation that anything that exists changes, and thus change is intrinsic to the nature of existence.

In the teachings of Kant or Wittgenstein or Aristotle or Plato we find what seems to be a contradictory notion. There is a sense that truth is permanent, or forms, or ideas or certain beliefs or facts, depending on whose teaching we read. In reading Descartes, we see that the duality of mind and body lends permanence to the ethereal or immaterial while the material is changing.

At the heart of this seeming conflict is change itself. What is this observation that the Buddha points to? What is the sense of permanence in ideas that Descartes, Plato, Aristotle, Kant and many other philosophers point to? Are they in disagreement?

Is Compassion-Meditation Masochistic?

2009-02-23T22:03:00.002-05:00

I practice a form of meditation called Tonglen, which is a form of compassion-meditation. The basic idea of tonglen, as I've picked up from Pema Chodron, is to breathe in pain and breathe out a sense of space or relief. When we encounter pain that we want to reject, we breathe it in, we "take" it, and we send out the antidote. The principle underlying tonglen is that our habitual mind rejects pain and unpleasantness, even though pain and unpleasantness are the seat of compassion. We cultivate compassion when we familiarize ourselves with the circumstances, people, ideas and feelings we desperately want to get rid of, when we experience our shared humanity in those painful, awkward, "aargh" feelings.

It sounds pretty awful to breathe in pain, to dwell in it and take it on. The point of tonglen is not to wallow in misery though, the point is to use these painful and difficult circumstances to see how we all are up against a lot of the same stuff, and we all face fain, depression, sorrow and anxiety. Still, if you practice - as with much of meditation - you start to see a lot of the stuff you want to avoid. It's painful. And it can seem like it gets more and more painful. So why do it? Are we all masochistic?

I think there is a sense for many of us raised in America that we are bad and guilty somehow - some pervasive notion of original sin or a day of judgment. Or, at the very least, we fear we are somehow bad. And what do we do with "bad"? We punish bad. We condemn bad. Bad must be fixed or corrected. So, I think there's a sense that pain in life is what we deserve for being who we are. When you practice tonglen, you start to question this: were we masochistic before we started the practice? What does it mean to hurt ourselves?

If you were me, would you "do" me differently?

2009-02-21T18:35:00.002-05:00

We each have a tendency to make judgments about ourselves and other people. These judgments have to do with qualities that we don't like, with choices we disagree with, with actions that are wrong. We know in our gut that these are judgments and they are reactions that we could interpret differently (at first they might seem like "truth" about the person as opposed to a judgment). We know that, to some extent, we construct all of these judgments and weave together stories about this other person.

Sometimes, when we feel generous, we "put ourselves in the other person's shoes." The principle of "putting ourselves in the other person's shoes" is an interesting one. If we actually were able to do so, what we'd find is that we would be that other person. We'd walk and talk and feel pain the same way. We'd make the same choices, have the same qualities, do the same things. The difference would be that all of our actions, ideas and feelings would seem necessary to us, just like it does to each of us living in our own shoes. We each are who we are, and do what we do. We actually spend very little time fully in our own shoes, feeling this sense of necessity.

I'm pretty sure that if you were me, in my shoes, you'd, quite simply be me. What room does that leave for judging me? This makes me wonder about the purpose and value of judgment in the first place. Why judge ourselves or others?

What do your pictures look like?

2009-02-20T09:30:00.002-05:00

We are constantly making a variety of pictures of our reality. People say perception is reality. Problem with that idea is there is not one perception only. Our perceptions aggregate into pictures (or scenes) and we keep looking at those pictures, no matter how circumstance changes. In one scene we are with certain characters in our life, and we are a victim, about to be struck. In another scene, the same characters are present and we are standing over them, triumphant in battle. And in yet another scene, we are up on a hill watching from a distance. Same characters, different scenes.

These pictures are incredibly stubborn because they are experienced as true moments. The scene we abstract in our imagination from our lives IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. It's not like we are 75% sure, there's no doubt at all. It's only when something else shifts in our conscience or heart that some doubt might be injected in a picture. At first this seems scary and impossible. Then, character's expressions change and the scene takes on a different tone. Alternative explanations become possible. This can happen when there is a very strong desire to forgive or understand; to empathize - then we can construct a fuller, richer picture with some of the other characters.

I believe that we all make pictures as part of our emotional and cognitive apparatus. It's part of our way of navigating the world to formulate these pictures. It's a wonderful attribute that we each - armed only with desire - can go into the emotional experience that generates the picture and soften our grasp of it. We can look at other elements in the scene or a different scene altogether. I wonder how this transformation takes place and why it starts. I wonder how it is for you: What do your pictures look like?

Do we need a Philosophy?

2009-02-19T19:34:00.003-05:00

When we talk about having a philosophy with a capital "P" I have to wonder, is it necessary?

We each have plenty of everday philosophies. Someone might be striking up a business deal with someone else and say something like: "I like that we share a similar philosophy on business." Or, a couple might be disagreeing about how to parent and cite a different philosophy on parenting.

Our philosophies on different parts of our life serve a purpose even though they might not be articulated. They generally orient us in a direction and give us something to hold onto - some set of convictions or values that is general and irrespective of circumstance.

I have found that these everyday philosophies are often incongruous with others. I know my wife I often discover in argument where each of us is right and each of us is wrong, and both of our philosophies need to be updated. If this is the case on the scale of a philosophy of, say, hosting a party, then isn't even more so on a Philosophy of Life?

The main reason why I question whether we need a Philosophy writ large is that it's a static picture. No matter how great or right it is; it's static. Once it is put into words or concretized into ideas; it's static. Believe me, as much as anyone else I want some truths to hold onto and I feel I need that. However, what price do we pay for holding onto truths?

I do believe it's possible to have an unarticulated Philosophy that we embody, that we demonstrate with our actions and words. It's seen, not spoke.n In fact, I don't see any way around have this type of Philosophy. I just wonder if it's necessary to know what it is!

Is pain bad?

2009-02-18T20:27:00.002-05:00

I've been reading quite a bit of Buddhist philosophy lately and it's making me question whether pain is bad. Most of us treat pain as though it's bad. We certainly want to make it go away. We believe it shouldn't be there. There's a sense that there should be no pain and if there is pain, then something must be wrong. If something is wrong, that's bad. The words we choose might be different, but most of us, I think, respond to pain with some kind of judgment about it - namely we judge it to be bad.

Buddhism philosophy is based on idea that certain amount of pain is inevitable and unavoidable. Rather than resist it we can accept it. Rather than judging it as good or bad, we can simply feel it and suspend the judgment. I wonder what the connection is between the sensation of pain and the judgment of the pain as bad. It is eye-opening to consider whether pain is actually bad - or whether we can even put it in moral terms.

Is God Everything?

2009-02-17T19:37:00.002-05:00

A few months ago I posted about whether God has an ego or a sense of self. I was imagining God in the classical "God-is-a-superhuman-in-heaven" view. One astute commenter wrote me that my question presumed a distinction of self and other, or ego and outside, or me and you - or some other dichotomy. He suggested that God is everything - unsegmented, unparsed - with no dualistic self and other. His view, it would seem, is different from the "Superhuman-in-heaven" and closer to a kind of God-as-pervasive-force or benevolent presence or embedded mystery. In his view, no dualism is necessary between God and self, self and other, or God and us, since God is a totality.

Many of us, I think, rest our inquiry with an image of God that is roughly of this kind. We work out the science vs. religion debate by conceptualizing God as a kind of vessel that everything else is contained within. God is not necessarily invoked as a cause or a superhuman agent. God is more of a realized sense of connection perhaps based in a feeling of religiosity or as Steinbeck put it - a "mystical outcry." When God is everything, God becomes a description for how we see the world - a kind of property of existence.

For me, it's confusing: I was raised in the Jewish tradition, drawn to Buddhism, steeped in Western Philosophy, and I have a fierce desire for independent and original inquiry. I cannot rest with this view. I like the idea that there's no distinction between God and us, but the whole idea of God seems like a way of capturing awe and wonder. My concept of God has struck me for a long time as a kind of shorthand for possibility, wonder, mystery and the unknown. I wonder what would happen if we were each able to duck under the concepts and words and associations we have with the term "God" and perceive more directly how each of us apprehends what we're pointing to with the term. I wonder where that would lead us and what type of new concepts we might build together.

Car loss

2009-02-10T20:56:00.002-05:00

Last weekend my wife and I came out of Kohl's and I was briefly convinced that our car was stolen. In reality, it was one row over.

This was definitely not the first time that it seemed more plausible to me that our car would be stolen than that I forgot where we parked. Does that make me paranoid? I think we all have these moments, and it makes me wonder how memory works. Why, in that moment, when you know it's not likely that anything really happened to the car, that it seems so convincing that something did?

How does your mind feel?

2009-01-22T21:00:00.003-05:00

It's incredible that we feel our minds and our thoughts. The way we often talk about it, thoughts and feelings seem like two separate and different things. Yet, we take the "crossover" for granted: we can feel our minds and thoughts (e.g. our mind is overwhelmed, our thoughts are racing). We simply do not pay attention to this very often.

If we really sit with our thoughts and feelings for an extended period of time, it becomes less clear where the difference is between them. It also becomes less clear what mind is. When we let our thoughts, feelings and mind all blur together, it becomes simply amazing that, like all living beings, we feel anything at all!

What is the nature of existence?

2009-01-21T20:16:00.002-05:00

We all have this: "I am alive and I am a person and I exist" thing... We are all really intent on our own existence. We're so serious about existing. It matters so much who we are, that we are. It really is interesting.

I wonder why it is that I don't think that other people I see are thinking in the same way and feeling in the same way that I am. What does that say about each of our existence? I wonder if sensing how other people exist might lend some insight into existence in general. I wonder from whose point of view existence might make more sense?

Peaceful Transfer of Power

2009-01-20T21:17:00.003-05:00

As I was watching coverage of the Inauguration today, I heard the phrase "peaceful transfer of power" several times. Most of us who grew up in America take for granted this peaceful transfer. Perhaps we think of the transfer of the Presidency like big company CEOs - it's just another administrator. It's fascinating about us in America that we have so much faith in our SYSTEM and so little faith in our PEOPLE.

Our new American President inspires faith however. He seems like a person we can trust, right? I don't know if it's polish or if it's believable. I don't know who he really is or what motivates him. Only time will tell if he's trustworthy.

Today Obama talked about shaking off our childish ways (quoting scripture) and he gave a stern warning to other peoples around the world bent on destroying America. He called up traditional American values of freedom, equality and the march of progress. His determination and resolve and "roll up your sleeves" attitude is motivating and inspirational. I have prayed that his rhetoric and actions coalesce and he inspires the country with some sacrifice, service and universal values like respecting others and focusing on what binds us together. I have prayed that his personal life stays relatively clean and non-corrupt, and that his administration listens, innovates and delivers results. In the speech today, I liked his rejection of big vs. small government and safety vs. sacrificing ideals. He has pragmatist rhetoric, i.e. we must ask what works, abandon what doesn't and keep doing what does work. I also liked how he talked about what the "measurable" aspects of government and the unmeasureable ones, i.e. pervasive cynicism about America and believe in the inevitable decline of an empire.

It is a blessing to have a peaceful transfer of power (and peace in general). Obama now has the opportunity to catalyze peace throughout the world, or at least reduce hatred, animosity and warfare. Today's events capped what was a peaceful, bloodless and revolution (of sorts). It made me proud to live in America. Now that power is transferred, power has to do what it does: work. There's a shitload of work to do.

What are you buying?

2009-01-15T19:27:00.003-05:00

What was the last purchase you made? Was it a latte at Starbucks? Was it a new car? A pack of gum?

Let's say you paid cash. You took a few bucks out of your pocket, laid them on the counter. The cashier took the money, gave you change, which you pocketed, and you took your gum and walked out. That was it. No biggie.

Next time you make a purchase, ask yourself this question: what am I actually buying? Am I buying this item, the experience of this item or something else altogether? There are infinite gateways into the mysteries of life - purchasing something is as good as any other.

I've been thinking about buying a new guitar. It seems straightforward enough, but what am I actually purchasing? It occurred to me that there is no hard line between material goods and the immaterial world. Purchasing a guitar is, in many ways, purchasing access to what is immaterial: different sounds, different music, what I can do with the guitar, the experiences I will have, and those I will share with others. It's easy to focus on the "physical" item - the guitar itself - and the purchase - the transfer of money - but it's more of a stretch to consider the immaterial aspects of it. This includes more than my feelings, thoughts and impressions of the guitar, it includes the experience of owning it, playing it, showing it to others, tuning it, etc.

When you purchase with this thought in mind, you begin to wonder - what are the limits of money?

What moment was this?

2009-01-14T20:20:00.002-05:00

I had just pulled into my garage after my drive home from work when it occurred to me that this moment was underappreciated. I'm talking about that moment right then. Not this one now. That one that I had there in the garage. I realized I wasn't caring about it. I was not present for it at all.

It wasn't so much the fact that I was automatically turning the engine off, or that I was unthinkingly opening the door handle, or that I had paid no attention when I just shut off the lights, or that I had no idea what I was thinking about, or felt distant from how how I was feeling, or did not know who was in the house, or forgot what happened at work: it was just a moment like any other moment. But, in that moment, it occurred to me that I didn't know what a moment was. And I became aware that I didn't care about this one. It was an orphaned moment and I was a robot.

I walked into the house, did some stuff, and then my wife and I ate dinner. As we were washing the dishes I broached this question with her. What is a moment? She was drying the dishes and not really caring about the question. So I sold it to her. "C'mon, think about it: everyone says to celebrate the moment and be present in the moment and appreciate the moment - but what is a moment? How long does it last? Can you measure it in seconds? How can you be present for it if you don't even know what it is?" She put down the dish towel briefly and engaged with me. Then she told me get the spot I missed on our saucepan.

I must confess: I don't know what a moment is. I'm not sure if it's the length of one attention span. Perhaps that's a good way to define it. It's when you're in your attention span completely and you're not flitting from one thing to the next. Perhaps it's the duration of a thought. Perhaps it's just that thing that has no beginning and no ending and is the very nature of appreciation. I'm pretty sure that a moment is not measured in seconds or minutes. However, it's definitely not longer than an hour. That is, unless it's a moment at the dentist.

स्टारिंग इन्तो थे इ ऑफ़ God

2008-12-15T19:10:00.002-05:00

As we were getting ready to turn off the light a few nights ago, I asked my wife if she thought that God had an ego. It seemed like a relevant and important question at 11:00 on a work night. She declined to answer.

The idea that God would have an ego seems preposterous. Laughable. According to Judeo-Christian theology, God is all powerful and all good, a sense of ego is kind of like holding up a desk lamp next to the sun. Things pale in divine terms. Plus, ego seems like an entirely human term, not fitting at all of an eternal, benevolent presence. And even if you don't think the idea ridiculous, then it seems like a complete non-sequitur to speak of God in terms of ego or self.

However, there is a much narrower sense of God in which we might imagine an idealized version of human life, the part of us that was created in the divine image perhaps. Is there still an ego in this view of god? It would seem not, not even an idealized and abstracted god-like human can have an ego. The whole idea of sainthood seems to be about just that: getting rid of the ego.

Among non-Western philosophers, much of the talk is also about egolessness. I suppose that to the extent that we become like God or like a god, or divine, we let go of the clutches of self and ego and become more unified with a natural whole. This may not give us greater power or greater goodness, it's simply moving in the direction of how things are and who we are.

So, no matter who you ask, it seems that the notion of ego is incompatible with any notion of the divine or of a "higher existence." It's one of those rare points of agreement, it would seem, between Western and Eastern (and perhaps all) thinking... with the exception perhaps of the always feisty Ayn Rand.

If you agree with this pique so far, I think you must ask yourself: why is ego so incompatible with the divine or the spiritual? Why do we associate egolessness with goodness? On what basis do we make any of these judgments?

I, Mountain

2008-11-28T15:34:00.003-05:00

As a child, I remember reading the meditations in the front of my prayer book during downtime at Yom Kippur services. One meditation said: the hand in front of the eye can hide even the highest mountain. It struck me as an interesting idea that something so small can hide something so big, just by virtue of its placement. It also struck me that we can blind ourselves to grandness and wonder and awe in our lives because we are so focused on what is right in front of us.

I remember years later reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Pirsig's wonderful metaphor of the many paths up the mountain. I liked this inclusive imagery. Some of us are Christian, some are Muslim, some are atheist, some agnostic, some Jewish, some Buddhist, but we are all scaling the same mountain - just different paths. There are so many nice images in that - of hiking on trails, of struggle, of ascending, of greater visibility and the payoff of the view. It made me wonder how and where these trails intersect and who I might meet on the way.

I remember reading Pema Chodron's Comfortable with Uncertainty and her imagery was that we might want to be walking down the mountains into the valleys. She wrote that climbing the mountain might be wonderful and might feel like a great accomplishment, but won't it be pretty lonely on the peak? Is that what we want? Do we want the struggle through the "Strenous Briefness" (ee cummings) only to make it and realize that those closest too us couldn't make the trip? Now, we have a view and we have clarity perhaps but of what value is it? So, she says - climb down the mountain, go down to where people are congregating and gossiping and insulting each other and acting out their neurosis and learn about yourself in that crowd. Then keeping going down until you hit the groundwater - and you have so much to share with others.

A few months ago, one of my oldest friends came to visit and we passed the transcendental meditation center. Somehow we got into talking about the idea of transcendence and the mountain metaphor. I suggested that very few people talk about transcending a mountain - it's normally either ascending or descending. But, in relation to a mountain, I think we transcend them much more than we actually engage, right? We fly over them in airplanes or we look at them in pictures or from a distance. Perhaps we even have them as wallpaper on our computer or a pretty backdrop out of our 2nd story bedroom window.

Several years back my wife and I went to Colorado and we went hiking in the Rocky Mountains. I got a sense of what the fuss is all about. I remember sitting on a rock looking out at the valley from 11,000 feet. The air was clear and crisp (it was August) and I could see for miles and miles. I felt divine really - somehow calm and safe and clear. I can see why all these metaphors of mountains are so potent! On a much more limited basis, I used to climb up East Rock and sit out on the cliff face (350" above sea level) and gaze out over the city. What a sense of power and clarity!

What I find interesting is that the big, oversized, permanent, can't get around 'em things in our lives could be mountains that are blocking our passage, or they could be a bully, a bad boss, a mean neighbor, unemployment, or whatever else. I find it interesting that some of us will seek out climbing real mountains perhaps in part to avoid the mountains of fear and the oversized sense of problem we have in our own lives. Some of us will stare at our mountainous problems and not know whether we are ascending or descending - or whether we're on a mountain at all. Sometimes the mountain will block the sun shining behind it.

I'm still brought back to that meditation I read in synagogue decades ago. The hand can hide the highest mountain. I'm a big believer that no matter the size of the thing in front of us, there can also be something else there that can hide it or reveal it. And whether we see our mountains as obstacles or paths of engagement and challenges to overcome, that's entirely up to us it seems, like the image of the mountain and the molehill.

Cultivating a love of life

2008-10-23T20:44:00.003-04:00

I really like when people are excited and enthusiastic. I don't mean over-the-top "chipper." "Chipper" is annoying. And I don't mean the talking real fast, nervous, frenetic energy. I like general enthusiasm - a gleam in the eyes - someone who's just happy to be there. Maybe I should call it positivity? Joy? Love-of-life? Is this an attitude or a mood? What is it?

Who knows?

I feel that people in that mood give me permission to be as low energy as I want. It's a nice balance. I could be as depressed, as miserable, as irritable - throwing myself an enormous pity party - and it doesn't matter. I like that. I like that my funky mood doesn't seem to matter. There's a tremendous amount of room to be however I am at that moment. I can be unpredictable. The catch, though, is that that person has to be genuinely in that mood of loving life. (Not new love either - it's an old - "seen-it-all" kind of love of life.) It can't be forced or controlled in that moment. Disingenuousness is see-through.

In a way, a general mood of loving life is dysfunctional. It's a very natural element of human nature to match the mood of those around you. If people are angry, we unwittingly "catch" the anger. Moods are contagious. And, if we're building rapport with each other we may consciously or subconsciously match moods and mirror behaviors. So, in some sense, universal moods, i.e. regardless of how others are feeling around us, are highly dysfunctional. Yet - they have the power to influence the moods of those around them. Someone's sheer positivity, joy and well-being can transform our low energy or somehow make it okay. So, in this sense, this mood of enthusiasm is adaptive and helpful.

Since we don't really know what moods are - how they come and how they go - it's hard to say how we cultivate our own sense of enthusiasm and excitement. Perhaps it really is a sense of loving life and being okay with any mood that's there; relating to ourselves as we may want an idealized person to relate to us - or how we relate to really benevolent presence in our lives. How can we spot this in others and ourselves?

How are dreams like memories?

2008-10-18T23:58:00.003-04:00

Lately I've been having memories of my early childhood. There are things that I remember vividly that, when carefully investigated, do not seem possible. In certain memories, I remember having people around that couldn't have been there. The more I try to look into the memory, the more it seems like a dream.

Much of the research on even the most vivid memories - so-called flashbulb memories (e.g. where you were on 9/11 or when JFK was shot) - indicates that memory is not really very accurate at all. I find this to be true for me. Memories can be vivid, but if you look deeply and start questioning, they can unravel. There can be significant gaps in time, factual errors, discrepancies with other people who were there.

Are the triggers of memories similar to the triggers of dreams? Some of my memories only come up when I'm in a certain mood. Certain smells bring up very vivid memories. How does it work? What prompts a memory? Is there any relationship between memories and dreams?

Non Dualism & Underlying Contrast

2008-10-16T21:13:00.002-04:00

What do black and white have in common?

How can something exist and not exist at the same time?

What is shared between A and not-A?

I find it interesting that every duality, e.g. pretty and ugly, happy and sad, black and white, has something in common. Any pair of things that are opposed to each other share that opposition. Or, if you want to say that an opposition is a relation between things - then opposite things share that relation, i.e. of opposition. What is the relation or property of opposition? What does opposition have to do with negation?

To make it less philosophical, take the following example. Imagine someone who is narrow-minded and stubborn. Conjure up this person's face, their eyes, their attitude. Now imagine the opposite. Imagine someone who is the opposite of narrow-minded and stubborn. Who is that? What is that person like? Is that person open-minded and flexible? Do they laugh a lot with a great sense of humor? Or, is that person broad-minded and team-oriented? This is not a quibble over semantics as to what is the antonym of stubborn or narrow-minded. There simply is no way to pin down the opposite. This is because it is unclear what the relation of "opposite" actually is in any real sense.

Sometimes when we use the word opposite we mean that one thing is the complete absence of another - like black and white, where white is the fullness of color and black is its absence. However, if opposites were just absence, then a car would be the opposite of a watermelon. Absence is not at all sufficient. The broader idea of an opposite connotes negation, clash, conflict, all of which provoke an emotional response. Black and white are opposites not because they are the absence of color and the fullness of color, but because they completely wipe each other out. They annihilate each other.

It's not an accident that non-dualism and Eastern philosophy go together under a rubric of non-aggression. It requires non-aggressive thinking to allow the possibility of jointly existing negations. I believe that when you spot jointly existing negations they become a source of delight. There is a great deal of space. It starts to become possible to see the enormous difference between when someone says: "I'm not bad" versus when they say "I'm good." Or the even wider gulf between "I'm not, not good" versus "I'm good." (It has always bothered me that double negatives are treated as positives.)

The relation of opposites can be thought of as that of opponents in sports. Two opposing teams are not the absence or fullness of the other - they are facing off against each other in a zero-sum arrangement - ready to clash and wipe each other out. Opposites like pretty and ugly, happy and sad, black and white, A and not-A are counterpoised, ready to clash. But where is the clash? Black and white, pretty and sad, and all opposites are all abstractions so there is no actual conflict. It all is in our minds. The idea of non-dualism sees these oppositions in a broader light, like opposing teams on a given day, or in a given league. So, pretty and ugly can both exist simultaneously in the same spot, just like black and white can, they are simply in abstract, mental conflict. What opposites show us is that we are thinking.

How do you handle regret?

2008-10-15T21:18:00.003-04:00

In the middle of an interview I was conducting, I asked the candidate one of my stock questions. Why did you leave your last position? He hesitated for a second and then said that he regrets that decision. He left because he wanted to get into a new area of technology but it turned out he really missed the people he worked with there. He felt he should not have left.

There is a lot of psychological research that points to the fact that we often don't know our reasons behind what we do. We might think we know the reason, but we're really just winging it. The research suggests that we make up reasons when we're asked. Like the kid with the hand in the cookie jar - we come up with a convenient reason at the time for why we did what we did or why we're doing what we're doing. However, there are times when we carefully consider the factors and it turns out we misjudged. I think that regret is a byproduct of over thinking. It happens when we base a decision on certain reasons that simply don't hold up over time. Much of the time it's about things we didn't do because there were convenient reasons not to, i.e. we were afraid but we rationalized it as it would have been too expensive, or too much time, etc.

All of us probably have a fair amount of regret in our lives. We might regret not asking a certain person out on a date, or not taking a job, or traveling too much and missing our kids grow up, or whatever it might be. The question is: how do we work with regret? How do we acknowledge it and not stew in it? This is very difficult.

I have found that guilt, regret and shame are all closely related. It seem important to acknowledge the guilt and forgive yourself - which is not easy to do. It could be guilt over something you really feel is wrong and it's totally inconsistent with who you think you are or who you want to be. Forgiveness for guilt eases up the regret. It starts to be viewed from a wider perspective. It's not that the regret goes away - it would not be you if the regret went away - that would be undesirable - it's simply that it does not dominate, cajole or force its way into your consciousness as much. It migrates toward longing and sentimentality rather than bitterness, guilt and shame.

Guilty of judging people? Is judging good or bad?

2008-10-12T21:56:00.003-04:00

I'm currently taking a class called "Law and Society" in the Wesleyan University Graduate Liberal Studies Program (GLSP). The course is taught by Professor Finn, who, though self-deprecating and over-the-top caustic, is a wonderful instructor. He manages to generate discussion and prompt thinking in a way that gets everyone involved.

Prior to taking the class I had been trying to reduce my judgmentalism in every day behavior. In ordinary life, I look at what people are doing and I determine that they are wrong or they're right, they're bad or they're good. I convict people of crimes all the time, even though I couldn't say exactly what the crime is. It's just that that person is guilty of being dumb or this person is guilty of being obnoxious. She is just a bitch. There's so much blame - so I try to cut it out. I started to wonder: from what position do I judge? Back when I worked at the Empowerment Group I cultivated the mindset that any judging of another is useless - who is to say I would do anything any different if I were in their shoes? When we really exchange ourselves for another, it seems that there is simply no basis for judgment.

My Law and Society class made me question whether all this compassion, non-judgmentalism and empathy is preferable. Compassion and non-judgment is nice, no doubt, but can it work on a social level? Don't we need to prosecute crimes? Don't we have to, as a society, decide what is right and what is wrong, who is innocent and who is guilty? Don't we - as Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious thought has taught us - face judgment where all of our wrongs will be seen by God? It's fascinating to me that, as a group, we all collectively sign up to face punishment if we do certain things. Why? Is it so that others won't do those things - and we never think that we will? Why are we so afraid of being punished or being bad?

The GLSP program raises more questions than answers. That's why I like it. I already have an enormous range of questions based on this class. Can compassion work socially - or do we need criminal justice? How are judgment and justice related? Is judgment an instinct - a reflex? What about conviction? How do we perceive innocence and guilt? What is fairness? What is the relationship between law and judgment?

How do you make good choices with free time?

2008-10-12T11:29:00.003-04:00

I woke up this morning, my head buzzing with ideas of what I could do. There were so many things I could do. I could go for a walk, I could sit out side (the weather was beautiful). I could read. I could watch TV. I could write. I could eat breakfast. And so on.

One on hand, it's nice to wake up with energy and to have the time and leisure to choose what to do. It's draining when all you have are things that need to get done and no free time. On the flip side, it can be overwhelming to choose what to do next when there are too many options. I find this most when I'm alone. However, I recall from my teenager days hanging around with friends and everyone asking "what do you want to do?" and no one having any ideas. Somehow, then, it was okay to sit and do what we were already doing. As an adult, when there's no one around, I often feel lazy if I just continue doing what I was doing - in this case sleeping. Plus, I had so much energy to do something.

There was a moment, a few months back, where I found myself in the bathroom at work overwhelmed with things I could do. It was strange because I normally run around in mental circles thinking of what to do next, but this time I didn't. I kind of said to myself that I'm going to choose what to do and I'm going to stick with it. My choice is going to be whatever is the top priority right now. And I made the choice, went back to my desk, and did that thing. It was enormously freeing.

With free time, there really isn't anything exactly akin to a priority. The only priority is what we like to do. What a blessing it is to have free time alone - and also what a curse! It forces us to determine what is important to us without anyone else to blame - no one to get irritated with for telling us what to do, no one else to give us a helping hand, no one else to help us decide, no self-pity about all of our responsibilities. Whatever choice we make is our choice and our choice alone. And if we squander all that time doing things we're not proud of or we regret, well, who made those choices besides us? There is so much awareness when we are alone and we contemplate our choices of what to do.

For my part, I decided this morning that health was top of my list. My health. I picked up a book I have of conversations with the Dalai Lama and it was edited by Goleman. I read a chapter on the negative health effects of anger, depression, anxiety, pessimism and denial. I was not convinced by the argument, but it was interesting. All this Buddhist stuff reminded me that perhaps I should try the Yoga video my friend gave me. I did that too. That was an interesting experience - something I've never done before. I also sat oustide in the sun. Then, my wife woke up and it was time to do some of the things that are "on our list." End of free time.

One way to use your free time wisely and make good choices is to reflect on times when you were alone and you had options of what to do. Perhaps your husband or wife went away for the weekend or the kids were asleep and you had a few hours. What did you do? Were you too tired to do anything? Did you dive into that book that you just love? Did you hurry off to masturbate? What did you feel good doing? What did you feel good after you had done it? What felt good to do and bad after you did it? Some basic reflective questions can give you the "ammunition" you need next time you get some spare time to do what you want. Some people don't need this, they structure their free time so that it's all consumed by one or two passions. Others need to make decisions because there are so many interests and so many options. The only guide is your own awareness. It's not thinking about what you want to get out of free time, it's thinking about how you can relax into it and be more yourself. There is nothing like free time alone to learn just how crazy, strange and wonderful you are.

My mind is not made up

2008-10-11T19:49:00.002-04:00

I have not made up my mind is if I'm going to enter this year's Philosophical Quarterly Essay Contest. The subject this year is on any philosophical issue surrounding creativity. It sounds like fun. However, I've entered the contest the last two years and lost. The first time I entered I wrote an essay on the ontology of powers; I still don't know what an "ontology of powers" is - so it's not terribly surprising my essay did not win. The second year was about monotheism and the problem of evil. That was a fun one that my friend Adav and I co-authored. He really did most of the work and we managed to do a decent job.

I had completely forgotten about this year's contest until my sister-in-law's boyfriend reminded me. He asked if I was going to do it again. Since it's already October 11 and the essay is due November 1, I'm very tight on time. So, since I had been meaning to pique about decision-making and the trauma of "making up the mind" and this seems like a good time to do that.

What does it mean to "make up our mind"?

Why do we say "one part of us feels this way" and another part feels differently?

What are we describing here?

I like to think of myself as a numerically singular whole - a unified being. The idea that I would have parts that could be divided or in conflict is a rather disturbing image. And the idea that a decision would not be clean in the sense that there would be drawbacks no matter which way I go - that's also a disturbing thought. There is a feeling of making up our mind that we all have - a sense of resolution - a sense that all the relevant problems, facts, opinions and ideas have been heard, and now there is action. This separates an intention from a decision. An intention holds out hope and does not necessarily include all the drawbacks. It's not real. A decision is linked to action. It seems that a made up mind is necessary to clear and directed action. Action is possible without a made-up-mind, but it's not directed, it is hesitant and divided. I wonder what the implications are for a theory of self with this idea of decision-making. What happens before and after we make a decision? Is a decision a moment in time or is it an outcome of something else?

Is Pain a consequence or a cause?

2008-10-05T22:19:00.002-04:00

I'm just about to turn 30. It'll happen in 2 days - October 7th. I've noticed recently that I have a lot more aches and pains than I used to. I suppose I can feel my body more and it takes longer after a workout to recover. (I have no idea how Jamie Moyer is still pitching in the majors when he's 45 years old. I could see why he would need 5 days rest minimum. (Not that I'm comparing myself to Jamie Moyer, since I've never been close to professional at any sport...))

The pain that we all have from exercise and injury is a consequence of certain actions - bending a way our body was not meant to bend, or lifting too heavy a weight. But what about the unconditioned pain we have? The sinus problems or the headaches or the mental anguish? And as we get older don't these pains get more significant and more pronounced?

Because of operant conditioning it seems that pain is always a consequence - that for some reason we "should" feel good and we don't. We are somehow to blame for the pain we have, regardless of what kind of pain it is. But where does this idea come from? Life would be very different if we assumed that we shouldn't feel good and were grateful whenever we did... In fact, that's the reality that many people suffering from serious illnesses face everyday if they don't feel somehow responsible for their suffering. A breath of fresh air is the relief from constant and pernicious "physical" pain when we know that we are truly an innocent victim. As I think about turning 30, I feel a great deal of regret about what I failed to accomplish and what I didn't do. This type of pain - anguish of failure, defeat, loss, dashed hopes, crushed dreams - is painful and it often seems there is no way out. It's hard, if not impossible, to see how we might not take responsibility and blame ourselves for our delusions, anxieties, fantasies, psychoses and mental pain.

In my opinion, the scariest thing about pain is that it is not a consequence or a cause. There is no way we should be. Pain is just a part of what composes ordinary life. And it hurts.

What does it mean to be present?

2008-10-04T23:47:00.002-04:00

During the "High Holy Days" in the Jewish tradition, it is customary to repent for the wrongs you did during the year and to appreciate those angelic presences in your life who have inspired you and made you whole.

I have read a number of different books this year and talked to a variety of people, but I would like to give special thanks to Gerald Weinberg. Sometimes when you read an author or interact with an individual, it is not what they say as much as it is the feelings and thoughts you attribute to them that underlies their words. Mr. Weinberg calls this the "energy" in the words. I see it as the presence behind what I perceive. For Mr. Weinberg's words, presence and energy in his many books, as well as his conscientious approach to teaching - even consenting to read my book proposal and then contributing great insight - I am filled with gratitude.

Gratitude is a great way of looking out at the world. It, in its own way, offers presence. But being present in general, at its root, has a lot to do with loving life and wanting wholeheartedly to experience it. Every last breath of it. I get that sense from Mr. Weinberg's works, that he feels that way - so, at some primitive level, it does not even matter what he writes. It's awe-inspiring just to be energized by another presence with such lightness and intensity.