Tag: Socrates

Turning Toward the Unthinkable

On May 13, 2017

In Death, General, Meditation, Memoir, Positivity

Life is movement. As the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said: “The river where you set your foot just now is gone — those waters giving way to this, now this.” (Fragment 41); and: “The sun is new again, all day” (fragment 32). – Heraclitus. Fragments. Translated by Brooks Haxton.

Japanese Zen artist, Sengai (1750 – 1837): “Even before I can say it is like a lightning flash or a dewdrop, it is no more.”

It seems counter-intuitive, to find more life through being in touch with life’s evanescence and the certainty of death; by turning toward the unknown. Nevertheless, rather than become dispirited by the thought of death, by practising A Year to Live – for nearly two decades, renewing it yearly – I have increased my commitment to life, and not distorted it. My energy has turned toward more meaningful activities, relinquishing energy-draining pursuits, while there’s more love of life – and all this through the seeming irony of doing daily practices which remind me of the certainty of death.

I have been inspired all along, in my contemplation of death, by Guenther’s statement: “…the thought of death is rather a powerful stimulus that brings me back to myself as the unique occasion for the search for the meaning of life…”

What kind if meaning of life is there to find in the face of death? Is life meaningful, in itself – without the filter or buffer of belief systems? That’s a question I address experientially in this project.

Certainly, as a severely abused child, by the age of sixteen I tended toward the conclusion that there was no meaning to life. My companions all thought this. I became nihilistic; and, I often wished for death. Then, via the Beatles’ encounter with Indian meditation practice – which came at the very same time in which I found Socrates – I discovered the possibility of a more wholesome line of inquiry. The task became to find out for myself, the truth of consciousness.

Was there an uncharted land, I wondered, in my own mind? One which could confirm meaningfulness from within – not through the stressful activities of my outer world, with its prevailing industrial values, cut-throat competition, its genocides and wars? It seemed to me as a teenager that contemplation of life as it is in itself might be possible? Socrates, with his courage in the face of death, and his commitment to selfless values, was inspirational. And then, at seventeen, meditation presented itself, as a support for the actualization of this free, independent way of life.

Next, my encounter with Zen Buddhism at nineteen confirmed what Socrates had asserted, that a conscious practice of facing death is far from a wish for death; it is an affirmation of a reality greater than death. The Zen Buddhists speak of ‘the great matter,’ which is the inescapable presence of ‘birth and death.’ My reading of Zen suggested that, skilfully conducted, facing death brings an attunement to life. Zen writers suggested that one’s own wholeness was discoverable through facing death.

Such freedom is not to be found by merely believing some religious blather. There is no freedom in believing in some ideal fantasy of a heaven after death. For me, this freedom must be right here in this very difficult life of sickness, old age and death. We die. So, can we live creatively – not in immature defiance of death – but with open-hearted inclusion of death. The ‘historical’ Buddha (I’ll explain the apostrophes, later) suggested that we face these five things:
1. I am subject to old age. I am not exempt from old age.
2. I am subject to illness. I am not exempt from illness.
3. I am subject to death. I am not exempt from death.
4. There is alteration in, and parting from, everything that is dear and pleasing to me.
5. I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions. They are my matrix, I am related through them, they are my mediator. I become the heir of whatever actions I do, good or bad.
– The Five Remembrances, Translated by Christopher J. Ash

Then, at some stage, during an instance of my A Year to Live practice I decided that this matter of being one hundred percent for death in life (while being one hundred percent for the life in death) was something worth unpacking slowly with others. So, I began a blog to share the enquiry into this irony that life is ephemeral, yet intrinsically meaningful. This series which you are now reading is an edited version of that sharing.

Pausing in the Marketplace.

By admin

On May 29, 2016

In Body, Focusing, Meditation, Mindfulness, Practices

“Focusing is a force for peace because it frees people from being manipulated by external authority, cultural roles, ideologies and the internal oppression of self attacking and shame. This freeing has to do with an ability to pause the on-going situation and create a space in which a felt sense can form.” – Mary Hendricks-Gendlin, Ph.D., Focusing as a Force for Peace: The Revolutionary Pause, Keynote Address to the Fifteenth Focusing International Conference 2003, in Germany

There are many ways in which the ‘pause’ can be invited in. And, the practice of A Year to Live introduces ‘the pause’ into my life. For instance, when I arise first thing in the morning, and recommit myself to treating this particular day as possibly my last. It brings a pause in my egocentricity, a gap in which the body-environment interaction can be felt as the on-going process.

The empowering pause has developed in many ways in the last two decades, in various methods of inquiry and dialogical communication. It’s a word that I see regularly in the secular mindfulness literature; e.g in the magazine Mindful. This is a primary effect of mindulness, to introduce the living gap into our mindstream.

Think of something you learnt, sometime, which at that time helped you go deeper, helped you find some space for difficult situations. No doubt the pause was there. To name just three approaches: Gendlin’s Focusing, as Mary Hendricks-Gendlin says; Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication is empowered by the pause; or, in the mindfulness sphere, there’s Gregory Kramer’s Insight Dialogue. (All these can be seen as part of a wider movement which is developing what Gene Gendlin refers to as the ‘product’ of this age: “inter-human communication.”)

The reason that my life-long inspiration Socrates valued the unhurried life was that it is a life in touch with our deepest reaches; from whence we can examine life. Socrates valued the examined life, a result of which can be that we step out of the flow of time, and touch the timeless. (Theaetetus 172c– 173b). Now, that is a pause.

The mindful pause is a space which transforms our understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and life itself. Then, we can enter the market place freely; or, like Socrates, enter death freely.

My joy, these days is to dwell on-goingly in the completeness of Being. Being, for me, always brings the pause. Being is all pause. From here, my words, actions, and my thinking, can form more appropriately. Relating to my situation then feels – even when difficult – like it is, after all, only a human situation.

And, when there’s no question to be answered, decision to be made, or whatever, then I can rest in the great (…..) which is the basis of peace.

In Theaetetus Socrates comments: “Well, look at the man who has been knocking about in law courts and such places ever since he was a boy; and compare him with the man brought up in philosophy, in the life of a student. It is surely like comparing the upbringing of a slave with that of a free man. Because the one man always has what you mentioned just now—plenty of time. When he talks, he talks in peace and quiet, and his time is his own. It is so with us now: here we are beginning on our third new discussion; and he can do the same, if he is like us, and prefers the newcomer to the question in hand. It does not matter to such men whether they talk for a day or a year, if only they may hit upon that which is. But the other—the man of the law courts—is always in a hurry when he is talking; he has to speak with one eye on the clock” (Trans. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, in Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away).

The choices are not so easily made now. (Although, Socrates did pay for it with his life.) So, I admire greatly those people who are trying to transform the marketplace; who attempt to bring the pause into their workplaces – even into the courts themselves. May their activities bear immeasurable fruit.