Attention, Values & Interbeing

     Attention is not just another “function” alongside other cognitive functions. Its ontological status is of something prior to functions and even to things. The kind of attention we bring to bear on the world changes the nature of the world we attend to, the very nature of the world in which those “functions” would be carried out and in which those “things” would exist. Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world. If you are my friend, the way in which I attend to you will be different from the way in which I would attend to you if you were my employer, my patient, the suspect in a crime I am investigating, my lover, my aunt, a body waiting to be dissected. In all these circumstances, except the last, you will also have a quite different experience not just of me, but of yourself: you would feel changed if I changed the type of my attention. And yet nothing objectively has changed.

     So it is, not just with the human world, but with everything with which we come into contact. A mountain that is a landmark to a navigator, a source of wealth to a prospector, a many-textured form to a painter, or to another the dwelling place of the gods, is changed by the attention given to it. There is no “real” mountain that can be distinguished from these, no one way of thinking that reveals the true mountain.

     Science, however, purports to be uncovering such a reality. Its apparently value-free descriptions are assumed to deliver the truth about the object, onto which our feelings and desires are later painted. Yet this highly objective stance, this “view from nowhere,” to use the American philosopher Thomas Nagel’s phrase, is itself value-laden. It is just one particular way of looking at things, a way that privileges detachment, a lack of commitment of the viewer to the object viewed. For some purposes this can be undeniably useful. But its use in such causes does not make it truer or more real, closer to the nature of things.

     Attention also changes who we are, we who are doing the attending. Our knowledge of neurobiology and neuropsychology shows that by attending to someone else performing an action, and even by thinking about them doing so—even, in fact, by thinking about certain sorts of people at all—we become objectively, measurably, more like them, in how we behave, think, and feel. Through the direction and nature of our attention, we prove ourselves to be partners in creation, both of the world and of ourselves. In keeping with this, attention is inescapably bound up with value—unlike what we conceive of as “cognitive functions,” which are neutral in this respect. Values enter through the way in which those functions are exercised: they can be used in different ways for different purposes to different ends. Attention, however, intrinsically is a way in which, not a thing: it is intrinsically a relationship, not a brute fact. It is a “howness,” a something between, an aspect of consciousness itself, not a “whatness,” a thing in itself, an object of consciousness. It brings into being a world and, with it, depending on its nature, a set of values. 

     From: Iain McGilchrist. "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." Yale University Press, 2009. Reprinted in Tricycle Spring 2017.

Wordview & Behavior

"If [one] thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, 
then that is how [one's] mind will tend to operate, 
but if [one] can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole 
that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border 
then [one's] mind will tend to move in a similar way, 
and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."

David Bohm, in Wholeness and the Implicate Order, p. xi

"The true state of affairs in the material world is wholeness.
If we are fragmented, we must blame ourselves."

David Bohm, physicist

www.wisdomatwork.com

Ireland

Tree, Forest - Which Do We See?

     Traditional aboriginal cultures live Thich Nhat Hanh's "interbeing" - in profound relationship with everyone and everything ("all our relations"). Whereas industrialized people tend to be lost in a sea of seemingly unrelated, meaningless, arbitrary, random factoids.
     Anthropologist Edward T. Hall's 1976 book "Beyond Culture", contrasts the communication differences between such "high-context" and "low-context" cultures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures
     Our education system, up to & including university, is embedded in our culture's communication style. We low-context, "nuclear giants" hotly pursue highly specialized narrow goals, and as "ethical infants," continue to be oblivious of our impact on our shared quality of life.

          "Learn how to see.
          Realize that everything connects to everything else." 
                                                                                              Leonardo de Vinci

     "To Western medicine, understanding an illness means uncovering a distinct entity that is separate from the patient's being; to Chinese medicine, understanding means perceiving the relationships among all the patient's signs and symptoms in the context of his or her life.
     From a biomedical viewpoint, the Chinese physician is assessing the patient's specific and general physiological and psychological response to a disease entity."
       Ted J. Kaptchuk OMD. "The Web That Has No Weaver. Understanding Chinese Medicine." Contemporary Books, Chicago, 2000.

     "In Indian mythology, Indra was a God who attached all phenomena with visible and invisible strands weaving together a universal net. Earth, trees, clouds, mountains, sky, passion, aggression, creativity, women, men, and children, all were connected in Indra's expansive net. At the intersections of these strands, Indra tied dulcimer bells. In that way, as one part of the net was pulled or moved, the bells would ring; when the sound of a bell was heard, awareness of interconnectedness arose becoming another strand of consideration in one's weave. When the bells were ignored, an illusion of separation and independence reigned; the outcome could be destructive, reverberating throughout the net.”
        W. Anne Bruce: "Abiding in Liminal Space(s): Inscribing Mindful Living/Dying With(In) End-of-Life Caring." PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2002, p12

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

Our World Churns

     Eric Reguly's article in yesterday's Globe & Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/stories-from-the-burgeoning-libyan-smuggling-industry/article24210483/ brings to mind how life continues to churn, like a blender, all of us, everything in this world. We're all interconnected. No matter where we happen to find ourselves at any point in time, it will all change, sooner or later, in this huge blender called life.
     Everything is in flux, flowing, changing, blending, coming apart, coming back together, flowing, flowing, flowing.

 

What is Healing?

     “Before ALS, I could see my plans opening into limitless vistas, now I am cured of planning. ... In my fourth summer of ALS, I am healed by music and vulnerability.

     Healing comes in many guises. We’re healed by just the touch of a friend. We’re healed by the hug of a child.
     And healing does not imply that your life is suddenly going to lose all of the struggle, all of the challenge. What it does instead, is it strengthens us for what is next.
     But to be open to healing, means to be vulnerable. And I think if you look at me, I’m what you would call ‘a vulnerable adult’. The cat doesn’t even listen to me here. I have no real sense of control any more. 
     And so the choice could be to resent this, to be frustrated by it – and there are times when I am, I promise. But I think the greater choice, is the fact that once you embrace your vulnerability, you’re open to such beauty. And in the end, isn’t this one of the things that truly makes us human? The ability to make, to perceive, to live in beauty?
     For me, I’m a musician, I’ll always have the soul of a musician. And because of that, music heals me. If I'm finding myself anxious, or find myself in a space where I know I better get a hold of this, I find that listening to music is one of my best strategies. And so, music is a healing activity. But if you talk to Matthew Sanford, for him, visual art just opens up that same sense of healing. I know so many people who are artists in their own right. And they’re really not themselves until they’re in that artistic mode, either listening, perceiving, or actually making the art.
     I feel that I’m just lucky that I have that gift, because in many ways, it’s helped me to understand how to do this, and do it in the most humane way possible. And that is healing.”            Bruce Kramer

Bruce Kramer's EXCEPTIONAL interview by Krista Tippett      http://onbeing.org/program/feature/in-the-room-with-bruce-kramer/7424  


     "We tend to equate healing with curing, with fixing. There is no fixing for life. We're all headed to the same place. I'm just going faster.
      But there is healing that I have. If I can find myself in a space that I feel quiet and secure and loved, isn't that a healed space?"           Bruce Kramer

http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2013/08/29/music-with-minnesotans-bruce-kramer 

      Completely letting go: http://www.johnlovas.com/2015/03/the-problem-of-evil-zen-perspective.html 

Bruce Kramer

Engagement - Feeling At Home

"Within each of us, in the ground of our being,
 powers reside for the healing of our world.
These powers do not arise from any ideology, access to the occult, or passion for social activism. They are inevitable powers.
 Because we are part of the web of life, we can draw on the strength -- and the pain -- of every creature. This interconnection constitutes our 'deep ecology': it is the source of our pain for the world as well
 as our love and appetite for life."

Joanna Macy


"Expand and deepen your mindfulness to attend more carefully to the deep ecology that weave your deepest being into the fabric of all creation.

Discover the roots of compassion your deep connectedness with all living beings.  

Allow yourself to live-&-work today in a way that affirms these natural wonders." 

Joel and Michelle Levey


WisdomAtWork.com

Steve Demeranville, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Time to Awaken our Heart & Mind

     "The epochal task today is to rekindle the divine spark in our heart and mind: to revitalize our recognition of who we are, and how we relate to each other, to the earth, and to the cosmos. We are not material beings in a material universe. We do have a material body, but we also have an immaterial consciousness in an information-penetrated universe. Our body is connected — 'entangled' — with all bodies from atoms to galaxies, and our consciousness is one with the cosmic consciousness that pervades the world. Our crises and instabilities arose because we have refused to recognize this timeless insight and pursued our selfish interests in the belief that we are separate beings in a strange, uncaring and potentially hostile universe.

     Evolving our consciousness is not something we do only for ourselves - it is something we also do for others ... for all others, and for the earth."

       Ervin Laszlo PhD        http://fujideclaration.org/why-the-fuji-declaration-what-it-means-for-our-life-and-our-future/

Torsten Muehlbacher, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Act Your Age

     "Since every particle in your body goes back to the first flaring forth of space and time, you're really as old as the universe. So when you are lobbying at your congressperson's office, or visiting your local utility, or testifying at a hearing on nuclear waste, or standing up to protect an old grove of redwoods, you are doing that not out of some personal whim, but in the full authority of your 15 billions years."                                Joanna Macy
 
       http://joannamacy.net/thegreatturning/personal-guidelines-t.html

Loving-kindness - an Open Mind-Heart

     “Loving-kindness means … true friendliness to the reality of all things and all events – in their joy, in their suffering.”
 
        Halifax J. “Fruitful darkness. Reconnecting with the body of the earth.” HarperSanFrancisco, NY, 1993. 

 

Fully Awake? Fully Alive?

     "In an odd way, though, there were times when I missed the adventure, even the danger, of the real war out in the boonies. It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. you become part of a tribe and you share the same blood ..."

     O'Brien T. "The things they carried." Mariner Books, Boston, 1990.

Greyser   www.dpreview.com

Health, Consciusness, Wisdom

     The paradigm "illness as the enemy" is partial, dualistic - because it obscures the complete picture - the positive health experience inherent in illness: a more mature understanding of the meaning of life, personal transformation, self-transcendence ... wholeness, healing.

      "Health is viewed as a process of expanding consciousness. Consciousness is defined as the quality and diversity of personal-environment interaction as manifested in connectedness, reciprocal energy flow and boundary openness."
       Moch SD. Health within the experience of breast cancer. Journal of Advanced Nursing 1990; 15: 1426-1435. 

     "Wisdom is a function of deep insight into, and mature understanding of, the central existential issues of life, together with practical skill in responding to these issues in ways that enhance the deep wellbeing of all those who the responses affect."  
       Walsh R. The varieties of wisdom: Contemplative, cross-cultural, and integral contributions. Research in Human Development 2011; 8(2): 109-127.

zenfr2009   www.dpreview.com

Human Knowing - Passion of the Scientist, Precision of the Poet

      “When we honor the hidden aquifer that feeds human knowing, we are more likely to develop a capacity for awe, wonder, & humility that deepens rather than diminishes knowledge. And we are less likely to develop the kind of hubris about our knowledge that haunts the world today. So much of the violence our culture practices at home and exports abroad is rooted in an arrogance that says, ‘We know best, and we are ready to enforce what we know politically, culturally, economically, militarily.’ In contrast, a mode of knowing steeped in awe, wonder, & humility is a mode of knowing that can serve the human cause, which is the whole point of integrative education.
     Human knowing, rightly understood, has paradoxical roots – mind & heart, hard data and soft intuition, individual insight and communal sifting and winnowing – the roots novelist Vladimir Nabokov pointed to when he told his Cornell University students that they must do their work ‘with the passion of the scientist and precision of the poet.’ Integrative education aims to ‘think the world together’ rather than ‘think it apart,’ to know the world in a way that empowers educated people to act on behalf of wholeness rather than fragmentation.”

       Palmer PJ, Zajonc A. The heart of higher education: A call to renewal. Transforming the academy through collegial conversation. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2010.

Koen De Houwer   www.dpreview.com

Health, Harmony, Meaning - Navajo Wisdom

     Individuals EITHER promote the general welfare of the world & thus their personal well-being (as a healthy cell collaborates with & supports a healthy body) OR they create chaos out of a misguided, self-centered striving for their individual happiness (as a cancer cell does it's own thing, destroying the entire body).

     "Among the Navajo, all serious illness results from disharmony. To become sick, a person has somehow fallen out of harmony with himself, his family, his clan, and the network of relationships that constitute the Navajo Way. To be healed is to have that harmony restored."
     Navaho traditional healing ceremony "could 'heal' any seriously ill person, even a patient with terminal cancer, because prolonging life isn't necessarily the aim of Navajo medicine. Human beings, like plants and animals and the visible world itself, participate in a cycle of birth, development, maturity, and decline. This cycle constitutes the harmonious, natural way of the universe. Attempting to extend an elderly person's life beyond its natural span might well be seen as disharmonious or harmful, rather than healing; what the ceremony would do was to bring the dying person into a harmonious relationship with the important persons and values in his or her life."
     Their healing "address the more narrative dimensions of illness; i.e., to re-experience themselves as part of a meaningful story."

     Coulehan J. "Metaphor and medicine: narrative in clinical practice." Yale J Biol Med 2003; 76(2): 87-95.

See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/01/sense-of-workplace-community-belonging.html

Paul Hannon   http://paulhannon.com/

 

Feeling of Rightness

     “The transient vacuities of … success, peace, happiness, and distraction – pale before the question of whether or not one experiences this life as meaningful. Moreover, the test of meaning is not a cognitive decision, so one should not suddenly quit this present life for any quixotic mission. Meaning is found, over the long haul, through the feeling of rightness within.”
     Hollis J. “Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.” Gotham Books, NY, 2005.
 
     “Wisdom traditions, the paths followed by our patients and our own experiences suggest that a sense of integrity comes through establishing healing connections. That’s not quite it. It wasn’t that the wave needed to establish connections. It was connected — part of a greater whole. Its challenge was to recognize the connectedness that was already there.”
     Mount BM. The existential moment. Palliat Support Care 2003; 1(1): 93-6.