Conflicting Perspectives and Neuroscience

     "The medical humanities receive more than their fair share of students’ critiques in terms of both quantity and virulence. ... many refer to humanities teaching as pointless, boring, worthless, or just plain stupid. Even otherwise favorably disposed students are sometimes adamant about not making medical humanities required coursework." 
        Shapiro J et al. Medical Humanities and their Discontents: Definitions, Critiques, and Implications. Acad Med 2009; 84(2):192-8.

     So why this surprisingly aggressive assault by supposedly bright, well-intentioned medical students on something as civilized & prosocial as the "medical humanities"?

     “My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognizably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bihemispheric structure of the brain. It follows that the hemispheres need to co-operate, but I believe that they are in fact involved in a sort of power struggle, and that this explains many aspects of contemporary Western culture.”
       Iain McGilchrist. “The Master and his Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.” Yale University Press, 2019.

     McGilchrist devoted 20 years to research and write the above 588-page book, so no summary, even in his own words, can do justice, but here's a taste:

     “Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focused, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.
     Forget everything you thought you knew about the difference between the hemispheres, because it will be largely wrong. Each hemisphere of the brain is involved in everything. Both contribute to language, both contribute to reason, to emotion, to creativity, everything, but they do so in a reliably different way. And this has to do with attention. … solving a survival problem, which is how do you eat and stay alive. 
     This may not sound difficult but is actually a problem in the wild. Because on the one hand you’ve got to be completely focused on getting your prey or picking out that seed against a background of grit etc, entirely focused on it, and yet at the same time, if you’re not to become someone else’s lunch while you’re getting your own, you’ve got to have the exact opposite kind of attention paid to the world, at the same time, which is vigilance – open, uncommitted as to what it will find.
     Attention is the foundation of our experience. How we attend to something, literally changes what we find. And indeed, if you’re the object of somebody’s attention, you’ll feel yourself change, depending on the kind of attention you’re subjected to. It can make us feel warm and accepted, or small and mechanical, or whatever. And our views of the world similarly re-create the world through attention. So on the one hand it is not disputed that there are massive differences between these two hemispheres, because if you have a stroke in the left hemisphere and the same stroke happens in another person in the right hemisphere, they’ll have quite different consequences. And everything you can measure about the two hemispheres is quite different. So it’s not logical to say ‘Oh, they just do the same thing.’ 
     But the secret is in this attention. And that means that what they do is they create two different worlds that we’re having to balance. We’re not aware of this, because we’re doing it all the time below the level of consciousness. Although ideally they do complement one another, and in reality we have to draw from both, effectively, they’re two kinds of reality. So when people start doing theology or philosophy or whatever, they have to commit to one or other of these two kinds of reality. 
     And if I could sum them up, in the left hemisphere’s world there are a lot of little pieces that get put together to make a big picture, and those pieces are individually certain, fixed, static, circumscribed – they’re a bit like particles, billiard balls or whatever, and they have simple causal relationships with one another.
     In the right hemisphere’s world it’s quite different. Nothing is actually separable from anything else. Nothing is fixed and certain. Everything is changing and flowing. 
     So in one world you have a dynamic, evolving, changing, flowing, interconnected world which we are part of, and which we affect by our observations. 
     And in the other, a sort of world which is cooly detached from us, in which we can tinker with the little bits and make up a picture of the world. 
     But they’re not really of equal value. One is like a map of the world, the other is more like a real world. What I think has happened is I think there’s a conflict going on. … These hemispheres are doing two separate things. Their needs and values are separate. The right hemisphere wants to understand and to connect. The left hemisphere has discovered that it’s very good at exploiting, getting, grabbing, manipulating, because that’s what it actually exists to do, to catch food, to catch prey, pick up a seed, get a twig to build a nest, it’s the one that does the manipulation of the world. And that makes us powerful. 
     So of course the left hemisphere has kind of a superficial attraction. If you latch on to this point of view, you start to be technologically powerful. 
     But at the same time, if you ignore what the right hemisphere is telling you about how we are connected to everything else in the world, we end up turning the beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring universe of which we are a part into a heap of rubbish through our efforts. 
     My thesis is that in the last 150 years, since the Enlightenment, and even more since the Industrial Revolution, we got locked into a very reduced, mechanistic version of the world, which rules out many things. I mean fortunately, most of us know deep down that this can’t be right because we go to an opera or we see a very beautiful scene and we know that it’s not reducible to all the garbage to do with sexual selection – not at all. It’s obvious we have a love for certain things – goodness, beauty and truth in themselves. So we know that’s not right, but unfortunately our present culture has a rhetoric which drives us ever more into this, I would say, very reductionist model of the world.” 
       Iain McGilchrist, quoted from some excellent videos.

Harmony between Hemispheres

Serving More Wisely

     In our time of workaholism, substance abuse, materialism & other severe imbalances, secondary traumatization, burnout and suicides, we need a MUCH healthier perspective on life.

     "… an important teaching by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: ‘Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.’ Remen explains that helping is based on inequality: ‘When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of self-worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness of life.’" 
       Joan Halifax. “Standing at the Edge. Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.” Flatiron Books, 2018.


     “Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing. It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person. That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and others. That which is hidden.... 
     Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life.” Rachel Naomi Remen MD

     “… the spiritual is inclusive. It is the deepest sense of belonging and participation. We all participate in the spiritual at all times, whether we know it or not. There’s no place to go to be separated from the spiritual, so perhaps one might say that the spiritual is that realm of human experience which religion attempts to connect us to through dogma and practice. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails. Religion is a bridge to the spiritual - but the spiritual lies beyond religion. Unfortunately in seeking the spiritual we may become attached to the bridge rather than crossing over it.” Rachel Naomi Remen MD
 
     "I am reminded that death, like love, is intimate, and that intimacy is the condition of the deepest learning.
     I am reminded, too, of the simplicity of the true teacher, and the power of story to include us in a web of connection far more profound than the superficial things that divide us.
     Ultimately, death is a close and personal encounter with the unknown. Many of those who have died and been revived by the skills of science tell us that the experience has revealed to them the purpose of life. This is not to become wealthy or famous or powerful. The purpose of every life is to grow in wisdom.” Rachel Naomi Remen MD

     “mindfulness concerns freeing oneself from misperceptions, thinking patterns, and self-imposed limitations that impede creativity, clear seeing, and optimal mental and physical health. Moreover, from both the Eastern and Western view, every individual has the intrinsic capacity to be mindful, and with intention and practice, mindfulness can garner strength and stability. In this sense, the greatest potential of mindfulness may emerge when one consciously decides to pursue mindfulness not as just a ‘tool’ in the proverbial toolbox, but as a way of seeing oneself and the world, or a conscious way of being and interacting.”
        Jeffrey Greeson, Eric L. Garland, David Black. “Mindfulness - A Transtherapeutic Approach for Transdiagnostic Mental Processes.” in Amanda Ie, Christelle T. Ngnoumen, Ellen J. Langer, eds.
 “The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness
.” John Wiley & Sons, 2014. 

Taking Care of Ourselves More Wisely

"Sometimes I go about with pity for myself
and all the while Great Winds
are carrying me across the sky."             Ojibeway wisdom

     "Be still... drop in deeper... listen.... sense into these 'Great Winds' that carry you...."                                    WisdomAtWork.com

     It's normal & healthy to look after ourselves. But don't we at times flip-flop between self-neglect & overindulgence? 
     Consider the ideal grandparent. Doesn't she wisely nurture her beloved grandchild? Nurturing means providing whatever's needed to maximize the probability that a person, animal, plant or project will flourish, thrive. 
     Wise nurturing has at least three components: unconditional love, experience & patience.
     Experience requires not just time, but also quiet, patient, honest self-reflection - intentionally, humbly learning from our mistakes, as well as things that went well; always guided by the open question, 'What will nurture us, others & our environment in the long-run?'
     Unconditional love is very rare! It must come, first & foremost, from ourselves! We must generate this precious, vital nurturing energy through self-acceptance, self-compassion - recognizing ourselves as being human beings, instead of mythical superheros. Unconditional love is the one & only source of the essential energy that unleashes & fuels our full human potential.
     All this requires patience, for we need to listen deeply to re-connect with our authenticity. Authenticity is easily drowned out by noisy distractions and the roller-coaster artificial highs & lows of our adrenaline-junky lives. Wisdom waits patiently as we slowly realize that we're fed up with noise, and that we're much, much more than thrill-seeking children. 
     Wisdom awaits - AND - life is short.

Origins of Medicine, Surgery & Psychotherapy

     “Alchemy, descended from shamanism, is the ancient art and science of elemental transformation. … alchemy grew historically out of the work of shamanic miners, smiths, and metallurgists. They were the masters of fire, who knew how to extract metals from stone, blend them into alloys such as bronze, and make tools, weapons and ornaments. In the archaic and classical period the knowledge of metalworking, because of its obvious connection to power and wealth, was preserved in secrecy and handed down in craftguilds from master to student. Such technical knowledge was regarded as magical by ordinary people, because it seemed to involve inexplicable mastery of natural forces. The crafts of masonry, which uses mineral stones in building, and medicine, which uses mineral and botanical extracts in healing (as well as metal tools in surgery), were parallel and associated secret societies. All three movements developed an esoteric or inner component, concerned with practices of psychic and spiritual self-transformation.
     A popular misconception is that alchemy was solely and futilely concerned with the transmutation of base metals to gold. In actuality, it is clear from alchemical writings that the main focus of most alchemical practitioners was healing and what we would nowadays call psychotherapy: the transmutation of the physical and psychic condition of the human being – starting with oneself. The worldview of the archaic and classical eras was holistic – the physical, psychic, spiritual, and cosmic dimensions of life were seen in their wholeness, not as separate fields.
     … the sacred science of the alchemical tradition came to be revived by two twentieth-century scientists: C.G. Jung, who identified alchemical symbolism as the language of the psyche; and Albert Hofmann, who uncovered a secret link between psyche and matter in the form of mind-expanding substances. Medieval alchemists in the Western tradition called this link the ‘water-stone of the wise,’ blending fluidity and solidity. Buddhist alchemists of the vajrayana school called it the vajra – the ‘lightning-diamond’ – blending luminosity and hardness.
     My suggestion is that the language of alchemy, both Eastern and Western, updated with contemporary scientific concepts, can provide the appropriate paradigm for a worldview that integrates rational science and intuitive wisdom." 
 

        Ralph Metzner. “Ecology of Consciousness. The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation.” Reveal Press, 2017. 
 

“Black Sun”, from Splendor Solis, a German alchemical treatise, 1582

Wisdom from Helen Keller

     Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), American author, political activist & lecturer, was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.

"Security is mostly a superstition, it does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men (and women) as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure
or nothing at all!"

"All the world is full of suffering. 
It is also full of overcoming." 

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched
- they must be felt with the heart."

"Your success and happiness lies in you. 
Resolve to keep happy, 
and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."

"All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
  

Life's Journey towards Wisdom

     What is a meaningful, well-lived life? As we age, we realize that most of the things that in our youth we thought would make us happy, actually mean little and have already been largely forgotten.

     “Life (can be seen) as a journey towards wisdom and maturity, where both good or pleasurable and bad or painful experiences can help people learn and develop through six recognizable stages: 
 1. Egocentric (immature, self-referenced existence) 
 2. Conditioning (learning through insistent & persistent family & social traditions) 
 3. Conformist (seeking to belong by following social conventions) 
 4. Individual (starting to think, speak & act independently) 
 5. Integration (shifting values & behavior towards altruism, through recognizing one’s deep kinship with the entirety of humanity) 
 6. Universal (achieving maturity and wisdom, becoming a natural teacher and healer).” 
     Research has shown that in western society, the majority of people past their teen years are at or between stages three or four i.e. are still culturally adolescent.
       Larry Culliford. “Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Manifesto.” Univ of Buckingham Pr, 2018.

     "Fowler’s six stages of faith span the spectrum of development from childhood to maturity:
  a) In childhood, faith is based on fantasy & imagination;
  b) in the mythic literal stage, stories are interpreted literally;
  c) at the conventional stage, beliefs tend to be conventional & unexamined;
  d) the individuated reflective stage is characterized by demythologizing and individual responsibility for values & beliefs;
  e) the conjunctive stage, which usually emerges in midlife, involves a recognition of the unconscious and a more paradoxical understanding of truth;
  f) universalizing faith is inclusive of all being and free from ideological shackles.
      Although development does not necessarily progress in a neat, linear fashion from one stage to another, spiritual maturity implies adequately negotiating all these stages of faith. Spiritual experiences may be interpreted very differently by people at different stages of faith."
        Vaughan F. "What is Spiritual Intelligence?" Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2002; 42(2): 16-33.

     “Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it, but it divides us from truth.” Kahlil Gibran

and the day came
when the risk to remain
tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk
it took to blossom                               anais nin

"For I see the beauty in you...
It is not an idealized picture of perfection,
But rather a mosaic of starlight and blood.
The most perfect poem of a life well lived,
Of pleasure and pain,
The sacred union of dark and light,
A life of redemption, surrender, and hope,
Of selfless acts, and courageous leaps.
For I see the beauty in you...
Your light shines so brightly to me."         Lauren Elizabeth Walsh

     “Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.”           Rainer Maria Rilke

Wisdom in Paradox

      Can I, at the same time, embrace "contrasting themes; that of my deepest heart, which feels the intimacy of all things, and the walls the mind constructs, which separates all things"? (Thanissara) In other words, can I embody the nondualistic, unconditioned, spacious, timeless, empty, transpersonal ground of my being WHILE accepting, honoring & holding the dualistic, conditioned, limited, finite, material, personal aspect of my humanity?
     It's terribly common, easy, even comforting, to allow oneself to be magnetically drawn under by destructive emotions into the recurring nightmare of depressive wallowing or anxiety-ridden catastrophizing. This blows the importance of the personal self out of all proportion, thus failing to provide the essential balance that can only come from embodying our transpersonal nature.

     "... all mystics – Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare."
       Anthony de Mello. “Awareness. The Perils and Opportunities of Reality.” Doubleday, 1992.

     "In our world things are always getting broken and mended and broken again, and there is also something that never breaks. Everything rises and falls, and yet in exactly the same moment things are eternal and go nowhere at all. How do we see with a kind of binocular vision, one eye aware of how things are coming and going all the time, the other aware of how they’ve never moved at all? How do we experience this not as two separate ways of seeing, but as one seamless field of vision?" 
       Joan Sutherland. “Koans for Troubled Times.” Lion’s Roar, April 6, 2018

     “The exploration of the highest reaches of human nature and of its ultimate possibilities and aspirations … has involved for me the continuous destruction of cherished axioms, the perpetual coping with seeming paradoxes, contradictions and vagueness, and the occasional collapse around my ears of long established, firmly believe in, and seemingly unassailable laws of psychology.” Abraham Maslow