Report 27

    Table of contents
    No headers

    Version as of 13:03, 19 May 2024

    to this version.

    Return to Version archive.

    View current version

    SM: real seeing = "seeing nothing" or "seeing just what's present" or "Hi, how are you today!" We're just working towards that: naturalness: hence my interest in Pila's point about wu wei and yin and yang: natural

    I have a snapshot story which I think highlights the difference between disconnecting versus connecting, and perhaps an instance of wu-wei ...

    My daughter had school schedule changes which needed to be made. When they called me from the outer office, I entered the small office I was directed to, and sat down. The counselor was talking a hundred miles a minute and frantically shuffing paperwork/email/talking. She reacted to my sitting down as though I were a hundred people storming in...in other words very defensively. I was taken aback, BUT also completely aware that there was a great deal of projection going on.  What this caused in me, rather than either shutting down or becoming aggressive in return (which were the two choices I might have seen 'mentally' normally), was a consideration of all the parents who were probably storming in, and all the work there must be for this person...that each office person was doing the work of at least three since budget cuts, etc. So I didn't dissociate. 
    What was very nice about this experience, is that I didn't stop and talk myself through this in order to make an effort to behave 'compassionately'. I didn't even feel adrenaline rise. After a while, I did matter-of-factly state that though I now knew all the workings of the office, we hadn't discussed my daughter at all, which in itself was a 'bolder' comment than I normally would make. So it wasn't that I was passive, either.
    My honest reaction was that I wanted to say "Hey, breathe, it will be okay." And though I'm recounting the situation now as an example, it also wasn't that I left the office feeling "Oh look how I handled that." I didn't feel that I'd handled anything... just that I hadn't gotten stuck in it. And this was so 'quick'. 
    This is exactly the kind of 'positive boldness' which seems the result of seeing 'through' things and being able to be open whatever the situation. 

    A note There are situations which have seemed stuck for quite a few years. Sometimes it seems like a different thing to address those things which are 'on the plate' but don't have deadlines somehow. I feel that it isn't different, but is sure feels it at times.

     

    Also, I'd like to write out what I've been thinking about this week. Corrections and clarifications would be most welcome. 

    Pila has been talking about the Chinese framework of yin yan more, and the idea of (may not phrase this quite well) that out of completeness is then seen yin/yan...and out of making 'another' line or division, other compartments and divisions are made... arriving at "the 10,000 things". I've heard that reference so many times in other writings, but hadn't known the source.  

    This set my mind to comparing this to co-dependent arising, and how we come to/begin to learn from already within a framework of 10,000 things and then *try* to somehow close the separations which disconnect us, using efforts and 'will'. In beginning to see the workings of co-dependent arising in our daily interractions, we are through these separations, and experiencing that 'original completeness' in which the harmony of yin yan is comfortable...though maybe that hasn't caught up with us mentally yet... 

       

         

    Powered by MindTouch Core