I went to see an orthopedic surgeon about hand pain, which comes to me in a great variety of forms and places; just to keep me interested, I guess. Before I left home, the pain was mild. But once I arrived at the office, it was very notable, showing it’s face in 3 or more places, dressed in different clothes. Often, when I see a doctor, whatever is bothering me seems to run and hide. Not this time. Why?
Some might say the body has its own wisdom, and that’s certainly true. But it doesn’t help me very much. Even worse, the high level of pain continued, on and off, for a day or two afterwards. Did this occur because I was trying to understand the doctor’s recommendations for treatment? And with the pain so clear, it was easier for me to analyze what might be the best way to proceed?
Understanding the more subtle messages our body-mind constantly gives us can be tricky.
We are often more concerned with comfort or security than truth, or with preserving an old viewpoint than checking its accuracy. Recognizing contradictions in our beliefs and beloved stories is not always at the forefront of our minds. But all views are fragile. They’re intellectual constructs, and once created, we might be tempted to treat them as prized possessions, or personal works of art. We must be careful not to cover the walls and windows of our intellectual home with them so they’re all we see.
One book I love is The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin by Idries Shah. The character of Nasrudin, with his humor and deep insight reminds me of stories from the Zen, Taoist, Desert Fathers, and other traditions. One famous story might be relevant here. Nasrudin illustrates how we often search for answers in the wrong places.
A man saw Nasrudin searching on the ground and asked, “What have you lost, Mulla?”
“My key.”
The man went down on his knees and they both got involved searching for it.
After several minutes, the other man asked: “Where exactly did you lose it?”
“In my own house.”
“Then why’re you looking here?”
“There is more light here.”
Muscles, senses don’t speak in words; but they’re an inherent part of the thinking process. In making decisions or thinking critically, questioning assumptions, researching with multiple reliable sources, and thinking logically are all important. And so is self-reflection, mindfully reading ourselves and pausing before final judgment, maybe by taking a walk, sleeping on it, or taking a breath or two.
An awareness of our internal and external, moment by moment sensations helps us better discern when we and our thinking feels “off.” When we feel a clenching in our stomach, a rush to judgment in our breath, or a grimace in our face we might be lying to ourselves.
We might become aware of how our perceptions and emotions are constructed in stages.
The initial level of emotion or of any mental state is what psychotherapist Daniel Siegel calls an “orienting response.” Brain and body systems become alerted and energized. We begin to experience a feeling. Then we get “elaborative appraisal” which involves activating memory, directing energy, and creating meaning. We feel bad, good, or neutral, pleasant, or unpleasant, confident, or doubtful. Only after this do we get full emotions, the desire to hold, for example, as in joy or love, or to push away, as in distaste or hate.
When our mind quiets, we are more likely to notice and sense this level of feeling and thought. We can let our mind rest inside a developing idea without being caught by it. We learn how to name what arises; not to get involved in intellectual thinking, but to increase awareness of our mental processing.
And the experience might also elucidate how we can better understand anything. The philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer said, “all understanding is ultimately self-understanding.” For example, when we read a book or blog, there is no way to totally separate the reader from the reading, the seeing from the seer. This is one reason why literature can be such a wonderful “educative tool,” as well as enjoyable to read. It can let us perceive how another being thinks and feels, while also holding up a mirror to ourselves.
We might think there is only one objective interpretation of a text, or one right answer to a complex question. There are details, specific words in a text, with their own history, which were written by a specific person in a historical context. There are also a reader’s projections, likes and dislikes. But there is clearly no sensing, no meaning, without a reader or meaning-maker.
In a similar vein, what we think is true influences how we perceive anything. In an earlier blog, I quoted the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.” Or the eyes through which I view the world are the same eyes through which the world views me.
Yesterday, when I took a walk, the weather kept changing dramatically. One minute, it was sunny; cold for March, in the high thirties, but mostly calm, with just a gentle wind. And the next minute, the wind stormed. Trees cried out. The sky became as dark as dusk, and snow raged around me.
And as I buried down inside my coat, a thought came to me. We are always both ourselves in this moment, in this one experience. And the whole universe. The energy of our lives is created by the tension between these viewpoints. It can be a tension sensed as a threat, requiring us to continually maintain and protect what we think we know. Or it can be sensed as an urge to update, expand, and deepen the window through which we view our lives. The tension can be sensed directly. We can notice how the view is ever-shifting, continually forming, instead of trying to hold tightly to any one view.
Afterall, when we read ourselves, who is doing the reading?
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock