Today was a tough day. My body hurt in so many places and for reasons that are beyond my knowing. And the daily news is so mixed, the horrible mixed with the beautiful. Yet…
I’m reading a book called Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape, by the poet and translator of Chinese literature, David Hinton. And I feel this. I’ve felt this in other books by Hinton, and books by other poets, and philosophers, historians, meditators, travelers, and psychologists. I’ve felt this with certain people, animals, and places.
Books have forever been a way to inform, challenge, and inspire us, to understand what before was incomprehensible. They allow a depth of examination that other formats don’t. For me, the internet, tv, social media all favor little sound or information bites that keep us more focused on the surface of things.
But the words in books like Hinton’s are spirit-music. When we read them, if we’re open to them, if we can inhabit them so we walk as the inhabitants in the books walked, we create something never seen before, yet ancient. The very air breathes us, speaks the words with us.
Hinton says, “Things are themselves only as they belong to something more than themselves: I to we, we to earth, earth to planets and stars…” We recognize ourselves and become truly ourselves only with others, in whatever place, time, and universe we are in.
The first chapter is called ‘sincerity.’ Hinton says the Chinese character for sincerity depicts a side view of a person walking or standing next to words rising out of a mouth. A lie attempts to hide the truth from others, but usually hides the universe and others from ourselves. This creates an inner tension. If we’re sincere, our thoughts are the same as the words we speak; all of what happens supposedly “outside,” in language, mountain, and sky, opens inside. And what we say unites us with where we are and who we’re with; it reveals to us that, in fact, we’re the universe itself speaking.
Sincerity raises us like a parent’s love, one that is absolute, yet clear seeing and adapting. We each have different loves, different doorways to the mysterious. Everything provides such a doorway if we can find it. Sincerity is the sign that marks the door.
When I was teaching secondary school literature, philosophy, or history, the students and I talked about finding that doorway. Children, especially teenagers, are not shy about calling out insincerity and respect the care and trust expressed by sincerity. For example, poetry can often be so difficult to comprehend. But when we read a poem with full attention, a word, phrase, or image would stand out, but which word or image did that was different for different students. And once we realized the door was there, we could feel or question our way in deeper.
Students sometimes thought sincerity meant giving voice to whatever popped into their mind. But not every thought is a door to insight. Thoughts are information from diverse sources, not commands; to be noticed, not necessarily believed. We can let go of them, or calmly focus on the whole world arising along with or behind them.
So, sincerity is crucial to better reading what we look at, and mindfulness crucial to sincerity. A mindful awareness of sensations can reveal the inner tension of a lie so we can tune to the truth. Yet, especially in these times, this can be so painful or difficult; and each person is unique, so we can’t ever fully inhabit the mind of another person. What seems honest in one minute might seem delusion or bias in the next. A little humility and a good dose of kindness, for ourselves and others, is required. We can only do as much as we can, in any moment; but it’s surprising how close we can sometimes get.
We’re often encouraged to question what we read. But we must be careful not to start questioning until after we’re sure what we think we’ve read is what’s in front of us⎼ make sure we’ve not replaced our words, our time and place, for the speaker’s. We don’t want to turn away from something or someone before we’ve seen them.
We can sit with and allow ourselves to feel the cadence of the words written in a book or spoken by a person, and imagine the people and scene described; the expression on the face of the speaker, and their gestures. We can ask ourselves: What did they mean by that? What motivated their action? Then: Why would I do what the character did?
We turn our attention inside and mindfully notice our breath, heartbeat, the level of tension in our hands, eyes, and shoulders. It’s so helpful to take a moment during or before reading a work of literature or meeting a person to breathe them in.
And we notice that even if we’re not the author of these words, we’re the author of our understanding. Only then can we begin to ask critical questions like: What evidence does the writer have for what they say? What evidence do we have for or against their position? What might be the consequences of their position, or their actions?
When I was teaching, I’d create a list of questions to guide a lesson. I’d read the novel, historical accounts, documents, and empathically imagine, feel my way to the character, the scene described, or the consequences of a theory, until I could almost play the character on a stage. I would come to love the character, or historical figure, even if I hated what they did. And then I’d ask myself questions⎼ question what I thought I knew. I’d imagine how the students would hear and respond to the questions and what they might ask. And I’d do the best I could so my ears were properly tuned to the students.
We can similarly step through the door to meet people we live with or see on the street, or when viewing the sky in the morning or the moon at night. We become soulmates, of a sort, noticeably different from each other, unique, yet we share a universe.
When our words are sincere like this, they sound to those who hear us like spirit music.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
