Green Oasis

(via Pharyngula)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,…
(The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats)

I envision my consciousness like a wave of the sea which eventually crashes on the beach and ceases to exist. My mind is just a process which will come to an end someday.

I feel like I should be immortal only because the only world I’ve ever known has included me in it. As a child, I imagined every event that happened before my birth in black and white as if the world wasn’t fully real until I entered it.

Is this observer truly me? If the observer in my head defines me, what happens when I drift into dreamless sleep? Where am I then? Does death feel different than drifting off to sleep?

Or does the process which defines me also include all of my body which supports that observer? Without my body, my mind wouldn’t exist. Is my body part of my self? Does my self even further include the world which gives nourishment to my body and gives shape to my thoughts? What uniquely defines me as me? Where is the line where I end and everything else begins? Can an honest line be drawn between me and not me?

Is my self essentially my intelligence? My personality? My memories? What if I am in a car accident on my way home tonight suffering a traumatic head injury and all of those are taken away from me? Am I still me? Or have I become someone else? Have I ever ceased changing from one person to another?

Is there any truth in the idea that there is a clearly defined self which persists throughout my life? My body changes. My mind grows and changes. The material that makes up my body is continually cycled in and out. The flesh and blood which currently make up me isn’t the same stuff which made up my body as a child. I am constantly in flux, continually remade.

I eat death. Death gives me life. I die in turn each day giving birth to new life.

The only self I can point to is a whirlwind, a wave, a flame which has an apparent beginning and an end. It comes together from other processes, gives birth to still others, and eventually becomes unrecognizable.

Why should I become attached to this process of experience that is my self? What the Lord gives, he also takes away. It is not equitable to mourn the end which is the natural consequence of the fact of my wonderful existence.

As I see myself outside of ego, death begins to lose its fearful power over my mind.

I try to live life to the fullest not because it will ultimately make a lasting difference in the universe. All life will probably come to an end in the distant future. I live now because that sterile future comes only after many people live and die. I live so that I can make my personal experience better and to improve the lives of future generations in any way that I can. The universe doesn’t care, but I do. I live in curiosity, compassion, thought, and passion because I am human. That’s what humans do.

See Ego—The False Center.

[Adapted from my comment to a post at Letters from a broad.]

An atheist professor from Virginia Tech has taken the opportunity provided by a piece of throwaway bigotry to express my source of hope and meaning better than I can. (Thanks to Jewish Atheist for collecting this story and bringing it to my attention.)

I just read a lovely little story called Love, Mormon Style by Bob Bringhurst over at Main Street Plaza. The author creates very believable characters who struggle to find love in Mormon culture. I look forward to reading more Mormon literature in the future. Why did no one tell me that here was more to Mormon letters than The Work and the Glory and Charly?

I just listened to a wonderful interview of Thich Nhat Hanh, a spiritual teacher for people of many faiths around the world. This audio program also includes an interview with a policewoman who uses mindfulness to find compassion for the people she meets while on duty, and another interview with a former Baptist minister who finds hope for healing the world through self transformation. I highly recommend listening to the entire podcast.

I would like to touch on just one aspect of this interview: how mindfulness brings us compassion. It seems to be a human impulse to escape from the distasteful things of life. Our religions often reflect this impulse. We dream of a far off heaven where all troubles cease and we live in comfort away from the tragedies and horrors of mortality. We long for cleanliness and purity. We long to be more than human.

There is a competing impulse in religion which seeks to explain why we are here, to give this existence meaning. If God loves us, why did He send us to this awful place? Religion offers many explanations to this question, but Thich Nhat Hanh gave an explanation which made me think. He said that suffering is necessary for us to develop understanding and compassion. This part wasn’t new to me. Adam and Eve were sent into this world to learn to discern between good and evil. (Genesis 2:9, 17) Jesus condescended to become mortal so that he could know how to succor his people. (Alma 7:10—12) So even Jesus needed to come here in order to learn mercy, according to Mormonism.

Where Thich Nhat Hanh went from there was new to me. He said that the kingdom of God is a place of compassion, therefore suffering is necessary. He wouldn’t want his children to be in a place without suffering, because they could not learn to be understanding. He compared the impulse to eradicate all suffering to trying to grow a lotus flower on a marble floor—it can’t be done. One needs mud to grow a lotus flower.

This can be seen within a Christian framework by imagining this life as the dirt blooming in the eternities. But for me, coming from another perspective, it said something different. His statement said to me that the kingdom of God is here where we suffer. This is the place of suffering and therefore compassion and understanding. Here is the place of love which springs up in the wake of misery and suffering.

If I spend my time fantasizing about a better place, I am not being mindful of my current situation. The suffering of my neighbor doesn’t soften my heart and steel my resolve like it could because I imagine that they are bound for a better place. “Their suffering will end when their life is over,” I might say. “My suffering—and theirs—will be but a short moment.” By taking my eyes off of life, I increase suffering. I must be mindful of my brothers and sisters. (Genesis 4:9) Suffering is like the knock on the door inviting us to open our hearts to each other.

I don’t want to escape this place where love can thrive. If our destiny is to live in a place where we do not suffer (Doesn’t God suffer because of our sins? Isn’t heaven therefore a place of suffering?), I hope that we are continually reminded of our own suffering with a bright recollection (Alma 11:43) so that will never forget compassion.