When the Sky Clears, What Is It We See? The Bird Danced on the Roof Top, Saluting Sky, and the Emptiness in Which It Flies and We All Live

Last week, my wife and I were walking down our rural road when we noticed a large bird enter the space above our heads and circle lazily. Then a second arrived, and a third. Probably Turkey Vultures, magnificent in flight. And suddenly, all three were just gone. We didn’t see where they went.

 

At first, we felt the sky as empty, emptied of birds, lacking. But as we looked more fully, what before was merely background became something else, something more. We saw in full clarity the deep blue beauty of the clear afternoon sky. Not only the sky had cleared, but our minds.

 

The great poet and translator, David Hinton, in his book Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape, said when we open our eyes, we open the sky inside us. We feel this empty space the size of the universe.

 

A Chinese poem, says Hinton, is not a metaphor seen or conjured from inside a spirit or identity center, or a self-separated from the universe, but the mind of the poet at that moment. Hinton quotes an early Chinese Ch’an (Zen) poet, Hsieh Ling-yun, as saying mind is “a tranquil mirror, all mystery and shadow.”

 

The sky mirrors our conscious awareness coming awake in, or more accurately, as the world. We often think of the sky as that blue or cloud filled something far off in the distance. But it’s also what we breathe in and out right here; what we move though each moment of our lives. We see and breathe in the world and the world sees and breathes in us.

 

And then the birds were back; first one, then the other two. They circled gracefully into the area above us. One went to sit on the ridgeline of a barn next to the road. The other two soon joined the first, but at the other end.  And the first raised its wings, held them out to the side as it would do if it meant to take off. But it stayed in place, in a different sort of flight.

 

Was this a mating dance? Or was it saluting the sky, the emptiness, the medium in which it flew, and we all lived? Was it bowing? For us, we might bow by first bringing our open hands together; for the vulture, it bowed by opening its wings out. Hinton says the ancient Chinese characters for bow mean hand-whispers, or maybe hand as the silence of mountain peaks, or clear minds. Maybe by opening its wings thusly it became the sky itself, the light, the silence.

 

We watched to see what the vulture would do next, but it just held the position. The three birds, my wife and I, the barn, the universe. And we walked on. The opening through which the universe was aware of itself walked on….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

 

**The photo of the Buzzard Dance was taken on our walk.

How We Look Is Not Separate from What We See: Giving Form to What’s Most Intimately Ourselves

Sometimes, we surprise ourselves with what we can do, with what we know and don’t know.

 

I retired from teaching secondary school ten years ago. But last night, in my dreams I was once again teaching. In many classes, ten, twenty, thirty students or more showed up. In others, only one or two.  Maybe students had begun to assume that I would always be there and took me for granted. Or maybe they were too distracted by their personal lives, or I was getting too tired. Whatever it was, my dream-self decided it was time to retire.

 

In one room, a large group of students came to hear and join me in saying goodbye. It was surprising how full of feeling the situation was. We accepted each other so deeply. And I had nothing planned. It was all spontaneous. What I said emerged extemporaneously, as if from all of us together, and included nothing about goodbyes.

 

The way a moment forms has so much to teach us and is teaching us so much as it forms. There is so much there if we can see it and feel it. It’s the ultimate teacher. In fact, we are this forming of a moment. But will we look? Feel?

 

And I woke up. Sort of. The light outside was a gray mist emerging from the dark night, a dawn just beginning to gray. Outside the window, almost no discernible objects emerged from the mist, no trees, or bushes. But in the mostly dark inside, I could discern the placement but not the details of the bed, dresser, and other furniture. And as I wrote down the dream on a pad of paper by my bed, I wondered if anyone in the dream, any student had understood what I was saying.

 

Then I realized the answer in the dream was also a question. Do I understand my own answer?

 

Research and theories by psychologists and neuroscientists speculate one purpose of dreaming is to integrate emotional, and other material from our daily lives. Was the dream an example of that integration process? Was it telling me what my conscious mind couldn’t figure out or was it merely putting into words what I had already concluded? We often underestimate the role the unconscious and the resting mind plays in conscious and critical thinking. Our conscious understanding never gets it all. But if we humbly accept that, sometimes what we find surprises us with its depth and value…..

 

**To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

The Dream that Heals and the River that Flows Through Us

Recently, just before having a scary medical test, I had a dream that I not only remembered afterwards in detail, but which greatly affected me. Actually, remembered might not be the most accurate way to describe what happened, because I was partly awake even while I was dreaming.

 

In the dream, I was visiting the city of my birth and wanted to call my parents. They were back in the home where I grew up, even though they had moved out of that house several years before either my mom’s or my dad’s death. And in the dream, I knew all this, knew they had died years ago. Yet, I still wanted to call them on the phone, but I had forgotten their phone number.

 

Suddenly, I was with a group of friends entering a restaurant not far from my parent’s old home, not far from my old home. The friends and I had reservations for dinner. But I decided to quickly walk to my parent’s house, tell them I would come by after dinner and stay the night, and I’d get their phone number.

 

When I got to the house, I looked in the front window. Both my parents were there. They were entertaining other couples. But they had a security guard at the door, a tall, strong man standing in a darkened area of the front porch. The guard knew about me, had heard stories from my parents. He even told me about his own son who was training in the martial arts. But he wouldn’t let me in without checking my ID. I showed him my driver’s license and he said I could enter.

 

As soon as I did, I was swept up in the feel, the atmosphere of the past. I was there, in my old home, with my parents very fully there, right there, and yet I also knew they were no longer alive.

 

Then I woke up. Somehow, dreaming this dream changed my whole emotional situation. I felt good, no longer afraid of the medical test, or maybe anything. It was not that I felt my parents could, now, speak to me. But seeing them made my past come alive ⎼ and was possibly telling me something about my future. About not fearing death, maybe? Or about fear itself? About reality?

 

We wander to so many places in our dreams, and we can dream and wander both while asleep and awake. Daydreams, and all manner of thoughts and images can run around our minds all through the day, accessing the same river of imagery as night dreams.

 

The dream clearly reminded me how much I missed my parents and that they were still with me, as me. And that includes so much more than their DNA. No one is perfect, but my parents, more than anyone, taught me to love. But was the security guard a gatekeeper to a mythic realm or heaven, or maybe a form of Charon without his ferryboat, taking my dream mind to the other shore? And why had I forgotten their phone number?…

 

**To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

 

Presence

My cats Milo and Tara often wander the world with me. If I sit at my computer, they sleep nearby. If I go outside, they follow me. They seem to like simply being in my presence. I sometimes feel a very silly sort of happiness seeing them sleeping by my feet. This happiness doesn’t just happen with cats, although the people I know luckily don’t follow me around or sleep at my feet. I love simply being with my wife, family and close friends. When I was in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, I lived in a big house by myself in a relatively small village in the bush. When I first arrived, there were no other Peace Corps people or friends within miles. A few of the villagers liked to come and sit with me. If I talked with them, they would often leave. When asked why they came, the response was that they didn’t want me to feel lonely. Talk was unnecessary, even an obstacle. What is it about presence that is so satisfying?

 

What is presence? It is certainly not well defined. Is it about feeling safe? My cats feel safe with me, I hope. I certainly feel safe with them—and certainly with my friends and wife. I can relax and open up. There is little or no need for pretense. Presence is an absence of pretense, a type of mirroring back. One party opens, trusts and the other feels it and gives it back. One hears, sees, feels and is in turn heard, seen, felt.

 

Presence is not just being in the same space with someone, and not just with other beings. It can be on one’s own or with any place, object or situation. Recently, there was an opinion piece about presence in the NY Times called, “Being There: Heidegger on Why Our Presence Matters.” The author, Lawrence Berger, said many cognitive scientists argue that, “We are information processors rather than full-bodied human beings.” For these cognitive scientists, human beings don’t experience anything “outside” us, like another person or a tree, directly but only some sort of “internal” representation of it created by our senses and brain. We supposedly respond not directly to the tree or person but the representation. We are, in principle, locked away from the world. What is ultimately real are the physical and physiological processes, synapses, neurons, myelin sheaths, not presence. But on other “levels,” we can speak of electrons jumping around, or on another there are chemical interactions, etc.. So, isn’t each person a universe of multiple perspectives? Aren’t each of these perspectives equally about what’s “real”? And isn’t one of these perspectives, and an important one, the sense of a face lighting up in your presence?

 

One neuroscientist mentioned by Berger said that conscious awareness is “a cartoonish reconstruction of attention that is as physically inaccurate as the brain’s internal model of color.” These cognitive scientists remind me of different, older theories which “reduce” consciousness to something mechanical, physical and measurable. For example, the behaviorists of the early twentieth century argued that consciousness could not be studied and was irrelevant to explaining human behavior. It had no causal significance. Human behavior, they theorized, is conditioned, basically “programmable,” like machines. This position led to some important discoveries but also abuses.

 

The cognitive scientists focus on the mechanisms of what happens in the body when we attend. For Heidegger, a 20th Century phenomenologist philosopher, attention is not just selecting what in the world we take in, but what becomes present to us, or what takes on life, being. The “beingness,” or the mere sense of aliveness becomes primary. Attention is not just selecting what we pay attention to and with what strength or intensity, but the quality or the “feel of” that attention. So, if this is true, isn’t presence crucial for constructing meaning, understanding, and clear thinking?

 

Berger said, “When we feel that someone is really listening to us, we feel more alive, we feel our true selves coming to the surface — this is the sense in which worldly presence matters.” Presence is a recognition of our subjective experience as an event in the world, not separate from it. It is not just internal physical mechanisms or processes which have an effect. The quality of our awareness, our presence has an effect on the world.

 

And for scientists to say that conscious experience has no causal relationship to our behavior, or is merely a representation separate from a reality it simplifies and depicts, is untenable. To date, there is no clear or definitive understanding of consciousness from either science or philosophy. Anyone can theorize or have an opinion, of course, but must recognize the tentativeness of their position.

 

In my high school classes, I sometimes asked students: What are the implications of these different theories of consciousness on how you act or feel about yourself? If humans are totally programmable, would it be ethical or humane to hurtfully experiment on them and then just wipe away the memories of pain? What happens to how you treat other people when you conceive of them as machines, even computers? Which understanding of your own mind would best enable you to do school work—one which conceived mind as a cartoon, or one which thought of mind, consciousness as powerful?

 

And, you are never separate from the physical universe. If what you experience are representations you construct or cartoons you draw or theorize, this is an event inseparable from the universe that you construct. Thus, when “I” see “my” cat Tara, the perception is inseparable from me, Tara is inseparable from me. I and cat, (I-Thou) arise together. The theory by which I explain the universe is a metaphor I use to view and act in that universe. Thus, shouldn’t the effects on behavior of the theories you use be considered as part of the evidence by which a theory is evaluated?

 

If you’re a teacher, you must do the physical things, like prepare, bring in supplies, give clear directions and ask meaningful questions (and eat a good breakfast). But, as Berger said, you must also remember your “worldly presence matters.” For the student, the aliveness of the teacher, the caring, the “being heard,” the feeling that your is life mirrored, held and valued by the other—these matter. You model and teach presence and how to make theoretical questions “present’ or alive to your students. And when you do so, the mere act of listening with your whole being means you are heard, you matter. You give, you receive. This, I believe, is clear.

 

 

**The photo is of the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey.

Habits of Mind

In the 1990s, Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick wrote a series of books on fostering habits of mind that assist the learning process. I, and many teachers that I worked with, greatly benefitted from their approach. The books argued that if students learned these habits, then they would be able to successfully put in the type of effort that leads to deep learning. The habits included persisting, striving for accuracy, thinking flexibly, managing impulsivity, listening with understanding and empathy, thinking about thinking, responding with wonderment and awe, etc. This approach is being revived today and I think it is a tremendous step, hopefully indicating an increased understanding of the necessity to teach the social and emotional aspects of learning. I would make minor adjustments, such as adding patience to persisting, and gratitude to responding with wonderment and awe. And I’d ask: Is it accurate and beneficial to call these mental processes or qualities of mind “habits”? Are the habits separate and discrete? Or are they merely different ways to view one quality of mind or experience? And what is the most efficacious way to teach what the habits teach us?

 

Costa and Kallick describe many excellent methods for teaching these habits. For example, you can use “word splashes” or brainstorms on the meanings of the habit. You can use questioning strategies that help students elucidate and analyze a problem, and you can incorporate the habits into rubrics students can use to reflect on their thinking process.

 

We teach through modeling. To help teach reflection, for example, we model awareness, honesty and humanity in the class.  We need to admit what and when we don’t really know something or if we get something wrong. If we want to teach flexibility or hearing with empathy, for example, then we teach with those qualities. When there is any doubt about what a student means in his or her analysis of a passage in a text, for example, we don’t just assume we understand what a student means; we paraphrase and then ask for confirmation.

 

Other ways to teach these qualities that I use include linking class content and student concerns. By asking students to work on questions that are meaningful and important to them, we can stimulate the student’s own striving for accuracy, curiosity, and ability to think flexibly and critically.

 

Costa and Kallick state that the habits work together. Thinking critically, for example, is a complex and multifaceted mental process and is best taught as a whole process. I think it begins with clarifying the problem or question and careful observation. Then gathering and immersing yourself in the material, presenting and questioning evidence and theories, mindful awareness and reflection on your process, incubation or stepping back to gain some perspective. And, finally, stating and testing a synthesis or conclusion. It involves not one but possibly all of the beneficial habits Costa and Kallick describe.

 

And I recommend teaching the habits experientially, with mindful meditation. Take a moment to sit back and relax. Just settle into the chair. Close your eyes now, or in a moment or two, as you feel comfortable. Just let your body settle, relax. Pick a place to put your attention, like maybe the area around your eyes. Just feel the muscles around your eyes. Can you feel how your body, very subtly, expands as you breathe in? Just notice it. And as you breathe out, can you feel your eyes relax, settle down, let go of any tension?  Just feel that for a minute.

 

Give the following directions or ask the following questions one at a time, with patience.

 

Now, think of a time that you were very patient, or you witnessed someone else being patient. Just observe yourself or the person. What did you or this person do? What actions did she or he take? What qualities did you or this other person show? How do you think the person felt while being patient? How do you feel when you’re patient? How does it feel when someone is patient with you?

 

Now just sit for a minute with the feeling of patience.

 

When you practice this meditation, notice what you feel at the end. Patience does not stand by itself. It comes along with other qualities of mind, more than I could sum up, qualities like calmness and clarity of thought. You manage impulsivity, for example, by first monitoring it, or by allowing awareness of how the impulsivity is specifically arising moment-by-moment in your body and mind. If you get absorbed in your internal comments or become judgmental of yourself for “having” the impulsivity, or if you don’t allow the awareness of what is going on to fully arise, you become lost. You manage nothing.

 

And this is true with all the “habits.” They are different aspects of awareness of what and how we “pay” attention. To start learning habits of mind, allow into awareness, “How am I thinking, now? What habits am I using now?” One of the habits, for example, is “thinking about thinking” or metacognition. We could also call it “attending to thinking” to avoid using the word ‘thinking’ too ambiguously. What is the goal of attending to our thinking? Is it an intellectual analysis of how our thinking could be improved? Or is it actually thinking consciously and clearly? The two are not necessarily the same, any more than eating a meal and the description of the tastes are the same.  Analysis is based on memory and is an after-the-fact commenting on conscious experience. The other is direct experience. The former depends on the latter. Mindfulness meditation teaches us how to be aware of direct experience, or our moment-by-moment quality of attention. This includes, as we pointed out with “impulsivity,” being aware and open to whatever arises, even confusion, anxiety, or fear. Without developing this clear awareness of direct experience, metacognition is handicapped.

 

The habits of mind bring attention to important mental processes or qualities of mind. However, these “habits” are not discrete and separate. They arise and work together. And to fully utilize a complex mental process, you need clear awareness of your own mental state. Mindfulness meditation provides a wonderful method to develop this clear and direct awareness.