We Are One Voice the Universe Uses to Speak

My father died four years ago at the age of 96. By that time, he moved slowly, his head bent over, and he used a walker most of the time. Luckily, his brain and his ability to think remained sharp; slowed, yes, more easily frustrated, but deep until the last two weeks of his life.

 

And as I get into my mid-seventies, I sometimes feel him inside me. I get tired and sense him leaning over inside me or my head coming forward like his did. I slow down and feel old. Then I recognize what I’m doing and straighten up. In my mind and body, I go from 96 to 30. My posture improves. I feel more limber and energetic.

 

Most of us know Shakespeare’s famous lines from his play As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…” We enter a scene, and we form ourselves accordingly; depending on where we are or who we see, we put on a character, fabricate a history, try out gestures as we’d put on clothing. When meeting parents, or teachers, we think, feel, and act differently than meeting a close friend or an enemy.

 

But who are we acting for? Who is the audience? Is it for just for others or ourselves? There is often a performance aspect to our feelings and behavior even when no one else is around. We try out being different selves to help us decide what we feel comfortable doing or being, or try out different beliefs, attitudes to see how they feel. We might stand up straight not only to look brave to others but to convince ourselves.

 

I just started reading an interesting new book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, by Annie Murphy Paul. She clearly explains how we could increase our strength, resilience, level of success, and decrease how much we suffer. It is the same point that Buddhism and other meditation traditions have made for hundreds of years but now we have modern science to back it up. It’s less what we perceive or the events of our lives that shape us than how we respond to them.

 

Over a hundred years ago, psychologist William James said we often think we have an emotion and then act. We see a bear in the woods, or maybe a domestic terrorist on the street, and we feel fear, our heart pounds, palms sweat. We feel an impulse to run, and we run. We think the fear makes us run. But James said it’s the other way around. We feel fear because our body has begun to sweat, our heartbeat has sped up, our legs twitch. Likewise, we know we’re happy because we’re smiling. The body leads heart and mind.

 

Our emotions are not formed whole but are constructed of different elements. Murphy talks about building blocks of emotion. First, there’s interoception, or the awareness of internal sensations, as well as awareness of external sensations. These are added to a cognitive appraisal or interpretation of these sensations based on our beliefs, past experiences, our society, etc….

 

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

By Finding The Courage to Look At Yourself, You Discover the Courage to Defend the World

Right now, take a moment to simply breathe in, and then out.  Listen to your own body and what is happening inside by resting your awareness wherever it is called.  Maybe you’ll feel a bar of tension in your jaw or mouth or shoulders. Maybe you’ll feel an expansion in your belly as you breathe in, or a relaxation, letting go as you breathe out. Simply feel it.

 

If a thought or judgment arises, if you think, “I shouldn’t have thought that” or “why can’t I concentrate better,” just notice whatever occurs as you breathe in. And as you breathe out, return your attention to your awareness of feeling. Instead of letting your awareness be captured by self-judgments, simply observe, learn, and be kind to yourself. In this way, mind and body become one. You live in your own body and mind. Your sense of time slows to the pace of your attention.

 

The more you maintain focus on whatever arises, the more you feel a timeless awareness.

 

Slowing time is a beautiful remedy for stress and anxiety, and for the emotional harm this GOP administration is trying to impose on us all. Most, if not all of us, know what happens inside ourselves when we see his face or hear his voice—attacking Democrats as the enemy, attacking those seeking asylum at our borders as invaders or criminals, attacking reporters who question him as  “the enemy of the people,” attacking even his own cabinet.

 

When hate hits our bodies, we react. We tense. We don’t want to hear it—or most of us don’t.  How we respond depends a great deal on our past, on how we think about our own strength, or what theories or stories we tell ourselves about how the world works. These stories determine whether we respond by closing our ears, shield ourselves with hate, or whether we oppose it.

 

His attacks are meant to spread fear. We often think of fear as warning us to flee. But as we flee and hide, fear can increase. We stop acknowledging what we feel, stop being aware of what is happening inside. And thus we give him this power over us. We feel powerless. We allow him to turn off our interoception or inner knowing. This allows the inner tension to escalate.

 

Or we feel anger. But how do we direct and interpret that anger? Anger is an emotion of awakening. It awakens our sense of threat or danger and can prepare us to act. But if we don’t have clarity of mind and feeling to direct it, anger becomes self-destructive. We can feel angry that we’re angry. Or when we feel anger in response to fear, we treat it like a savior, a weapon of safety, and we can’t stop wielding it. We become our anger. We lose control. We lose ourselves.

 

When we look directly at our own anger, when we feel what it does inside us, we might notice the pain it causes. And behind that pain is an enormous realm, of caring about what happens to others, our world, and ourselves. When we perceive what is behind our anger, it yields to clarity. We focus on a larger reality.

 

We need to honor and respect our own inner world, feel what we feel and hear what we say. This way we let go of things more easily and live more fully. There is no inner warfare, no constant rumination, and no unnecessary conflict with others. We can think with every part of ourselves without fear and so we feel free to allow every part of others to be acknowledged.

 

Almost every act of this American political administration tries to teach the opposite. It tries to create in all of us a sense of inner chaos, disharmony, war, so we will war against whomever or wherever they direct us. They try to dehumanize us so we will do the same to others.

 

So by listening to and caring better for ourselves, we resist this administration. By honoring our humanity, we realize and cherish the humanity of others. We see ourselves with clarity and thus see the world with more clarity. Then we can act politically and socially with determination, kindness, and insight. Then we preserve our freedom.

 

When we have the courage to look directly at ourselves, we find the courage to act with clarity to defend our world.

 

 

Here is an exercise (based on a Buddhist compassion practice) to help you find both calm and understanding when you need it, or when the mindfulness practice above is not enough:

 

Close your eyes and take a calm and deep breath in, then a slow, long breath out. Simply sit, quietly. With your next breath, imagine feeling care, love, a parental sort of love, toward a young pet, or a young person. Just allow the image of a young animal or person to come to your mind, or the words care, love, child. Where in yourself do you feel this care or love? What does love feel like?

 

Then imagine a friend. Imagine this person, too, feels a similar feeling.

 

Then imagine someone you don’t know, someone you saw on the street, or in a store. Or imagine someone you disagree with. Imagine she or he feeling love, care, just like you do. They are different from you in so many ways, yet they, too, share this capacity with you. They, too, can love.

 

This is a simple thing. Yet it is so often lost. Sit for another moment, and find the feeling of love inside yourself. Find the recognition that those around you—no matter how different in some ways, they, too, want to find and feel this love. They share this with you.

 

*This post was syndicated by The Good Men Project.

 

Learning to Question

How do you get students to formulate and raise their own questions and take a more active part in a class? This question is being asked by many university professors as well as secondary school teachers.

 

With students in K-12 being subjected to more testing, and college age students pressured by debt and expectations to be productive right away, or to graduate as soon as possible, the stakes are raised, pressure increased.

 

When students arrive in a class, they have expectations of what will happen. They give teachers, to a large degree, what they were taught to give. When students resist active questioning, one culprit is obviously previous learning environments where learning was more passive, rote, or simplistic.

 

When I was teaching, my solution was to ask questions of students right away so they would get used to living with questions. I asked what they wanted to learn, what interests and questions they had related to the course. The courses themselves were structured around questions and assessments about answering them. When possible, I gave them choices in assignments and projects in order to get them to engage more actively. I would relate, or ask them to relate, big questions or material in the course to their own lives, other historical times and places with their time and place. If the class was big or most students reluctant to speak up, during a class period I would formulate questions so they could do something simple, like raise their hands to yes-no-maybe questions, or something complex, like reflect in journals on their viewpoints and the implications or possible consequences of those viewpoints

 

To actively and sincerely question, students need to do at least four things. They need to:

1. Once they get immersed in material and work to understand it, they need to be able to recognize the questions they hold, and the “feel” of a question. Recognizing you have a question has as much to do with emotional awareness and feeling as intellect. You need to recognize the discomfort or inner pressure.

2. Value questions, value your feelings, the course, and feel it is worthwhile to engage.

3. Trust the environment, teacher, themselves. To ask a question or actively engage involves risk. You need to trust yourself and your teacher.

4. Know how to work with discomfort, especially the discomfort of not-knowing. People often want to turn away from discomfort, risk, threat, whether it is external or internal. But to question, you must go directly toward discomfort.

 

Some people think a question is a sign of ignorance. Actually, it’s a sign of strength. Recognizing you have a question or that there is a question is recognizing your knowledge or understanding is incomplete. A question is halfway to an answer. It is an insight, a moment of waking up, of increased awareness, when something unconscious becomes conscious. It is an epiphany, requiring unconscious synthesis.  As such, it is delicate. It needs to be treasured. Instead of punishing lack of insight, enjoy insight. You reinforce it by valuing it; you open to it by enjoying it.

 

To get students to question means getting them to let go of prior understandings and recognize what they don’t know. They need to be able to let go of what is comfortable, old, unexamined to let in what is new and reasonable. So, to teach questioning, you need to teach about the role emotions play in thinking.

 

What do you do when you’re unsure about what you feel or think, or you don’t know what’s bothering or driving you? How do you improve your ability to listen and hear what you’re saying to yourself, to see, not just look? Interoception is a relatively new word that means “perceiving within,” or hearing your own inner voice. It is crucial for thinking clearly. Mindfulness or learning how to be aware moment-by-moment of thoughts, feelings, and sensations is one way to train interoception.

 

The teacher is a model for students and so must model listening and questioning and making their thinking process more visible, so student’s can learn how to do the same. When teachers enter the classroom as guides to learning, not know-it-alls; if teachers admit when they lack knowledge and have doubts, students feel more inclined to do the same.

 

Teach specific questions to ask when you’re discussing a topic or reading a text. The usual favorites are ‘what,’ ‘why’ and then ‘how.’ “What exactly was said? What was the context? What was meant?” And: “Why was it said? What reasons would/did the person give for saying it? What is the proof?” Then: “How did they or would you apply this?”

 

Teach self-examination and reflection through writing as well as meditation. Self-examination is only as good as your ability to be present with whatever is occurring in each moment, whether it be with others or your own thoughts or feelings. Ask students to pick up a pen and write down exactly what they hear, now, in their mind, without editing. Write even your wonder about what you’re writing. [I recommend the book Writing Your Mind Alive by Linda Trichter Metcalf and Tobin Simon, which describes a practice of revelation and understanding called proprioceptive writing.]

 

Cultivate joy in the classroom, joy in thinking, creating, and in being together as an intellectual community. This reduces pressure, fear, and increases engagement and thinking. Use meaningful projects to teach and assess instead of joyless exams. You can turn intellectual exercises into improvisation games. For example, show the class a photograph of a few people interacting in public. Ask students to study the photo and then write, “who-what-why:” who the people are, what they’re doing, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Tell them to simply listen to their first thoughts and let their imaginations work. Or give students a word that easily evokes an archetype, such as ‘no’ or ‘wonder,’ and ask them to say the word to themselves a few times. Then describe an imagined person who this word personifies. Or have students create three people, from three contrasting words, like ‘yes-no-maybe.’ Put these three in a situation and imagine what will happen.

 

Such exercises can also introduce empathy training. When students learn to understand, care about, and act for the well-being of others they feel cared for themselves. There are many meditation practices to develop empathy and compassion.

 

Of course, the whole environment of a school can aid or hinder a student’s ability to actively engage with her learning. Democratic schools are an especially supportive environment for questioning and critical thinking because student voices are valued outside as well as inside the classroom.

 

To question, first listen. To listen, first care. To care—hopefully needs no further reason.

 

*Photo of Sacred Way in Delphi, Greece.

To Question, First Listen

Several teachers asked me: “How do you get students to question, or ask questions?” I often say that, to start any unit or start the school year, find out what questions students have about the subject. What do they want or feel a need to know? But, students don’t always know or won’t say. Their questions are not always clear to them. The same for most of us. So, what then?

 

What do you do when you’re unsure about what you feel or think, or you don’t know what’s bothering or driving you? In other words, how do you hear what you’re saying to yourself?  Or, how do you improve your ability to listen, not just hear; to see, not just look? That’s a big question, bigger than I can answer.

 

Some people think a question is a sign of ignorance. Actually, it’s a sign of strength. A question is halfway to an answer. You need to recognize that you don’t know in order to come to knowing or to changing a viewpoint. So, teach and learn how to live with not-knowing and to live with questions.

 

One important element of teaching questioning in school is creating an environment or school culture that honors questioning and honors student voices, both in and out of the classroom. For example, a democratic school honors student voices and gives students a sense that their viewpoints are important. If they think their views are important, they will be more motivated to listen to themselves. If the school does not give students a sincere voice, students have more of a struggle to recognize value in their own mind and heart.

 

But what if you don’t have or can’t create a democratic school? Or even if you do, it’s not enough. The teacher in a classroom can model asking and listening– and questioning. Teachers should make their thinking visible, so the student can do the same. When teachers enter the classroom as if they are guides to learning, not know-it-alls; if teachers admit they lack knowledge and have questions, students feel more inclined to do the same.

 

Teach model questions. For example, questions to ask when you’re discussing a topic or reading a text. Questions to ask to test the speaker and ones to ask to test your own understanding. My favorites are ‘what,’ and ‘why’ and then how. “What exactly was said? What was the context? What was meant?” And: “Why was it said? What reasons would/did the person give for saying it? What is the proof?” Then: “How did they or would you apply this?”

 

What you are after is interoception, a relatively new word that means “perceiving within,” or perceiving one’s internal state. Humans have evolved brain systems devoted to this skill. Interoception is crucial for thinking clearly and acting with awareness. Mindfulness or learning how to be aware moment-by-moment of thoughts, feeling, and sensations is one way to train interoception.

 

Another way is to pick up a pen and write down on a piece of paper exactly what you hear, now, in your mind, without editing. Write even your wonder about what you’re writing. And then read Writing Your Mind Alive, by Linda Trichter-Metcalf and Tobin Simon. It describes a practice of revelation and understanding called proprioceptive writing.  The practice helped me find joy in writing, after I had lost it, and deepen understanding and self-trust.

 

Improvisational theatre games can be adapted to the classroom. They’re fun, and also teach you how to listen not only for your inner speech but for that of others. I’ll describe a few exercises I have used frequently in a classroom:

Show the class a photograph of a few people interacting in public. Ask students to study the photo and then write, “who-what-why;” who the people are, what they’re doing, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Tell them to simply listen to their intuition and let their imaginations work.

Give students one word, one that easily evokes an archetype, such as ‘no’ or ‘wonder’ and ask them: say the word to yourself a few times. Then describe an imagined person who this word personifies. To take this to the next step, have students create three people, from three contrasting words, like ‘yes-no-maybe.’ Put these three in a situation and imagine what will happen.

A more physical exercise might be mirroring. Pair up students. Have the people face each other, hands up, palms toward the partner. You can begin by having one person act as the leader, and then switch back and forth until there’s no clear leader.  When one moves, the other mirrors the movement. Make the movements fairly easy, at first. Do not lose eye contact or break the plane of the mirror.

 

Mirroring is a good way to introduce empathy training. There are many meditation practices to develop empathy and compassion. According to Paul Ekman, who has studied emotion extensively, empathy can take different forms. It begins with recognizing or reading what someone is feeling or thinking. It can then progress to “feeling with” another. Add caring and the willingness to act for another’s welfare and you have compassionate empathy. Add putting yourself at risk and you have altruism. Empathy is not “self-sacrifice” in the sense of not valuing your life. Instead, valuing (and clearly perceiving) the messages of your own mind and heart allows you to value the mind and heart of others, and vice versa.

 

To question, first listen. To listen, first care. To care—hopefully needs no further reason.