Rick Hanson Retreat

I spent Saturday at a daylong retreat hosted by Dharma Zephyr Insight Medidation Community and taught by Dr. Rick Hanson. Hanson is a psychologist who is also a Buddhist practitioner and a contributor to recent research on the brain and meditation. (His web page is wisebrain.org. I suggest everyone check it out.)

The day's talk gave me so much to think about that I don't even know where to start on this blog. After some thought, I decided to start with a theme I focused on a while back as a result of Hanson's newsletter for wisebrain.org: not taking things personally.

A while back, one of the DZ members suggested our sangha do a year of practice, where each one of us takes one suggestion from the Wise Brain bulletin and focus on that one element. I adopted the challenge to not taking things personally.

I think it's important to start this discussion with a caveat on my experience: not taking things personally is like asking myself to never get angry. For me, it is pretty much an impossible task. I did take things personally, but there were moments in which I was able to contemplate my response to a certain stimuli and to try to not take it personally.

On the superficial level, not taking things personally can do wonders for your relationship by establishing a peace that might not otherwise exist. When my husband, for example, asked me if I understood the essay he gave me, I reminded myself to not take things personally. I avoided the normal, negative response I have to his concerns that I don't understand something intellectual. What could have been another terse moment between the two of us turned into a short, not unpleasant discussion.

On a deeper level, not taking things personally is letting go of the self, a Buddhist teaching that not only boggles my mind, but often evades it as well. I do not exist because - really - what am I? As Rick Hanson's partner with the Wise Brain web page, Dr. Rick Mendius explains, ". . . [T]here is no self to be injured, but only the arising and passing of states of mind." If I remember that I am not insulted, but rather there exists an emotion of feeling insulted, I can separate from it. This is good practice at beginning to understand the concept of no self, for me anyway.

A better method of understanding of no self would have been to attend the second day-long retreat. Sunday's topic was No Self and the Brain. From what I hear, it was fascinating.

I could write for a year on topics that emerged in the retreat, but I think I'll cover two more: happiness and brain chemistry. To be continued . . . .

In Remembrance

Today is September 11, 2009. Eight years ago, I stood in front of my television and watched as a plane flew into the second tower. At that moment, I was clueless as to the extent of what was happening, but underneath my confusion, I knew that my world was about to change.

Eight years later, I still mourn the day that so many died in the terrorist attacks. I don't mourn the loss of our country's innocence, however. If anything good could come from such a terrible day, it is that Americans began to see themselves through the eyes of others. It took some time, but because of September 11, more Americans are aware of the fact that our government funds groups like al-Qaida when it serves in our best interest. After September 11, we began to see that America is not always the great liberator that we think she is. What could be more patriotic than seeing your own country with clear vision and not the myopia that so often limits our vision? To be able to love your country and know that she isn't perfect is a gift.

And still, it is a day I mourn. I mourn for those who lost their lives, those who lost loved ones, and those who suffered unmentionable grief as they witnessed their own city collapse.

On this day eight years ago, common Americans became heroes, entering burning buildings to save others, facing off with terrorists to prevent more loss of lives, and giving of their all to help their neighbor escape a calamitous situation.

It is also the day that our country joined together and for once put down differences in ideology.
But I am sentimental about this day. I am aware that that our joining together is what led us into an unjust war. In the days following September 11, our president could have led us to war with France because we so blindly bonded.

As I write this, I see contradicting statements in my words and lack of coherence - bouncing back and forth between ideas and stances, lack of smooth transitioning, inarticulately worded sentiments. Yet, I am okay with that because I know that that dissonance most clearly reflects my feelings on this anniversary. September 11 is so powerful for me because it contains for me deep grief, love, sorrow, and hope, as paradoxical as that may sound. America is, after all, a country of paradoxes.

Fatigue

I should grade papers. I should do laundry. I should get things ready for the morning. I should put my toddler back into his bed for the umpteenth time.

But sometimes the evening fatigue weighs me down like an anchor.

Tonight I am moored.

And feeling very guilty.

Achebe Vs. Conrad (or Achebe Vs. Me) Part II

I have been thinking about the topic of my last posting quite a bit since I last posted. Tonight, I sat down and in Yahoo typed Achebe and . . . . Before I could type Conrad, Yahoo filled it in with "Conrad." It seems I'm not the only one concerned with this topic and not the only one to defend Conrad and still admire Achebe.

Caryl Phillips writes for The Guardian, "The lecture has since come to be recognised as one of the most important and influential treatises in post-colonial literary discourse. However, the problem is I disagree with Achebe's response to the novel, and have never viewed Conrad - as Achebe states in his lecture - as simply 'a thoroughgoing racist'. Yet, at the same time, I hold Achebe in the highest possible esteem, and therefore, a two-hour drive up the Hudson River Valley into deepest upstate New York would seem a small price to pay to resolve this conundrum."

Phillips writes about his discussion with Achebe, and I must say that some of what Achebe says is convincing:

"...If Conrad's intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator, his care seems to me to be totally wasted because he neglects to hint, clearly and adequately, at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters. It would not have been beyond Conrad's power to make that provision if he had thought it necessary. Conrad seems to me to approve of Marlow..."

Okay, I see his point. It's kind of what I thought about the narrator of Things Fall Apart.

Achebe goes on to say, "Africa as setting and backdrop, which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognisable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril. Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?"

I'm tired and have thoughts that are not making their way into the world of words, so I'm going to just say, "Okay, Achebe. I hear ya'."

Achebe Vs. Conrad (or Achebe Vs. Me)

Warning: This is a very English-teachery kind of post, so for those of you who thought talking about literature in school was akin to torture, move on, my friends, move on.

I am reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I really like the story and the cadence of the language. The metaphorical, almost lyrical, story telling is enchanting.

But I should tell you that I procrastinated reading this book for a very long time because Achebe once gave a very famous speech in which he called Joseph Conrad a racist because of what he wrote in Heart of Darkness.

Now, I am not the biggest fan of Heart of Darkness (although I celebrate its literary value), but I have to say that anyone who calls Conrad a racist is completely missing the point of Conrad's book.

Back up: Why does Achebe call Conrad racist? I can see why, I guess. The story is about a man who travels into the heart of Africa via the Congo to retrieve a man lost to civilization. I can see why superficially someone might know the plot and think, "Conrad likens Africa to man's heart of darkness. He is calling the Africans evil; therefore, Conrad equals racist."

The fallacy in this syllogism is that Conrad isn't calling Africans evil. What he is really saying is that all men (humans) have within them the ability to act in evil ways. But at an even closer reading, we see that the story's theme rests here: the true barbarians are not the natives whom we call "barbarians," but rather the white European colonialists who conquer, rape, murder, enslave and mutilate other human beings all for greed. "The horror! The horror!" that Kurtz malents is not the horrors of the Africans, but the horrors of the white settlers.

I feel oddly defensive of Conrad and his story.

And my defensiveness of Conrad kept me from reading Achebe's book for a long time (seven years to be exact). As I expected, however, I am enjoying the book except that if Achebe can call Conrad a racist, then I can call Achebe a sexist. The narrator speaks about how the main character deserved to be able to beat his wife because, after all, she wasn't home in time to make dinner, but it was the Week of Peace, so he had to be punished. Later, we learn that the main character is proud because he can see that his son will be able to control his wives. There are a few other tidbits here and there.

I would never call Conrad a racist, and I am aware that Achebe isn't the speaker here, but rather the narrator. But if he can read so superficially, a part of me wants to do the same to him.

But I won't. Well, I guess I just did. But I will enjoy the last few pages of his book that I haven't been able to put down.