What to write about?

Flat back meditation

This morning there is energy to write. What about? About one of the topics that appeared in the attention centre while flat backing. There were many topics rolling past in thought trains so why did the focus land on this one rather than on another? In other words what caused the decision?

There is no awareness of an answer in consciousness. Presumably the answer lies in the unconscious.  But, to ‘my’ ‘I’, that is forbidden territory – by definition. If ‘I’ knew the answer then it would no longer be in the unconscious.

BUT – an approach to finding the answer can be made by the act of writing. While sitting at the computer there are so many ideas passing through the attention centre than there is no time to record them all. Most will get away; but a few can be captured.  So what was the question again?

What caused the decision to write about deciding what to write about?

The unconscious might deliver some answers into up-front consciousness, especially if the mental mud in the up-front areas is allowed to settle. So sit up straight with eyes closed and put attention on the breathing. The unconscious will divert attention from the breath to all manner of other things, often with feelings attached. The more ‘interesting’ ones can be mentally labelled and the label words can be typed to give something to refer to when the sitting ends and the writing begins.

Four themes emerged while the above paragraphs were being written. A few words can be put together on each of these and on other robust themes that appear.

It was a conscious decision to use the passive voice and to avoid the use of personal pronouns in this article. This makes sentences seem more powerful and authoritative. There is the impression that dealings are with ‘the’ truth rather than with ‘my’ truth. (Skill in editing out the active voice was developed while tutoring more than twenty Lesotho counterparts on their Master dissertations.)

The passive voice can be used to hide or at least fudge the matter of agency. Frank Sinatra famously noted that “I did it my way” rather than “it was done according to a personal code of ethics.” 

All effects have causes and, especially in the human realm, these can be thought of as behaviours having intentions: and these take the form of automatic reactions (due to hard wired instincts) or thoughtful responses (due to flexible learning)

brainstorming

Most people know something about brainstorming but they don't always appreciate how it can fit systematically into a larger concept of ‘interactive mind mapping’ which can be managed through communicating in groups. The mind mapping is a three stage process that involves helping people to better understand what they already know by brainstorming, categorising , and linking. (for details see http://www.toonloon.bizland.com/tot/brainsto.htm) The process is also suited to individualised mind mapping.

There has been writing for many years. There are many recurrent themes, and considerable repetition of words, phrases and even sentences. The conscious brain is hopeless at keeping track.

For a time there was a feeling that the unconscious brain had an understanding of what was going on and that it was guiding the overall process of generating integrated viewpoints and world views. So work was being done behind the scenes. Something from nothing? Is this Magic? Perhaps not. A three page paper on “Language and Uncommon sense” is dated 20 November 2011 and it reads as if it had been written yesterday. See at http://www.scribd.com/doc/73564521/Language-and-Uncommon-Sense

 

So is there now an indication of how it was decided what to write about? Not really. There is some more writing about the writing process. But this is not original and stand alone. Three compilations of articles were put together in 2011. There is a hypothesis that nothing fundamentally new has been written since then. But there is presently no appetite for gathering the evidence to test the hypothesis.

The compilations are available at http://www.scribd.com/george_clark_25/

 

May 2011: With agency in mind – on the road to easy peace
June 2011: Witnessing the attention centre – switching on the light
June 2011: Muse flows in the zone – below the tip of the iceberg.

An angst ridden and despairing lecturer at the University of Sussex once suggested that, while it may be theoretically impossible to know of, or to speak of, ‘the truth’, there is still the possibility of being convincing. At least 80% of communication is non-verbal.  What matters is not so much what is said as how it is said. 

Viewpoints and world views are mind made and therefore illusory and unreal –but this does not stop people being willing to die defending them. Thich Nhat Hahn’s Order of Interbeing invites people to climb the mystic’s mountain. The Order has fourteen precepts the first of which is: “Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.”

Everybody lives with ongoing mental churn. Some people pay attention to the churn and think, speak and act accordingly.

The ongoing mental churn is the source of both conscious and unconscious  common ‘sense’. It is also potentially the source of that form of uncommon sense that has been known to mystics through the ages.

The case can be made that the ‘spiritual’ frame of mind is nothing special. It is hard wired into all our brains but in most cases it is buried beneath potent layers of cultural indoctrination which serve to keep most people in ignorance so that they do not get fancy ideas above their servile social stations.

So what is to be done? Be still and let the mental mud settle. There will then be the clarity that is our birthright. Nothing is missing. And words are the weapons of choice in the struggle for freedom, compassion and the peace that passes all understanding. 

That seems like a wholesome and noble topic to decide to write about.

Tread on my jokes

The “Ask the Horse” story arrived this morning while I was thinking that my latest writings contain  elements of capricious whimsy and jokes.

The basic subject matter is the structure and function of the mind and its brain; this is understood from the perspectives of neurology, evolutionary psychology and meditation. The associated world view is that human beings are stardust manifest such that we are increasingly conscious of consciousness. There is thus the theoretical possibility that we will not self destruct anytime soon - although our number will be up when the sun goes out.

So it is heavy stuff. But I treat it whimsically and with capricious inputs from the unconscious.

My tongue is often in my cheek and there is a penchant for (a) short sentences and paragraphs, (b) lists of three, and (c) for alliteration. 

There goes a list of three but it is not amazingly and artistically alliterated.

Here goes a seemingly capricious leap.

Malcolm Muggeridge

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (1903 – 1990) was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy. He is credited with popularising Mother Teresa and in his later years became a Catholic and moral campaigner. I remember him as being (a) an ‘interesting’ talking head on the telly in my youth and (b) the author of a book with the tantalising title, "Tread Softly for you Tread on my Jokes"

‘Reality’ is a joke. People try to capture it in words but this is futile. Language evolved to deal with pragmatic matters and it is not suited to ‘spiritual’ and metaphysical notions. Thus is it said that “those who speak do not know”.  Oratory is a joke. Rhetoric is a joke. Debate pits joke against joke. “Those who know do not speak.” Tread softly

I have no qualms about mentioning public figures like Muggeridge in my writings. He put himself and his thoughts and feelings in the public domain and earned a living from the comment that followed. 

I do, however, have qualms about mentioning real, private people in my stories. This is particularly true of Sangha members and of things said during the sessions of ‘sharing from the heart and mindful listening’. There is a tacit assumption that things said in the sanctuary will remain there. If attributable stories were to be written and plastered over the internet the sheltered atmosphere of sharing would be in serious jeopardy. And the Sangha itself might melt away. Tread softly.

BUT – spiritual pussy footing may not be the best way.  Practitioners have to work out their salvation with diligence. Renunciation of world views is hard. Tough measures may be required. Sometimes there is need to ride roughshod rather than tread softly. But, in either case, it helps to see the joke.

Ask the horse

Ask the horse

There is a Zen story about a man riding a horse which is galloping very quickly. Another man, standing alongside the road, yells at him, “Where are you going?” and the man on the horse yells back, “I don’t know. Ask the horse.”

If you make some time to sit quietly you very quickly realise that your mind has a mind of its own. Your attention is captured by the fleeting and mostly flimsy thoughts and feelings that flow through up-front consciousness. But you will also sense that the upfront stuff is but the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your unconscious: and the unconscious is in a state of vital churn and constant flux while it (a) processes information coming in from the sense organs against the information that has previously been planted in memory by nature and by nurture and (b) decides how to react or respond. 

You have a monumental choice.  You can either let yourself be mindlessly tossed around by the flux or you can be a mindful witness to what is going on. In the first case you are merely conscious and not much more than a robot; in the second case you are conscious of your consciousness and to some extent of the unconscious – and this plants you firmly in the foothills of the mountain that the mystics climb.

Mystic's Mountain

Thich Nhat Hahn’s Order of Interbeing invites people to climb the mystic’s mountain. The Order has fourteen precepts the first of which is: “Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.”

This is an impossible task for a merely conscious robot and is extremely challenging for a mindful witness. But we are what we think. If we can think different we can be different.

The ancient Chinese Tao teh Ching notes that “the reality that can be described is not the real reality”. It also notes that “those who know do not speak” and rather cheekily that “those who speak do not know”.

I have spoken a lot – often in writing. Recently the rate of thinking and writing has accelerated. There has been energy, intention and joy associated with a mental state where the unconscious throws up ideas whose ‘sense’ does not become apparent till afterwards.  A long term purpose or sense of direction can be imputed from reading my last series of articles in chronological order. The mind has a mind of its own.

Where is all this going?

My ‘I’ doesn’t know.

Who or what is the agent?

Ask the Horse!

renunciation is in our plastic genes

Evolution is possible because of selection which can be either natural or under domestication: and selection is possible because of variation which is generated through reproductive processes at cosmic, biological and cultural levels.

The biological and cultural levels can be plotted on an expanding horizon:

Gene, individual, family, community, political party, nation state, TNC, UN

TNC = Transnational Corporation; UN = United Nations

Selection operates simultaneously on these many levels. What is good for the TNC might be bad for the individual.  What is good for the individual might be bad for the community.  What is good at one level can be good or bad at other levels. The value judgement depends on the location of the judge. The overall process is value free and ruthless. Fitness means being better represented in the next generation than the competition.

At a personal level the horizons are very familiar:

Me  -  Us  -  Them

In western capitalist countries the individuated and selfish Me is the reified centre of attention. But this is unlikely to lead to evolutionary success because humans are social animals who need family and friends to survive. 

 

Every Me has an Us and every Us has a Them. With Us there is altruistic in-group cooperation; with Them there is selfish, out-group competition.

After many generations of hunting and gathering in competitive groups we would expect evolution to have hard wired certain cognitive and affective orientations in the human brain. Thus we have instincts as part of our nature: and these provide the platform for the nurturing process of learning what we need to know, say and do to survive.

Planet Earth

Survival is a hot topic at this stage in human evolution on the surface of planet earth. There is now consciousness of consciousness. This lets us see a need for sustainable development at the level of the planet. 

People will have to consume less. This requires a change of heart and mind. This may not be as difficult as is commonly thought.  The root concept is ‘belonging’. It is in our nature to think in terms of Me, Us and Them but it is our nurture that decides where the boundaries are set.

Sages and mystics from many times and places have demonstrated that it is possible to turn the mind away from its selfish nurturing. Selfless renunciation is in our plastic genes.

So there is a theoretical solution. Are you going to help realise it?

spoonfeeding unripe cherries

There is more to be said about rants. I avoid spontaneous verbal outbursts so most of mine are in writing. People who open their mouths and let their bellies rumble may sometimes be educative or entertaining but, on the whole, I prefer to steer clear of them. They can be asked to “Please engage your brain before opening your mouth.”

I used to be a hard line educationist. I felt that no teacher should go to class without a lesson plan which clearly indicated (a) the aims and objectives stated in behavioural terms, (b) the content and method designed with scope, sequence and pace in mind and (c) the monitoring and evaluation processes that were to be used.

That was a high ideal but it guided my many years as a teacher and as an education advisor.

For example, we made explicit use of the lesson planning model in developing materials for Social Studies in Belize. The thinking was that most teachers fall short in the amount and quality of their lesson plans. Our task, therefore, was to cherry pick the best teachers in the different subjects and have them convert the curriculum into national lesson plans which could be spoon fed to the unripe cherries.
 

Belizean Classroom

The project was about improving the quality of education by teacher proofing what happened in schools and classrooms. Many of those at the chalk front saw the need for such a system. This was pessimistic but was it also realistic? The topic generates endless hours of discussion and debate with heartfelt but controversial arguments, polemics and rants.

I was brainwashed into being an enthusiastic and conscientious lesson planner and control freak. I was thus delighted when I began working on social development. The new big thing at the time was Project Logical Frameworks. These were lesson plans for development workers – complete with Objectively Verifiable Indicators (OVI) and Means of Verification (MOV).  They also embraced the concept of Management by Objectives.  This obviously begged the question of, “What went before?” Did development workers not make plans? How many unripe cherries were in the aid and development business?

Who am I to sit in judgement? What evidence do I have for the preponderance of unripe cherries in the teaching and aid games? Not a lot! Mainly personal experiences from seven countries, and anecdotes from experienced practitioners whose opinions I respect – and these include a fair sprinkling of nuns and priests. A groupthink of like minds? Perhaps!

For reasons that I will not go into here, I think of education as my calling. The Latin word educare means to lead out and this presumably means from the darkness of parochial ignorance into the light of cosmopolitan wisdom. There are two sides to this – teaching and the facilitation of learning.

Teaching involves (a) studying a particular area of knowledge (eg science and biology) and then (b) making lesson plans to put it across in a way that informs and entertains the learners. In practice this can reduce to spoon feeding students to pass exams.

In the facilitation of learning the focus is on process rather than content. There is discussion and debate between individuals with differing viewpoints. Formal debate is a win/lose game whereas discussion allows for win/win. The facilitator ensures that questions are asked and answered and that this stimulates critical thinking and illuminates ideas. The method goes back to ancient Greece where Socrates used it on the youth and died for his efforts. “That man thinks too much; such men are dangerous.” These days there is a movement towards holistic, multidisciplinary and consilient methods – Google for Multi-stakeholder Processes!

My days of formally stimulating and spoon feeding unripe cherries are over. But informally, in retirement, I am still at it. But there are three differences; in subject matter, in writing style and in publication.

Subject Matter: The subject matter varied through the years and moved from curriculum development through social development and on to the present focus on personal development.

Curriculum development included science and biology lesson notes, teacher training materials, national examinations, school inspection procedures, and think pieces on educational leadership, management and administration.

Social development included think pieces about the functions and training of change agents in Scotland and overseas. A higher profile aspect of facilitating social development included the preparation of plain language versions of policy documents – notably those focussed on Poverty Reduction. Some of the work done in Tanzania gained worldwide recognition.

Personal Development includes keeping up with the literature and current thinking related to the merging of scientific, philosophical and religious viewpoints from both East and West. This is balanced with quiet sitting in mindfulness which leads to even tempered peace and to numinous appreciation of everyday things.

Writing Style: I was impressed with Ken Wilber’s concept map - AQAL (all quadrants, all levels).  He convinced me of the need to change my writing style from the early objective scientific mode to the later subjective creative mode. I am still working on the details. The new way involves, amongst other things, using the ‘I’ word and presenting thoughts that are not supported by reputable evidence.

I think of the subjective writing as ‘rant’ – it is self indulgent. And what ‘I’ think has no statistical relevance. I used to have lots of footnotes pointing to references but I have given that up. These days I am happy to leave the unconscious to generate stuff. It has been got at by the same nature, nurture and serendipity as the conscious bit, but it is capable of parallel processing and thus of generating a much richer set of viewpoints. The mind has a mind of its own and it is well motivated for the spiritual journey.

Publication: over the years I have prepared hundreds of documents with relatively short print runs. Most of them were photocopied rather than published. Curricular materials in Belize were distributed nationally. The one-pagers produced in Lesotho were popular but had very limited prints runs. Some of them were adapted for use in the training of change agents in Scotland and Tanzania and they are now available online. Most of the plain language documents produced in Tanzania were published and had considerable print runs. Most of them are still available online.

I have been methodical in the online publishing of personal development materials written in the Lesotho days and since. There are several web sites and blogs and they attract a fair bit of traffic. I am relaxed about online publishing. There is always the possibility of an article going viral but I am not holding my breath. Go with the flow.

And here ends today’s mildly polemical rant. It will soon be online and available to such unripe cherries as may find it interesting.

28 years

In 1985 I wrote a Biology Textbook with a Teacher's Guide to be used in preparing students for the Sudan School Certificate.

When dealing with the brain and other neurological bits and pieces, mention was made of being conscious of consciousness.

So it is one of my longstanding themes.

For a sample of the textbook and teacher's guide click HERE