The Danger of LABELS

I have blogged about the dangers of labels before, but it bears repeating. Yes, labeling people and things IS a way to keep the human mind (and thus human beings and all their stuff) "organized" -- the problems arise when we start to see the label as a singular reality. One example comes from the world of psychiatry (as seen in the quote below), but the list is seemingly infinite. Remember my friends...sol lucet omnibus (the sun shines for everyone), so question, question, question what you see, hear and believe to be true. Don't let labels bind you!

"People say, 'I have heart disease,' not 'I am heart disease'. Somehow the presumption of a person's individuality is not compromised by those diagnostic labels. All the labels tell us is that the person has a specific challenge with which he or she struggles in a highly diverse life. But call someone 'a schizophrenic' or 'a borderline' and the shorthand has a way of closing the chapter on the person. It reduces a multifaceted human being to a diagnosis and lulls us into a false sense that those words tell us who the person is, rather than only telling us how the person suffers".

~ Martha Manning

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Photo: "Bound" by J. David Zacko-Smith, Lausanne, Switzerland, July 2007.

Learn To Love It All

The more I go through life, the more I understand the value of "loving it all" - ya know, loving the good AND the bad, the joy and the pain (need I go on? Likely not). I am continually amazed by what I refer to as "the power of opposites"; life is incomplete if we only love, desire and experience the light, since without the darkness we can never truly know it, never truly experience it's complete depth and breadth. We are limited. We are half alive, half awake. We spend so much time running away, avoiding, repressing, denying and fighting all of the things we've been conditioned to believe are "bad", and then wondering why we feel incomplete, why we still feel empty or can't get ourselves together, and why we have no time to truly live.

Meanwhile the answer was there all along. Love it all. Be free.

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We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

LITTLE GIDDING (No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')
BY T.S. Eliot

The Leader Label

I've recently had an article published; it looks specifically at leadership through a social constructionist lens (exciting, I know). The abstract (and a link to the article itself) are below for anyone interested!


Abstract

Utilizing a social constructionist framework under which "leader" is a highly pliable construct, and is something created, enhanced, mitigated or destroyed via language, this research explores how the use of metaphor and story can alter leadership perceptions, framing a more flexible notion of leadership as being the most compatible with increasingly flat and interconnected contexts. Conventional understandings of leaders are themselves metaphorical in nature; the leader is actually in the lead, the first to move forward. This image is appropriate for certain circumstances, but may be less relevant today because it implies hierarchy, connotes exclusivity, and ignores the necessity of flexibility. This research challenges conventional leadership metaphors, reframes the construct of "leader" as available to everyone, and allows us to re-shape our individual and collective leadership stories.


Read my entire recent article here.

The Truth of Constructionism

The whole dear notion of one's own self -- marvelous old free-willed, free enterprising, autonomous, independent, isolated island of the self -- is a myth. ~ Lewis Thomas, from "The Lives of a Cell"

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. . . We multiply distinctions, then
Deem that our puny boundaries are things
That we perceive, and not that which we have made.

~ William Wordsworth, "The Prelude", Book III

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If I ask about the world, you can offer to tell me how it is under one or more frames of reference; but if I insist that you tell me how it is apart from all frames, what can you say? ~ Nelson Goodman, from "Ways of Worldmaking"

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Every version of an "other" . . . is also the construction of a "self". ~ James Clifford, from "Writing Culture"

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PHOTO; Sculpture, Musee Olympique, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2007

The Violence of Mass Distraction

Ask yourself some questions - what are you doing to distract yourself from YOURSELF (and, yes, there is a difference between "yourself" and "YOURSELF")? Will you get to know YOURSELF in this lifetime? What are YOU waiting for? Are you wed to fear, like so many are?

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A Healthy Sense of Self

By Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Shambhala Sun Magazine

“As we learn to abide peacefully,” says Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, “we become familiar with a healthy sense of self. Like the Buddha, we become strong, caring, clear-minded individuals in harmony with ourselves and our environment."

In his journey toward enlightenment, the Buddha saw that human existence is characterized by three qualities: impermanence, suffering and selflessness. He discovered that we suffer because we try to make ourselves solid and permanent, while our fundamental state of being is unconditionally open and changing. The Buddha encouraged others to discover this open state of being for themselves in the process of sitting meditation.

A Tibetan word for meditation is gom - "familiarity." When we meditate, we're becoming familiar with something. In shamatha meditation we first become familiar with a technique: to recognize and release thoughts and emotions and return our attention to the breath. Over time we become familiar with the open state of being that the Buddha called selflessness. As we learn to abide peacefully, we also become familiar with what I call a healthy sense of self. Like the Buddha, we become strong, caring, clear-minded individuals in harmony with ourselves and our environment. The meditation posture itself embodies this healthiness: grounded, balanced and relaxed.

In sitting meditation we develop the patience and honesty to be self-aware. As our minds become more flexible and curious, a whole new range of reality becomes available to us. We begin to see certain truths about the way things are. For example, we begin to notice that even though we want to live a dignified, enlightened life, there's a constant pull on our attention. Moment to moment, we're trying to be entertained. I'm not just talking about watching movies and television or roaming around on the internet. This notion of entertainment is older than modern technology. The ancient meditation texts are full of observations about how the mind is always seeking entertainment.

We're always thinking that the next little thing-the next thought, bite of food, conversation or relationship-is going to give us the permanence and solidity that we lack. We keep looking and looking for what will bring us final satisfaction. Meditation shows us this tendency most directly. As we sit there, we notice that even though we could abide peacefully, the mind is still churning. Rather than relax right now, we continue to look for entertainment. We distract ourselves with replays of the past and fantasies about the future. We rehash conversations and plan our day.

Read the rest here.

Love It All

This is so brilliant I had to share it! Thich Nhat Hanh is simply amazing to me. I've been pondering (for quite a long time) the role of duality in our lives. Now, of course, this is generally thought to be a primarily Eastern concept; the Yin and the Yang and other such natural dualistic constructions. Completely valid thinking. But, I assert that it is more than simply an Eastern concept, that it is actually the very nature of creation itself (though I suppose you have to believe in the notion to find truth in it, as with all such things). Ask yourself...what can exist without it's opposite? Nothing. Therefore, we should truly embrace everything and it's opposite with completely equal gusto - we should love the darkness and the light, we should love times of abundance and times of starvation; for without one, we can never, ever truly know the other. You see, we have been conditioned (in many cases) by our larger society to believe that one part of this "team" is "good", while it's opposite is "bad". But the reality is that tendency is just what I called it...a construction. It is illusion. It is falsehood. Ultimately what I'm getting at here, to use just one example, is that the darkness deserves the same respect and love as the light does. Love it all, and teach others to do the same.

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An Excerpt From: This Silence is Called Great Joy

By Thich Nhat Hanh

You are not static. You are the life that you are becoming. Because “to be” means to be something: happy, unhappy, light or heavy, sky or earth. We have to learn to see being as becoming. The quality of your being depends on the object of your being. That is why when you hear Rene Descartes’ famous statement “I think, therefore I am,” you have to ask, “You are what?” Of course you are your own thinking—and your happiness or your sorrow depends very much on the quality of your thinking. So you are your view, you are your thinking, you are your speech, you are your action, and these things are your continuation. You are becoming now, you are being reborn now in every second. You don’t need to come to death in order to be reborn. You are reborn in every moment; you have to see your continuation in the here and the now.

I don’t care at all what happens to me when I die. That’s why I have a lot of time to care about what is happening to me in the here and the now. When I walk, I want to enjoy every step I take. I want freedom and peace and joy in every step. So joy and peace and lightness are what I produce in that moment. I have inherited it and I pass it on to other people. If someone sees me walking this way and decides to walk mindfully for him or herself, then I am reborn in him or in her right away—that’s my continuation. That’s what is happening to me in the here and the now. And if I know what is happening to me in the here and the now, I don’t need to ask the question, “What will happen to me after this body disintegrates?” There is no “before” and “after,” just as there is no birth and death. We can be free of these notions in this very moment, filled with the great joyful silence of all that is.

Excerpted from: This Silence is Called Great Joy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shambhala Sun, September 2007.

PHOTO: Stained Glass Window, Lausanne Cathedral, Switzerland.

Contextual Musing VIII

You have wandered through the deserts, mountains, cities and valleys seeking that which you desire, whatever that may be in one particular and ever-changing moment, never realizing that it is not your desire that traps you, but your seeking. Desire is wish and intention and focus. Seeking is action and manipulation and scattered attempt.

One frees.

One imprisons.

Both are choices.

Choose wisely.