Let's be realistic. / The 'phenomenological' scoreboard. Posted by John on January 29, 1999 at 20:35:22:
(5 pages)
I'd like to tidy up the perspective of the subject we are studying these
days, and be prepared to wrap it up before long, and move on to another
subject. Let's be realistic. These "maneuvers for peace" that I am
teaching you here are not easy.
The ability to do them depends upon the amount of ability one has
cultivated by practicing to wake up in mindfulness. Without
mindfulness, they are virtually impossible--impossible to sustain over a
period of minutes, at least. So these maneuvers I am coaching may seem
very daunting to some of you, at this time.
Yet you return students have each demonstrated experiencing the ability
to do a little of this kind of work. And this has proved dynamic and
productive, as well. Even to be able to do it *at all* is a great
accomplishment. It is a great leap beyond the confines of the ordinary
conditioned world that we all share together in the realm of shadows.
If you just take it little by little, as you can, you will find that you
go on progressing.
Pauline, bless your heart, for now you still live in a world where pigs
can't sing. :-) I hope you are finding the experiential exercises in
the kindergarten interesting. If you have any questions about that you
can always let me know. I'd like to say in passing that you're sure
hard on yourself. (During the first semester here, Deirdre said that to
me several times.) Of all the things that you've endured in your life,
none of them has ever stopped you, Pauline. You're still here!
Obviously, you're a survivor! I'm like that, too. I share that
personality type with you.
I sense that you can trudge on through the work that lies before you in
this school. I find you very articulate, educated (in the sort of
things that matter to me), subtle, well-spoken, a "quick-study," and
highly talented. And you're a hard worker. These are my impressions of
the way you come across. Each and every one of us in this class must
travel at our own speed. At times we can all feel that we are traveling
together. I'm confident that you will catch on quickly with *everything
else* if you will focus on practicing having mindful experiences now--as
shown in the kindergarten classes.
There is "nothing to be ashamed of" in this class, and "nothing to
prove" either. You can say so, if there's anything you don't get. All
of us are equal here, including me. The sole aim is to find the ways
that each of us can progress in learning and using mindfulness in
beneficial ways in each of our individual lives. Some of you will be
"cut out" for some of the moves of the awareness game (the moves you
like), and not for others. Some of you will not care for certain
strategies, and some will be better than others at certain strategies.
Yet there is no competition here. For the sole purpose of this training
is for each of you to simply become (that is, *more fully* become) who
you already are within.
In other kinds of schools, you are supposed to emulate what great people
do. In this school, you are simply to be you. That's what's "great"--
in this kind of school. No one here needs *any excuses* for being who
they are. And saying, "Coach, I don't know . . ." is the highest form
of wisdom around here.
'Nuff said.
This strategy of saying "I see," and "I don't know," and learning how to
assert and to yield and all, and not be "so reactive" should come as no
surprise to any of you. It's a pretty universal strategy. In Buddhist
schools, when upsets occur, one might learn to tell the other person,
"Think nothing of it." Jesus taught this strategy when he told the
disciples about "turning the other cheek." Paul McCartney's Mum gave
him that famous wise counsel in times of trouble to "Let it be." Even
in the martial arts that are based on Eastern spiritual teachings,
students are regarded as honorably bound to *run from fights*. The
standard is to get into as few fights as one can. This idea to "Resist
not evil, and go for the good, instead" so to speak, has always been
around in spiritual circles. "Satan, get thee behind me!" Etc., etc.
It may be that when we hear about these principles in various scriptures
from around the world, we may say something like: "Yeah, that'd be
beautiful all right. But who can do it? And how?"
Well, this school is for translating these ancient classical principles
into a practical game in which a person can see very clearly how to make
the move, and in what situation to make the move. And, little by
little, by practicing this with awareness--even sporadically--one can
actually become more and more able to make these ancient principles *
live* in their contemporary way of living life.
Even if the purpose of everyone else there in the room with you is to
argue and fight about it, your purpose, in awakening, can be peace. And
you can take intelligent specific measures for peace, on purpose, if you
keep awake.
Now, it's *very important* to realize that the purpose of this part of
the training is not to play a martyr's role, as you are learning to make
these strategic "assertions of yieldingness," and learning to be less
"automatically reactive" to the things that pop up around you in life.
Nor is the idea that you lie down passively and let other people use
you, or walk all over you. That's not the idea here at all!!!
Learning to assert yieldingness in these ways and to be less reactive to
other people's annoying behaviors is a *powerful warrior skill* for
being able to walk through peaceful spaces *wherever you go forth*,
asserting, with all the inate skill that's in you, for what you are
interested in, what you like, and what you love. While learning this
skill, you may sieze any little opportunity in your life that presents,
to practice making these little moves "for the fun of it." As you may
find out, one can make quite a dynamic new life of their own in this
way.
......................................................
Thanks, Betsy, for taking a courageous stab at why the winning score in
the awareness game is nothing to nothing. You did a beautiful job of
it, in describing the underlying theme and essence that is at the heart
of playing here. You stepped up, under pressure, and took a shot for
your team-mates here--a brave thing to do.
The idea is this: when there is tension and upset, there is "something
there." Maybe if it's a mild upset, it runs the score up to "three."
If it's of crisis proportions, maybe it runs the score up to "nine" or
"ten." When there's "something there," i.e. tension and controversy,
then there's "score on the scoreboard" in this game. When there's
"nothing there," it's peace and harmony. When there is no tension in
the air, and no upset in the participants, then there is peace, and,
potentially, collaborative harmony. So, on this scoreboard, "nothing,"
or "zero" is a winning score. Do you see?
Now, why "zero to zero?" Well, this is an "interpersonal" game. It is
a game between you, the player, and "the other person." Either there is
peace and harmony around you both, or there is tension and discord--some
degree of it, that is, as shown on "the scoreboard." So, when you check
it out in mindfulness, and there is peace and harmony in you, and--
obviously and apparently--there is peace and harmony in the other
person, the score is zero to zero. And that's the "winning score" that
is the object of this game.
Sometimes, by mindful observation, you might "check the scoreboard," and
find, for instance, that it is "four" or "five" in you, and when you go
on checking you realize that it is "nine" in the other person--or maybe
you realize it is zero in the other person, "nothing there," while you
are being tense and upset. You just go by whatever you observe in
mindfulness. Take what you find. Is there something there? Is there
nothing there? That's the score.
Now, that's just an explanation in words, but this is an *experiential*
scoreboard that we use in this game. It doesn't really have any numbers
on it at all. This scoreboard is "floating in space," so to speak. You
have to *sense* it! When I speak of "three," or "nine," that is only a
way of explaining about it conceptually. But *experientially*, what you
are really looking for--please remember this--is *the intensity* of it.
It is the *intensity* of the awarely perceivable tension and upset that
is there, that we go by in "checking the scoreboard" in this game.
Of course, the awareness game, is a game you play for *bringing the
score down*on the scoreboard! In that way, it's different from most
"competitive" games. The idea, as Betsy intuited, is not to "win" by
taking advantage of the other. And it is not to "lose" by being taken
advantage of by them, either. It is just to bring the score down, *on
both sides*, so there can be peace and harmony in whatever you do
together. (Most of the rest of the moves of this game that are to come
in this course involve strategies that are designed for doing just
that.)
Over the past twenty years, I've been telling students here in Tucson
that, "In the awareness game, we use a phenomenological scoreboard." I
don't know why, but I get a kick out of calling it that. :-)
"Phenomenological" is a fancy word that means: known by direct
experience of phenomena. In other words, phenomenological means
"mindfully known." This is opposed to "known by logical cognitive
thinking about it." That is the only way that is available to people
who are asleep. It is in "the direct experience of it" that we *know*
around here.
Edmund Husserl, the philosopher, who invented the branch of philosophy
that is known as Phenomenology was obviously a mindfulness practitioner
from his writings about it. He was a great influence on Jewish
phenomenologist Martin Buber, and on Jean-Paul Sartre and the European
Existentialists. Like Husserl, my Christian-Buddhist-Gestalt teacher
Mits, in Hawaii, who studied with Buber, called his approach "the
phenomenological method." So, in the awareness game, we have a
phenomenological scoreboard.
The way you check this scoreboard out is by waking up in mindfulness and
sensing the intensity of tension in your own body, and sensing whatever
you can about the intensity of the tension in the other person's body.
When you are both being at peace, that shows up as zero to zero. And
when that's so, you are playing a winning game on this field.
And every word of what you said about this, Betsy, was intuitively true
about it, too!
>because nobody has "won" anything (which would occur at the other's expense) and nobody has "lost" anything (which would occur at his own expense) and in the end each player gets a prize: the knowledge that the point of the game is not winning, but co-existing.
Exactly. Co-existing in the way that is described here (friendship,
companionship, collaboration, etc, etc., love) is "winning" at neither
person's expense, on purpose.
In a coming class, called "How to know if you are being uptight or not,"
I'll share some more tips about how to use the phenomenological
scoreboard in the active play of this game. Maybe from the hints you've
got here, some of you can already start in tryin' to discover how to
know if you're being uptight on your own.
Coach
Archived 22 Mar 99