Dialogue - Transcending Otherness
“Well, you don’t sit in your room somewhere and dispel illusions - very few people are capable of doing that. I mean, some people are capable of doing it, but most aren’t. Usually you find out what you think by interaction with people, otherwise you don’t know what you think - you just hear something,and maybe you accept it,or you don’t pay any attention to it, or something like that. You learn about things because you’re interested in the topic, and when its the social world, your interest in it often involves - ought to involve, at least - trying to change it, it’s in that context that you learn. And you learn by trying out ideas, and hearing reactions to them, and hearing what other people have to say about the topic, and formulating programs, and trying to pursue them, and seeing where they break down, and getting some experience, and so on and so forth.
So dispelling the illusions is just a part of organizing and acting. It’s not something that you do in a seminar, or in your living room-not that you can’t do it there, but it’s just a different kind of activity. Like, if you have some illusions about classical Greece, let’s say then you can probably do it in the library, to some extent at least. But if you’re trying to dispel illusions about a live, ongoing social process that’s changing all the time, and that you only get to see little pieces of-that’s really not the way to do it. You do it through interactions with other people, and functioning in some kind of community of concern, and of commitment, and of activism.”
I just spent a few days exploring the wild Sierra Nevada, and I was constantly confronted by such beauty and wholeness. In these mountains is the reminder that life and death are one, there are no divisions, all is connected in one amazing web - myself included, and truth is not stagnant. As I would stand upon the living earth and gaze into the knife like peaks splintering the sky, i was aware of how change flowed in diversified oneness and order. It was a glorious chaos, not disorder, but an immeasurable presence that could not be contained by thought and that in its essence is the unknowable. Seeing the world in this way, how can I not love, how can i not see all of life as part of myself, and how could I in any way be afraid of others?
“An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.”
Overall, our cultural ideology is blind to wholeness and inter-connectivity and as we are taught into a dualistic way of thinking, many of us struggle in seeing our part in this grand symphonic flow. Instead of seeing that we are participants in this ecological wholeness, our culture instead believes and teaches us that we are separate from nature and each other. Consequently, we have people who are buried in grief and isolation, searching for some sense of empowerment and control outside of themselves. Because of this separatist ideology that formulates fear and ignorance, all the issues we see today are conceived and connected. Consequently, there are grave consequences that are the result of our culture’s thought process.
Violence is normalized and the wild is being destroyed. Our culture tries to mentally enslave us into its ideology from the time when we were children limiting our voice, limiting our risk taking and pushing conformity and suppression of thoughts and feelings, making us compete against one another, while limiting our ability and to open into our innate wonder while going through the schooling process. This of course shuts out our openness to all of life and forces us into our culture’s narrative, solidified belief systems that teach us that we are separate and essentially at war with the world. Once something is so conditioned into us, it not only hard to change, but hard to voice what is wrong within the very structure of society. Even our language is solidifying in nouns creating the idea and perception of a basic materialism and dualistic reality.
“We’re not destroying the world because we’re clumsy. We’re destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it.... Given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world.”
Yet, somewhere deep inside ourselves, most of us recognize that something is off, something is just not right. But, once that uncertainty arises, we find ways to push this anxiety back down for what would we do with that discomfort anyway? We use religion, sports, video games, shopping, drugs, alcohol, politics, our work, etc to either fight against, run way from or numb ourselves from the belief that we are separate and thereby continue in our dysfunctional patterns.
Yet, our blindness does not go unchecked. We are viscerally seeing that our society’s actions are deeply wounding the planet. For example, there has been a 10 year drought spurred on by climate change that has no end in sight which is gravely impacting these wondrous seemingly ageless Sierra Nevada eco-systems. Climate change is not only impacting the native flora and fauna but also is quickly melting away the glaciers with its relentless heat, that just a short time ago were found throughout these mountains. These glaciers had consistently fed fresh mineral laden waters into streams and rivers eventually flowing down into the valleys and into the heavily populated Los Angeles basin. Now, Southern California is having to deal with the reality of water shortages. This is just one illustration of the inter-connectivity of nature and ourselves and what happens when we don’t think about how our collective actions are not disjointed but actually interconnected with all of life.
If we take a step back, and observe all the conflicts that rage politically, individually, socially and environmentally we may have a sense that all of these issues are born out of our culture’s ideology of separateness This separateness also creates a deep feeling of isolation, despair and loneliness, pushing people to escape into a variety of ways, one of which is belief and certainty.
“A mind that is self-concerned with its own ambitions, greeds, fears, guilt, suffering has no capacity to love. A mind that is divided in itself, that lives in fragments, obviously cannot love. Division implies sorrow; it is the root cause of sorrow – division between ‘you’ and ‘me’, ‘we’ and ‘they’, the black, the white, the brown and so on. So wherever there is division, fragmentation, love cannot be, because goodness is a state of non-division. The world itself is indivisible.”
All around our society, people argue and challenge locked into solidified beliefs and a certainty of right to make oneself feel solid and safe. We also see that there is immeasurable amounts of knowledge that we can dive into thinking that maybe that could help solve our problems, or build our sense of self into something greater and more knowing. However, it seems to really not matter as our society continues to spiral into deeper and deeper maelstroms of sorrow. In fact, this superficial idea of safety and security is an illusion as these belief systems actually put in place barriers and programs that perpetuate division and violence towards others that have different perspectives. We see this in our families, in our schools, in our work places, in the world at large. In ignorance, so many people within the construct of our culture, hold on to dogmatism and beliefs and won’t look to change or see another view. This dogmatism which is craving power and strength through belief is built from fear and isolation and perpetuates the belief that we are separate. This does not need to be the case.
When society is so divided and stuck, what is that we can do?
Waking up begins with not only oneself questioning, but in also seeing that we are all in this together whether we like it or not. Waking up is both individual and communal. It has to be both for in waking up is an openness to other and a vulnerability to breaking down the ego walls of isolation. In so doing, it is not just oneself waking up, but it is seeing that as we are a part of community. By that very link, community is also waking up as we are.
How our society exists is through isolation. If only one person decides to wake up, and the community does not, then the culture is not really changed. If we continue down a road of dogmatism and unquestioning beliefs and certainty, then we will simply perpetuate the cultural conditioning.
However, through questioning and listening with an open and flexible mind and then being open to each other and the ideas that are presented, gives possibility for change and the ending of ignorance and the possible transformation into what is inherent in all of us, wholeness. In wholeness, we see we are not alone, but rather we are all deeply connected and participators of wholeness.
“What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way....The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.”
Dialogue is a way to begin bridging the divide we feel and sense in our society. Rather seeking more division, let us come together to discover our unity. By coming together and talking about our concerns, issues or anything for that matter, with openness and curiosity, and without judgement, we may discover something occurring within the group that was unexpected and gives rise to new insights. We also may begin to have true communion with each other and actually see into one another mutually and unconditioned. Dialogue dismisses our conditioned isolating thoughts without trying and moves us out of our own myopic monologues into a sharing that is communal and egalitarian.
“The trick is not to be isolated-if you’re isolated, like Winston Smith in 1984, then sooner or later you’re going to break, as he finally broke. That was the point of Orwell’s story. In fact, the whole tradition of popular control has been exactly that: to keep people isolated, because if you can keep them isolated enough, you can get them to believe anything. But when people get together, all sorts of things are possible.”
Dialogue is the opportunity to be fully seen and to fully see others. It is an opportunity to share in trust and openness. Dialogue gives the opportunity to see oneself withing the mirror of the conversation. One begins to notice what is arising within without needing to react.
We are individuals yes which means that we are truly undivided at our roots. We do not need not be isolated. In fact, we are inherently connected with each other. Isolation is an illusion. We simply need to open up to each other and the wild nature that flows all around us. Dialogue can be a springboard in which we can come together and practice looking at and letting go of our beliefs Only with the flexibility and openness of mind can we begin to create together a different way of living. Dialogue can help provide the opportunity to move in that directionless place of presence.
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
Being full of doubt means one is open. Openness is what is intelligence. Intelligence is open to anyone. Everyone can live in intelligence. And anyone can also live in what Bukowski terms stupidity or what I would call ignorance. Ignorance means to shut out and ignore what lies right in front of us. Closed off, in fear, stuck in beliefs one encloses oneself in ignorance and thereby shuts out wonder and intelligence. Dialogue opens us back up into intelligence.
A wonder I have is this…. In this way, do schools help blossom intelligence or ignorance? If is is ignorance, how can we bring in intelligence? Where does that begin?
