Shishi odoshi ("deer scarer")

Yes, it is true. The reason it may sound ridiculous is that we are biologically set up to respond positively to gain and negatively to loss. A useful trick I’ve found in life is convincing my hoodwinking emotions of the actual benefit of loss and the hidden downside of gain.

Years of evidence, hard-won through personal experience, helps keep me constantly convinced now.  The Tao Te Ching echos this view in chapter 58, It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches. The proverb “be careful what you wish for, it may come true” points in the same direction.

There are countless examples of this ‘open secret’. Just go throughout the day looking for them, although they are mostly fleeting and subtle. Being that these are subtle, such gain and loss doesn’t trigger emotion strongly enough to make the process easy to notice. When major loss (or gain) occurs, the emotions overwhelm reason and so all you see is one side, feeling either euphoric or miserable. Both emotions blind-side rational impartial observation.

Looking for evidence of this is really quite easy, yet the usual response would probably be, “Why bother spending time and energy on this?” Well that’s easy…  Deal with a thing while it is still nothing; Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in. Without a doubt, the better I know myself, the more likely I am to ‘deal with a thing while it is still nothing‘, and looking deeply into ‘gain and loss’ is simply an essential side of getting to know myself.

The photo here is of a Japanese shishi odoshi (”deer scarer”). Every now and then I’d come across one on the grounds of a Japanese temple. I always assumed it was symbolic of the process: loss brings about gain, gain brings about loss (i.e., when it fills, it empties right away, and then begins filling again). Looking for this photo I discovered its practical and perhaps traditional use. But does it really scare deer away? They are probably smarter than that.

Claiming that I caught the flue for the first time must surely be untrue, but up until now I never ‘knew’ the difference between a cold and the flue. I’ve heard of flue shots and the danger of catching flues, like the bird flue of a few years ago. However, whenever I came down with fluey symptoms I ‘knew’ I just had a cold. Do you see where I’m heading with this?

No? Here’s another example. Up until about 30 years ago I’d never been depressed. I’d heard about people being depressed; I just ‘knew’ I’d never experience it myself. After my six month long episode of  intense, day and night work on the correlations I experienced depression for the first time in my life. But was that really the first time? Like never having caught the flue, never feeling depression until then was most improbable.

I had felt bad at various times throughout my life up until those ‘first times’; I just never knew exactly. A bad time would eventually revolve back to a good one until the next bad one came around again. It felt as natural as, It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches. Of course the cognitive experience of any animal, other than human, would not even have thoughts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with which to label the experience. Even so, not attaching a specific label to my experience was more animal-like than otherwise. A more murky (like muddy water) sense of being gives the mind less to dwell upon.

These two experiences exemplify chapter 32, As soon as there are names, one ought to know that it is time to stop. Giving a name to the experience increases the difficulty. Instead of blending in with the forever nameless uncarved block, naming those experiences just ‘hardens the glare, hones the sharpness, opens the door, and ties the knots’.

Evidently stopping at the ‘murky’ side of cognition is not usually what people appear to want. (Or when they do, they crack open a bottle of pop a pill). Most people find no peace of mind until their experience becomes a name that can be named. Although, to be honest, I suppose that’s why I ponder my observations. Writing about all this is just another way of naming ‘it’. Although, on the other hand, I’m always looking for mysterious sameness in order to blur distinctions. What I’m doing sounds a lot like chapter 36. To paraphrase: If you would have a thing blurred, you must first clarify it. Indeed, I suppose that is what everyone is doing.

To summarize, our mind’s space obviously needs to be filled. After all, Nature abhors a vacuum. So we name ‘it’, and think and speak about ‘it’ to fill that space. Okay, so far so good. The difficulties come when we seriously believe what we think. As one of my favorite chapter puts it:

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.
It is by being alive to difficulty that one can avoid it.

The sage meets with no difficulty.
It is because he is alive to it that he meets with no difficulty.

When I first brought this up with my family they all rolled their eye… “yeh, right” they said. However, constant brain-washing finally brought them to see my point. Brain-washing? Well, not exactly. Just offering concrete examples over time helped sell my case (or are they just humoring me).

I understand, but do I know? is a recent post that attempts to deal with this off-the-wall point of view. And yes, all this may seem bizarre, but then knowing and understanding are mysterious, bottomless issues. Anyway…

Low and behold Science News comes to the rescue again (kind of) with a recent article, Geometric minds skip school. It seems Amazonian villagers grasp abstract spatial concepts despite lacking formal math education. They know geometric principles intuitively. Sure, my views on knowing and understanding are more radical, but then I don’t have a bunch of skeptical peer reviewing scientists looking over my shoulder.

I regard all the advanced knowledge civilization prides itself on as actually being based in innate knowing, as this research implies. The emergent property principle may help support and give deeper context to the view that we only truly understand what we already innately know. Also, what often passes for understanding is merely mimicry as noted in Learning What You Know. (Although, mimicry can certainly be a step on the path to understanding.)

Here are a few excerpts from this article for those whom the link fails to work.

In a South American jungle, far from traffic circles, city squares and the Pentagon, beats the heart of geometry.

Villagers belonging to an Amazonian group called the Mundurucú intuitively grasp abstract geometric principles despite having no formal math education, say psychologist Véronique Izard of Université Paris Descartes and her colleagues.

Mundurucú adults and 7- to 13-year-olds demonstrate as firm an understanding of the properties of points, lines and surfaces as adults and school-age children in the United States and France, Izard’s team reports online May 23 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

U.S. children between ages 5 and 7 partially understand geometric space, but not to the same extent as older children and adults, the researchers find.

These results suggest two possible routes to geometric knowledge. “Either geometry is innate but doesn’t emerge until around age 7 or geometry is learned but must be acquired on the basis of general experiences with space, such as the ways our bodies move,” Izard says.

Both possibilities present puzzles, she adds. If geometry relies on an innate brain mechanism, it’s unclear how such a neural system generates abstract notions about phenomena such as infinite surfaces and why this system doesn’t fully kick in until age 7. If geometry depends on years of spatial learning, it’s not known how people transform real-world experience into abstract geometric concepts — such as lines that extend forever or perfect right angles — that a forest dweller never encounters in the natural world.

Which path leads where?

A few months ago a new member Dan asked me, “So, I’d like to ask, do you have any life advice for a man approaching 30″?

One problem with that question was too many things came to mind. So I turned the question over to my subconscious. Oddly, I find not thinking about tricky issues is the best way to resolve them. Of course “not thinking about” doesn’t mean disregarding. I suppose the ‘not thinking about’ phase helps the mind get through its blind spot.

Finally, up bubbled something worthy of the question. Overall, nothing feels more important to me than understanding. While stressing the importance of understanding seems obvious, it may not be as simple as it sounds.

As I’ve said before, true understanding may only be possible for that which you already know intuitively. Knowing comes with maturity (time and circumstances) and not from any external particulars, per se. Knowing moves from inside out, not from the outside in. If I’m correct, how can we ever teach or learn from each other? Naturally, there’s more to this.

Just consider how methodically we are culturally and linguistically ‘brain washed’ (albeit in the nicest possible way) from birth onward. As a result, much of what we think and ‘know’, is derived from preconceptions that we’ve been trained to believe to be true and real. Now, if what we teach and learn are along the lines of our ‘brain washing’, things usually go smoothly enough. On the other hand, understanding anything outside our cultural and linguistic ‘box’ is another matter. That can be a fearsome experience which is why few people peer into the darkness willingly.

Actually, we all know anyway!

Even so, we can’t help but sense that darkness. ‘To know yet to think that one does not know‘ actually speaks to this silent, universal knowing. While all life feels the mystery, only we have names and words for which to think about it. We can’t help but try to cognitively shine light on (explain, describe, interpret) the mysterious mirror feeling—including right now as I write and you read this. Truth to tell, all our thinking never unravels the mystery. Instead, we end up cultivating a sense of self and pseudo security as we follow the paths for which we feel an innate affinity (e.g., religion, art, sports, business, science, etc.).

Our difficulties begin when we get overly certain in what we think (i.e., to think that one knows will lead to difficulty). I regard certainty as merely a symptom of a desperate need for the security believable answers promise us. Honestly, this is the dynamic that drives me to ponder life (and death) and write about it. Still, using cognitive certainty to shore up my innate insecurity doesn’t overly impair me, as long as I know and understand what is driving my certainty in the first place. In other words, it is by being alive to difficulty that one can avoid it.

If we’re not alive to this difficulty, we end up putting all our eggs in one cognitive basket and hang on for dear life. The resulting blind spot puts what we might otherwise ‘know’ just beyond our mind’s eye. Put another way, thinking enables us to focus on the trees; this blinds us to the forest. This is not to say thinking is bad; it is just more dangerous than we imagine. It is like a loaded gun with no safety in the hands of monkeys. Much of our problem stems from not realizing that we, like all animals, are supposed to feel somewhat insecure. Being on fear’s razor edge aids survival. Dulling this by relentlessly thinking that we know is no different than refining foods to enhance our eating pleasure at the expense of nutritional value. Both quickly become cases of willfully innovating while ignorant of the constant, and it comes back to bite us.

We’re too clever for our britches

Finding enough humility to acknowledge that thinking that that one knows will lead to difficulty can help avoid ‘thinking ourselves into a corner’. This is an important step in understanding what is beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world. This is difficult because our self identity is created and maintained by the beliefs and paths to which we cling and follow. As Buddha put it, “The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things”. “Things” is often considered to be material objects. I find that our mental “things” play at least as large a role in this illusion.

Buddha had it right in his Eight Fold Path. While each ‘fold’ affect the other, notice which fold comes first—understanding! As understanding deepens and broadens over time, our actions follow naturally. I can’t really see what else can be ‘done’. The doing arises out of the knowing. Willfully doing anything would be like putting the cart before the horse. This may partly explain the Taoist frequent call to ‘action-less action’. Chapter 43 sums it up well:

That is why I know the benefit of resorting to no action. The teaching that uses no words, the benefit of resorting to no action, these are beyond the understanding of all but a very few in the world.

There’s a silver lining though

Our thoughts and actions are driven by the needs or fears we feel right now, without much sense of the long term, big picture, balanced understanding. So what hope is there? I’ve found being hesitant and tentative in what I think helps me keep balance. Mind you, it’s okay to lose balance. That’s only human. However, it is invaluable to recognize when I do. Here are some ‘tells’ I use to warn me when I’m losing balance:

• Any strong sense of attraction or aversion, likes or dislikes, needs or fears (emotion) tells me that whatever I think I am seeing is actually simply a reflection of that emotion. It’s not that; it’s this.

• Any perception that make differences appear significant (makes mountains out of presumable mole hills). Remaining alive to the relative nature of judgment helps avoid taking a cognitive ‘wrong turn’ and ending up in the ditch.

• Impatient are we? Feeling the impulse to resolve it now, get it done, fix it ‘yesterday’ are excellent indications of imbalance. Going with my impetuous flow is usually looming disaster. Count to ten, take a deep breath, go take a nap, sleep on it.

In summary: which path shall it be?

They both look the same, but...

The ultimate value of understanding lies in how it helps us with a central choice we are faced with each day, even each moment, throughout life. “Do I want to feel happy or to feel a sense of well being?” I expect many folks regard these synonymous. Not necessarily, at least as I define those words. Happiness is more up beat, stimulating, fun, pleasurable, ‘high’ on life. Somewhat conversely, well-being is even, cool and calm, down-to-earth, impartial, balanced. Simply put: We chase after happiness; we return to well-being.

Buddha’s prescription of life comes down to this choice, happiness or well-being. Recognizing the difference requires Right Understanding, as Buddha calls it. All in all, Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is the best road map I’ve come across for choosing the path of well-being over happiness. Use it from the bottom of your heart is my advice.

Anyway, the debate ended in a stalemate and we went on with the day. Later I realized the problem: rather than saying ‘people don’t learn’, I should have said, what usually passes for learning is actually mimicry. As is often the case, words got in the way of communication… ha!

I then made a short list of correlations to show Luke the point I was trying to make earlier. He studied it for a moment, nodded and said like “Ah yes, that makes sense”. The point I was trying to make earlier, and in vain, became obvious through correlations. Of course, that comes with its own downside cost;  clear and perfect communication eliminates the fun… the tug of war give and take. Here is the set I showed Luke⁽¹⁾. See if it makes any sense to you:

⁽¹⁾ A correlation’s view of issues may work better within our family because I introduced the correlation process to my sons when they were knee high to a grasshopper. They are familiar with this process of boiling issues down to fundamental parameters. While it never offers a final answer, it does point towards one, in a fuzzy kind of way.

Never-the-less, cultures place great importance on the teacher, so what makes for a good teacher? Usually the answer centers on how capable the teacher is, and their command of the material. However, after home schooling my kids, I discovered the more important, yet under-recognized, side of teaching lay deeper.

Home schooling turned out well for my children. This was obviously not due to my command of the material. Sure, in some areas I have sufficiently knowledge, in others just minimal. Either way, I never really ‘taught’ them much of anything, at least overtly. The key to my ‘teaching’ success was simply not getting in their way! That allowed them to follow their curiosity. However, that doesn’t mean total laze fare. I was ‘right there’, but in a shadowy presence kind of way.

For example, Luke was learning computer programming, and whenever he ran into ‘insurmountable’ difficulty he would come to me. I know next to nothing factual on the subject; I would just be a sounding board, occasionally asking questions, or offering observations, based upon my overall life experience. It is amazing how well this approach actually works. The only true requirement was being patient and connected (i.e., generally curious and interested).

In fact, I reckon my sons have learned what they know more through what I didn’t say than anything I said. Does this have anything to do with the teaching that uses no words? I suppose, though even calling it that can become misleading.

Knowing when not to say something (teach) is most important, by far. That allows one to stumble as a child, which is how we all learn to walk and talk! Just imagine if your parents had hovered over you correcting every misstep as you learned to walk or to talk? Not fun! Not helpful! Not efficient! Doing it ‘wrong’ is essential part of finding how to do it ‘right’. Robbing them of that opportunity, while it might have felt helpful, I knew would actually hinder them.

I only set the overall tone of the environment, and refrained from micromanaging anything. This, allowed them to take on as much responsibility as they wished, no more and no less. This let them fulfill whatever innate potential they had. As our good book says, do not constrict their living space; do not press down on their means of livelihood. It is because you do not press down on them that they will not weary of the burden.

All things considered, I reckon that the social component accounts for 99% in teaching, while the teacher’s command of the material just 1%. This makes sense if you accept the proposition that one can only understand what one already knows intuitively. Granted, that is an impossible pill to swallow in a culture, like ours, that sees students as empty vessels into which knowledge can somehow be poured. Rather than pour knowledge in, the trick is to have conducive social circumstances which draw on a student’s thirst and intuitive knowing. Objective understanding and know-how come in due course naturally.

Finally let’s go back to the question of thirst, and whether a person truly wants to learn, or is thirsty for something else. They say it is better to teach a man to fish than give him a fish. But, what if he rather be given a fish than be taught? The former, being given a fish, is perhaps far more common, 99% to 1% more common in fact. Giving and receiving fish is a far more socially achievable relationship than giving and receiving a teaching. Furthermore, our deepest need (thirst), bar none, is for social connection, not for knowledge per se. Yet knowledge is held in the highest esteem; knowledge is power! All that is needed to bypass this kink in the way is sufficient cultural hoodwinking to make receiving of fish appear like receiving of teaching. Yep, a lot of hoodwinking goes on in human social interactions.

Back in the late 70’s I began teaching yoga. I soon noticed how many of my students began to see me as their guru. I was trying to teach them the yoga equivalent of teach a man to fish. Most weren’t thirsty for that; they wanted the yoga equivalent of being given a fish, and seeing me a their guru was one way to get that. I’m not saying this was intentional on their part. Far from it; it was simply innate social (tribal) dynamics. Personally, I couldn’t oblige them, and couldn’t help but do what I could to discourage it. Alas, I wasn’t thirsty for that type of teacher/student relationship⁽¹⁾. I suppose I am drawn to neither ‘a leader or a follower be’; ‘neither a hood-winker or hood-winkee be’. Perhaps…

I alone am foolish and uncouth.
I alone am different from others
And value being fed by the mother.

⁽¹⁾ That changed some with my own family and kids though. As a father, I naturally fell into the role of leader and teacher, albeit in a shadowy presence kind of way. I imagine that civilization is just too ‘mega’ for me to feel connected. A small hunter gather group around 20,000 b.c. would have been more my speed.

Background
Memories become dimmer as the years fly by. Many are even too misty to write down without filling in the voids with poetic license (fiction). Still, I’ve set out to fetch what memories remain before they fade any further. See: The Further One Goes for background on this ‘Times of Yore’ series.

Mother and sons

One curious result of using a ‘taoist’ model of ‘virtue’ to raise my kids is seeing how naturally ethical – even to a ‘fault’ – they have turned out. Given the laissez-faire upbringing they had, it is a little odd to see how rigidly law abiding they can be at times. For example, we headed down the street to order a sandwich at the corner deli. I grabbed a beer to drink (rare for me) as we walked there. They protested, saying it was against the law to walk in public and drink beer. I thought that nonsense. Drink and drive no way, but drink and walk? All my life I have only obeyed laws I agreed with, so they didn’t pick up their highly law abiding ways from me (obviously). And, given the circumstances of how they were raised, I doubt they learned it from anyone in particular. This may be a testament to the deep underlying pull of the ethical paradigm that surrounds everyone. Most conform, some rebel, but everyone feels it.

From a Taoist point of view, virtue and ethics (as commonly viewed) are symptoms of great hypocrisy, not solutions. They are ineffective at best, and downright debilitating at worst, e.g., ‘A man of the lowest virtue never strays from virtue and that is why he is without virtue‘. True virtue is essentially mysterious virtue, and was the model I used as best I could. For example, I never told them to say ‘thank you’ when someone gave them something. I felt it best for them to say one day, “It happened to us naturally”. Granted, it was sometimes embarrassing for my wife and I when our ostensibly rude kids would not say ‘thank you’ when receiving a gift. The point was, I wanted them to ‘feel the need’, rather than being prodded into a show of virtuous rectitude and rites. So far this experiment is turning out just fine, bolstering my faith in the truth of this beautiful sentiment… One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone. It is always through not meddling that the empire is won. Should you meddle, then you are not equal to the task of winning the empire.