Thursday, February 19, 2015

February 19, 2015: Sky Schultz: Finding God in Nature, Science and Mystical Poetry.

     ANNOUNCEMENT from Sky Schultz: On Friday night this week: ie February 20, 2015 I will be presenting a talk/dialog in which he will summarize the universe and other matters. The talk is called: "Finding God in Nature, Science, and Mystical Poetry." (It might be useful to you if you happen to have misplaced God 'He/She/It' and need to get in touch with To Whom it may concern.)
     Why should you come? The room will be warm. There will be snacks. You will meet wonderful people, if anybody comes. There will be quotes from the world's greatest spiritual teachers. And, of course, my world-class humor and magic. Play a trick on your friends: invite them.
     Friday February 20/ 7:00 to 8:00 PM, Schlitz Audobon Nature Center. This program is handicap accessible. Preregistration is required. To register call 414-352-2880.  Member: $10 Non/Member $15.
     If you can't make it, and if you have a good excuse, you might invite me to your house, church, synagogue, or community for this delightful and profound talk; the cost is $0.15. ( I am sort of like Mark Twain's preacher who charged nothing for his sermons, and they were worth it.)
     By the way, I'm just setting up a new blog with my film, "Common Miracles," featured on the site...http://skyschultz.blogspot.com/


     Sky presented the above talk and led the discussion at today's Spirit Mind Body meeting. The presentation is full of laughs, wonderful photos, and very profound quotes which smashed us in the brain, one after the other. It was a great spiritual time! I will post more about this morning's talk later. Sky plans to send some of the quotes so that I can post them accurately. I highly recommend attending his performance tomorrow night, at Schlitz Audobon Center.

    Sky told us that he was going to give us a little talk about nothing. However, space is not nothing. In fact space is full of stuff.  The Hubble Space Telescope photos interposed with many quotes from famous personalities indeed showed that space is not nothing. Certainly we can be amazed at our universe from the galaxies spanning light years down to the amazing smallest creature in pond water. One example of such a creature, the tardigrades, commonly known as water bears, a primitive arthropod which can tolerate complete desiccation for almost an infinite period of time, only to be able to come back to life when rehydrated in pond water. These creatures can survive at temperatures from -273 degrees to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.

D. H. Lawrence:  "All that we know is nothing; we are merely crammed wastepaper baskets, unless we are in touch with that which laughs at all our knowing."

In the Bhagavad Gita:"In the minds of those who are too attached to sense enjoyment and material opulence, and who are bewildered by such things, the resolute determination of devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not take place."

Colin Drake said: "The mind when not engaged creates problems."

Some deep quotes attributed to Lao Tzu:  "Kindness in words creates confidence; Kindness in thinking creates profundity; Kindness in giving creates love.     To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.   Stop trying to leave, and you will arrive, Stop seeking, and you will see. Stop running away, and you will be found.   If you are depressed, you are living in the past; If you are anxious, you are living in the future; If you are at peace, you are living in the present.   The Journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.     Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.   The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth."    Well, in looking up some of these quotes, I could go on and on. These sayings attributed to Lao Tzu are wonderful.   

Albert Einstein said: " There are only two ways to live: one is as though nothing is a miracle; the other way is as though everything is a miracle."   "I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking."   "Ego equals 1 divided by knowledge."

     Niels Bohr said: "The opposite of a truth is another profound truth."

     Georgia O'Keefe:  "It take a long time to see a flower."
 
Alan Watts:  "We must see that consciousness is neither an isolate soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but of that totality of interrelated stars and galaxies that makes a nervous system possible."

Thich Nhat Hanh:  On the concept of Inter-Being: The idea of “Interbeing” – introduced by Thich Nhat Hanh into the North American Buddhist vocabulary – may be viewed as a formulation of the doctrine of  “dependant co-arising” in the Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta.
In the Heart of Understanding – Thay’s commentary on the Heart of the Prajnaparamita Sutra – he writes:
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-“ with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be.
The observation that we “inter-are”, while true and poetic is not really the most important element of “Interbeing”. The important part is the realization that there is no independent self – that the perception of self, of “me”, of “mine” is an illusion.  Awareness that “I” am made of “non-I” elements leads to the understanding of non-self and it is the realization of non-self that brings an end to suffering.


 The Mirror of this World

Every particle of the world is a mirror,
In each atom lies the blazing light
of a thousand suns
Cleave the heart of a rain-drop,
a hundred pure oceans will flow forth.
Look closely at a grain of sand,
The seed of a thousand beings can be seen
The foot of an ant is larger than an elephant;
In essence, a drop of water
is no different than the Nile.
In the heart of a barley-corn
lies the fruit of a hundred harvests;
Within the pulp of a millet seed
an entire universe can be found.
In the wing of a fly, an ocean of wonder;
In the pupil of the eye, an endless heaven.
Though the inner chamber of the heart is small,
the Lord of both worlds
gladly makes his home there.

- Mahmud Shabestari
Reproduced from the blog of Eknath Easwaran, from Strength in the Storm, creating calm in difficult times.




Black Elk quotes:

And while I stood there
I saw more than I can tell
and I understood more than I saw;
for I was seeing in a sacred manner
the shapes of all things in the spirit,
and the shape of all shapes
as they must live together like one being.

     
All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we
do to ourselves. All is really One."

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us     Black Elk of the Oglala Lakota Sioux  (1863-1950)

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Upcoming Schedule:

Upcoming Spirit Mind Body Group schedule:

Feb. 19  Sky  Finding God through Mystery, Nature and Poetry
Feb. 26  Lori  Responsive Art Therapy
March 5 Bake Off
March 12 Gary Neutral Monism

February 12: Words and Non-duality by John T.

     Today  John T,, a deep thinking member of our group (he would say, deep thinking? Ah, but thinking is the problem!), undertook to present some personal remembrances of his life of seeking spiritual truth.He chose the title "Words and Nonduality" for various reasons. Indeed, words have duality. Yet we try to use them to describe non-duality. Most of the time the words do not do a very good job in this function.

     John talked about his experience with words. As a young man, he thought written words had to be the truth. No one would ever write what is not true, especially a public person such as a public or a politician. That was his point of view at the time. But as the years of his life passed he realized that indeed the truth was often not in the words. And today, with the Internet, this is probably even more so. John compares this to "Alice in Wonderland" and going down the rabbit hole, where we are confronted by the rabbit who tells us that he makes up the words and they mean whatever he says they mean." But John says, "Beware, because the words don't usually mean what they seem to mean."

    John discussed his experience with "going to church." Even in such a rarefied atmosphere, as in the church, there was an inner part of him that thought there must be something more, some further truth. As he went about his seeking that truth, the answers often came from books. As the years passed, he read widely of traditional spiritual texts. After all, some of the first sacred texts date back to 1400s BC, and the Old Testament dates to 140 BC.

     John did put together something written for us today but he was unable to pull it up on his I-phone. He then spoke from his memory and from his heart, I might add. He wanted to add some humor and told us that he did check his writing out to make sure that it represented correctness and some degree of truth and wouldn't be offensive. He says he checked his writing out with the Ketchup Society of America. That group read his piece and told him that for the most part it was good and mostly unoffensive. But they prescribed an increase in his intake of Ketchup and through the natural processes in his body with the digestion of the Ketchup he would somehow become more mellow and even less likely to offend.

     Non-duality. What does it mean? If John would use one word to state the meaning of Non duality, it would be indivisibility. In the Sanskrit, it would be not two, but one. Other simple substitutions for Non duality commonly used might be: "That"; "I am"; The Absolute. Some people use the word "God." Many of these words have a lot of baggage. John likes the concise word and concept: The Absolute.

     Over the years, certain teachers have shown John some truth, but sometimes John would not recognize that truth until 40 years later. One teacher said: When one can see oneself in all other beings, and all other beings are in oneself, that is a liberation. One important teacher for John has been Francis Lucille, a Frenchman of the Advaita Vedanta lineage. His teacher was Jean Klein who also led spiritually in this tradition, directly out of India.

     John T. attended a week long retreat with Francis Lucille in the last few weeks in Florida. The retreat included meditation, dialogue, and yoga and very profound teachings. Francis is now 70 years old. His approach is somewhat different and he succeeds to draw the students in and seems to enable them to get in touch with The Absolute. One half of the retreat group were MDs, psychologists, and such. Francis himself is a mathematician and physicist and he is still involved in that world to some degree.

     Advaita in Sanskrit means not two. The meaning does not in turn mean one, but rather not two. And this is non-duality. There is no separation between me and the rest of the universe. Consciousness is defined as pure being which is aware of the words right now.

     Another teacher that John likes is Robert Wolf. His website is: LivingNonduality.org. On that site is an excerpt from his book, "Living Nonduality". Chapter One: Living is an Enigma.  Multiple writers have made attempts to put The Absolute into more words, to describe it. Words like boundless, infinity, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite, eternal, free of causation. Basically it is ineffable. There are no words to describe it. We can only know that it is not the relative world that we live in. Rather it is the underlying essence of all. Truth appears as false, and that which appears as false is true.  It is unthinkable. It is experiential. Someone asked John if he ever experiences being even momentarily in touch with this Absolute. John describes moments where all attachments drop out. He has experienced one or more profound times where everything is love. He feels then that everything in creation comes from love.

     When John worked at Pabst and was seeking and reading a lot about these topics, he was looking for someone to bounce this spiritual idea off of. He found this Christian bishop. They had several deep discussions. But the bishop said that if John had brought these ideas up to a parish priest, that priest would have been scared to death by them. Indeed, the ego has an investment in not recognizing the non duality just as different religions also do. Therefore the ego fights these ideas and fights attempts to engage in non duality.

     One of the wonderful ideas that John has developed has been discussed in our meetings before, and that is the universality of these non dual ideas. They are present in so many of the common and uncommon world spiritual traditions. The following are brief words that various traditions use that express this non-duality. "Be still and know that I am."   "The word is God."  Oooom meaning home in Sanskrit is often thought of as the first word. Buddha-consciousness, Christ-consciousness. Jesus said: "I and the father are one."  The Gospel of Thomas was written expressing some of Jesus ideas perhaps closer to his actual life and teachings. It seems in that Gospel that indeed Jesus teachings are non dual. But a couple centuries later the currently used Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke are dualistic -- me and God are two different things. To read in detail or to just scroll through a bunch of references to nondualism to see how it enters into the traditions of almost every spiritual tradition throughout history and around the world, just Google nondualism and look at the Wikepedia article. It is interesting that on Wikipedia there are so many incomplete stubs, but here on this esoteric topic, the random writers have produced a huge and thorough piece of writing. It is truly amazing.

      In my searches on the Internet, here is another site that gives some insight into nondualism, which is a dialogue with John Foster.
http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/essays-transcripts/what-is-nonduality/

      IN ADDITION, I thank John T. for posting his writing on our email site. I have copied his references below as well. I think our membership will have plenty to keep us busy researching nondualism until our meeting next week.



Hello All,

I want to thank everyone who was present Feb. 13th for their support and patience.

Here are the links to the Nonduality information resource pieces I made reference to and from in sharing about the topic of Nonduality with Body, Mind, and Spirit Group Thursday morning.

There are many great definitions of nonduality.  The first one (The Absolute Enigma) I have on the list is one of my personal favorites. Which is an excerpt from Robert Wolfe's book entitled "Living Nonduality". I have always thought a through reading of this piece could be analogous to "the taking of the Red Pill" as in the movie "Matrix". In my recent readings on nonduality I came across a written piece by Jerry Katz from his (website nonduality.com), which is a replica of the same image I experienced. I think it is an excellent piece to use as a precursor to read before one takes the Red Pill/reads the "The Absolute Enigma". So, I also offer it here.
-  The word nonduality is a “red pill.” Recall that in the movie The Matrix, Neo was offered either a blue pill or a red pill. The blue pill would have returned Neo back to his dream world whose unreality he sensed but did not understand. The red pill would have awakened him to who he really was, which would have begun his journey through life and to the source. 

The word nonduality could work as a red pill if you value its meaning enough to follow it as deeply as you can. When Neo was being given his choice of pills, his teacher and mentor Morpheus explained to him:

This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more….

http://www.livingnonduality.org/absolute-enigma.htm

If one wants to explore nonduality further, here are some additional links to written pieces or videos I have found useful.

Francis Lucille - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview - YouTube: 
                                   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FUdfaVDckkw

Science and Non Duality Conference, with Francis Lucille doing a Q&A On free will, emotions, freedom and more - YouTube:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=68yRlexJTJs

Robert Wolfe Interview:             http://livingnonduality.org/

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. - YouTube :  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=weXKuURMgMs

And one other piece I referenced from Thursday: The Nonduality Highlights, #3665
                                                                  http://www.nonduality.com/hl3665.htm#_ednref3

All of these links can lead one to many other useful resources to further explore the topic of Nonduality if one is so inclined.

May peace be with you,
John T.
  

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

February 5, 2015: Bake Off

     Scatology 101:     At the beginning of this meeting, we made a round of the group to see if anyone had anything that they wanted to announce, any question to ask, or pearl that they wanted to share, albeit briefly. Sky was the first person, and he asked the question that has been bothering him for sometime now -- that relates to a concern about his daughter who has cystic fibrosis and great difficulty having normal bowel movements. He was shocked to read and learn all we know and all we don't know medically about the bacteria growing in the bowel. He informed us that there are at least 1500 species of bacteria that live normally in the bowel. And he particularly has questions about using Miralax as a treatment for intractable constipation.  Unfortunately or fortunately, this question led to basically scatological comments which continued through fully 1/2 of the circle of the group. Who would have thought that consideration of shitting would have led to so many wise and pithy statements? Unfortunately I didn't write the pith down, so you all will have to rely on your own memories for this topic.

      Meredith did try to broaden the topic asking us to consider the Great Amazon Basin as a huge digestive organ for the planet Earth. There are more species there than in any other habitat including the human bowel. But we humans are in the process of destroying this habitat, by logging it, burning what remains, farming this land for a while and then when it ceases to bear fruit well, moving on to more land and logging it, continuing the cycle. In a like manner in our own systems, natural substances often helped control our various functions but we are destroying those natural substances, such as herbs. We replace these natural products with medications. But often these medications have unintended consequences that could not have been foreseen.

     Mary recommended at book she is reading called "The Afterlife of Billy Fingers."

     Sharleen recommended the movie, entitled "The Painter" now playing probably at the Downer.

     The second half of the round table recalled some of the discussion during the previous week's meeting with Dr. Prosen and his work on empathy. Many members of the group had been stimulated by some of Dr. Prosen's discussion of this topic, an area that he was interested in during his entire career both in the psychiatric treatment of human beings and then in the treatment of primates particularly bonobos. I think Dr. Prosen also learned a lot about empathy from the zoo animals, and from their keepers and the researchers at the zoo.

     Comments suggested that the word empathy is a relatively new word just arising about 100 years ago. Actually the word began to be used in about 1850 but that is relatively recently. It is based on the Greek word: empatheia which means passion. It is basically em+pathos which means feelings or emotions. Further, the word was actually coined in 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Greek empatheia. There are two definitions of empathy. the first and most often use means a direct identification with, understanding of, and vicarious experience of another person's situation, feelings, and motives. The second use defines empathy as the projection of one's own feelings or emotional state onto an object or animal. This is the way that the word is used in art appreciation. One member of our group has studied art appreciation and recognizes this use of the word, but has difficulty understanding how art can communicate a feeling to the observer without being that feeling. Art therapy is used to help people, but it seems to work best when the art is used with movement. A study was cited from the Scientific American, where a drug addict has to push a bar away when the addict has a craving for the drug. The group that was required and complied with this pushing the bar away had a better success rate at addiction cure. There was something about the kinesthetic act of pushing that bar coincident with the craving.

     The group discussed the difference or lack of difference between the meaning of the words empathy and compassion. One of the ideas most expressed about empathy is that it lacks any judgement. For example, one would have difficulty understanding a child abuser if you judge him as sick or evil.

     We also always must remember that these definitions depend on our perception of the words and of the world. And often with perception there is deception. Not only must we always be aware that how we perceive the world is almost always wrong. In addition, language is often inaccurate. Paul cautioned us that in Buddhist thought empathy and compassion would be equal and nearly the same. There is no judgement with either one. Think of the specific Buddhist practice of tonglen meditation which extends compassion to others from those closest to us and even ourselves, to inclusively the whole world of sentient beings. The word sympathy also entered the discussion. But it was felt that sympathy means having a "feeling for" whereas empathy or compassion means having a "feeling with or even feeling into."  The idea of pity also came up. In Buddhist thought pity should be regarded as the enemy of empathy. Again language creates some of the problems we have in understanding these definition differences. Language is the stuff of dualities. Many of our neuroses may be related to language. But we really don't have other effective ways to communicate to the degree that our human lives seem to require. We just must remember the inaccuracies in language and in perception and how they can complicate our human relationships.     
 

January 29, 2015: Dr. Harry Prosen: Bonobos and Empathy.



   Our Spirit Mind Body Group had the unique and enjoyable opportunity to hear Professor Harry Prosen, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, and former Chief of the Department, and formerly Professor of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba, Canada and chief of the Psychiatry Department there.  Dr. Prosen has a multitude of other roles in his past academic career and even currently, but perhaps what he is most known for by non medical people at least on the Internet is his behavioral consultant work to the Milwaukee Zoo on bonobos. Since his work in this capacity he has received calls from all over the world about psychological and some medical problems with the great primates. In addition to his medical leadership roles as past President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, and leadership roles in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and the American Psychiatric Association, he is currently head consultant for the Bonobo Species Preservation Society.

     Dr. Prosen first told us how he became a psychiatric consultant for bonobos. The story involves Brian, a young bonobo male who was sent from Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta, where he had been housed with a male bonobo alone, not as normal which would be with his mother. Brian was very psychiatrically ill for a bonobo and was totally dysfunctional. He was engaging in a juvenile masturbation activity called fisting, in addition to other behavioral defects. With zookeepers, and administrators, various plans were outlined to try to help Brian. Eventually he was put into the enclosure with several females but they recognized his behavioral problems and were beating up on him. After much work and various brainstorming sessions, finally an older male, Lody and a very nurturing blind female, Kitty, were able to help Brian and his behavior slowly normalized. I had heard this story before, but didn't know the outcome. I was happy to learn that Brian is now the alpha male of the bonobo group at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

     Bonobos are very threatened in the wild. There may be only a couple thousand left in the Congo, where they reside on one side of the Congo River, the chimpanzees on the other side. Bonobos are matriarchal at least in the breeding colony. When males reach young adulthood they are chased out of the colony by the females and must join another colony or build one from scratch. The bonobos are considered to be one of the most empathic of all creatures and their society is characterized by much physical contact. It has been observed that bonobos solve most threatening problems by everyone having sex with everyone else. Then they see what is left that is threatening after a period of this sexual behavior. Milwaukee has the biggest bonobo colony in North America. Also Antwerp, Belgium has a large colony. Due to Dr. Prosen's observations and experience, Milwaukee Zoo is now considered an expert location for bonobos. However, Dr. Prosen reports that his tasks have not been easy. Like any other large organization, people at the Zoo have had their own ideas. Sometimes the keepers understand the animals better, but the researchers are in charge and don't always have an open mind. Many of the consultations that Dr. Prosen has received from around the world are done confidentially because some of the young caretakers are afraid to counter the researchers or the administration, or representatives of the philanthropic wing of the zoological park.

     It should be noted that the story of Brian and the story of where his initial consultation took Dr. Prosen is told in more detail in the Atlantic Monthly, of June, 2014. Here is a link.
 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/brian-the-mentally-ill-bonobo-and-how-he-healed/372596/

You may also learn more about Dr. Prosen. There is a nice Wikipedia article that is fairly thorough.

    Laurel Braitmans also tells Brian's story in her book: "Animal Madness: How anxious dogs, compulsive parrots, and elephants in recovery help us understand ourselves, a survey of mental illness in animals and its relationship to our own problems."  

     Dr. Prosen had done research in empathy and particularly in family relationships, looking at non verbal communication, and utilizing facial movements to communicate. This basis of study was a perfect baseline of knowledge from which Dr. Prosen could serve in such an expert way for the bonobos. Likewise and in the reverse, his work with these primates and for that matter a few other species of animals helped him to even further understand human empathy. A quote on empathy by Dr. Prosen: "Empathy knows no country, no species, is universal and has always been available. I discovered after arriving at the zoo that it belonged to the bonobos long before us."

     Dr. Prosen has written over 70 books, monographs, and articles, reviewed over 30 books and  delivered over 60 presentations at various conferences.

     Most recently Dr. Prosen has served as an advocate for Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith, whose several books on the human condition have led to Dr. Griffith founding a movement called the World Transformation Movement, or WTM. The most complete Griffith book on this topic has been rewritten and is now entitled "Freedom", and has an introduction by Dr. Harry Prosen. Also Dr. Prosen has worked in depth with Dr. Griffith on a planned documentary to explain the human condition in detail. I believe there is slow movement toward the production of this documentary film. The problem is that Griffith has alienated some people in high places in the religious community in Australia and that may have slowed the documentary process. I'm not going to go into the WTM in great detail here, but basically Dr. Griffith feels he has sorted out why human beings act the way they do, in so many ways contributing to the suffering of their fellow human beings.  The book explains why there seems to be evil in the world and why we cannot live in peace. I suggest starting with the Wikipedia article on the WTM and take it from there.

     Our group members seemed particularly interested in empathy and what it is, how it can be defined, how it differs from sympathy and from compassion, whether it can be taught or learned, and how we can practice more empathy in daily life.The group felt that empathy can be taught or is learned. But there is a difference between compassion and empathy though the difference is slight. It also depends on our perception and how the word compassion is being used. We all have empathy but the amount varies. Recent imaging studies have shown in which areas of the brain empathy arises. There are certainly inborn aspects of empathy. And the presence of empathy is tied up with the human condition. In the beginning, we may have empathy. Studies of infants have shown this. But in some of us as our lives are built we displace the empathy. Projection seems like empathy but it is not. For the psychiatrist, transference and countertransference are also involved. There was a general consensus that the group could spend another session discussing empathy. That may take place in the future.

     Again the group would wholeheartedly like to thank Dr. Prosen. He also offered to come back sometime and go into more detail about empathy and his areas of study.