January 8, 2015: Bake Off -- The Meaning of Life

     The author of this blog has made a New Year's Resolution. I resolve to be more faithful about posting about our seeking meetings of the Spirit Mind Body Group that gathers weekly at Milwaukee Mindfulness Center.

     We all still miss our former leader, Todd Davison, who passed away last June. He always called himself , the SAP, which stood for Self Appointed President. His guidance, and leadership will forever be missed.

     I am honored by our group to have been named what I call ConsenSAP or a Consensus Appointed President. I regard myself more as a timekeeper for our weekly meetings. But I will try to guide as well as I am able. AND I truly intend to keep this blog up to date for our members who keep track of us from afar. Sharleen will continue in her capacity of keeping our schedule and gently recruiting presenters at those meetings which require a presenter.

     On January 8th, after a holiday hiatus since both Christmas and New Years Day fell on our meeting day, Thursday, we gathered for our monthly Bake Off, in this case a week late due to the holiday. Let me once again explain here what a Bake Off is. This event falls on the first Thursday of every month. Attendees are asked to bring small tidbits that have attracted their spiritual attention or that have moved them. Sometimes it is a poem, sometimes a short spiritual practice, sometimes just a newspaper column such as the Phillip Chard one for that day in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Whoever brought an item takes his turn to present it. Then the group discusses it and anyone who wishes offers comments, comparisons, or other recollections or quotes that pertain to this presentation. The event is called a Bake Off, because the group adds its own ingredients to the initial "recipe" and we mix it and blend it and then "Bake It." The group never fails to gain some insight from this process.

    This author opened this Bake Off by presenting a short review of a very small book that I took out of the library. It is a fairly quick read and served to open up quite a nice "baking session" regarding its title. 

Terry Eagleton is the pen name of John Edward Taylor, Professor of English at Manchester University in England. Certainly it would seem to be rather courageous to undertake a book by this name. And the book is very small -- with a physical size of 3 X 5 inches and in that small format is 187 pages long.The book is really more like an essay than anything longer.  Being an academic, Eagleton spends more than half of that length considering what the question itself means, ie what even the words or labels in the title mean. What does "meaning" mean? What does "life" mean. During these considerations the author whirls through philosophical well-knowns like Aristotle, Plato,  Nietsche and Schoepenhauer. At one point he questions whether actually the "meaning of Life" is the actual living process of that life. In other words, life is what you make of it. At another point he lists a long group of "candidates" for the meaning of life: happiness, power, love, honor, truth, pleasure, freedom, reason, autonomy, the state, the nation, God, self-sacrifice, contemplation, living according to Nature, the greatest happiness to the greatest number, self abnegation, death, desire,worldly success, the esteem of one's fellows, reaping as many intense experiences as possible, having a good laugh, and so on. "For many people, in practice if not always in theory, life is made meaningful by their relationship by those closest to them, such as partners and children."

     Finally he distills the meaning of life into two of these items: first is happiness. Of course he has to consider the meaning of happiness for a while first. Here he likes Aristotle's definition of happiness which really is more like contentedness or a sense of well-being.  Then he comes to what apparently he regards as the most important meaning of life and that is love. He is not talking about romantic love, but rather love for all of our fellow beings on this world, more like the Buddhist idea of compassion or loving kindness. He feels this is the true meaning of life.

     Here is a link to a review of this book which goes into more detail than I did above for anyone who is interested in further reading or in reading the entire little book:      http://www.salon.com/2007/06/14/eagleton

     As expected in a Bake Off, the topic stimulated some discussion. Many felt that most of the group (not all) are of an age when we feel our time has become somewhat limited so we don't want to waste time by engaging in meaningless activities. But that is a judgement. Though some members of the group felt that creating such a strong purpose in life like the monastic of hermetic life is difficult to understand, others felt that in some cases intense dharma relationships grow out of such a life.

     Gertrude Stein was on her death bed, when she was remembered as saying in answer to the question: What's the answer?
     "There is no answer; that's the answer."  In  other words, our mind cannot understand the meaning. Many of us try to learn about a different way of knowing. Still we have the chattering mind. Someone thought that too much thinking actually dulls the mind.

     Gary feels that we all seek answers in the context of our own narrative. There is no answer. the answer is only that we are all curious. What we all have is an emanation of consciousness, but we must appreciate the wonder of our life. We lose sight of the complexity of life, such as quantum theories etc, and if we keep seeking, we hopefully can develop a cosmology that is satisfying at least to some degree.

     Marcy spoke about her relationship with animals especially in her work as a veterinarian, which she misses now that she is retired.  She recalls how she could look at an animal and get a feeling about the animal and its condition. A deep part of her work did not need intellectual meeting. She could bond with the animal, with no language, but with pure joy and she could just be there with the animal.

     Marcy read what is called a solar plexus chakra affirmation:

 I AM WORTH MY WEIGHT IN GOLD

I am worthy of love, kindness, and respect regardless of what I have done.
I am worthy because I exist.
I am worthy of the life I say I want.
I am worthy of the best.
I am confident in my ability to make my life work.
I am confident in the goodness of life itself to see me through.
I accept the power of my being to produce health, love, and joy in my life.
I know I am a powerful and wholesome force for good.
I choose the power of life.
I choose goodness, light, and love.
I choose health, healing, and happiness.
I choose the best for myself.

 This is one I found online before I received the one Marci presented in my email: it is also called a solar plexus chakra affirmation:

   
     I love and accept myself.
     I stand up for myself.
     I am strong and courageous.
     I am worthy of love, kindness, and respect.
     I choose the best for myself.
     I express myself in a powerful way.
     I am proud of my achievements.
     I honor my self.
     I choose healthy relationships.
     I am authentic.
     I direct my own life.
     I appreciate my strengths.
     I feel my own power.
     I am free to choose in any situation.
     I seek opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.
     I am at peace with myself.
    
     Some people discussed Holosync, or Hemisync, which is a type of binaural sound practice developed by Bob Monroe, which is supposed to deepen meditation and spiritual practice. Several members of the group have tried it and feel that it is very calming but that other meditative practices produced a deeper effect. You can find some information about it -- google Holosync or Robert Monroe. One of the sites lets you try it with a set of ear buds. Some in the group felt that its effects are not consistent.
  

Bake off on the Bhagavatam. December 2, 2010

     One member of the group presented two items for discussion in juxtaposition. The first was a small quote from the Bhagavatam. First for those who do not know, the Srimad Bhagavatam is a large book containing 18,000 verses which is considered the Hindu "Bible". It was credited mostly to Veda Vyasa and thought to have been set down in about the 9th or 10th century CD. However large parts of this Veda could have been written before, and passed down over many centuries being edited and altered over centuries. At least small parts were seen in material that goes back as far as 500 CD. This book consists of bhakti (devotions) to the gods, and mainly to Krishna. Parts also describe the life of Krishna, who is an avatar, or incarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu. Following is a quote that our member wished us to read and then juxtapose with another reading on psychological transference which is printed second here.

    Quote from the Bhagavatam: "Krishna said: Friends love one another actuated by selfish interests; there is no true friendliness there, but only self-interest. Others love even those who do not love them-- this is like paternal affections; here the love is actuated by dharma and friendliness, an it is blameless. Yet others do not love even those that love them; they are either sages who delight in their own self, they whose desires have all been fulfilled, ungrateful people or they who hate their own benefactors and elders. As for me, I do not love even those who love me, so that they may never forget me nor take me for granted, but remain forever immersed in quest of me -- like a poor man who found a pearl which he lost, and is, therefore, for ever looking for it. It is on this account that I disappeared from your midst for a while. But, I tell you, even if I am born again and again for many millennia, I will not be able to repay the debt I owe you nor to recompense your pure love for me."

    The second quote comes from an essay entitled Two Cheers for Romance by Stanley Cavell. In this essay Stanley is considering a movie about Charlotte Vale in which she gives up a widower that she was to marry in exchange for her therapist. But what she is feeling for her therapist is likely transference. Here is the quote: "Now before you jump to the conclusion that she has not resolved her transference in her relation with her therapist -- matter surely to bre considered -- I hope you will be willing to thin of these words and images in terms of Freud's 1915 essay, Observations on Transference-Love, in which he insists in all honesty on the point that "the state of being in love which makes its appearance in the course of analytic treatment (ie., the transference-love) has the characteristics of a 'genuine' love. The analyst does not act to fulfill this love in its own terms because it is exactly his or her peculiar task not to act on it, but instead to teach an attitude that allows freedom from the dictation of action by desire. One might say that it is only because of transference-love is a version of real love that this learning can take place. The question for me is whether Charlotte Vale's modification and satisfaction of the various strands of her desire (and the concept of marriage) may be imagined as achieving a credible and creditable degree of psychic freedom. She had written to Dr. Jaquith to inform him of breaking her engagrement to the eligible widower, expressing her confusion over her action. This man, she said, offered everything a woman is supposed to want: a man of her own, a home of her own, a child of her own. Now in these terms my question about this film becomes: Do we see to her version of these things, including work of her own? Or do we feel, on the contrary, that she has merely fallen into the grip of an ideology which forces her to find substitute compensations for the actual or literal possession of such things, as those things are themselves now only substitute compensations for the genuine autonomous queest for a woman's own existence?"

     I don't think the group saw a connection between these two quoted paragraphs. One group member said he was quite disappointed in Krishna's viewpoint. He appears to be somewhat of a jerk. But some thought that this Krishna quote is a story that is taken out of context and really is like a parable to illustrate some teachings.

     Then several in the group talked about transference in psychoanalytic practice. Transference usually occurs by recalling a former loving relationship -- a later version of something that came before but is forgotten. When transference-love has occurred, it might take several years of therapy for the patient to work through the previous traumatic experience in a relationship. A relationship with a therapist who does not traumatize may show the patient that a more healthy relationship can exist.

    One member stated that for example adulation of a Buddhist teacher can be a trap. The one who is adulating is not free to move on, and the one who is adulated is also trapped.

    We asked the member who brought these two quotes what he thought might be their connection or what point he wanted to use these quotes to make. He just found them interesting when juxtaposed. But I think the consensus was that there was no connection between these two types of love.