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.
  

June 7, 2012: Bake Off

   Even though this was a Bake Off session, our discussion centered on just one topic for the most part. Someone presented the book pictured at the left, called The Spirit Level: Why greater equality makes society stronger by Richard Wilkerson and Kate Pickett. The book argues that there are "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness (and) encouraging excessive consumption." It claims that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.
   A multitude of graphs seem to indicate these conclusions, but critiques have said that the book emphasizes income inequality too much and doesn't look at the cultural effects of income differences. The Spirit Level conclusions are strongest in the area of health. The links between average health outcomes and income inequality do appear strong, and disturbing. Other critics have decried the books lack of statistical analyses. Another critic stated that only the correlation between infant mortality and income inequality stood up to statistical scrutiny.

   The book also concludes that it does not matter how a country gets to equality. It can be legislated, through socialization of the economic basis, or the economic basis of the country can exist equally through cultural influences. In either case, the data supports that more equality is associated with better outcomes in multiple broad areas.

   The group then discussed how this greater inequality translates into the degree of happiness in the country or American state. In the past, this group read and discussed Jonathan Haight's book on happiness, entitled The Happiness Hypothesis. Haight says that 5 items in our lives contribute positively to the presence of happiness. 1) Support group, 2)Flow in work, 3) Faith, 4) Noise level, 5) Having savings (ie not living hand to mouth.)

   What should be looked at really is the equality of the ability to achieve satisfaction -- not so much equality of income. It is the equal opportunity to find meaning or purpose in life. Inequality is also associated with a heavy negative government. A kind government seems to increase equality. An example is the Scandanavian countries where it almost seems as though they legislate equality. One member of the audience states that in Norway, there is no such thing as trespassing. You can go onto another's property as long as you don't bother the owner. Items are sold on the road based on an honor system. For example, one can stop and take some farm produce and leave the payment in a container. This is a common practice there.

   Members of the audience sited various experiences that either they or their family have had while volunteering in very poor countries. Haiti is an example that some people have had first hand experience with. Nicaragua also was described as extremely poor with very poor infrastructure. There is no potable water in many communities. School children have no shoes, no school supplies, or even desks. It is a male dominated society and even male children do not respect their mothers. Certainly there are major cultural problems in addition to the poverty. Dave talked about Dominican Republic when he was there some years ago. His friend enjoyed the culture there so in some cases volunteers become very charmed by the local people, even when poverty is a major characteristic of the local society. Vlad talked about Russia. He originates from Russia and can discuss how things are with first hand knowledge. He told the story of how a blacksmith in a small town was making good money and could afford to hire men to work for him to increase his business still further. But official collectivism meant that he should not be making money for himself and hiring people to work for him. If people did this, they were exiled to Siberia. But a community needs its blacksmith very much so that could not be done to the blacksmith. So instead the Russian authorities collectivized the blacksmith, solving the problem. It should be noted that we have mentioned another book that looks comparatively at happiness in various countries-- the book is entitled The Geography of Bliss by the NPR foreign correspondant, Eric Weiner.

   One discussant thought that we miss the boat if we focus only on income equality because we miss the spiritual. We need to find a way to help people to connect and join together. We need to empower people. Welfare does not do this. One avenue to do this is listening.

   Those who have read the book The Spirit Level recommended it to the rest of the group.

January 5, 2011: Bake Off. Phillip Chard's column of Dec 26: About Happiness

     As often happens at our meeting, we began this Bake Off by reading through a recent column written by Phillip Chard. But for some reason, our discussion this time went quite astray to what did seem to be an interesting topic for most people. As is often the case, there were several physicians in the group. We therefore served as each other's sounding board about our medical training.
Hit Read More to enjoy Phillip Chard's article, and to have a brief summary of what our discussion turned to.

March 10, 2011: Tim: Satisfaction and Joy at Work!

     Tim has worked in industrial psychology and understands what workers need at the workplace and how they need to view their work in order to be happy there. He now is teaching the necessary elements to students at MSOE. Today at our meeting Tim provided the handouts he uses to outline steps that can make us all happier at work. He uses a lot of Mihalyi Csikczentmihalyi' principles outlined in several of his books starting with one eentitled simply "Flow". The hand out from Tim will be posted on this website when available.

The Happiness Hypothesis Session 3

     On February 25, group discussion, led by Gary, was extensive about Chapter 7 The Uses of Adversity and Chapter 8 The Felicity of Virtue. Read on for a synopsis of these two chapters. It was decided to include Chapter 9 Divinity With or Without God on March 11 with Richard guiding us. On March 4, we will have our monthly BakeOff.

The Happiness Hypothesis, Session 2

     On February 18, 2010, Dave led a discussion of Chapters 4-6 of The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. The group consensus was that these three chapters were the meat of the book so far, but particularly Chapter 5. If a person were to just pick out one chapter to read in this book, Chapter 5 would be it. But first let's summarize Chapter 4.

The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

     Our group will be studying the book, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt for the next 3 weeks.
     On Thursday, Feb 11 Todd  presented the first three chapters for discussion.

     Click on the light grey "Read More" below for a summary of the 2/11 discussion.