Paul H. LeMay, Vancouver, BC

Pentecost Sunday Insights

Politics is well-known for being a school of hard knocks. While we recognize this to be intuitively true, how exactly do we know that? We know that because somewhere within us, we recognize that each of us can get very committed to the merits of a given belief system, while at the same time, become blind to the merits of another’s. As such, we can become quite defensive in how we relate to others who not only don’t share our views, but who may even openly oppose them.

While the foregoing may sound like a statement of the obvious, on a deeper philosophical, if not existential level of our being, it goes to the core of how to relate to our world and others. Owing to the deeper inter-dependent fractal nature of what we call reality (a.k.a. God’s creation), it would be wise if we paid careful attention to the wider consequences to the larger body politic, as well as our own spiritual being.

There are many schools of wisdom one can draw upon to help us discern the consequential dynamics that so often come about from sticking to any one-size-fits-all ideology. I will appeal to only one such discernment model here, one from Tibetan Buddhism called the Mandala of the Five Buddha Families. This model shares much in common with our western psychological notions of personal temperament.

Just as we all know of people who tend to be soft-spoken and shy, as well as people who tend to be flamboyant and a tad self-possessed, and everything in between, the Buddhists posited that no matter the talent or wisdom gift a given person temperamentally possesses from birth, excessive use of that gift can become an emotional poison.

It’s akin to a musician who only knows how to play one song on one instrument. In this context, what the school of hard knocks refers to is the near instant karmic feedback people experience when they try to impose their particular limited worldview on others.

Among those who only associate with others of like mind, this is hardly a burden; but when interacting with those of a different temperament or mindset, it can feel like a veritable demonic attack on all that is considered sacred. Naturally, this can give rise to much conflict and reciprocal feelings of suspicion and distrust, and even vengeful hatred, which in the moment, often seems more than justified.

So, let’s call this the psychological ground of a first level response. Such “responses” are largely “instinctual” and hence subconscious, emotionally reactive, and can often result in any number of provocative statements designed to inflict some measure of psychological injury to one’s opponent.

And one need not look far for examples. They abound in politics, in editorial commentaries, in back-stabbing slights shared between co-workers, or in the school yard. In fact, by the looks of politics today, this seems like the favorite “go to” formula of most supposedly seasoned political commentators. But as we all more deeply know this hardly reflects an overly enlightened form of conduct. And like an addictive drug, the more lasting polarizing outcomes are hard to shake.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.

— Albert Einstein

2.

So, what’s an example of a second level response? For starters, it is a more mindful spiritual response, which is to say, one that makes a sincere effort to be loving, compassionate, or in the very least, more open-minded and curious to learn why the other or others hold the views they do. To do so doesn’t necessarily mean one is required to surrender one’s current preferred worldview, if only because there is almost always some measure of wisdom and merit in each viewpoint.

A case in point: Over a decade ago, I saw the Dalai Lama live in Vancouver where an audience member got to ask him what truth was. He paused and then said truth was a multi-dimensional proposition. It was like a multi-faceted crystal where each facet reflected some measure of the overall truth. In this sense, one’s ability to see and grasp any given aspect of the truth was partially perspective dependent.

This view is consistent with a notion advanced in two books I co-wrote with a psychiatrist over eight years ago, wherein we described the Integrating Self Function (ISF) which is characteristic of a healthy maturing mind, as opposed to one fixated on using only one of three default mindsets (i.e., defeated, appeasing and fighting).

By contrast, the ISF tries to accommodate a multiplicity of perspectives on any given topic so as to keep the mind as open as possible, and as compassionate as possible under all circumstances.

But integrating on the spiritual level involves something more. Some months ago, the Island Catholic News editor shared the text of an email of a protestant minister who wrote, we are no longer in a debate between left and right, but between outside and inside.

“Going in” represents times when we leave our sense-driven outer world orientation structures aside and move into an inner reflection space through meditation. Here, the full and gentle presence of the intuitive dimensions of our being have an opportunity to arise and speak to us in ways that do not involve forceful impositions of ideology or categorical concepts. Over time, in such deeper inner spaces of awareness, we are eventually able to connect with the glory and light of the divine presence.

In the Jewish and Christian mystical traditions this is called the Shekinah. Others might describe the experience as entering into the presence of the Holy Spirit. Within the Hindu yogic philosophy tradition, this sounds akin to the opening of the third eye of the sixth chakra, which in brain science, is associated with the pineal gland.

Either way, what we are referring to here is a very necessary and accessible dimension of our being, one which lay beyond the entrapments of the more limited dimension of our concept-anchored minds, where notions of power and status in comparison to others take hold.

So, if we are truly intent on moving beyond the rat trap of a mind anchored solely in self-limiting ideological constructs, and all of the emotional clutter that comes with it, then we need to devote some measure of mindful time each day to such inner-work practices if we hope to not only heal ourselves, but by extension, our world as well. May it be so.

Paul H. LeMay, BA (Psych) is a long-time Island Catholic News contributor; and the co-author of Primal Mind, Primal Games: Why We Do What We Do.
www.primalmindprimalgames.com