Thursday, 15th April 2010

Topic of the evening : What is life?

In total we were ten people yesterday. A pleasant number to handle and get a good discussion started. Three Hs, M, I, A, J, D, E and myself as the discussion leader. Four women and six men.

It was my aim to narrow the topic down to the core interests of the group. Starting with some questions to get the brainstorm going, it very soon became clear that they mainly wanted to talk about life of human beings.

What is the limit of life ?
Where does life start ?
What is a sign of life ?
How does a human being / animal / plant feel life ?
Is there a better life ?
Are there possibilities to 'improve' life ?
Does a stone / sand / branch of a tree live ?
Where does life come from ?
What is the crown jewel of life ?

Do you have any association with life and dust ?

J started the evening when answering that he personally only saw it relevant to talk about man and life, since we could not know what for example a bird feels about life. Nor is it matter to talk about a stone and its life, because,...we as human beings can only do philosophy about ourselves. H 3 saw it totally different and made his point clear that even a stone has its life,...depending on what time range you looked at it. It was once upon a time fluid and thus "A-LIFE". H2 came with a definition of life : Life is everything that moves. Life is everlasting. Then someone shot out with another definition : Life is energy. E had even thought of a formula for life. And I hope that I can reconstruct his definition. For him life was also movement, but there was something else. Life of a human being had also to do with intensity. The greater the intensity the easier it was for a human being to move others. More life is being able to move more people. E brought a clear discrepancy into the discussion : For him there are people with more and people with less life,...more important people and less important people. H1 did not agree with this. Was it because it is against the human rights, where it says : All human beings are equal. When we look at what a crash of a polish president can do to a country in comparison to the hundreds and more children and grown up dying every day....well : Maybe E does have a very clear view of things...and maybe we want to have an illusion that we are all equal. E added that for him the formula E=MC2 could be seen as a clear cut definition of life. For me the question remained then. What has the greatest intensity...who can move most? M came up with a very interesting thought. For her it was very important to realise that life was changing and that life has different forms. So it was clear to her that illness for example can give a personal life a very unexpected twist.

From D we could hear that it was important to note that life of course began far before birth. And we all decided that we could also talk about life before fertilization, but that we found it more interesting to talk about the question of life after birth.

Life has very much to do with communication was a sort of a definition of H3. It is so important to see that life is always dependent on other factors. If there is no food or air to breath then we cannot talk of life. So talking of life or feeling life as being something that we can do alone, is pure nonsense. But well, what does it matter to be aware of that fact. Maybe it can change a personal life. In a time when we think that we can do so much alone, it can change a mind set in realising that we are entirely dependent on other people,...on air, on insects (that if they were not in our environment we would die; H1 even came with the example of the bats: if bats died out we human beings could not handle the amount of insects and so we would also die). We are so dependent, which is also a very good thing,...if we realise how dependent we are, our awareness of responsibility rises and we become better human beings.

E wanted to state that life always has to do with memory. And so a little discussion started on cells and DNA. Yes there is a sort of a memory in our cells, and is this always an indication that there is life. If we say that human life is always linked to memory, what about our childhood then...the first few years we know so little about. Well,...we could not answer this one...it remained a mystery.

D mentioned that it is interesting to see that life always runs in a certain chain. It is a circle of activities and things. Maybe a neverending story - an always developing chain of dependencies.

E came with the hint that life has always got to do with consciousness and that death is the disappearance of this consciousness. He was also convinced that life always has got to do with emotion.

H2 very quickly answered on this one. In his oppinion emotion came from lat. motion and that meant that e-motion clearly stated that there is no motion and thus no life.

Whether it is so easy I do not know. But of course I do know that there are states of mind where people do not have emotion,...or better they are practising to purify themselves of all emotion in order to become enlightened. For me it must then be very clear and it is necessary to add that love itself then is no emotion. It is a state of being that excells all other emotions and therefore is not part of the emotion discussion.


B R E A K


We had a break in which H1 and M came with the second round of tea and coffie and after the break I decided to try and get into deeper terrain and I hoped to leave the definition discussion behind. No matter what and how each one prefered to define life I believe in deeper discussions where people some times stop and listen,...before coming with a clear cut answer for every remark.

I read out loud a little story from a book called 'ZEN in everything'. The title was really where I was aiming for in this "life" discussion.

Zen sweeping

We can calmly say that the technology of brooms has not changed in the last few centuries. People have swept their floors since dust accumulates.
Human desire to sweep floors has come from more than just a wish for cleanliness. The action develops out of our intrinsic spirituality, that is what Zen masters say. 'Acts like sweeping the floor from dust of our rooms and cleaning leaves from our garden path all stand for "sweeping the dust of the world" from someone's head and heart, or in other words ascetism of worldly matters,'says Zen teamaster Soshitsu Sen XV. 'Acts of cleaning therfore enables you to feel purity and the holy essence of things, man and nature.'

One story of the Buddha talks about a meeting with a man called Sri. Sri's brother had given up on trying to teach him anything. Sri, who considered himself rather stupid, was in tears when he told the Buddha how he had tried to learn, but that he could not remember anything.
The Buddha gave him a broom and tin with the words : 'Sweep and clean. Every day. Do away with all the dust of the world.'
By repeating this simple action every day Sri became enlightened.
Every time that we clean our environment, we feel cleaner from the inside out. Zen is nothing more than repeating that excercise - day by day. One at a time. One huge clearance.

After reading there was a little silence that I really enjoyed as I sensed a way of getting deeper into the matter.

Another definition of life came : Life is being ONE with everything. How beautiful, I thought to myself.

We all decided that trying to answer the crown jewel question was tempting and so H2 opened the discussion again. "If I experience everything like as if it were for the first time, I leave behind the past. I become like a child that sees things just as they are without too much memory and false projections."

A' immediately added that this is the buddhist way of seeing it, namingly: unbiased living, without any prejudice. "Yes," exclaimed H2 "and it comes from an inner silence". It is living the inner awe, astonishment and allowing this surprise to happen every day again.

M just hinted, well that is when you are happy. And well, yes, I said: That brings us to the question "What is happiness?" Oh well, D, remarked: "...a good question and surely worthwhile a full other evening." Yes, he was right. We did not want to leave the original topic too much. But alas,...we had reached a certain turning point. We had reached something that was deep,...and something that moved everyone. I felt honesty.

So then I' came with an interesting personal observation in which she described a moment when she felt totally alive that is to say a moment of utter inspiration. She described it as a moment when she realized that her own qualities met the needs of others in her surrounding. And these moments were not pure and did not have anything to do with earning money or getting affirmation.

E doubted this statement as he critically remarked that also in this apperent ego less conduct deep down an ego was hidden as a driving force. But H2 thanked I' for her open personal story and found it a significant input for the evening.

So then we had reached a point of spiritual answers to the original question. We now were close to the answer of : Life is unconditional love

When I' asked J provokingly what he thought that life was he shortly answered in one word : Presence

E then referred to I's input and added that if you act unconditionally you can put in everything, which means for him - not being afraid of anything. What an interesting remark, I thought by myself. And I also hoped that all these precious thoughts and insights could be notted down so that we do not lose them. So now I sit here and write them down.

J then came with a little more critical remark again. He said that this unconditional living is something we can do if we already are in a comfort zone. And of course from somewhere in the room came the remark that of course philosophy was a luxury. Here I had to add the Socrates story. Oh yes, Socrates who gave his life for his philosophy long before people had ever heard of a name like Jesus or other heroes. He as a convinced philosopher believed that he was on the right path and drank the cup of poison given to him by the counsel. There was absolutely no convenience in that situation. He went for his faith unconditionally.

H 1 also came with an intersting story telling us of the many recipees that were written in concentration camps...a sign that also there with no convenience at all people could become very creative indeed.

And H 3 thought it important to share the idea that many children and people in slums of developing countries seem happier than we are in the rich countries. They seem to laugh more and are more free.

I' referred to H 1 's story of recipees in concentration camps when she said that yes it may as well be that there were creative minds but that it was only possible if there was already a basis of certain knowledge. She reminded us all of Mandela who came out of prison, became president without a deed of revenge whatsoever. But of course Mandela was a very creative and intelligent mind before being put into prison.

And yes of course Buddha himself left the wealth of his father, he broke free and landed hard in the other extreme. Poverty of the worst kind,...but then with total ascetism he could not find what he was lookin for either. He found his happiness meditating under the boddhi tree. Not a convenience store or a spa in a western luxury resort. Total openness and connectedness with mother nature. Mother earth that breathes through him and he obtained the breath of life from her. ONENESS...that is life.

H3 came up with a quote from the bible. "You will first be able to get an elephant through a needle hole than a rich man giving away his material wealth..." Jesus said.

Then H2 came with a conclusive and final question which for him is suitable as an answer to the crown jewel question. What is the crown jewel of life ? For him the core question should be : How do I reach ascetism ?

Not everyone agreed but somehow we all came to the notion that silence oneself is the important issue for a crown jewel life. So H2 suggested we held silence for two minutes. And we did. I could look at my notes and also check the clock. I noticed that not everyone enjoyed the silence but somehow I was convinced that it was a good exercise in bringing people together. And also : For me there is so much that happens in this silence,...I personally can read the silence and for me it is a prayer. And that is how I see this evening. Like a prayer. In my thoughts I repeat the feeling I love you all,...but it is not the mere words that make this feeling being transmitted. It is pure interest in other human beings.

After the silence I asked them if they wanted to share their final thougths and observations. Everyone wanted to say something about the evening:
1) I': She really enjoyed the diversity of thoughts in the group,...yes it was somehow incredible that people could approach "life" so differently
2) J: the evening turned out just the way he had expected it to be; this topic addresses more emotions; it is very different to the last session in which we talked about chaos and order...he thought it was a good thing
3) A: she made a very beautiful remark ; she had heard about the passion of simplicity which was new and worthwhile to her,...the sweeping broom story
4) H3: he was very pleased with the evening and thought it was a pity he had not heard about our gatherings before ; for the next meeting he suggested it interesting to investigate the question of : Why is there life? and I' wants to answer the question : Where does life lead us to ?
5) D: He had also attended the evening for the first time and thought it a very interesting evening, with which he could grow. He said that he had learned a lot.
6) H1: For H the quetion of ascetism remained very present in his mind and will keep him busy. He told us that when he goes on vacation with his camper there is absoulutely nothing that he misses...

So we all need that camper ;-)...

7) E: E said that he had learned from the evening and that this gave him a feeling of peace. He also thought it intersting that there were so many different oppinions.
8) H2: H noticed a definite difference before and after the break. He also suspected me to have done that on purpose...before the break he said people were busy with ventilating knowlede, definitions, etc. and after the break, after reading the story and focussing into the question of the crown jewel the evening gained in substance. The atmosphere relaxed and people became opener amongst each other. There was more feeling of trust and honest sharing.

Thank you H2.

9)M : M said that she could not follow everything but that it was not a problem for her. I told her that if there are moments when she wants the discussion to slow down she should tell me or give me a hint so that I can let people repeat what they have said.

10) M: My greatest joy this evening was that we laughed quite a lot. There were some misunderstandings which caused some funny moments and I personally love that. I am well aware of the fact that we handled an extremely wide topic but somehow we were talking about the same thing in the end and that is what I was aiming for. The feeling was right...people listened and yes there was respect for each and everyone. Some members of the group still state facts very strictly...maybe not giving enough room for others who have other oppinions. Well, I see my task as giving people a chance to talk and listen. I am not a teacher,...ya I admmit deep down I am a preacher and during the whole evening I do my prayer of love and respect.

I came out of this evening full with energy and somehow purified. I wish I could do it more often, ...but for the time being it is once a month. Thursday's philosophy.