We humans seem to really crave certainty. We crave the feeling of solid ground under our feet, and we seem to think we can outwit our vulnerability with our own conviction that we are right about so much of what we see in life. We attempt to place things into easy categories, right and wrong, white and black, good and bad, and once we have our minds made up that we “know” about something, we stop looking for further information which might indicate we are wrong.
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation. We will be sitting from 7:30 to 11:00 PM Eastern Time. It is not necessary to sit for the entire extended time, which is set up to make it convenient for people in four North American Time Zones; sit for as long as you like and when it is most convenient for you. Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers, who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a good description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat."
Sangha Co-hosts for meditation are:
7:30 - 10:00 Ooooh and davehouck
9:30 - 11:00 thanatokephaloides
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For some people, those who are completely identified with thoughts, the very idea that they might be wrong stirs up fear of annihilation. This is one reason why it is so very difficult to sway the opinion of some people with facts. From this level of awareness, if facts prove us wrong then facts are our enemy.
A few years ago I posted the photo above on Facebook as my profile picture. If you are familiar with Facebook, you will understand how it is sometimes necessary to heavily crop an image for use in a profile photo. At one point someone commented on the photo mentioning they loved the photo of the car ferry Badger leaving the port of Ludington, Michigan. I responded that it was not taken in Ludington, it was actually taken in Frankfort, Michigan when the Ann Arbor Railroad ferries were still in operation. A second person commented that they were sure the photo was taken in Ludington. I was a little surprised, after all, I had taken the photo; I thought I knew just the thing to do to shed light on the matter.
It was a very old photo, taken back in the ’80’s, and I dug up some of the other photos from that same roll of film thinking that person would enjoy seeing these old photos too, scanned them into the computer and posted them in an album along with the uncropped image under discussion which included the tip of the Frankfort pier and its distinctive light.
Instead of the nice trip down memory lane I was anticipating, the other person was angry.
When this happened I thought it was an apt metaphor for the way we humans go through life, looking at only the parts of reality that we are able to see, restricted by what we are willing to see, then forming and becoming attached to our opinions, ideas and beliefs which are actually formulated on very shaky ground. When we are extremely attached to being right we suffer on many levels.
There are so many things in life that are out of our control, about which we can do nothing. However, one thing we can do which has enormous potential to reduce our own suffering is to look inside ourselves for the places we are attached to our opinions and thoughts. We can look within to see the places we are convinced we are absolutely right, and have the courage to examine deeply and honestly to see if we really know everything there is to know about it. We can loosen our grasp on our need for certainty and allow room for new information or knowledge to make itself apparent. With greater openness and deeper awareness, we can allow our ideas, opinions and beliefs to evolve.
This also has the power to make the world a better place; people who are less attached to certainty feel less need for harshness and rigidity. When we are able to be open and less fearful of being wrong, through our example we show others it is possible to loosen their need for certainty. Positive change in the world does not have to be legislated. If we think about how an airplane sometimes needs to make a subtle course correction in trajectory in order to arrive at it’s intended destination, we can get an idea of how subtle changes made at a distance can make large differences in final results. By the growth, development and subtle changes in awareness we create in ourselves, we actually are making subtle course corrections in human nature. The more people who become invested in unearthing and making these subtle changes in themselves, the greater influence it has in the collective trajectory of human endeavor. Even if it is in a manner more subtle and less active than some of us might prefer, by opening to uncertainty we actually do have the power to encourage real change in the world.