Dear Marybeth:
Soon after mentioning that I would write about "decisions," I found what appeared to be a simple undertaking was indeed more than complex, and much more difficult than I had envisioned.
Where do I start? Decisions are simply "choices" are they not? I questioned myself again and again down deep inside, "Upon what do you draw in making choices? What do you have to offer about the matter? What have you experienced? From what ground do choices spring?"
Thoughts flashed about in my head and heart. Yeah, they swirled about in my soul like fireflies in a meadow on a hot August night,. Frankly, I never did hit upon a plan. Can anyone create a formula for another? No! I abandoned any idea of writing a "how to do" essay. I looked for something beyond process.
I pondered and pondered; I talked to myself forever it seems. Somewhere in me I came to know that whatever else, "love," yes, love is involved. Finally I realized; "choices while freely made are "fully determined" I realized we subsist "fully determined" and yet "fully free." Ridiculous?
I begin with an early memory. Like stories, memories get shaped. Some are embellished. Indeed, some memories spring from whole cloth and then by repeating become fact. Some are accurate. This memory has clear spots but is somewhat vague as to time. The core feels firm and I believe is accurate.
One warm spring evening, I guess I was seven or eight, Mother, Ed, and I are at a church bingo at St. CatherineÕs in Wayne, Pa. We are living at 400 East Lancaster St. in Wayne. I am in the fourth grade. We sit at a long table under a tent like structure in the schoolyard. Bright lights, swinging lamps, background music play above chatter. I kneel on a chair to reach the bingo card.
"B-4." "Bingo," I am overjoyed. "Pick your prize young man. " I am given a choice, a dollar, or a shiny toaster. The toaster has lift up sides - a piece of bread placed on each side would rest opposite resistor coils when the sides were lifted up. I selected the toaster and gave it to my Mother.
As I recall the event the choice was spontaneous; but was it "determined." Was it "free?" In the past I have called the decision a "love" decision. I raise these questions, did I choose the toaster to satisfy "my ego?" Did I choose it to "make her happy?" Was it the result of instinct? What is a "love" decision?
The way I see it now "decision making" is simply "making a choice" a choice that is at once "fully determined" and "fully free." For me life is a dynamic unfolding of being "fully determined" and "fully free." Decision-making is more a way of being than a process. All choices result in behavior, which, with many other factors is "determinative" of subsequent choices freely, made.
What am I trying to convey when I suggest that we are "fully determined" and fully free? Are these terms not contradictory and the statement absurd? Please bear with me.
Early on masters taught their disciples a principle they called self-evident, "' a thing cannot 'be' and 'not be' at the same time." From this first principle we are taught that the claim that "all truth is relative" is absurd. The self-evident principle supports the argument that a statement that denies what it affirms cannot stand.
We learn by experience that all things change. The masters teach a thing cannot be an effect and its cause, i.e. cannot be an effect and not an effect at the same time. We accept the proposition, as did many philosophers of old, that an infinite succession of causes is likewise absurd. From this Western philosophers reason there must be a First Cause, uncaused, which we name God, the First Cause. This way of reasoning appeals to many, and appeals to me.
I point all this out, to acknowledge that this self-evident principle while useful in creating a logic that leads to a particular reality denies the possibility of many realities. My experience testifies that not all individuals arrive at, perceive, or may I say live in the same reality. Indeed some using formal logic deny reality. Some deny the existence of God. Could it be that my reality is true and your reality, while different from mine, is likewise true; could not each reality conform, more or less, to God's reality, ultimate reality.
Somewhere along my life journey I found that coming from the self-evident principle placed me in a box, confined me to a defined set of dimensions that allow for nothing outside of the box. I choose to live in paradox. I prescind from the first principle in my approach to the ground of choices. "Fully determined" and "fully free" becomes an interesting approach.
One born in a cave without the knowledge of the sun experiences a "shadow" on the wall as real in the sense of "being." The shadow becomes an "other." Upon leaving the cave and discovering the sun, one "experiences" that a "shadow" is not real in the sense of having separate "being," but occurs because the body blocks light. Once the phenomenon is named, it ever after becomes a shadow. One has entered a different reality.
Some scientists argue that reality is "out there," something we perceive, perhaps even discover, through observation and subsequent verification. Some Buddhists argue that what we name reality, that which is perceived by the ego, is an illusion. Buddhism suggesting that while everything is impermanent, admits of choice resulting in karma that produces suffering, samsara. S. N. Goenka teaches that the Buddha found that choice, which he calls reaction, begins with a sensation on the body, extends to naming, and reacting, choosing to grasp or avert that which is sensed leading to suffering. Some behavioral psychologists deny any freedom in "choice," reality consists of conditioned responses to a physical environment. Unlike Plato who teaches that ideas exist independent of the mind, Aristotle teaches that knowledge is obtained through the senses. According to G. K. Chesterton, the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas gives support to the solid and objective philosophy taught by Aristotle; one grounded in the senses. Chesterton writes of St. Thomas,
"The senses had truly become sanctified; as they are blessed one by one at a Catholic Baptism . . . Those revolving mirrors that send messages to the brain of man, that light that breaks upon the brain, these had truly revealed to God himself the path to Bethany or the light on the high rock of Jerusalem. These ears that resound with common noises had reported also to the secret knowledge of God the noise of the crown that strewed palms and the crowd that cried for Crucifixion."
Many scientists discount revelation as contributing to the answer to the question, "Whence reality, what is real?"
Dr. John Wheeler and eminent quantum physicist wrote in his journal,
"No space, no time, no gravity, no electromagnetism, no particles. Nothing. We are back where Plato, Aristotle and Parmenides struggled with the great questions: How Come the Universe, How Come Us, How Come Anything? But happily also we have around the answer to these questions. That's us."
Our question is How Come Choices. I agree with Wheeler, "we have around the answer to the question. That's us."
I accept what scripture reveals, God created heaven and earth, the cosmos, birds, animals, insects, life, mankind, male and female and sustains His creation.
Coming from scripture, my own experience, and my studies in science, I take the view that each of us creates our world; that is to say, each of us creates a reality. We give order to the cosmos, a collection of energy, particles of matter, ideas, thoughts, forms of matter, all manners of energies, others. We come to more than a Weltanschauung, a world-view. We create a series of relationships to that which is. We do not float in a sea of reality merely perceiving or experiencing illusions of the ego; we exist in created relationships to all that is. It is in our choices that we create relationships, our reality. I allow for different dimensions, I mean I allow for the existence of many realities. I acknowledge that once I give a name to a thing that which I name is proscribed by the "naming," the thing becomes a part of my reality.
Toni Morrison a gifted writer describes the family she portrays in the Bluest Eye,"
Each member of the family in his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwork quilt of reality?collecting fragments of experience here, pieces of information there. From the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other.
I find her description quite revealing when considered in the context of the entire human family and to the "fully determined."
From the point of view of time, I suggest that we engage in creative activity moment to moment, decision to decision, choice upon choice, and each choice flowing into the next such that each is a complete whole. Life however is not a collection of successive static worlds. Life is a dynamic now. In the fullness of time each now is incorporated into the next. We participate in a flowing river of realities. We are a like a drop in the ocean of realities, each unique and changing and reflective. .
From a "no time" perspective life is a dynamic reality with no before or after, a created "I am." The level of consciousness or mindfulness during which a choice may be made differs from choice to choice. And, while the choice may be more or less momentous in its impact, the activity occurs throughout a person's lifetime; the level of consciousness always open to growth and development according to the will of the person choosing.
Let me come at this another way. I do not deny the substance of the cosmos or God's ultimate purpose of creation. My heart tells me that it is by virtue of my human nature that I create my world, my reality. I create from the "fully determined," and, because I believe we humans are responsible beings, I know that I will respond to that which I create. Much of what I create, I do by way of convention, and others do likewise. Others have named elements of God's cretion and by accepting their naming, I make these elements a part of my reality. For example, I create the earth round while in earlier ages I might have created it flat.
My approach comes from my acceptance of the scripture message. Scripture teaches that we humans are created in the image and likeness of God. Being made "in the image and likeness of God" is, for me, an expression of ultimate truth. I believe God, beyond all comprehension, is the Ultimate Truth. God creates, sustains, and realizes. I accept that I am created "free." I accept that, in a limited sense, I too have the power to create, sustain, and realize. I am limited in that I do not create out of "nothing." On the contrary, I create from all that is contained in the "fully determined." I do not suggest that in arising from the "fully determined" my choices are pre-determined or dictated in a mechanical way by the sum total of that which is contained in what the "fully determined." I believe that while "fully determined" I create freely with a freely adopted attitude.
When one looks at the works of a Mozart, Michaelangelo, Picasso, Shakespeare, Elliot, Twain, Morrison, or Joyce, one might agree some humans do indeed create. I suggest the least of us also create.
When we create we create while experiencing sensations that arise on the body. Body includes mind, memory, and imagination. Memory includes that which lies in what I shall call cell memory whether experienced consciously or not.
"Sensations" include thoughts and images as well as what I hear, what I smell, what I see, and what I handle. Our creative activity results in the bringing into being "our reality" Our reality arises, as it were, from the soup of the "fully determined" as a result of our choices. I am not alone. I, like all other elements of creation, bring into being relationships with all else and all others.
My present view, making choices, decision making, is grounded in what is implicit in the following beliefs. (1), In some sense a thing can be and not be at the same time. E.g. the reality I create is indeed real, while it may not conform to the reality created by the other or by God. (2), We are "fully determined" and "fully free." (3), I create with an adopted attitude that I am free to change. (4), In creating I am ipso facto in relationship with that which makes up my reality. (5) Desire giving birth to love and compassion, "the desire to give of oneself and receive from the other, the sharing of being," may be involved, as may other attitudes freely developed.
Let me try to explain further, "fully determined." I am (me, I), a unique being, created in the image and likeness of God, an end product of a series of events, an evolutionary happening that began with the beginning of time, the "big bang," or otherwise. My "being" is determined by all the events that have occurred in my ancestral lineage since that beginning and my choices. All of these events are preserved in my cells, my DNA, or some other undiscovered resting-place. Part of that which my ancestors experienced they experienced in particularly defined structures called cultures containing the rituals, social and religious, myths, prejudices songs and stories that make up these cultures. These ancestral cultural memories exist in my cell memory and contribute to my "fully determined."
Our "fully determined" then is derived from and comprises all that our personal humanity has experienced to the act of choice. It is all that is preserved in our personal history and our ancestral history. Our history includes all we have experienced and all that our ancestors experienced. Our history includes our perception and interpretation of our own experiences.
It appears obvious that my physical genetic makeup, those physical characteristics and tendencies preserved in my DNA, are manifest, and active in the process leading to a particular decision. With little musical ability I would hardly choose music as a career. Without innate hand and eye coordination I would hardly choose baseball or golf. My temperament, whether considered developed or inherited may influence my choices. My knowledge of my predisposition to a particular ailment might also.
On a physical level the impact of the "fully determined" appears obvious when one considers eye color, hair texture, facial features, dexterity, athletic or artistic gifts, and temperament. What constitutes the complete list of factors constituting a particular individual's "fully determined" and what weight each element may have in the decision process remains and will always remain open to debate.
I suggest that from the point of "no time," that is to say outside of, beyond the present, the before, and the after, my being having the power to create, is immersed in the soup of my "fully determined." My potency to act points to more than one possible path or, one might say, toward many probable outcomes. In this sense I am determined. The free choice I make in a particular situation denies the path otherwise opened by any other choice I might have made.
I hold we are blessed, or if you will cursed, with what I call a "cultural gene" which likewise impacts my choices as a part of the "fully determined." On a personal note, for example, my "Irishness " influences my choices. I suggest that culture, as well as all physical inherited tendencies influence the formation of the attitude I bring to the moment of decision. As an example, the Irish, as a people, were without the direct influence of Continental Europe until around 1171. An Irish culture evolved from ancient times differently from Anglo, European, Greek, or Roman culture. Even Christianity took on a different flavor in Ireland. It is my view that my Irishness contributes to the reality I create, my world. On a personal note, I dealt with a personal hostility against the "English" in creating my reality. I attribute this hostility, to how it is that I related to the suppression of my Irish ancestors by the English and their reaction to it, all of which lies in my "fully determined" as a part of my ancestral history.
Apart from our physical and cultural inheritance, we, all of us, acquire, for better or worse, an imprint from our personal experience with the physical world and with the world we experience that is created by others. Some of our experiences are more conscious than other experiences. Some contend that some childhood experiences and even some adult experiences lie wholly within the unconscious. Some scholars give great influence to what is called the unconscious and attempt to explain all behaviors accordingly. Psychological disciplines attempt to ferret out the influence of experiences lying in the unconscious. Psychotherapy would enable the individual to deal with them on a conscious level Religious and humanistic disciplines suggest practices to enable individuals to be mindful of how to respond to memories of experiences that manifest in what is called the here and now.
My view is the ground of our being subsisting in our "fully determined," is not static. The ground of our being, if you will, is dynamic. By dynamic I mean one's interpretation of the facts and the relationships among all the elements making up the ground change within and across the entire ground.
I am not attempting to define a process. One might outline a systematic way, an analogue, template, heuristic, or protocol to assist one in evaluating options (choices), always arising together with criteria with which to make a risk assessment concerning those options. I am not doing this. I look to what lies behind any process that could be defined. I am attempting to articulate, to capture if you will, the "from which" or "from whence" choices are freely made not the how. Each choice, while discrete and final, becomes immediately a part of the environment, the "fully determined," the soup, if you will, that determines the next choice and is somehow incorporated into the consciousness of the "I," and defines the "me." In addition, choices are not made in a vacuum. We are not alone in God's Creation, no matter what we chose, the physical environment and the other, exists, and following as night the day, relationships result.
At the moment of choice, our creative activity, we act upon or you might say act with an attitude that is likewise dynamic in that it is always open to change. In the formation and activity of the self, we adopt and develop "attitude," a word I have borrowed from George H. Mead.
George Herbert Mead, a Professor at the University of Chicago developed a system of social psychology from a "behavioristic point of view." In his introduction to Mind, Self, and Society, Morris says of Mead, "Philosophically, Mead was a pragmatist; scientifically, he was a social psychologist. He belonged to an old tradition - the tradition of Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz; of Russell, Whitehead, Dewey - which fails to see any sharp separation or any antagonism between the activities of science and philosophy . . "
It may be helpful for me to acknowledge that I too have social psychological leanings, philosophically I come from the teachings of Aquinas who "Christianised Aristotelianism." I depart from Descartes' pronounced dualism.
Mead, the behaviorist, pushed Watsonian social psychology. He insisted that science include phenomena not dealt elsewhere in behaviorism; he would extend the investigation to phenomena to which only the individual has experiential access.
"What one must insist upon is that objectively observable behavior finds expression within the individual, not in the sense of being in another world, a subjective world, but in the sense of being within his organism. Something of this behavior appears in what we may term 'attitude,' the beginning of acts."
Mead demonstrates his point with the example of comparing a novice who encounters in his hands a telescope to an astronomer. Mead points out that the telescope is not a telescope in the hands of the novice that is to an astronomer on the top of Mount Wilson.
Mead, scientific behaviorist, comments,
If we want to trace the responses of the astronomer, we have to go back into his central nervous system, back to a whole series of neurons; and we find something there that answers to the exact way in which the astronomer approaches the instrument certain conditions. This is the beginning of the act; it is a part of the act. The external act which we do observe is a part of the process which has started within; the values which we say the instrument has are values through the relationship of the object to the person who has that sort of attitude. If a person did not have that particular nervous system, the instrument would be of no value. It would not be a telescope.
I would push Mead back
beyond the central nervous system if I could. The neurons of which he speaks
are included in the "fully determined." Not simply as neurons or
atoms even. Consider DNA and all this suggests. Consider virtual electrons as
well as electrons, anti-matter as well of as matter, the expanding universe as
juxtaposed to the shrinking. I suggest that contrary to the
"behaviorist" view, the central nervous system need not be our limit.
Attitude seems to arise from and within the soup of the "fully
determined" a more "extensive field," than Mead offers in his
psychosocial approach to the Watsonian behaviorist school. I offer to Mead an
evolutionary model, coupled with a theological and philosophical approach from
the point of view of the agent as juxtaposed to viewing the cause from the
point of view of the outcome. The value in the object of choice has value in
itself and value in relationship with the attitude of the agent creating the
reality.
I offer the
philosophical approach of Aristotle reconciled with the theological approach of
Aquinas in the context of modern science. I offer the mystical biblical
approach of Meister Echart. .[17]
I offer the experience and teachings of Teresa of Avila.[18].
I offer the foundation of the practice of the Buddha as taught by Goenka. I
offer teachings of the Buddha mind. I offer Christ and His message of Love.
Humans are reflective
beings. We reflect on the "fully determined." My “attitude,” becomes
a component of this dynamic whole, and is the immediate encapsulated view of
"me" in relationship to the reality I am creating. Attitude includes
my notion of my "self" (my self-concept and my self-worth) in
relationship to my created reality,
“Attitude,” as a
cognitive concept, is a product of the intellect, a faculty proper to my soul.
In a dynamic sense, attitude implies sensation, feeling, and making judgments,
the realm of emotion and will. Again, attitude reflects how it is that what I
am relates to my environment, my "fully determined." “Attitude” is
likewise a dynamic phenomenon and subject to change and development.
Mead calls attitude the
"beginning of acts." I hasten to add that from the view of “no time”
attitude is ever open to change. In the fullness of time, childhood experiences
during self-development, personal reflection, education, meditation, and prayer
influence the "arising" of an attitude. Without allowing this
excursus into human qualities beyond the central nervous system, a behavior
model or a limited cognitive model will result rooted in the eyes of the
observer.
Although free and always
becoming, one can remain stuck. One gets stuck when one judges that one is
pre-determined and rejects, abandons, or is not aware that one is "fully
determined" and
fully free.
Because we have the
power to create, we are free to change our attitude. This freedom is proper to
the faculty of the soul identified with the will. We cannot change the facts of
what we have experienced. For example if a child is a bed-wetter or abused, the
child cannot change these facts anymore than I could change the fact of my
Irishness or Christ could change His Jewishness. On a physical science level
our "fully determined" is constrained by the conventions we have
adopted concerning the physical universe.
In the act of creating
however, one is free to reflect upon one's total experience, acknowledge it,
consider it in a new or different light and create a reality that is at one the
same reality yet not. I do not suggest going into denial, repression,
sublimation, or avoidance with, for example, one's genetic tendencies, the
experience of bed-wetting or even of sexual or other child abuse or alcoholism.
I suggest that we humans have the power to acknowledge the fact of all our
experiences, including the ancestral, and also to acknowledge that “We” are
creating a reality, a reality that is our own. To acknowledge that we have the
power to create a reality that arises from the same "soup," a
reality, which while the soup has not changed, is yet different.
For example one might
adopt an attitude of "victim" from one's personal experience of
bed-wetting or abuse. One might create an attitude of deprivation or impotence
arising from one's ancestors' experience of persecution, slavery, or
discrimination. If one does not exercise the power to change one's attitude,
and elect to carry the same attitude forward in the dynamic of life, that
person will remain “stuck. " We always have the power still to become
unstuck, simply by developing a new attitude, which may dictate a different
result as its outcome. This may seem esoteric; but I assure you my experience
testifies that it is not. Recall, I am not discussing process.
Now about “love” and
"compassion" how might they relate to choice.
We experience that we do
not exist in this world alone. Let me put it this way, in my reality I find and
relate to God, the physical universe, and the "other." Other includes
me as an object of my "I." Other includes not only those with whom I
am intimately connected by birth or circumstance but also those who lie beyond.
Other includes significant others, family, friends, acquaintances, passers by,
the man in the ditch, all “beings,” indeed all God's creation. It is in this
context that love and compassion may be a part of the dynamic of living
God eternal, the
beginning, and end of all created me that I might share in His creation, and
ultimately to be united with Him. History teaches me that in creating reality,
human beings reject God. Recall my statement is that we exercise our creative
activity from what we call moment to moment throughout our life span. While I
am exercising my creative activity so too are all other human beings. It is in
our grasping and aversions that we attempt to make our reality the ultimate
reality and thus reject God.[19]
In time God so loved the
world He shares His being by entering into humanity in the person of His Son to
reconcile all with Him. This fact in time enables each of us to yet enjoy that
which he has prepared for us before our beginning. In my reality I accept the
fact of the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. I do not in so doing
affirm that my reality is superior to the reality created by a Hindu, Buddhist,
or other non-Christian, it is only different as it is from all other realities
created by others. My openness to the possibility of many dimensions, that is
many realities, enables me to make this statement.
I struggled with this
question, “what is love" for years? What is, what does it mean to love? I
searched, pondered, and discussed "love" with myself and with others.
I would say to whoever would listen that I began the search about love when I
was four. Maybe so, on reflection, I know it was early on. Where am I now in
this search?
Let us examine little
Jim's decision after having won at bingo.
Early on, perhaps by the
time of the bingo experience, Jim learned that Jesus died on the cross for all
and this led Jim to the notion that love was sacrifice. One had to give
something up to manifest love. Clearly, we could interpret little Jim’s
behavior as “giving up” the dollar, a sacrifice to demonstrate the love he had
for his mother. Giving the toaster to mom as a sacrifice is a reasonable
interpretation.
The notion that “love is
sacrifice” explained many decisions I made in early life. I became comfortable
with this “definition’. Indeed, it allowed me to be proud of myself for a
number of seemingly important decisions I made. Looking back, however, my early
notion of love as sacrifice may have masked the real reason for many choices I
made. I now acknowledge, I made many of my choices because they were simply to
advance my self-interest that which I liked for me. That which I chose
fulfilled my desire to grasp that which I named as good, good in the sense that
I saw the good as satisfying those subtle sensations I experienced on my body.
I do not make a judgment that the creative activity I engaged was "bad."
However, I acknowledge having had a kind of “pride” in giving myself credit for
many of my so called “love decisions,” when indeed the principal reason for the
particular choice was to advance my self-interest, a kind of grasping. Without trying to analyze any one of my many
significant choices, let us examine that early innocent decision.
Could it not be that
Jim's choice sprang spontaneously from love and compassion? Love as I now
experience love. Winning at bingo was a joyful experience. Jim was simply
sharing his joy. He was acting upon a desire to share that, which was he. He
wanted to celebrate. The "Bingo" a sensation led to his joy, His
creative action, his choice, arose from a desire to share his joy with Mother,
an innate desire proper to his being. As I examine the reality he created by
that choice, I see that choosing the toaster had a deeper meaning different
from the dollar which he could have selected and given to his mother as well.
The toaster somehow presented a manner of sharing and connection. Somehow Jim
created a reality that would, for him, allow his mother to share his joy. By
the giving he was enabled to share her joy in receiving.[20]
For some the desire Jim
felt may be compared to the notion of eros, selfish love, self-satisfying in is motive. For example, that the
giving satisfied his ego his desire to gain self-importance. I am of the view
that he did indeed desire a connection with mother and wanted to express the
desire by giving of himself, symbolized as it were by the toaster. From this
point of view the act can be compared to the notion of agape as signified by giving in the "Jesus
sense"[21] This
experience of love includes that which I see as compassion. I reject the either
or of eros and agape and seek that which lies beyond.
I see Jim's choice as
resulting from an attitude of love and compassion. Compassion can be viewed as
the flip side of love and the same. Compassion is the sharing of the joy or
suffering of the other. The choice connected Jim with his mother in a special
way. It is this that the Good Samaritan exhibited in the parable.[22]
From the point of view of compassion, the lover shares in the suffering or joy
of the other by action. Love and compassion completely opens one to other
persons.
Surely Jim did not engage
in this analysis. Rather I believe he was acting from his heart. He could have
decided to take the dollar for his own and would have been no less a fine
person under any view of how he had acted. Who can deny that the choice he made
created his reality, and that reality is different from the reality that would
have been created had he taken and kept the dollar or taken the dollar and
given the dollar to mother. We can speculate about all subsequent paths or
choices. Perhaps, even now, I am only characterizing his choice as sharing his
being to make my point, however inadequate. I think not. Jim did empty himself
to another; he did so freely and in so doing he received the joy experienced by
his mother.
Perfect love would
result in the emptying of self and receiving the other a union of being yet
distinct.
May I suggest that in
the beginning God created the world to enable mankind to share in His creative
activity. When in his freedom mankind grasps the reality he creates as his own,
excluding God, he separates himself from his creator. In the fullness of time,
God shares Himself with humanity through his Son to enable man to become
reconciled; to restore his relationship, to God; the relationship each of us
ignores in our desire for self-gratification.
Because we are free,
however, it is up to us, having been redeemed to accept that which is offered,
We accomplish the task of freedom offered by creating our reality from what I
have named the "fully determined."
What each of us accomplishes
is unique. We have the opportunity to form and develop the attitude of love and
compassion that lies in the "fully determined." From my "fully
determined" I find, "Love God with your whole heart and soul and love
your neighbor as you love yourself." I find love as sharing of self with
the other, and compassion the experiencing and receiving, the other into the
self, both opening the heart to the other followed by deeds, activity, work.
Those who are Christian
can find a model in Christ, his example, and his Word. Others may find it
elsewhere. In my reality the Spirit of God somehow offers love and compassion
to all. The enabling historical fact and act, found in my reality is the birth,
death, and resurrection of Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity. God so loves the World He shares Himself, He gives His only
son. The giving, the birthing of Christ, His taking on human nature and death
gives us the opportunity to create a reality with the attitude of love and
compassion like that of Christ, which Christ has in his humanity and which He
gives to the Creator.
A follower of the Buddha
may find a model of love and compassion in the Buddha Mind as expressed in his
or her "fully determined." The follower of Mohammed may find his in
Allah and the Koran lying in his "fully determined." The pygmy may
find his in his oral tradition a part of his "fully determined. " I
accept their reality as different from mine yet real.
In most instances, love is
active and manifested by sharing and rejoicing. Sometimes it is passive, as in
sharing the suffering or joy of the other or enduring as in the pain of with
joy as in the pain of childbirth.
.
My purpose is to make a
statement, by nature we are free and have the power and do create reality.
Calling it our view of the world or our assumptive world for me is inadequate.
Our creative act brings order to what would otherwise be chaos and in so doing
we create relationships and an environment to which we will respond. Loving is
giving your heart, compassion is opening your heart; both are LOVE.
In the end I find myself
where I started; I am not defining a process I am simply creating my reality. I
believe that when we totally surrender our ego to the Divine Will, when we die
to self, for love of God we will exercise our freedom and create a reality from
our fully determined that approaches the Ultimate Reality and which will yield
peace. Each choice is an opportunity. Sometimes we fail in our choices;
sometimes we succeed in developing peace. Discernment comes from prayer and
experience. We will go on choosing, creating, hopefully doing the best we can.
PROLOGUE
Having completed this
task, I acknowledge once again that all my statements are manifestations of my
experience of my reality. I do not offer them as truth.
When I started this
project I did not know that I would be faced with a significant decision.
During my work on "Choices," I was called upon to make a choice after
learning I have prostate cancer. I made mine in the spirit of love, and
compassion for me, my children, for all those whom I love and with whom I
interact and as an offering to God for the enlightenment of all beings.
I offer the following
prayer that I received from whence I know not:
Jesus, through the spirit of thy divine love may I die to self for love of thee who didst die to the world for love of me.
In my reality Christ
while Divine experiences his works, suffering and death in his humanity. It is
in his humanity that he empties himself and embodies compassion for all beings.
On the cross, in his humanity, he said at last, "Into your hands I commend
my spirit," The complete giving of himself in love and compassion for all.
He left us His peace. He is for me the model to follow in creating our reality.
May I share an expression of how I view each choice, each choice one is called upon to make is an opportunity to share and be open to God's Creation, His material Universe, with all its wonders which He saw as good, and more importantly to the "other," all humanity represented by each person with whom one's choice creates a relationship.
Perhaps Pascal, quoted in "Does God Exist," Kung, Hans, Vintage Books, NY, 1981, had it right; "Wisdom is something different from enlightenment, [Descartes], it is different from reasoning. But wisdom is not science, wisdom is an elevation of the soul . . . it reasons little, not does it proceed mathematidally from concepts, though a series of syllogisms in order to reach what it takes to be the truth . . . but it speaks from the fullness of the heart." pp.131-132
[1] I make many statements in this essay. I take ownership
of each and everyone. I frame them to give the reader context. I do not state
them as affirmations or expressions of ultimate truth. I am not trying to make
a point. I leave my readers the choice of accepting, rejecting, taking all or
part or leaving each where it lays. May I suggest dear reader as you read this
essay to suspend your air of disbelief like you do at the theatre. Walk with me
and enter in to where I appear to be.
[2] Cf.
Quantum mechanics and "string theory" fit subjects of yet another
essay.
[3] Cf. Karma is not fatalistic or predetermined. Karma
means our ability to create and to change. It is creative because we can
determine how and why we act. We can change. The future is in our hands, and in
the hands of our heart. Buddha said Karma creates all, like an artist, Karma
composes, like a dancer. Sogyal Rinpoche, Rigpa Glimpse of the Day for Jan
2003.
[4] See, William Hart, The Art of Living, Vipassana
meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1987
[5] Chesterton,
[6]Quoted in N. Y. Times Tuesday, March 12, 2002.