July 10, 2024
Principle 7. Immediate Action. Third Week.
If you pursue an end, you enchain yourself. If everything you do is realized as an end in itself, you liberate yourself.
Last time: Scaffold or Building?
This Time: Equilibrium
This Week:
Previously we concentrated on the general structure and scope of this principle. We then turned to how we applied, or could have applied, this principle in the past. This week we consider its meaning for us in the present moment. To help gain some new perspectives we will also play the game of
Name It!
I might start by asking myself, what it is that I am currently pursuing? What objects, outcomes, or relationships do I pursue in my various environments?
Nothing? None?
Will my answer be different if I ask myself what I hope for in my work, in relation to my friends, family, etc?
How do those desires enchain me?
The Game of the Week.
With your understanding of the principle in mind, try to come up with a new version of the principle, or some aspect of the principle. Then give that new formulation a name that synthesizes it or, in some way captures its essence.
It seems useful to recall that this principle is named “. That is no doubt an important clue as to as to its application.
You can see in my reflections below why I sometimes think of this as the principle of equilibrium. Or more irreverently, “never whistle while your pissing” (I.e. the principle of being in my centre).
What’s your version of the principle?
What will you name it?
General Considerations and Personal Reflections:
Here are some personal reflections. I offer them in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, and look forward to hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, this principle.
Attention! Attention!
In a previous discussion of this principle a few people brought up the relation between this principle and attention (what is now popularly referred to as mindfulness), or “being in theme” (being present), i.e. if you are walking, walk. If you are laughing laugh. If you are eating eat, and so on.
There are other principles that first come to my mind when I think of balance, or equilibrium. But in thinking about the aspect of this principle that has to do with “being in one’s centre”. That is being neither self-absorbed, and lost in the contents of my head, nor lost in the objects and my activities in the world, I realized how “attention” and equilibrium could be two ways of looking at the same thing.
This becomes clearer when I try to pay attention. “Try” being the operative word. If you’ve done this experiment (of trying to simply pay attention) than I suppose that, like me, you quickly discovered that normally you don’t pay attention. Worse than that, if you are honest and persistent, you may have found —like I did— that you can’t! At least not for more than moments, and it takes a very long time and very consistent work to get any better at it. On the other hand, with some careful and sustained work we can manage to gain clear registers of these varied but persistent states of inattention.
One might object; of course I pay attention! How else could I do my job, or even cross a busy street. But in those situations, I pay attention automatically (and still only briefly). It’s as if the attention is called out of me by the stimuli. It’s a very different proposition than when I try to reverse all that, i.e. rather than the stimuli reaching me, I want to go out toward the stimuli. Not because these demand my attention but because I wish simply to be attentive — to be present if you prefer.
Personally, I prefer, following Silo to speak of “being in my centre” i.e. neither lost in myself or in the world. It avoids certain unfortunate associations with the term attention (more about that another time).
Sleep and Awakening.
I think that it’s only with such attempts, and then only gradually, that this idea expressed in Chapter 6 of the Inner Look really starts to make sense: “Only rarely do I perceive reality in a new way, and it is then that I realize that what I normally see resembles sleep or semi-sleep”.
That verse concludes: “There is a real way of being awake, and it has led me to meditate profoundly on all that has been said so far. It has, moreover, opened the door for me to discover the meaning go all that exists.”
Learn to recognize the signs of the sacred within you and around you.
Silo, The Path
Worth Repeating:
The Principle of Immediate Action reminds us that we should learn to benefit from all the intermediate steps or situations that lead to our goals.
Remember:
- Reflect on your understanding of the principle, meaning and its meaning in your life right now.
-Play the game of Name It!
Coming Up:
Next week we’ll continue with principle seven, but we will focus our reflections about its applications to what we imagine the future will bring.
Besides the opportunity to participate in the weekly experiences, our next meeting will be a chance for an interchange about your thoughts, insights, examples and questions.
You’ll receive a reminder the day before the meeting.
We hope you can join us.
Note:
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website www.dzuckerbrot.com
Don’t forget:
In some moment of the day or night inhale a breath of air and imagine that you carry this air to your heart. Then, ask with strength for yourself and for your loved ones. Ask with strength to move away from all that brings you contradiction; ask for your life to have unity. Don't take a lot of time with this brief prayer, this brief asking, because it is enough that you interrupt for one brief moment what is happening in your life for this contact with your interior to give clarity to your feelings and your ideas.
Silo_ La Reja, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005
