Tomorrow I will be attending a conference on learning. The name of the conference is the “IT Conference.” It means the, “Innovative Teaching Conference.” I’m sure there will be lots of innovators there. I’m going there to listen and learn. That will be my focus to keep an open mind. Learning requires an open mind. Some say the mind works best when it is open like a parachute. Attending conferences is a way for me to keep it green. Keeping it green means being open. All the brainpower in the world is really useless without an open mind. I’m hoping to learn more about project based learning and about iPad integration in classrooms. It will be great too to see so many friends whom I follow on Twitter and Facebook too. I hope I’ll have some new insights by this time tomorrow night.
One moment at a time
It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.
–Andre Dubus, “A Father’s Story,” Selected Stories (Vintage, 1995)
The moon
Tonight after arriving home and exiting my car I looked up. The night sky was clear and glistened with stars, a quarter moon and at least one aircraft moving slowly with blinky lights from south to north. Tonight is one of those nights that invites us to be still and look not just at the lights but at the space between them. Without those dark spots there would be no contrast for the lovely stars. Even today as I lamented an imagined transgression I failed to be grateful for the dark spots in my life. Without the dark there is no light. Without the dark there is no moon. I’m thankful then that there is this moon that also invites me to a prayerful moment of quiet and in that quiet there is a moment of gratitude for this starlit night in the month of June 2011.
Tonight I am reminded of a Zen story from antiquity and this is but one version of that story.
“The truth and the words are unrelated. The truth can be compared the to the moon. And words can be compared to a finger. I can use my finger to point out the moon, but my finger is not the moon, and you don’t need my finger to see the moon, do you?”
Language is merely a tool for pointing out the truth, a means to help us attain enlightenment. To mistake words for the truth is almost as ridiculous as mistaking a finger for the moon!”
Mindfulness
I was looking at LearnHub.com and I came upon this wonderful presentation by John Kabat-Zinn. I hope you’ll take the time to view it and to wonder why we are aren’t teaching mindfulness in our classrooms. I have a link to Mindfulness in Education in my blogroll, but this is an invitation to mindfulness and meditation by one of the masters.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc]
It cannot be learned or taught
I remember when I used to look for all I could read about meditation. Imagine writing a book about Zen. Zen seems to be the antithesis of definition. When this quote came in today’s mail, it struck a chord with me.
Contemplation cannot be taught. It cannot even be clearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized. The more objectively and scientifically one tries to analyze it, the more he empties it of its real content, for this experience is beyond the reach of verbalization and of rationalization. Nothing is more repellent that a pseudo-scientific definition of the contemplative experience. One reason for this is that he who attempts such a definition is tempted to proceed psychologically, and there is really no adequate psychology of contemplation. To describe “reactions” and “feelings” is to situate contemplation where it is not to be found, in the superficial consciousness where it can be observed by reflection. But this reflection and this consciousness are precisely part of that external self which “dies” and is cast aside like a soiled garment in the genuine awakening of contemplation.
Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions Press, 1962: 6-7.
Being present
This quote came in today’s mail and it really resonates for me.
Being present does not mean getting rid of emotions in order to stay calm. It is the ability to stay calm within the emotional world we inhabit. Emotions have real value. At the same time, we can avoid falling prey to their traps. Emotions are like storms blowing across a mountain. Even when those storms are roaring, the mountain holds still. Sometimes the mountain benefits as old deposits of dirt are blown away and the air is cleared. Sometimes the mountain suffers as the wind and water beat away at it and begin to break it down. But in either case, the mountain just sits there with presence and dignity.
–Judith Lief, Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality
(Shambhala 2001), 156
An enlightened person
To say that one practices zazen in order to become an enlightened person is like saying one practices medicine to become a doctor. To practice medicine is to be a doctor. To practice zazen is to be enlightened. Enlightenment is not a static state of achievement; it is the active undertaking of the way exemplified in zazen.
— T. P. Kasulis, Zen Action, Zen Person (University Press of Hawaii, 1981), 78
Never the same
We are always at the beginning. It is always the very first time. Truly, there are no repetitions. When I play the piano, I often come to a repeat sign. Can that passage be repeated? If I am teaching a piano student and we see a repeat sign, I tell the student that there are no repeats. We return to the beginning of a certain passage, but it’s never the same. It’s always fresh. Someone asked me, “Don’t you get tired of answering the same questions day after day—what is Zen, how do we practice?” Never! It’s never the same question, because it’s always coming from a different person, in a different moment; and each person asks the question from his or her own state of mind. The words may sound alike, but each time they are coming from somewhere unique.
–Maurine Stuart, Subtle Sound, ed. Roko Sherry Chayat (Shambhala, 1996), 16