Assigning meaning

Meaning is assigned. I so wish I could write and convey all the ways I think this is true and all the ways it effects our world(s). (Thanks Chris for the phrase)

A week ago (is that all?) a man said to me "SIT DOWN!" The meaning I assigned to that simple action had a huge effect on my moment, day, life and was the inspiration for many decisions made and not made that did/could have had a ripple effect over my life and the lives of many others around me -- and, many opportunities for them and me to assign more and more meanings and have more and more effects and on and on and on.

At this point I really doubt that I saw that "SIT DOWN" moment with any bare subjective perception. I really have no idea what really happened and what was meant by my boss. The co-worker (and my friend) sitting next to me was very surprised at my reaction and said, "angry? no, I think he was just being concise."

So, at that moment I brought all kinds of memories, expectations, patterns, fears, needs to the interaction which when met by his action painted a certain picture, created an inevitable meaning for me. At the moment it happened I had no choice because that was who I was at the instant, but afterwards, of course I had some choices in how to deal with the feelings and an opportunity to actually change and become more intimate/alive.

(of course, this process is going on constantly for all of us based upon events, sensations, and our patterns, tendancies, etc. but this is just a more clear and extreme example)

Often for me, I think, insight lies in a sort of empty spot in which meaning ISN'T assigned and thus no problems are seen or created because one sees that there really is no problem -- and never was (I know I'm repeating myself).

I can easily see that SIT DOWN! moment happening to me with just a few changes:

- I'd already been through a trial with the man and knew that he liked me and my work and also knew that he was just an extreme (concise guy)

or

- I'd gotten a great job offer that morning, accepted it, and gave my notice.

that kind of thing. See what I mean?, if just those two things were different in my being when this happened the moment would have had very little negative effect and still been, in a way, the SAME moment.

But I was there already nervous as hell about how I was doing, very into being seen as a competent "trial paralegal" and thus able to make more money (huge motivation right now), and I had already been traumatized by some realy crazy demanding behaviors on the man's part.

Oh, since then, I really treat him as a person who needs my help and aid and I often like him very much and I can see that he is starting to appreciate my work. (At one ponit late last week I handed him something that was in too small a type for him and he looked at me with such sad eyes and said "Can you imagine how much stress I'm under and then I get handed something like this?" It was like a plea for help rather than a "mean" criticism of me. For some reason what I saw in that moment has made it easier to help him ever since. Plus it also helps that I'd committed my self to really taking him in and trying to be intimate with my experience around him.

I just looked at this again and now it seems so obvious and something I've known (without integrating?) for so long that it maybe even didn't warrant a post.

to continue to actively and knowingly participate in this activity seems like an almost stubborn clinging to something precious yet not really real along with the resultant pain and ignorance.

it's hard to imagine not investing enough in some of my ambitions (and my needs such as to nuture and protect my family) to make creating meaning (and thus distorting things) an inevitability. However, I can see doing it with a lightness and with open eyes in a way that reduces and almost eliminates the distortion.

Is that at all clear?

Krishnamurti used to say we should always watch our selves very carefully in order to have a chance against our desrtuctive tendencies. He said it should be the same as if we'd suddenly come upon a poisonous snake in out path- with an empty, gentle openness. Missing nothing.

It was like a plea for help rather than a "mean" criticism of me. For some reason what I saw in that moment has made it easier to help him ever since.

-michaelmonson

Even the human beings that come pretty close to "my adversaries" at times will, in moments of forgetting or when feeling completely secure, reveal the genuine kind heartedness they possess. It can be quite a shock -- wow, there's a human in there! It's hard to look at them in the same way after that, even though the old problems may continue to exist.

-j

Brad Warner on assigning meaning:

http://www.hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2012/03/thich-naht-hanh-is-worng.html

Okay, many of you will not like this because it is typical of Brad's style -- which many of you just don't like.

However, to me what he is talking about is assigning meaning. He doesn't say that or explain it that way, but that is what is going on here.

When we set up and ideal for ourselves, even if it is to be more "spritual," "mindful," "intimate," (my favorite) and to have "deeper" experiences of life -- then from then on every moment will be colored or judged against that ideal, and, usualy the moment and ourselves will be found to not hold up to what we want to be/experience and we will then ......... suffer.

More: maybe this is similar to or different from the "mean is assigned" that Chris talked about earlier. There, I think he is talking more after the fact, where I am using it to refer to how we color each new moment with our expectations,etc. Either way ....

It's all the same thing, Mike. Before, during and after. It really is.

-cmarti

YES YES YES

What I love is how complete it is. How completely made up all the meaning actualy is and how completely free things can be when we really get that. It subtle and tricky. I just set up a potential for suffering by what I just wrote.

The tricky thing is that by saying meaning is assigned, we are still assigning meaning. For example, to say thoughts are just thoughts, feelings are just feelings, etc. is to interpret a phenomenon as the phenomenon itself. Or, to say that reality is inherently devoid of meaning is to assign a meaning of meaninglessness.

This is, essentially, the postmodern crtique. Meaning is context-dependent, and contexts are boundless. We are never without context, and so we never escape the fludity of meaning. This gives us the freedom not to freeze - not even around meaninglessness - as some final answer. It's only the answer to the question in a context that supports it. But, I have yet to discover a context that is absolute.

In fact, I think that some folks like to treat emptiness as though it were the final context. I would say it's not. Emptiness is demonstrated by the emptiness of context and content, of ground and figure - not as a context in and of itself. Mind blowing, really.

Tricky and mind blowing.

I agree.

In a practice in which this is seen it isn't verbal and it isn't a sort of post modern deconstruction of thoughts, theories, texts, etc. Right?

It is insight/awakening/enlightenment in movement in which emptiness is just another word later coined to try to, once again, provide meaning in order to communicate something that just can't be communicated.

Are we all just empty ojbects bumping into each other and then assignming an infinite and almost random bunch of meanings to it all with our clever brains or is meaning so linked to the objects and the bumping they cannot ever be separated?

No wonder zen likes to talk about "big mind" or "zen mind" or "Buddha mind" -- it provides a sort of existential place to fall and relax into. (is this primordial awareness too?)

It also can give provide some with an explanation for pyschic stuff, for past life memories.

"Yes and no. If there are no minds to carry meaning does the universe still exist? If so, where is meaning? Deeper and deeper, into the rabbit hole....." -Chris



That sounds all well and good. Yet, this type of thought experiment is also something which occurs in the mind. Where is this universe where no mind exist? We can only conceive of such a reality because minds show up for us, right here and now.



Now, I'm not going as far as to say that meaning is all there is. Some people take that leap, but I'm not that radical. Obviously, we could call a diamond a bologna sandwich if we want to, and it will still cut glass. There appears to be something objective to this universe of ours.



And yet, this objectivity seems situated in context, endlessly. That is, even diamonds are mutually dependent co-arisings. On this earth, such a thing as a diamond, in this point in time, is in most cases reliable, stable, predictable. In other environments, it wouldn't even form.



So, not only is meaning context-dependent, but so are all phenomena!



Round and round we go.

"I would agree that all things are caused in some way. I'm not sure, though, that context (in the sense you seem to be using that word) is the equivalent of meaning. I'll have to ponder that." -Chris



That's not really what I mean, and I'm sorry for not making myself very clear.



I don't mean that context is equivalent to meaning. What I'm suggesting is that meaning is always situated in context. The classic example is the word "bark." Depending on the context, this could be the outermost layer of a tree, or a sound that comes from the mouth of a dog. As you've been saying, the meaning of "bark" in either case is assigned or attributed. Changes in context are what allows different meanings to arise. There's no such thing as context-independent meaning.



The thing is there are so many different types of context. This is where Wilber's Integral theory starts to be more useful, breaking things down into physiosphere, biosphere, and noosphere - organic matter, organism, and thought. Meaning arises where there is a noosphere (i.e. where there are language-able beings). Therefore, awareness of changes in all three spheres sets the stage for different meanings to be applied to various phenomena in all three. Does that make sense?

It's astounding how little who I actually am is related to who I think I am -- and how much.

You could probably even say who you actually are is in no way related to who you think you are.

It's both.

"There is no 'you' in any permanent way and the you that you think you are is really about a hundred different yous, all changing all the time." -Chris

Nicely put.

I just got really angry at someone here in the office. Not on the surface, I doubt she knows, but she just said some things and walked away while I just noded my head. Now my chest feels tight and there is excitement and I keep repeating in my head all the reasons she is wrong and bad. I want to tell other people and have them not like her as well and agree with me that she is not a good person.

I'm breathing and feeling my breath.

I'm watching the thoughts.

I'd rather think the thoughts than feel the feelings.

The thoughts seem to be an attempt to drive away the feelngs.

When she was talking there was a an excited feeling in my throat and face and an anxious hot feeling in my upper chest.

"it's not fair."

"How could she be such a jerk?"

"What a complete liar."

"it's not my fault, why does she want to imply it's my fault? what is her problem?"

"I'm not doing anything wrong."

"how dare she be such a liar"

"its not fair, why are people not fair?"

Now it's just a dread feeling in the bottom of my abdomen.

As I stick with just the feelings some non-verbal, non-thought out and made up insight will emerge and it will pass.

This kind of practice requires a real willingness to open up and really jump in and feel and notice what is going on.

One quick thing I got was that the feelings feel a lot like I'm being choked or even killed and it seems like somehow I'm actually doing it to myself.

Anyway the relief/insight is somewhere in the seeing (not the thinking or reflecting that can come later and is a distortion of varying degrees) of the real lack of substance to what both me and my co-worker are feeling and the energy we are playing out with each other. It can't really be explained -- but once it is seen it can melt away. I keep thinking of the story of the boat in the fog that keeps bumping into you and then when the fog lifts you see that it is empty.