Ambigamy

The problem no longer exists when we see these as problems of humanity instead of the problems of blacks. The issues of poverty, ignorance, abuse and neglect are seen throughout our culture and the world. Let's focus on the problem instead of race.

Doris
California

Hi Doris,

I started with the racial connection, but if you read down a bit, you see that I'm talking about something universal. My line was:

More to the point, you would think that we experts would be able to see this controversy everywhere, not just in black culture. There’s nothing exclusively black about it.

Best,

Jeremy

In buddhism (which I know very little about but never mind) the three options are called attraction, aversion, and delusion. All of them are ingrained habits of mind and are more about replicating themselves rather than actually responding to the input. The reason people, and especially newspapers, like to ask these types of questions is because they reliably get people's habits of mind riled up, there can be lots of apparent discussion and activity, which looks like something is happening. The more unconsciously people respond, the better, because unawareness drives a lot of the attention and money in our consumer culture.

The fourth option then is to respond with mindfulness. Sometimes this can lead to action, as in your plumbing example above. Or conscious withdrawing of attention to these things, as for example with the Dalai Lama, who apparently had never heard about Tiger Woods and presumably doesn't care more (or less) about his dilemma than anyone else's, but who can bring compassion to it when he does hear about it. In some ways, I get the impression it's about letting go of the need to have a response at all, and then seeing what arises. Sometimes it will look like one of the three choices above, but be different psychologically. Sometimes it will be very different, even from the outside.

It's not that we don't know that this always happens. It's that in a way all this controversy is our recreation, even if we don't enjoy it.

In buddhism (which I know very little about but never mind) the three options are called attraction, aversion, and delusion. All of them are ingrained habits of mind and are more about replicating themselves rather than actually responding to the input. The reason people, and especially newspapers, like to ask these types of questions is because they reliably get people's habits of mind riled up, there can be lots of apparent discussion and activity, which looks like something is happening. The more unconsciously people respond, the better, because unawareness drives a lot of the attention and money in our consumer culture.

The fourth option then is to respond with mindfulness. Sometimes this can lead to action, as in your plumbing example above. Or conscious withdrawing of attention to these things, as for example with the Dalai Lama, who apparently had never heard about Tiger Woods and presumably doesn't care more (or less) about his dilemma than anyone else's, but who can bring compassion to it when he does hear about it. In some ways, I get the impression it's about letting go of the need to have a response at all, and then seeing what arises. Sometimes it will look like one of the three choices above, but be different psychologically. Sometimes it will be very different, even from the outside.

It's not that we don't know that this always happens. It's that in a way all this controversy is our recreation, even if we don't enjoy it.