Written by Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer in the style of their book, Reflective Meditation: Cultivating Kindness and Curiosity in the Buddha’s Company
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So many different synonyms of truth. Real, actual, factual, genuine, sincere, honest, faithful, pure, virtuous, good, successful, effective, valid, self-evident, makes no sense to be skeptical about, incontestable. There are so many different kinds of truth.
I just had a colonoscopy. That’s true. It’s incontestable. No one can really debate me on it, and if they did, well I hope I wouldn’t take up that kind of conversation. But my experience of a colonoscopy? Meaning how did I go through the procedure? What happened while preparing for it? Afterwards? This broadens the whole scope of truth. The scope of vision. The scope of awareness. The scope of knowing.
Of course, our experience is skewed by our perceptions. If someone was blind, they would not have the same experience as someone with sight. As someone with sight I can’t imagine the experience of someone without sight. Nor what it would be like to have other sense bases more developed. I often wonder what dogs and cats smell and how it impacts them. I don’t have that capacity.
One of the things that the Buddha did was take the notion of truth and turn it over, and around, and upside down to look at it from different angles. The truth can’t be separated from your experience. It’s not just something you read in a book; it’s something you read in a book and try it out, and put it into practice by turning it over, and around and upside down.
Being genuine and honest is not easy. Speaking honestly and genuinely is sometimes not safe. Others might use it against us. Perhaps in our past others have betrayed our honesty and vulnerability. In Reflective Meditation we are careful and mindful about the processes we set up in our groups to ensure the greatest safety possible. Including, and perhaps especially, that you are free to speak to others about what is honestly going on. Or choose not to, or not quite now, or not quite yet.
Another kind of truth. I can’t sing. This one is more nuanced. I’ve been told that I can’t sing, ‘stop singing so loudly, stick to dancing, don’t try out for a choir, etc’… Physically I can sing. It doesn’t always sound melodic to me (and others) but there is no problem with me using my voice to sing. In fact my singing teacher said that if you can talk you can sing. Put me in front of a twangy folk song and I can find my way through it. Put me with that same song in front of a large audience of famous singers. Well, I don’t know. Give me a Russian opera, I can’t even begin to sing that. In this case the truth is conditional.
Conditional truth leans in the direction of being self-evident. Provisional. For now. Close enough. This pertains to truths about our lives and how we experience it. In our groups we don’t debate each other’s truths, though we may not agree or have a different version. We trust with practice and kind curious attention you will become clearer on what’s true - for you - for now.
In Reflective Meditation we encourage and develop the capacities of being truthful, genuine and honest. Many meditation instructions encourage shifting experience to what is pure or virtuous. This is often quite different from what is genuine and honest. Unfortunately, this often entails hiding from our genuine experience.
Getting closer to your actual experience in meditation is how you discover what is more genuine. What is more honest. Warning, we can never be completely and always honest and genuine. But we can aspire towards and lean in that direction.
There is something very real in our experience. It really impacts us. It really colors our life. It really guides our words and actions. It really impacts others. It really matters.
A formal invitation to SBN meditators:
We’re retreating online after the US election. We invite you to meditate and reflect with us. Nelly and I, and the larger Reflective Meditation sangha will welcome you with virtual open arms.
Click here to learn more about the retreat we are offering.
Our upcoming US election is consequential. We intentionally planned this retreat to be a holding environment for potentially strong emotions and reactions to the outcome of this election.
Meditation creates a holding environment, one where we’re relatively still with the contents of our bodymind and, over time, develop the capacity to ‘hold’ more internally. There’s a classical Buddhist image of the archetypal bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, with a thousand arms. While we’ll never grow a thousand arms, we’re developing the capacity to hold more.
Sangha creates a supportive environment in which skillful means are nurtured. Upaya (skillful means) is a concept emphasizing that meditators use their own specific methods or techniques that fit the situation in order to “awaken”. In Reflective Meditation we consider “waking up” as a process of developing awareness and wisdom, together with others.
By offering a retreat at this time: you’ll have the time and space to meditate and share your experience, and reflect about the way you relate to the political landscape in real time. Practice makes skillful, not perfection.
