Tattered Truth - Thomas Merton

We are all convinced that we desire the truth above all.
Nothing strange about this.  It is natural to man, an intelligent being,
to desire the truth. But actually, what we desire is not "the truth"
so much as "to be in the right."

To seek the pure truth for its own sake may be natural to us, but we
are not able to act always in this respect according to our nature.

What we seek is not the pure truth, but the partial truth that justifies
our prejudices, our limitations, our selfishness.  This is not "the truth."
It is only an argument strong enough to prove us "right."
And usually our desire to be right is correlative to our conviction that
somebody else (perhaps everybody else) is wrong.

Why do we want to prove them wrong?

Because we need them to be wrong.  For if they are wrong, 
and we are right, then our untruth becomes truth: our selfishness
becomes justice and virtue: our cruelty and lust cannot be fairly
condemned.

We can rest secure in the fiction we have determined to embrace as
"truth."  What we desire is not the truth, but rather that our lie
should be proved "right," and our iniquity be vindicated as "just."

No wonder we hate.  No wonder we are violent.  No wonder we
exhaust ourselves in preparing for war!

And in doing so, of course, we offer the "enemy" another reason 
to believe that he is right, that he must arm, that he must get ready
to destroy us.

Our own lie provides the foundation of truth on which he erects
his own lie, and the two lies together react to produce
hatred, murder, disaster.

Thomas Merton

from - Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"Tattered Truth"

 

What's Your Bias? - Brian McLaren

People can't see what they can't see.
Their biases get in the way, surrounding them like a high wall,
trapping them in ignorance, deception, and illusion.
No amount of reasoning and argument will get through to them,
unless we first learn how to break down the walls of bias...

Confirmation Bias:  We judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in with and confirm the only standard we have: old ideas, old information, and trusted authorities.  As a result, our framing story, belief system, or paradigm excludes whatever doesn't fit.

Complexity Bias: Our brains prefer s simple falsehood to a complex truth.

Community Bias: It's almost impossible to see what our community doesn't, can't or won't see.

Complementary Bias: If you are hostile to my ideas, I'll be hostile to yours.  If you are curious and respectful toward my ideas, I'll respond in kind.

Competency Bias: We don't know how much (or little) we know because we don't know how much (or little) others know.  In other words, incompetent people assume that most other people are about as incompetent as they are.  As a result, they underestimate their [own] incompetence, and consider themselves at least of average competence.

Consciousness Bias: Some things simply can't be seen from where I am right now.  But if I keep growing, maturing, and developing, someday I will be able to see what is now inaccessible to me.

Comfort or Complacency Bias:  I prefer not to have my comfort disturbed.

Conservative/Liberal Bias: I lean toward nurturing fairness and kindness, or towards strictly enforcing purity, loyalty, liberty, and authority, as an expression of my political identity.

Confidence Bias: I am attracted to confidence, even if it is false.  I often prefer the bold lie to the hesitant truth.

Catastrophe or Normalcy Bias: I remember dramatic catastrophes but don't notice gradual decline (or improvement).

Contact Bias: When I don't have intense and sustained personal contact with "the other", my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged.

Cash Bias: It's hard to see something when my way of making a living require me not to see it.

Conspiracy Bias: Under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of malicious conspirators.

Brian McLaren
from - Why Don't They Get It?  Overcoming Bias in Others.

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Hate - Baldwin, Kornfield & Seng T'san

I imagine one of the reasons that people cling
to their hate (prejudice and racism) so stubbornly
is because they sense that once hate is gone,
they will be forced to deal with
their own pain...

James Baldwin

~

We project our fears and hate onto others
because we can't look honestly
at ourselves...

Jack Kornfield
Buddhist Teacher

~

When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction, however
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinion for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the minds essential peace is disturbed....

Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.

Seng-T'san

Chinese Poet

~

Photo from the internet

"Why We Hate" - Steven Spielberg

There is a very interesting 6 episode series that we recently
watched on The Discovery Channel called
"Why We Hate", explaining the human capacity for hate. The
series titles are: Its Origins, Tribalism, Tools and Tactics,
Extremism, Crimes Against Humanity, and Hope.  Maybe
some of you have seen it as well...  It was produced by
Steven Spielberg and Alex Gibney of The Discovery Channel.

It is a provocative documentation of human's hatred toward
one another.  Episode 6 includes discussions with a neuro-
scientist, Emile Bruneau, that proved to be an eye-opener
for me, and brought some self-awareness.  He related it to
the brain and certain neural pathways, calling it
"biological hate" and how we can, in a sense, retrain the
brain through meditation! [which doesn't require that you
belong to a particular religion].  That despite our conditioning,
our environment, our *learned* prejudices, our isms, our "tribe"
[which would include our "religious" tribes, not just our race
and ethnicity] we can *unlearn* our innate, conditioned
capacity for hate for those we *perceive* to be different from
"us." The Us vs them mentality.

If you are on Comcast/Xfinity you can watch it On Demand.
You can also watch it on Amazon Prime, which requires
membership, although you can evidently pay to watch individual
episodes.  In which case watch episodes 5 & 6 and you'll get
the most important parts.  The first episodes are good, but a
little slow.  On the computer you can go to
Discovery.com/shows/why-we-hate and you can view episodes
there on "DiscoveryGo."  We were able to watch the Trailer
for free...

It's worth the watch!

Here's the link to the Trailer with Steven Spielberg
on "DiscoveryGo"

A Plague of Intolerance - Thomas Merton

A mass movement readily exploits the discontent and frustration
of large segments of the population which for some reason or
other cannot face the responsibility of standing on their own
feet.  But give them a movement to join, a cause to defend, and
they will go to any extreme, stop at no crime, intoxicated as they
are by the slogans that give them a pseudo-religious sense of
transcending their own limitations.  The member of a mass
movement, afraid of his own isolation, and his own weakness as
an individual, cannot face the task of discovering within himself
the spiritual power and integrity which can be called forth only
by love.  Instead of this, he seeks a movement that will protect
his weakness with a wall of anonymity and justify his acts by
the sanction of collective glory and power.  All the better if this
is done out of hatred, for hatred is always easier and less subtle
than love.  It does not have to respect reality as love does.  It
does not have to take account of individual cases.  Its solutions
are simple and easy.  It makes its decisions by a simple glance
at a face, a colored skin, a uniform.  It identifies an enemy by
an accent, an unfamiliar turn of speech, an appeal to concepts
that are difficult to understand...  This is not "ours", he says.
This must be brought into line - or destroyed.

[Because of] this universal infection of fanaticism, the plague of
intolerance, prejudice and hate, which flows from the crippled
nature of mankind... [we] must labor with inexhaustible
patience and love, in silence, perhaps in repeated failure,
seeking tirelessly, wherever we can, to restore the capacity of
 love...

Thomas Merton
from - Disputed Questions
(written in the 1960's)

Thomas Merton was a Christian Trappist Monk
and social activist in the 1960's.  He was a strong
supporter of non-violence and civil rights.  In his
later years he became interested in Zen Buddhism
and promoted an East-West dialogue.  

He died in Bangkok in 1968.

~

Thanks to The Beauty We Love