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If I had to settle for only one philosophical concept to be learned and practiced, it would be
logical idea of “The Principle of Charity,” by which I mean;
“Interpreting the ideas and statements of others in their strongest form.”
Basically it comes down to how much credit you are willing to give to ideas and positions that
differ from your own. The ‘credit’ here has nothing to do with agreement or disagreement or
tolerance. It is about how you interpret thoughts. For anything that you make meaning of, you
are making an interpretation. There are two possible directions in interpreting:
1) You can interpret their ideas and positions as irrational, logically flawed, and lacking
evidence.
2) You can interpret their ideas and positions as rational, logically coherent, and based on
evidence.
Direction 2 is hard to do. Everyday life is full of contrasting and competing ideas. We live in a
world where emotion and volume are often substituted for reason. Interestingly, some people will
also loudly proclaim that they are the voice of reason and truth. There is a simple test for whether
someone is really as reasonable and factual as they claim to be: pay attention to how they
represent the views of their opponents. If they represent opposing positions as plausible, having
logical structure, and connecting to reality in important ways, then they are indeed preceding
rationally. They are employing the principle of charity.
If they represent opposing positions as unintelligible, illogical, having no factual base or evidence
whatever, then you have a speaker who is promoting their own views by misrepresenting the ideas of others. I’ll bet that you will also observe them attacking the intelligence and character of
people who hold opposing views (this later technique is called Ad Hominem).
Look, it is easy to defeat any statement, argument, or position. All you need do is to interpret it in
a weak and counter-factual form. Deliberately doing so is called in Logic “Strawman” because
you set up a false effigy of your opponent, which is easy to knock down. That may go over in
debates and quarrels, though one point remains clear: by defeating a Strawman you are guaranteed to have not refuted the other person’s actual position. Moreover, you have not clarified your own position in relation to the alternatives. When we select only the weakest versions of the positions opposing our own, we also lower our standards for our own thinking.
On the contrary, when we work to form strong interpretation of the thoughts of others, we raise
the standard of our own thinking thereby making our own positions stronger.
Here is a point that I want to be super clear about: The Principle of Charity is not the same as
“Relativism.” There are many types of Relativists and there are some who maintain that
‘everything that everyone believe is true (in some sense); no one is ever wrong or mistaken.’
That is not the position being promoted by The Principle of Charity.
Here is the difference:
Relativism involves conclusive evaluations. That an ‘idea is true’ and a ‘position is correct’ are both conclusive evaluations.
The Principle of Charity does not include conclusive evaluations. It is a matter of analysis. By
employing the principle of charity I am working to represent all of the positions on an issue in
their strongest forms; their best light. I am looking for what is reasonable and plausible in a
position and idea. That is not the same as declaring it to be true, false, correct, or incorrect. On
the other hand, there are some plausible accounts of Relativism of different kinds and I cannot
rule them out (the sophisticated ones, anyway)!
What I personally think about differences in beliefs and points of view is this; The universe is
immensely complex, humans are incredibly complex. It would in fact be amazing to find a
position or belief held by anyone that is entirely devoid of truth. I do think that there are plenty of
false beliefs and incorrect positions. But I think they are not so because they are entirely and
wholly false or incorrect. There is always some truth (correspondence to reality) in any human
thought, statement, belief, position.
This is just me, but I have a hard time imagining what a 100% false thought would be like.
Falseness, Error, Deception, Untruth, etc. are all dependent in a way on truth. The logically
negative does not have a reality independent from the positive. So (if I am right) we can find
threads of truth in just about any idea or statement. That does not make their major meaning true,
it just makes them a mixture of truth and falsity.
If I am right about this, then political and sophistical efforts to make one’s opponents out to be
100% wrong, false, evil, stupid, etc. are shown up to be unrealistic (uncharitable) versions of the
actual thoughts. Most of not only have beliefs and positions but perceive our own beliefs from
particular points of view. We seldom perceive the whole of our thought, but picture it selectively,
just as we do with the world around us.
This is one reason why it is so valuable to concentrate on the analysis of thoughts before we get
into the business of evaluating. After all, once we have evaluated a thought as false, we have
limited the analysis to only that which confirms our evaluation.
A Philosophical Skill:
Active listening – a communication technique which requires the listener to feed-back what they
understand the speaker to mean by restating key parts in their own words. Active listening has the
following stages:
1) Ask a question to get them started in tell you what they think (in this case on the issue).
2) Listen calmly and carefully, putting your inner critic to the side.
3) At a pause in their telling, tell them; “OK. Here is what I think you are saying, tell me if I have it right.”
4) Re-state their key ideas in paraphrase or different words but conveying the same
meaning.
5) If they respond that your feedback is not what they meant, then ask them to tell you
again and repeat steps 2, 3, & 4.
6) If they respond that your feedback is in fact what they meant, then ask them to go on.
Repeat the process until they agree that you have a fair and accurate account of their
thoughts.
Please note that successful Active Listening leads to understanding. It does not lead to agreement!
You can understand another person’s thoughts without agreeing with them. This is an important
practical point because some common uses of the word “understanding” also imply some sort of
agreement or tolerance – as if to understand is to allow and accept or at least empathize with. In
logic and philosophy that is not the meaning of “understand.”
Consider the following uses of “understand”:
Do you understand the wave function of quantum physics?
I do not understand the Federal Tax Code which is why I consult an accountant.
Sometimes I do not understand why I feel the way that I do.
I do not understand what George Orwell meant when he wrote “Freedom is Slavery.”
After our conversation I have a better understanding of what your concept of God.
None of these, I think, imply empathy of agreement. What they do imply is that an understanding
of the sort indicated is likely to avoid conflicts that are based solely on misunderstanding. That
happens a lot.
Understanding is a function of analysis. Agreement is a function of evaluation. Put analysis
before evaluation. Doing this is what is meant by “The Principle of Charity” in philosophy.
Perhaps this point will be clearer if the claim is amended to state: Please note that successful
Active Listening leads to comprehension. To “comprehend” is to grasp the meaning of an idea
and to be able to explain that meaning through words and examples.
Try substituting comprehend for understand in the example sentences above (don;t just think about or imagine doing this, actually do it as written or out loud). The way in which
these two words are synonymous is what I an pointing to as the objective of The Principle of
Charity.
This will come naturally to you as you practice active listening because that practice is all about
hearing and interpreting accurately. The accuracy is measured by whether or not the version that
you end up with is consistent with what the other person meant. If your version of what they
mean and their version of what they mean are in conflict, then you are not comprehending what
they mean. Active listening and The Principle of Charity can put our meanings in synch such that
disagreements that we have are about the actual ideas and not merely the symptom of
misunderstanding (mis-comprehension).
I think that I have already made one point clear, but I want to make sure to reinforce it. The Principle of Charity is not about being nice, or polite, or civil, or politically correct. It is about valuing truth over preference. Interpreting the claims and arguments of others in their strongest possible ways is driven by the effort to find the truth in what they say. Even more powerful is the stance of taking your own thoughts and beliefs in their strongest possible interpretations. That can be a challenge because careful self-analysis of this sort can lead to you to find that some of what you take to be Truth is in fact partly true. That realization leads to self-revision.
Try using active listening every day while keeping the Principle of Charity in mind and I believe
that you will experience a transformation in some of your interpersonal communications.
Do you want to improve your mind? Would you take direct action to feel and live better? If so, then practice a simple, though challenging, process: intend and send loving kindness to the people you most dislike.
Wishing harm for someone is a reflection of the pain and anger within oneself. Until we address the strife in us, we cannot find our personal power.
Wishing someone good is an expression of personal power that transforms without as it heals within.
It may appear as if intending evil is the same as intending good, only the opposite value. That is not so. These intentions are not symmetrical polar opposites. Consider a key difference between them:
Intending harm for someone is prospective and causal. Malicious intent seeks to create an effect in the world that is negative for someone. Curses, vows of revenge, and harmful wishes aim at future states of the intended recipient.
Intending good for someone is conspective and intelligible. Loving intent seeks to perceive a state of reality already occurring. Loving kindness and compassion act in the present.
The difference between prospective and conspective intentions is the difference between wanting to change the world such that it becomes more like oneself and striving to transform oneself in order to see the good in the world as it is. Prospective curses try to revise the world, conspective compassion reinterprets the world.
Hating one’s enemies is an insistence on self-preservation. One’s anger and hurt become the central principles of one’s consciousness.
Loving one’s enemies is a practice of self-transformation. One’s consciousness is expanded by perceiving the world that is beyond one’s personal sphere of influence, which includes inherent good that we had not earlier recognized.
Try it out sincerely and find for yourself how conspective loving kindness changes you and the world. Picture someone whom you really do not like. Stronger, you know that person to be a danger and a fear to what you love most. That is quite an enemy.
The technique, which is also the challenge, is to accept the fact that by their very existence that person has a part to play in reality as it is. The moment that we start telling reality how it has to be in order to fit our desires, we descend into fantasy further divorcing us from the truth. The further our thoughts are from reality the more susceptible we are to inner and outer strife.
Take a concrete example that is on the minds of many around the world as I write this: Donald Trump, President of the United States of America in infected with the corona virus. That fact prompts some folks to imagine and hope for a negative outcome for him; that he gets sicker.
If you have twinges of that negative intention I urge you to reflect and seek a reinterpretation of your world view. Just as our physical selves produce anti-bodies to disable threatening pathogens, so also our spiritual selves produce grace-bodies to dissolve disabling illusions and feelings.
Here is a way that you may strengthen your spiritual immune system. Invoke the following triad of assertions:
I hope that Donald Trump is touched by my loving kindness being comfortable, safe, and on the road to a healthy recovery.
I hope that the people for whom I care feel my loving kindness for their health and safety.
I hope that my loving kindness is strong enough to bring out the inherent good in the world and myself.
Speak these three assertions with sincerity and feeling three times each day: morning, mid day, and evening. Notice how you feel when saying these. You do not need to do anything to change how you feel, just keep up with the process of voicing these intentions with as much sincerity as you can give. Also notice that the statements are structured from the remote external (and possibly counter-intuitive for you) to the inner self. Continue this process for at least three days, though I recommend doing so much longer, such as long as Trump’s illness persists.
Why do I pick the controversial case of this President? Precisely because Donald Trump does not deserve our compassion. He does not deserve our compassion partly because he has shown systematic contempt for other people’s illnesses and disabilities in public. Mocking pitilessness in word and action for people who are sick, wounded, and disabled is part of his normal repertoire. Donald Trump performs exactly as a school yard bully taunting and tormenting others who have weaknesses, disabilities, differences, names and ethnicities that the dense hateful mind so enjoys twisting in order to inflict hurt. Sadly, many of Trump’s faithful delight in his cruelty as is always the case with the willful audience for whom the school yard bully performs. It is a source of collective shame that such a man is the leader of our nation.
Well, if I believe that then why in the world do I prescribe not hating Trump and even giving him the blessing of loving kindness? The reason is precisely because he is so clearly the antithesis of compassion. By his words and actions Donald Trump provides a clear baseline for indecency. Rejecting his sadistic character is an intentional movement away from the evil and into the light of good. Send your loving kindness to the man for his physical, mental, and moral disease because doing so is the opposite of what he does for others.
Maybe you believe that President Trump is a great man. Given what you believe to be true you may be right. Still I implore you to make greatness your ideal. Greatness does not participate in the mockery of the illness and tragedies of others. You may think that I am wrong about Trump but you know that I am right about the meaness of being cruel no matter who does it.
The awesome power of loving kindness is that it is undeserved. You do not give it because you are morally or socially obligated to do so. You give loving kindness when its quality is so strong in you that you have a surplus to share, especially for those who least warrant it. Listen, opportunities like this do not come along every day. Seize this moment and you will experience the power of free and full self-transformation.
I sincerely hope that Donald Trump’s health suceeds against the corona virus. I earnestly pray that the light of compassion enters his heart so that he may come to care for others.
Believe that there is good even where it seems the least likely.
Believe in the power of loving kindness to transform deceptive interpretations of reality.
Believe that practicing loving kindness for yourself, those around you, and for your enemies is more powerful than blustering antics the school yard bully.
Don’t believe me. Try it with sincerity and see for yourself how the world changes around you as you act on your view of the world. The sun rises gradually across the whole.
Image Acknowledgments
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Klearchos Kapoutsis
https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/37f3d6a5-2c2f-41d4-9654-9933c450d7ad
creepyburntforest.jpg
zeekslider
https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/d2f1805b-f910-48ae-8ff7-5820723b7361
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https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Nelson_Muntz
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Terry Tan De Hao
https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1498972385535-427d93dadf44
For some people the simple act of driving home from work carries the weight that they may be pulled over for suspicion on no grounds other than who they are. Some parents live in persistant fear that their children may be harmed by the very officers who are empowered to protect them. For some people even open cooperation with power is met with cruel violence.
Ancient Athens was An original experiment in rule by the people (albeit flawed by its omissions) [1]. The three principles of Athenian democracy being: equal right to speak, equality under the law, and equality of vote. In the wake of a ruinous war the Athenian democracy was replaced with an authoritarian government later known as “The Thirty Tyrants.” There are always people in any community who are eager to inflict authoritarian control. The first order of business for the Tyrants was systematically reversing the democratic principles of law that were carved into a wall in city center, the Agora. The Tyrants turned the army against their own people leading to arrest, seizure of property, and executions without trial.
One of the methods of the Tyrants was turning the Athenian people against one another. They summoned certain citizens with the order of carrying out the arrest others. This policy was designed to undermine any unity of populace and integrity of individuals. Twentieth-Century East Germany made a total culture of betrayal by recruiting hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens to spy their families and friends.
Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.) was called before the Tyrants and ordered to arrest a fellow Athenian. At his own trial (which ended in the death penalty) he recalls;
“When the oligarchy came into power, the Thirty Commissioners in their turn summoned me and four others to the Round Chamber and instructed us to go and fetch Leon of Salamis from his home for execution. This was of course only one of many instances in which they issued such instructions, their object being to implicate as many people as possible in their crimes. On this occasion, however, I again made it clear, not by my words but by my actions, that the attention I paid to death was zero (if that is not too unrefined a claim); but that I gave all my attention to avoiding doing anything unjust or unholy. Powerful as it was, that government did not terrify me into doing a wrong action. When we came out of the rotunda, the other four went to Salamis and arrested Leon, but I simply went home.” (Apology, 32 c-d).
Socrates refused to participant in perpetuating an unjust government. He accepted that his civil disobedience might lead to punishment for him. Later, after the Thirty Tyrants were overthrown, Socrates was brought to trial for “impiety and corrupting the youth.” Basically the charges amount to his showing people how they may think for themselves rather than be controlled by power, reputation, and appearance. His doing so, of course, offended people in power.
There are many tyrants in our lives; the bully on the schoolyard, the internet troll, the angry talk show host, the cruel parent, the insensitive boss, the impersonal bureaucracy, the politician who sees the increase of their own power as the only good. Yet the most dominating of tyrants is the fear in our own hearts. It is the fear that we too may suffer and that we might be criticized or mistaken. This inner fear causes us to shrink back while others among us are oppressed. It is this moral paralysis that Socrates addresses in his recounting his appearance before Thirty Tyrants. They gave him an unjust order under threat of death. But Socrates did not fear death, so he did not fear them. He could not be manipulated by the great weapon of all tyrants – fear.
Look into your own heart. Do you find fear? Do you want to act on the side of justice but find no clear way to do so? Another ancient philosopher, Siddhartha Gautama of 4th century B.C.E. India, was asked by a student; “But what can I do in the face of such great suffering and injustice in the world?” The philosopher answered;
When you see great injustice and suffering in the world, take it as a sign to you to increase your loving-kindness for the people you see everyday.
There are people now who frame peace as antithetical to justice and kindness as an obstacle to equality. Beware, this is a long worn formula for self-righteousness. From that vantage justice serves as justification, usually of violence. They will also speak of the absence of options in the situation, such as; “We have no choice except to…” (fill in the blank with whatever the righteous one truly desires).
We always have options. There is always something that we can do to choose justice, compassion, and truth. Fear is an innate rejection of change. Yet all is change, so all that we really have to lose is our fear.
In good spirit,
Jon
Notes
[1] Athenian democracy was limited to adult male citizens. Women, slaves, foreigners, and children were excluded from participation in the political process. 21st century democracies still have room to improve upon that ancient example.
Images
photo-1558258932-d435783a2626.jpg, luliia Isakova, @asredaspossible, Unspash, https://unsplash.com/photos/gY6y01Me55s
photo-1587951326187-c9baa4606bff.jpg, Tyler Scheviak, @tylerscheviak, Unspash, https://unsplash.com/photos/-Edg-zf49O4
One way to characterize philosophy is as the art of questioning. New questions and new types of question open previously unexplored possibilities. The assumptions of an entire culture or generation can be altered by the posing of new questions.
Questions are often not welcome. One way to deal with questions is by force of authority:
*Many times I have witnessed young children asking questions which the attendant adults dismiss as irrelevant, silly, or worse.
*History shows many situations in which asking certain questions is dangerous to the individual. For instance, authoritarian religious leaderships have often equated questions with doubt and then unbelief. In cases such as The Inquisition, questioning is dealt with by severe force.
*Sometimes when people ask questions of their governments the reactions are strong. In some cases, when the questions probed too deeply or challenged to much, they are not acknowledged at all but rebuffed with accusations; such as “You are anti-Soviet, anti-Turkish, anti-American, enemy of the people, etc.”
*In interpersonal situations, among friends and family, unwelcome questions (i.e. those which challenge the status quo) may be met with anger, ridicule, or denial.
*Questioning ourselves to ourselves can be very difficult. Some thinkers have aptly described mechanisms of the human mind that resist change and challenge. It is not hard to test this on yourself by trying to seriously question your most basic and cherished beliefs in a sustained way. The defenses go up pretty fast – and they really are convincing when we are the ones putting them up. Here is one simple way to detect a defensive shield against some area of questioning in yourself: study some topics that are quite different from your usual interests or invest effort into understanding views that are opposite to your own. If you find yourself reacting with strong and involuntary emotion, especially with immediate and intense judgement of the topic as “pointless,” “boring,” “ridiculous” etc. – chances are you have identified a personal defense system that protects you against new, thought and potential change. Self-knowledge of this sort is very valuable.
*Even in education we can find questions to be unwelcome. In 3rd grade I recall being in a class in what was then called “New Math.” The teacher showed us the various symbols of operations including =, >, <. One symbol was called “less than or equal to.” I asked; “Since there is already an equal sign and a less than sign, what is the use of the ‘less than or equal to’ sign?” The teacher was angered by this and told me; “Stop asking stupid questions and just learn the lesson!” Instead, I responded by refusing to learn any more lessons from her ever again. At that moment I closed my mind to math altogether. Have paid the price for that defensive reaction my whole life with sub-par math skills.
I realize now that the teacher really did not understand my question. I meant it honestly. I suppose she thought I was smarting off (I was also known for asking unwelcome questions in catechism [i.e. religious doctrine] class). Even as I look back on this experience, I think that my question made sense. After all, a quantity can be less than another or equal to it, but not both. I know now that there was a mistaken assumption in my question, but that did not make it a poor question (much less a stupid one).
The problem was that I was not asking a question that fell within the domain of assumptions. If I had asked a question that accepted and made use of the symbols, how to work within the system, the teacher would have likely been glad to sho
w me what to do. My question, however, was about the givens. It challenged the reasoning for the system itself. If you want to get yelled at, shunned, ridiculed, fired, failed, etc., an excellent approach is to ask serious, intelligent questions about the assumptions of the given system.
When we ask questions such as “What is truth?” – “What is reality?” – “What is Good?” – or “What is reason?” we are asking to open the system itself to examination. 
They are calling our most basic givens into question. It is natural that some people will receive such questions as ridiculous, irrelevant, and a waste of time. Some folks are inclined to say; “Stop asking stupid questions and just get on with it!” To be fair, perhaps those folks have a point worth considering. Maybe some things are not meant to be questioned. Maybe it is impossible (nonsensical) to pose some sorts of questions. But see? Even by opening this possibility I am doing it again! I am inclined to take their thought seriously even if they dismiss mine as worthless.
What is your own experience with questions? What are your most important questions? How have those questions been received by others throughout your life? Do you have an idea about how questioning will influence your future? What is the single most important question that you may ask yourself.
It seems to me that a question is a form of openness. By asking a genuine, serious question, one presents oneself as incomplete and uncertain. There is a vulnerability in the sincere question and an assumption that the universe remains open-ended in some respects.
I think that the idea of an open-ended universe populated by incomplete minds comes into conflict with some other ways of addressing reality. One common view (or my interpretation of that view) assumes that most of the important questions have already been answered and all that remains is filling out the details. Asking questions such as; “What am I?” and “Does my life have purpose?” and “What is death?” are impertinent and silly from that perspective.
I believe that how we respond to such questions shows much about our assumptions concerning the structure of experience, the relationship of the individual and authority, and the limits of human possibility.
My plea is this: when you encounter a question that evokes intense reaction such that you are inclined to dismiss the value of the question entirely, consider the possibility that your interpretation of the question and associated ideas is incomplete. Maybe it is not, but this is always a hypothesis worth testing.
Assignment – Pose and ponder these two questions several times in the next year:
What is the single most important question that I may ask myself.
What question about myself do I least want to ask?
Sources
1024px-Arabic_Question_mark_(RTL) .svg.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arabic_Question_mark_(RTL).svg
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https://pixabay.com/en/deep-thought-mind-question-1296377/
A vital factor in who we are as individuals is how we conceive of death.
This is because how we conceive of death conditions how we value life.
Few of us value all lives equally, even when it comes to human beings.
Nor do many of us think of our own deaths in the same terms as we do for others.
Some folks may have a degree of clarity in these variations, but I suspect that for most of us the deep questions about life and death are a confused tangle.
Plenty of the day-to-day disquiet of our minds arises from this confusion.
Our mortal struggle is explored by Stephen Caves, a philosopher at the University of Cambridge, in his essay Not Nothing.
“When I squidged it, I summoned the Reaper to my desk. If only briefly, I caught his eye.”
Caves sets out the dilemmas of life/death values starkly then seeks a balance point between them.
The degree to which he succeeds at this depends upon the insight gained by an attentive reader, such as yourself.
I suggest that you read this article and come back to it on successive opportunities for at least three readings.
Take your understanding of Cave’s analysis into conversation with people in your life.
They may embrace the topic outright, recoil at the mention of death, or dismiss the entire issue as meaningless.
In any of those cases, and the points in between them, you will at least gain a perspective on the various ways that people think about dying and accord value to the living.
Image Acknowlegements
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CC Search
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CC Search
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Whatever I anticipated on Friday morning it was not to witness the last breath of a young man.
I walk to work whatever the weather and this morning the rosy fingertips of dawn hinted at a sunny Spring day.
I had an early meeting so stopped at the corner café to organize my notes over espresso.
After coffee I set off to campus. A block away I saw something on the walkway my side of the railroad tracks.
The object looked like a sleeping bag, though as I approached it moved and I knew there was a person there, perhaps asleep.
There was a person there, but he was not asleep. He was unconscious. He had fallen face down, his left shoe at a right angle a few feet behind.
His arms were tucked under as if he grasped something to his chest as he fell.
Blood seeped from his forehead and saliva pooled at his lips.
There were no others around and I said to him; “Are you awake? Can you hear me?” No response so I called the responders at 911.
The dispatcher asked the right questions in the right order and instructed me not to move him.
One of the questions was; “How far did he fall?”
As I think back, my answer was strange; “To the pavement.”
I was not being glib. I was speaking from an image in my mind of a human body falling from upright to fully prone without catching itself. My image was of the impact such a fall onto cement must incur. That is, I suppose, what happened.
While answering the 911 dispatcher’s queries a man passed walking along the tracks. He was shouting something. I looked up to catch it. Waving his arms the man said; “He’s a drunk!”
Ignoring the irrelevant I asked the dispatcher to repeat his question. I do not recall what it was or how I answered.
While waiting for the paramedics an elderly woman approached walking her small elderly dog. She asked if the man on the ground was awake as the little dog sniffed at him. They moved on.
There was a moment of stillness – quiet and lonely. The sun was not yet high and we were in the shadow of buildings, he on the ground, me standing near.
He lay motionless but for a deep exhalation that came from his mouth bubbling the saliva which mixed slightly with the blood.
I did not see him inhale and felt this may be the last of his breath
Ancient texts from Egypt, India, China, and Israel speak of the life-force as a form of breath. The Greeks called it Pneuma.
As Jose’s life leaked out onto the pavement I said aloud; “You are not alone.” That was all.
In a moment the stillness broke with a siren wail and police were there.
They knew him as “Jose” and tried to awaken him. One checked for a pulse at his 
throat. They turned him over, opened his shirt and began CPR.
A fire truck arrived with paramedics who broke out equipment and became busy.
A police officer had questions for me and I turned away from their efforts to bring Jose back to the living. He was not coming back.
The officers were respectful of Jose and tried to save him. They were kind to me.
The remainder of my day was not so eventful though I remained slightly disengaged.
My words were in a measure unclear to others and by the end of the day I felt as though I were speaking through a veil.
I walked home late by the same route and found flowers in a cardboard box where Jose had fallen.
Later I learned that Jose was known to his friends as Francisco.
In my evening meditation I contemplated the death of a young man, just 34 years.
The Gazette Times had an article about the incident in which Jose is identified and I am designated a passer-by.
In truth, I am but a witness to the passing by of Francisco “Jose” Semadeni.
He did not die alone.
Yama – God of Death and Dharma
Among those who contemplate death, few are as thorough in detail and depth as are Buddhists.
A traditional Tibetan book, Bardo Thodol, is often referred to in English as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, though a more accurate translation is The Great Liberation through Hearing. A modern classic of Tibetan Buddhism is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.
Two contemporary Tibetan Buddhists, Patty Winter and Gregg Ruskusky, share their understanding via workshops – one of which is coming to Portland OR this April 28-30.
This extended session addresses care-giving for the dying and grieving with a overall objective of opening insight to our personal mortality and self-care.
I have registered and am looking forward to learning! Maybe I’ll see you there.
The workshop is sponsored by Maitripa College, the single degree offering Tibetan Buddhist College in the US.
Our Common Ground: Death and Dying
Patty Winter, RN, and Gregg Ruskusky
April 28-30, 2017
Friday, 7-9 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 10am – 12:30pm and 2-5pm
Information and Registration
https://maitripa.org/event/death-dying-workshop-2017/
Conversations on topics such as in this post are common at Death Café Corvallis, in which you are welcome to participate.
Image Acknowledgement
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yama
As family matters go, death is surely a big one. How families respond to the deaths of loved ones is likely a primary determinant of a culture’s treatment of mortality. Death is not a common social topic in the U.S. and I have sometimes thought that stemmed from a form of denial. On the other hand, perhaps it is a function of propriety in which as a family matter, death is left to the family. Still, it is my experience that death is not a common topic within families until someone within dies.
The W.H. Stark House in Orange, Texas is a museum that took an interesting approach to the typical silence on death with an exhibition specifically about the aspects of death in a family over a decade. At issue is the Stark family who lived in the mansion that has since become a museum. The exhibit – A Death in the Family – explores the private lives of the Starks in the context of loss and mourning.
Stephanie Fulbright reviewed the exhibit noting;
“By grounding the conversation in someone else’s story” the exhibit “opened the door to the conversation about death and mourning and offered people an avenue to think and talk about mourning and loss in their own context.”
Effectively representing personal experience with death in a publicly accessible way is an accomplishment that will hopefully be continued in other venues.
Image Acknowledgement
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his first spring day my father turned 92. He was in the hospital for a fall, but without much damage, so he bounced back fast.
His room provides a terrific view of the harbor and snow capped Mount Baker of the North Cascades.
The hospital staff conveyed one key point – Dad has a great sense of humor. Everyone who knows him will concur. Whether I live past 60 or 100 I know that the soul of wit and levity is too dear to be lost. Forsaking humor for the sake of discomfort or fear is to lose all.
My father taught me patience of a particular sort born of persistent focus such as time may not weaken. Humor sharpens focus and disassembles diversion, hence reinforcing patience.
I visit my folks every month and am looking forward to Dad’s 93rd day of birth when we may share a laugh in the new spring morning.
Imagery often carries meaning beyond words. Documentary photographer David Chancellor’s recent exhibit, ‘Handle Like Eggs,’ continues his investigation into life, death, loss, and other forces that bind humans together.
Chancellor’s exhibit presents photographs taken in Southern Africa. All are evocative, some perhaps disturbing.
Chancellor makes use of color and mass to shape the sense of his compositions. The images are packed with potential emotion, though the subjects in them rarely express the feelings overtly.
Photography has possibly changed our concepts of death more than any technology. Let us know whether Chancellor’s discerning eye impacts your own.
Jon Dorbolo 