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Life Without Games, Part 8
Sep. 28th, 2023 07:46 am...Or, Epithymia, Part II
Let's pick up where we left off yesterday.
Overcoming the Passions
The Epithymia, as we have seen, may be compared on the one hand to the peasantry or working class of the kingdom of our souls, and on the other to a monstrous enemy who must be overcome.
The monster may be compared to the Greek Typhon. Tyhpon was the child of Gaia and Tartarus-- that is, the Earth and the pit of Hell. He contended with the Gods, and was only overcome by the thunderbolt of Zeus.
Stillness Meditation
Among the most useful exercises for anyone hoping to gain mastery over their passions is the practice of quiescent meditation. I am using the term "quiescent" meditation, or its equivalent, "stillness" meditation, as a catch-all for all of those forms of meditation which work by emptying the mind of thoughts. In some cases, one places one's attention on the breathe, or on a mantra; in others, one simply endeavors to focus on nothing at all; in still others, one repeats, with intention, a prayer such as "I take refuge in Amida Buddha" or "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me," or "There is no God but God."
In certain circles to which you and I belong, mindfulness, zazen and other forms of "mind-emptying" or "stillness" meditation tend to get short shrift. I'm going to address this before we continue.
It is true that Buddhist meditation techniques are, in the modern world, often ripped from context and applied as a form of antidepressant. It is also true that meditation intensives such as those offered by the Goenka organization do more harm than good (I can say this from experience.) Here again, though, the old injunction holds good:
Abusus non tollit usum.
The abuse of any technique does not take away its legitimate use.
Meditation and Me
I'm going to speak from personal experience here, and for a good reason. All of the techniques that I'm discussing have been developed by groups, in a group context. But each of us has to do the work primarily within our own soul. Under ordinary circumstances, it is only our own personal soul which we can directly experience. I can tell you that I have experimented with working exclusively with discursive meditation, and I have experimented with combining regular discursive meditation with regular mindfulness meditation. For me, the latter works much, much better. The fruit of discursive meditation on its own is that I become much smarter. It also exacerbates my natural tendency to be a space cadet. Once I emerge from a session of discursive meditation, I find it very hard to connect to my physical surroundings, or to the people in those surroundings. Worst of all, I find it more, not less, difficult to control my passions, habits, and reactions. This is precisely the opposite of what I seek from meditation. To put the matter plainly: I'm already smart enough. What I need to develop is self-control, gentleness toward others, and physical coordination.
I've studied and practiced a number of styles of mind-stilling meditation, including vipassana, zazen, and Taoist zuowang. These are all Asian methods, but there are Western and Christian methods of stillness meditation as well. The most prominent are Catholic centering prayer and euchraristic adoration, and, from the Orthodox tradition, hesychasm.
The way that I learned quiescent meditation, and the most common form that I practice, is to sit upright, place my attention at the lower dantien (two inches below the navel), and count my breaths. Inhale 1, exhale 2. I do this for a set length of time-- a timer is crucial for this sort of practice. Buddhist and Taoist traditions have specific mudras, which is to say, positions for the hands, which are designed to cultivate energy in particular ways. Sometimes I use these; other times I place my hands on my thighs. Ultimately I'm going to develop a system of mudras based on the Golden Dawn tradition, but that's a story of another time.
Now, every form of stillness meditation has its own ultimate aim, which is framed within its particular tradition of metaphysics. This is as it should be. At one time, the word "Philosophy" referred as much to a way of life as to a set of mental exercises, and far more to a way of life than to a set of opinions. Each school of philosophy had its own meditative disciplines, appropriate to it. In Taoist zuowang, the ultimate end is to observe the way that things arise and resolve of themselves, by the ongoing activity of the Tao. In hesychasm, the end is the experience of the Uncreated Light. In this post, I don't want to talk about the metaphysical end of meditation, but only of its immediate effects upon the soul and its relationship to the passions.
In any form of quiescent meditation, the first thing that happens when you start is simply that you want to stop. One begins by taking an uncomfortable posture, with the spine held upright and very often the legs crossed. The body immediately rebels. It figits, it itches, it's thirsty. The mind rebels. You need to make a grocery list; you're sure you left the oven on. Best get up and check it. Every time you refuse to give in to impulse, you are practicing self-control. Self-control, or Temperance, is the virtue which Plato associates with the abdomen, the seat of the passions.
Meanwhile, at the same time you are refusing to act from passion, you practice acting from intention. This is the other half of self-control-- acting from choice, rather than from desire. This is also a component of the virtue of Courage, which includes the refusal to turn aside from a rightly chosen end either to avoid pain or to seek pleasure.
Finally, the regular practice of meditation leads to self-knowledge. In meditation, we watch our thoughts, impulses, and desires arise, and we watch them subside again. The first fruit of regular practice is to break our identification with our thoughts. We typically assume that if we think something, or if we feel something, or if we want something, we are that thought, that emotion, or that desire. By watching our thoughts, feelings, and desires arise and subside on their own, without acting on them, we discover that we ourselves are neither thought, nor emotion, nor desire. Going further, we discover that each of these things has causes which are rooted in our bodies, our physical environments, our past, our history, and our circumstances. We watch the behavior of thought and desire exactly as we might watch the activity of birds in a forest or the growing cycles of plants. Just as patient observation of forest over time leads to knowledge of that forest and its residents, so patient observation of the mental processes over time leads to self-knowledge. This is a key to the virtue of Wisdom.
Finally, by the simultaneous practice of observing of all of our internal processes while acting according to a rightly chosen end, we cultivate Justice.
Thus we see that meditation, directed primarily toward the virtue of Temperance, results in the other three virtues as well, and thus to Virtue as a whole. Remember that the words for "ethics" and "morality" come from Greek and Latin roots which both mean "habits."
And so that's my first recommendation. Practice a form of meditation, especially one that forces you to stop doing anything, including thinking. Tomorrow I'm going to discuss fasting, building on our discussion of meditation. Then I'm going to circle back around to discuss something I missed in the post on purifying the Thymos. Finally, I'll wrap up the whole discussion with some final thoughts on social games.
...At least, that's the plan as of right now. But I've noticed that when I set out my plans here, things tend to go differently from what I expected. So we'll see where it goes!
Let's pick up where we left off yesterday.
Overcoming the Passions
The Epithymia, as we have seen, may be compared on the one hand to the peasantry or working class of the kingdom of our souls, and on the other to a monstrous enemy who must be overcome.
The monster may be compared to the Greek Typhon. Tyhpon was the child of Gaia and Tartarus-- that is, the Earth and the pit of Hell. He contended with the Gods, and was only overcome by the thunderbolt of Zeus.
Stillness Meditation
Among the most useful exercises for anyone hoping to gain mastery over their passions is the practice of quiescent meditation. I am using the term "quiescent" meditation, or its equivalent, "stillness" meditation, as a catch-all for all of those forms of meditation which work by emptying the mind of thoughts. In some cases, one places one's attention on the breathe, or on a mantra; in others, one simply endeavors to focus on nothing at all; in still others, one repeats, with intention, a prayer such as "I take refuge in Amida Buddha" or "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me," or "There is no God but God."
In certain circles to which you and I belong, mindfulness, zazen and other forms of "mind-emptying" or "stillness" meditation tend to get short shrift. I'm going to address this before we continue.
It is true that Buddhist meditation techniques are, in the modern world, often ripped from context and applied as a form of antidepressant. It is also true that meditation intensives such as those offered by the Goenka organization do more harm than good (I can say this from experience.) Here again, though, the old injunction holds good:
Abusus non tollit usum.
The abuse of any technique does not take away its legitimate use.
Meditation and Me
I'm going to speak from personal experience here, and for a good reason. All of the techniques that I'm discussing have been developed by groups, in a group context. But each of us has to do the work primarily within our own soul. Under ordinary circumstances, it is only our own personal soul which we can directly experience. I can tell you that I have experimented with working exclusively with discursive meditation, and I have experimented with combining regular discursive meditation with regular mindfulness meditation. For me, the latter works much, much better. The fruit of discursive meditation on its own is that I become much smarter. It also exacerbates my natural tendency to be a space cadet. Once I emerge from a session of discursive meditation, I find it very hard to connect to my physical surroundings, or to the people in those surroundings. Worst of all, I find it more, not less, difficult to control my passions, habits, and reactions. This is precisely the opposite of what I seek from meditation. To put the matter plainly: I'm already smart enough. What I need to develop is self-control, gentleness toward others, and physical coordination.
I've studied and practiced a number of styles of mind-stilling meditation, including vipassana, zazen, and Taoist zuowang. These are all Asian methods, but there are Western and Christian methods of stillness meditation as well. The most prominent are Catholic centering prayer and euchraristic adoration, and, from the Orthodox tradition, hesychasm.
The way that I learned quiescent meditation, and the most common form that I practice, is to sit upright, place my attention at the lower dantien (two inches below the navel), and count my breaths. Inhale 1, exhale 2. I do this for a set length of time-- a timer is crucial for this sort of practice. Buddhist and Taoist traditions have specific mudras, which is to say, positions for the hands, which are designed to cultivate energy in particular ways. Sometimes I use these; other times I place my hands on my thighs. Ultimately I'm going to develop a system of mudras based on the Golden Dawn tradition, but that's a story of another time.
Now, every form of stillness meditation has its own ultimate aim, which is framed within its particular tradition of metaphysics. This is as it should be. At one time, the word "Philosophy" referred as much to a way of life as to a set of mental exercises, and far more to a way of life than to a set of opinions. Each school of philosophy had its own meditative disciplines, appropriate to it. In Taoist zuowang, the ultimate end is to observe the way that things arise and resolve of themselves, by the ongoing activity of the Tao. In hesychasm, the end is the experience of the Uncreated Light. In this post, I don't want to talk about the metaphysical end of meditation, but only of its immediate effects upon the soul and its relationship to the passions.
In any form of quiescent meditation, the first thing that happens when you start is simply that you want to stop. One begins by taking an uncomfortable posture, with the spine held upright and very often the legs crossed. The body immediately rebels. It figits, it itches, it's thirsty. The mind rebels. You need to make a grocery list; you're sure you left the oven on. Best get up and check it. Every time you refuse to give in to impulse, you are practicing self-control. Self-control, or Temperance, is the virtue which Plato associates with the abdomen, the seat of the passions.
Meanwhile, at the same time you are refusing to act from passion, you practice acting from intention. This is the other half of self-control-- acting from choice, rather than from desire. This is also a component of the virtue of Courage, which includes the refusal to turn aside from a rightly chosen end either to avoid pain or to seek pleasure.
Finally, the regular practice of meditation leads to self-knowledge. In meditation, we watch our thoughts, impulses, and desires arise, and we watch them subside again. The first fruit of regular practice is to break our identification with our thoughts. We typically assume that if we think something, or if we feel something, or if we want something, we are that thought, that emotion, or that desire. By watching our thoughts, feelings, and desires arise and subside on their own, without acting on them, we discover that we ourselves are neither thought, nor emotion, nor desire. Going further, we discover that each of these things has causes which are rooted in our bodies, our physical environments, our past, our history, and our circumstances. We watch the behavior of thought and desire exactly as we might watch the activity of birds in a forest or the growing cycles of plants. Just as patient observation of forest over time leads to knowledge of that forest and its residents, so patient observation of the mental processes over time leads to self-knowledge. This is a key to the virtue of Wisdom.
Finally, by the simultaneous practice of observing of all of our internal processes while acting according to a rightly chosen end, we cultivate Justice.
Thus we see that meditation, directed primarily toward the virtue of Temperance, results in the other three virtues as well, and thus to Virtue as a whole. Remember that the words for "ethics" and "morality" come from Greek and Latin roots which both mean "habits."
And so that's my first recommendation. Practice a form of meditation, especially one that forces you to stop doing anything, including thinking. Tomorrow I'm going to discuss fasting, building on our discussion of meditation. Then I'm going to circle back around to discuss something I missed in the post on purifying the Thymos. Finally, I'll wrap up the whole discussion with some final thoughts on social games.
...At least, that's the plan as of right now. But I've noticed that when I set out my plans here, things tend to go differently from what I expected. So we'll see where it goes!
