a new book

Here's the next life-changing book for me: At Hell's Gate by Claude Anshin Thomas. Mary Ann Finch, my supervisor at Care Through Touch Institute (www.carethroughtouch.org) recommended it. It's the autobiography of a Vietnam veteran who becomes a Buddhist monk. He is honest about what he did in Vietnam and how it haunts him, and he speaks accessibly in his analysis of how and why he came to do it--drawing conclusions about the broader world, reflecting truths he found in Buddhist Scriptures. In doing so, he helps me figure out my own shit, growing my awareness about when and where it happens that I want to hurt others. And he encourages me not to fight it, but to consider it. In considering, I end up having a choice in how I act. Which is pretty damn difficult, but cool when it happens. Reminds me of a conversation I had with EJoye, about learning habits without realizing it--and how sometimes an act of difference, breaking that habit, can snap us into awareness about our own behaviors. It's kind of cool.

yes i am a dork

Today I attended a seminar on cognitive science and religion, with a focus on trauma. It was pretty amazing. The first speaker was a philosopher who got in on the interdisciplinary cognitive science ground floor in the 80s, working with a neuroscientist. As a philosopher, she decided that in order to do her job, she had to tell scientists they were looking for the wrong thing when it came to trying to figure out how we become aware of our world. Instead of the 50 year old hypothesis that the world comes to us in pieces that our brain puts together (which had yet to be proven), she proposed (after 3 years of sitting at home thinking and writing and conversing with a neuroscientist) that the world is a seamless web that our senses break down into parts and our brain tries to reassemble. The theory never caught on (it's hard to tell scientists that they've spent their whole career and a flawed hypothesis), but she succeeded in meeting the Dalai Lama, who told her to study Buddhism. After being a Tibetan Buddhist nun for about 15 or so years, studying the Buddhist concept of emptiness (ca. 500 BCE), she is still promoting her theory and suggesting that meditation techniques allow a person to step back from the constructions of the mind in order to experience that seamless web that our senses lie about. She was followed by a professor who talked about how forgiveness creates neurological changes in the brain, creating habits beyond the fight-or-flight responses to trauma and injury. Then some interesting panel discussions about how sometimes childhood trauma can alter brain chemistry and neurobiology--short-circuiting a person's ability to reflect, stabilize identity, and creating "brain noise." There was a brief discussion about "re-tuning" neural pathways that formerly triggered trauma responses (what I would call PTSD, I think).
What also happened is that there was an audience member who seemed to be upset and little points about the trauma presenter's talk. While I don't know who he was, it seemed that he was a trauma survivor who felt that his trauma wasn't recognized or described in what the speaker said. For me, it brought in the reality that trauma is not abstract, it's not something that "we" (the members of the seminar) treat, but that trauma is something that happens to all of us. This was the background of the nun's talk, as well, though it wasn't explicit. This is a Buddhist concept of interbeing, and she also mentioned that she is a trauma survivor.
The whole thing was rather exciting for me, given the intersections of religion and science, self and reality. It also helped that I'm finishing Proust was a Neuroscientist and reading about Virginia Woolf's understanding of the self as an ephemeral mix of disparate perceptions, memories, thoughts, etc--as shown in her stream-of-consciousness writing style.

another great book

I'm reading a copy of Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer (thanks for the Christmas gift, Dad!). It's about how certain artists "discovered" scientific concepts that were ahead of their time. For example, Escoffier the famous 19th/20th century French chef discovered umami--the fifth taste (savory or hearty)--that scientists are only now discovering in glutamates. I just finished the chapter on how Walt Whitman insisted in the wholeness of his body/mind/soul, predating the scientific discoveries of how the emotions arise from the physical body (and debunked the mind/body split so famous in Greek and Christian thought). Now I'm reading about how George Eliot. It's not clear what she discovered, but it contains some fascinating information about the human bodies ability to grow neurons. There's some great stuff about how stress and environmental conditions inhibit the growth of neurons, but that a change of environment and better care can stimulate the growth of neurons. To me, it's an argument about spreading the wealth and ensuring basic healthcare and living conditions can raise the happiness and intelligence of...well, of the whole world. Good book, worth reading.

"tribalism"

A lot of news (especially US news) is reporting on the violence in Kenya as if it's "tribal," based on ethnic tensions. I've had a number of conversations with my partner and his parents about the inaccuracy of this type of analysis. They say you can't ignore that people have tribal loyalties and notice tribal affiliations, but it's also wrong to assume that people are only loyal to tribal connections. Tribal connections, like all affiliations, are subject to manipulation. And in this case, they are being manipulated.
The gist of it is: It's a long-standing case of tribal affiliations being manipulated. The leadership of one tribe siezed the opportunity to control political and economic power to raise the fortunes of only its own people. They continue to do so, and the rest of the country, who has been left disenfranchised and left out of the so-called strong Kenyan economy, these people are pissed off and tired of misrepresentation and unequal opportunity. It's a long story. And--I would suggest--it's a very similar story to the "tribal conflicts" of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. I would also suggest it's a familiar story about race in the US. Systematically using political and economic power to improve the fortunes of a portion of the country instead of improving the lot of everyone.