My Sacred Path of the Amoeba

Digesting and Discerning Truth

Originally Posted on April 1, 2017 in Living with OPen Hands 1.0

If a person says that my statement is judgmental, isn’t THAT being judgmental? Am I being judgmental by asking this question???

Why do we so often judge others and their ideas? What do we fear? Why do we need to set things straight right then and right there?

What is true anyway? Well, it depends on each person’s perspective. 10 people can see the same situation and come away with 10 different descriptions of that same situation.

Do I need to be right?  Does truth need to be “defended”? Why?

Can it not stand on its own? Usually we “defend” the weak and vulnerable from being hurt or destroyed? Is that what we think about truth? Is it our duty to defend the truth? If we do not defend it, then it will melt away or become a victim of an overpowering idea?

What is the source of our constant argumentation? Why do we cut ourselves short of understanding another? What do we fear? Being wrong? Not being right? Being different? Being the same?

We spend our lives quibbling facts and disputing words without bothering to understand what it is we are disputing and quibbling about... or why.

Do we even want to understand another? Are we afraid of their difference? Are we afraid of our own ideas crumbling, or crashing down around us, or melting away?

Understanding requires the effort and the intention to understand.

Understanding requires the effort and the intention of listening.

Why is it so hard to listen?

We cannot listen

• • Over our chattering mind

• • Over our need to be right

• • If we are busy formulating our response

• • If we already think we know what the person is going to say

• • If we judge the person’s words and ideas
• 
  
• If we are busy labeling right or wrong

The Virus of the Mind; a mental health pandemic

Am I my own Crap Detector?

Or am I spreading the Virus of the Mind?

The coronavirus is a physical example of what is happening in our minds and spreading throughout society. It is scary, destructive, and deadly. We are all seeing this physical virus tear through humanity, no matter the gender, race, beliefs, culture, religion, politics, age, or economic status. And yet there are people that still deny its impact or the seriousness of this pandemic. Even as hundreds and thousands of people are dying, far away on the other side of the world (out of sight, out of mind), it is just a hoax. Even though the experts in the field have been saying for years that we must be vigilant and prepare now, we think it is a joke, or a conspiracy to undermine the American presidential election. Oh yeah, that's why people are dying in China!?!? This world wide pandemic is all about the US president??? And it is whose fault???

And yet, in the midst of all of our denials, there is a virus that is

much much more destructive than COVID 19. It is the VIRUS OF THE MIND. Not only does this virus destroy our concept of reality and truth, it is also reframing our thinking about the coronavirus; i.e. its reality and truth. If you hear someone tell you enough that something is a hoax, eventually, if you are not vigilant, you will shift your perception of reality to this alternative reality. That's what the virus of the mind, i.e. meme, does. There are many types of memes. Some are good like "Love Your Neighbor" or "Be the Change" or "Treat Others Like You Want to Be Treated." Others are innocuous like "Go Tigers" or "I'm Fine." Others are very destructive and lead us away from the good and the truth like "Those Democrats..." or "Those Republicans..." or "White people are Racist" or "Black people are Lazy" along with other biases, prejudices, insults, and name calling. These can be religious, political, cultural, etc. And they can create love or fear, peace or hatred, truth or lies.

What is true? What is real? How can I know? How can I learn to discern what I hear so I can know what to believe. It is you and me that must develop our own internal mechanisms for sorting out truth from untruth, fake from real, propaganda from reality. Each of us must find ways to create our own “crap detector”; a personal fact checker that believes nothing that we have been told. Everything we hear must be vetted by experience and researched in this time from reliable sources. We live in a time of so much information blasting us that we can conjure up any world of our making just by the perception we choose to take. Information overload fosters this even though it is not new. It has always been true that hostile people live in a hostile world and loving people live in a loving world. But HERE and NOW, it is more true than ever in history.

Facts and truth are spinning out of control in this day and age. 

Truth, Wisdom, Meaning

The search for truth

The search for wisdom

The search for meaning

… out there somewhere?

or...

The discovery of truth

The discovery of wisdom

The discovery of meaning

… deep in our bones?

Truth, Wisdom, and Meaning are very important words for me. But I find myself using them interchangeably and also using them without a very clear understanding of what they mean, their depth of meaning, and how to use them in a more distinguishable or distinctive way, i.e. unique from each other. This is my attempt.

“We attain wisdom not by creating ideals but by learning to see things clearly, as they are.” (Jack Kornfield)

“The first revolution is when you change your mind about how you look at things and see that there might be another way to look at it that you have not been shown” (Gil Scott-Heron)

Discover the truth wherever it may be found.

Refine the truth through the fire of inner discernment.

Follow the truth wherever it may lead you.