In two minds

George Clark, 29 February 2008

 "One way or another, as with the other senses, our minds often obscure our capacity to see clearly." (Jon Kabat-Zinn)

There is the popular idea that Eskimos have twenty different words for snow. In my version of English there are only two. Language gives us labels which control what and how we see; and also what we hear, smell, taste, touch and think. But we do not have to stay within our linguistic prisons; we can clean our doors to perception.

Most of us most of the time are so lost in thoughts and feelings that we are absent from the present moment. We drift in an imagined past and future on the flimsy boats which are linguistic labels. We are so caught up in our inner world that our perception of the deep ocean of the 'real' world is severely limited.

Experiment: pay attention to the sounds that are present to your ears. What have you not been noticing? Now pay attention to what you are seeing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking/feeling). Is there stuff going on that 'you' are not normally aware of?

Imagine three friends on a mountain at sunset. Two continue a passionate political debate that began in the hotel bar; they are unaware of their physical surroundings. The third is awake to the present moment and is suffused with the wondrous awe of the setting sun.

To clean the doors to perception we have to rearrange how we come to know the world. It is useful to have labels for two states of mind:

"Phenomenal" refers to the common state of being 'present in body absent in mind'. This is when you are adrift on the ocean with simple labels and limiting, knee-jerk habits of thought and feeling. 

"Numinous" refers to the state of being awake to what is going on in the immediate here and now and having the awe-full experience that William Blake alluded to: "To see a World in a grain of sand, and Heaven in a wild flower, hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour."

So the task is quite simple: we have to be aware of the limitation of the phenomenal (there and then) and make more time and space for the numinous (here and now). To borrow an apt snippet from Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know"

"The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having fresh eyes." (Marcel Proust)

 

[This post was in part inspired by Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005) Coming to Our Senses: Healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness; ISBN 0749925884]