Spirituality

Part 1

The theme for today is Spirituality.

What is spirituality?

Rather than trying to answer this question
(which we almost never do)
let's consider some possibilities.

The post-structuralist philosopher Marcel Foucault
put it this way in one of his last talks (around 1982)

‘We will call “philosophy” the form of thought that asks what it is that
enables the subject to have access to the truth and which attempts to determine the conditions and limits of the subject’s access to the truth.’

‘If we call this “philosophy”, then I think we could call “spirituality” the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth’

‘...the set of these researches, practices, and experiences, which may be purifications, ascetic exercises, renunciations, conversions of looking, modifications of existence...which are...for the subject’s very being, the price to be paid for access to the truth’

Part 2

The theme for today is Spirituality (again)

There's a "secret" term
which this is also about:  "ethics"
but we're not going to make it explicit
because it often causes the eyes to glaze over
(although we're adults now
and we may soon be ready for the challenge
to take it up and stay awake)

Last time I gave a quote from Foucault

‘I think we could call “spirituality” the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth’

And of course we may have fixated
on that word "truth"
but for the theme today
we will use the word "spirit" instead
which is not necessarily different in meaning.

As individuals
we are like the branch of some invisible tree
we are handed a legacy of possibilities
without understanding them
and entrusted to carry them forward
make the best of them
perhaps to understand or improve them.

What can we learn from philosophers,
if anything?

They are cultural thought leaders
both tracking and helping define
the spirit of their times

and shaping its spirituality
directly or as a side effect.

So in a sense they are designers
of the cultural systems we live in
and that also form our interiors.

One of the worst things to do with philosophy
is to pick over their statements
for a few ideas that justify or support
what we already believe or want
and turn them into abstractions
and fundamentalisms.

But of course that's what usually happens
and the source of the rigid aspects of culture,
the things that get out of hand
or turn to abuse
or simply loss of wholeness
and opportunity
for a fuller life of spirit.

Every philosopher has an audience
usually of other philosophers
and a "project" of some kind
which is usually to understand what "box" they are in
and how to get out of it.

Any of us who are non-philosophers
(if that's actually possible)

have our projects too
and are in some "boxes"
both sheltered by, and suffering them

even if we haven't had the luxury
of working out what they are
naming them,
and getting an audience
or sangha of others
for support
solace,
or solidarity.

In his last few years
Foucault turned his attention
from understanding how "selves" came to be
shaped by culture and history

toward their potentials for living
and transformation.

This was spirituality by any other name
and he did start to use the word
to the consternation of some people.

A phrase he used in this project
was "care of the self".

He wanted to connect with forgotten concerns
of philosophers of antiquity
toward living -- being and becoming;
toward cultivation and transformation of the self
through practice.

This was an ethics of care.
And his way of doing it,
talking to his community,
his sangha.

Which are of course different than ours
though they may bear a family resemblance.

How do we practice care?

Our everyday activities
affect us,
whether we call them practices or habits.

Some of them sustain and nourish the spirit
and some may support its change in quality
which we might call transformation.

Transformative changes may involve a sense of struggle.
Philosophers are often continually working at this,
never content to settle with the givens
or even their own modifications of them.

The philosopher Goethe (I think) said:

"I hate everything that merely instructs me
without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity"

Gilles Deleuze called it

"Swimming upstream,
placing oneself within the flow of the event
in its becoming,
to pass through each of its elements
and each singularity"

Nietzche called it
"the inopportune"
meaning, it never seemed appropriate
for what here and now had become.

What senses of yearning or desire
moved them?

And how about you / me / we
in our own projects?

It's not so easy to say.

Perhaps we want a calm, accepting, appreciative life.

We need not be seeking and struggle
(though it might seek us).

What blocks you / me / we
in our being, becoming
and care of self?

Or from claiming and "owning"
giving "being" and "becoming" to
the intention,
the necessity,
the yearning?

False dualities and disconnects
with the demand that you "take sides"
outer vs inner,
acting vs being?

The not so simple confrontation
with "not knowing":
what happens there?

Doubts, fears,
internalized limitations,
voices that annul possibility
ways of knowing
paths to insight?

Listen a bit. What do they say?

"Been there, done that!"
"It's merely subjective."
"Don't take it personal."
"Don't be selfish.  Act for others."

"If those damn philosophers can't agree
what chance do I have?"

Can we feel and then let go of those voices
telling them,
"ok, I can honor your truths
but there is another side to that mountain"

Imagine you have an opportunity,
a possibility.

This is the place.
Now is the time.

What piece of this
would you like to take up
and carry forward?