Welcome to The Middle Path - A newsletter where I write about books, meditation, personal growth, and wrestling with life’s big questions. A special note of gratitude to the 60 people that have joined us since the introductory post a few weeks ago! If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can sign up here:
This is something I think about often and appreciate you sharing this universal truth with us. Two thoughts/questions: 1) do you ever think about how two people's experience of the same moment can be so different because their "lens" are taking in information differently? 2) Do you think about how our previous experiences make up a lot of the foundation for our "lens" or subjective experience? Those previous experiences can be tough to identify, acknowledge and unlearn and I feel meditation is an effective way to create that awareness for ourselves to enact change
1. Absolutely. I sometimes think about what it would be like to sit next to the Buddha. Despite having the same physical surroundings, I’m sure we’d be having a dramatically different subjective experiences. (This has been quite motivating for my meditation practice.)
2. Such a great question, and yes I totally agree with you. I stumbled on a quote last night in the book The School of Life that I think answers this better than I can. “We suffer because there is no easy route to introspection. We cannot open a hatch and ‘locate’ ourselves. We are not a fixed destination, but an eternally mobile, boundless, unfocused, vaporous specter whose full nature can only be retrospectively dedicated from painfully recollected glimpses and opaque hints. There is no time or vantage point from which to securely decode our archives of experience… We pay a very high price for our self-ignorance. Feelings and desires that haven’t been examined linger and distribute their energy randomly across our lives.”
This is something I think about often and appreciate you sharing this universal truth with us. Two thoughts/questions: 1) do you ever think about how two people's experience of the same moment can be so different because their "lens" are taking in information differently? 2) Do you think about how our previous experiences make up a lot of the foundation for our "lens" or subjective experience? Those previous experiences can be tough to identify, acknowledge and unlearn and I feel meditation is an effective way to create that awareness for ourselves to enact change
Sterling - Thanks for these thoughtful questions.
1. Absolutely. I sometimes think about what it would be like to sit next to the Buddha. Despite having the same physical surroundings, I’m sure we’d be having a dramatically different subjective experiences. (This has been quite motivating for my meditation practice.)
2. Such a great question, and yes I totally agree with you. I stumbled on a quote last night in the book The School of Life that I think answers this better than I can. “We suffer because there is no easy route to introspection. We cannot open a hatch and ‘locate’ ourselves. We are not a fixed destination, but an eternally mobile, boundless, unfocused, vaporous specter whose full nature can only be retrospectively dedicated from painfully recollected glimpses and opaque hints. There is no time or vantage point from which to securely decode our archives of experience… We pay a very high price for our self-ignorance. Feelings and desires that haven’t been examined linger and distribute their energy randomly across our lives.”