Tag Archives: Eckhart Tolle

Quick Thoughts: Making a Difference and Honouring Future Ancestors

luis-alvoeiro-quaresma-VOaIhSvoCXU-unsplash.jpgIt’s kind of amazing how quickly things start to pile up and one’s good intentions, the proverbial “best laid plans,” are thrown to the wayside. When I first came back to writing here, my intention, my plan, was to write every workday. Slowly, I relaxed my goal to three days a week (as a way of going easier on myself with the fall returning — which meant things were picking up in my role as a public servant and as a professor). Then, things became so hectic that I was having a hard time carving out any time to write. Before I knew it, almost a month has passed since the last time I hit publish. Sigh.

As I said when I returned a couple of months ago, one of the reasons for writing is to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the page to make room for new thoughts. Even though it’s been about a month, that doesn’t mean the ideas haven’t stopped flowing. I’ve got a number of drafts in progress, so I thought that I’d go ahead and flush them out into a “Quick Thoughts” post.

Make a difference where you can. On Duhigg’s podcast a couple of months ago, there was a guest that had gone through severe trauma. All he can really do is focus on what’s in front of him. Listening, it made me wonder if it’s incumbent upon the rest of us to make a difference in bigger ways. I’m worried that I’m not expressing myself clearly here and part of me really wants to flesh this out into a longer article to nuance what I’m saying (i.e. anyone can make a big impact no matter their station in life), but I’m thinking about those among us who might be relatively lucky to be where they are. Are we obliged — should we feel obliged — to try to make the biggest impact we can?

Visualize and make it so. The “Meditative Story” from a few weeks back was also a good one. I struggle with stuff like this because it’s native to me. I grew up with influences like this (i.e. visualization, see it and believe it, etc.), but I recognize that it’s often written off as self-help hokum. Does that mean we should all dismiss it out of hand? Were all methods used today seen as the pantheon when they began? Am I using false equivalence? [Maybe.]

Oprah and Eckhart Tollle. Another good podcast episode (surprise!). This one is with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. It really reminded me of that Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert interview from a few weeks ago. In the Oprah/Eckhart interview, Eckhart is talking about bumper stickers and how some folks will have something like, “I’d rather be fishin’,” or something like that. Then, he mentions how Ram Dass has a bumper sticker, too, that says, “I’d rather be here now.” For those unfamiliar, Dass wrote a book called Be Here Now almost 50 years ago.

Honour one’s future ancestors. I don’t remember exactly where I heard this, but I believe the context had to do with our responsibility to take care of the planet (which I’ll quibble with monetarily). The idea of us doing well by our planet as a way of honouring our future ancestors sounds lovely. Now, to quibble — there’s something about the messaging for climate change, environmentalism, etc. that just doesn’t resonate with some segments of the population. I’m not an expert here, but that part seems clear. I know that some folks try to personalize it as a way of hoping that it gets more people involved, but I don’t know that it does. Greta has certainly inspired quite a few people. I really hope that this momentum carries forward and we — as a species — are able to honour our future ancestors.

Politicians Are Inherently Good

I believe that people are inherently good and because I believe that politicians are people, too, I also believe that politicians are inherently good. [.] You’ll find many about the topic as to whether people are good and you’ll also find many people in general debating this topic (, , , and ). Some people think it’s clear that . You’ll even find academic articles written on the subject of humans inherent goodness ( and ). While I acknowledge the religious component to this debate, from everything I’ve seen of people, I think they are inherently good.

Yes, there are heinous acts committed everyday around the world, but I don’t think that people are doing these things in their “right mind.” That is, I think that there is some form of . I think that people couldn’t do some of the things that they do without being, in some way, detached from what they are doing. While the human condition encompasses a wide variety of human behavior, I don’t think that humans, without being (unaware) to some extent, of what they are doing, that they could do what they do (when they harm other humans).

I am in the process of working on a series of posts where I make the claim that is way behind and while this implicates the politicians who, by the very nature of the system, are directly involved with the writing and publishing of American public policy, I do not think that politicians are deliberately (and maliciously, that’s key) making it this way. I think that because of the way that the system of the American government is set up and the system of the American media, it’s much easier for American politicians to get away with the kinds of things they get away with, but I don’t think there is harmful intent.

Some may call me idealistic, but I believe that (most) humans on the planet, given an opportunity to help a fellow human, would do so. When presented with an , I think that most humans will do what they can to help someone out. More importantly, I think that those who wouldn’t help out are still human, but are expressing what would call, “.”

We can understand this a little easier by looking at some of the things that  has to say: “The thoughts that go through your mind, of course, are linked to the collective mind of the culture you live in – humanity as a whole. They are not your thoughts as such, but you pick them up from the collective… You believe in every thought that arises and you derive your sense of who you are from what your mind is telling you who you are.”

And then pair them with the lens of : “…when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer…”

Inherently people are good. While I understand that some people my disagree, this is a topic that I have a hard time honestly taking a step back and hearing both sides. I think that people always, always mean well. Like I said earlier, yes, there are some “bad” things that happen in the world, but I do not think that its intentionally harmful (and I really hope not, too). I think that psychology’s perspective on the shadow, along with viewpoints from spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie help us to understand why some people may do “bad things,” and still, inherently, be good people.

Lastly, I wanted to offer a perspective from someone who I think has something important to say on this topic. wrote, what I think, is one of the more important books of this generation. It came out in 2010 and it has already been translated into more than 30 languages. He gave (50 minutes), which was then turned into a . The implications are profound and I have included the animated speech below for your viewing pleasure.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Celebration in the Present Moment

Today, in the US, is . While it was originally an American holiday, the day is observed outside of the US, one of those places being . Having grown up in Canada, I did not hear much about MLK Day in school. The schools in the Toronto area now, I’m sure, are much more likely to be telling their students about MLK Day when it rolls around each January, but that wasn’t the case when I was growing up. While attending university at SVSU, MLK Day was quite a hot topic, especially around this time of year. At the time I attended SVSU, MLK Day was not a holiday where the school was closed. The argument against closing the school for the day was that students would not take the time for learning or for reminiscing, to which the counter-argument would be, do students do that for any holiday?

Something that may get lost in all of the to-ing and fro-ing in the argument about MLK Day and whether or not it should be a holiday is the real impact that MLK had on the course of history. I was reading on this morning, the person behind , about MLK’s first endeavor into service. I wonder what his life would have looked like had he not decided to get involved with the bus boycott. Maybe he still finds his way into the and makes a difference. Maybe he still gives the speech. Who knows. It is really hard to reflect on different timelines of how history could have played out because those timelines don’t exist.

It seems almost a futile enterprise to think about how something could have happened differently and yet, millions of people around the world spend the bulk of their day wishing they had done something differently. I submit, I think that in some fields and some businesses, it’s important to reflect back on how things happened, so that the same ‘mistakes’ aren’t made and things can be done differently. While that’s all well and good, I wonder if as a species, we spend too much time focused on what has happened instead of what is happening. would tell us that ‘there is only the present moment.’

I wonder where the line is drawn? Sometimes, reflecting back on past experiences can be inspirational. Maybe you had to overcome major adversity in your life and that memory is helping you in the present. Depending on one’s philosophical viewpoint, it can be altogether difficult to reconcile the differences. Regardless, I will be spending at least one of my ‘present moments’ celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.