I found it helpful to see the word broken up into its parts(!) that way because it shows me that the word means to take something integrated and separate it into parts, just as I was doing.
Of course, what integrates my body is my mind: My body is simply an idea, a word, a label I assign to a grouping of physical components.
When I'm on autopilot - that is, almost all the time - I think of my body in terms of integration: My mind unites all my body parts into a whole. I think of my body as a discrete unit, not as a bunch of components unified by a concept, a mental act of thinking "my body."
My body seems to be the fundamental unit, and it often seems as though there's no other way to conceive of it.
But there are other ways of viewing the body. For example, in addition (subtraction, really) to breaking our body down into pieces, we can build up groups of bodies into larger units: into teams or crowds, for example. Or families. Americans are often described as individualistic, whereas some other societies are said to be family-oriented, that the basic unit is the family, not the person. Can you imagine really thinking that way?
As Geshe-la says in Eight Steps to Happiness, in the section on the kindness of others:
Without others, we are nothing. Our sense that we are an island, an independent, self-sufficient individual, bears no relation to reality. It is closer to the truth to picture ourself as a cell in the vast body of life, distinct yet intimately bound up with all living beings.Just as we can mentally disassemble our body into parts, we can use the body itself as a part, to mentally assemble the larger body of humanity, for example.
That's a wonderful wisdom writing Mimi, as so many of your postings are :)
ReplyDeleteAt the end I was left thinking about how so many of the same themes are present whether we scale things up or down, and how that dissolves the sense of an 'edge' or boundary to our body, just as you said.
I then thought about how, in our bodies, we need the cells to follow the right instructions in order to be a beneficial part of the functioning colony, and in global human society it's the same thing.
The instructions we each carry in our mind/heart influence whether we are productive and beneficial part of the larger body of humanity, or a destructive part. This is happening in every moment of our own lives on every scale.
That collection of ever changing instructions/concepts/ideas come from our parents, teachers, respective faiths and society.
In everyday life, each of us are actually part of issuing and perpetuating a particular collection of adopted instructions with our actions of body, speech and mind. Really, that's what we 'are', if anything.
Recognizing that fact means we have the chance to choose what we grow and perpetuate in the world. We're so lucky if we have this chance! Not everyone does. Not everyone gets a chance to glimpse the possibilities outside of the strong 'I' based construct of adopted instructions/concepts.
It all comes from what's going on in our individual and collective mind - a mind that cannot be 'found' as a solid 'thing' either. Nor are the 'instructions' a solid thing but come from countless causes and conditions.
It's an incredible responsibility, isn't it. And, also a profound joy because we can know that, regardless of named faith, when we focus on and train in peace, love, compassion and kindness, that it is definitely worth it...
Thank you for your lovely postings.
With Love to you.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, which is actually a rich posting of its own that I will be contemplating for some time.
ReplyDeleteThe part about cells needing to follow the right instructions particularly struck me, thinking about hooligan cancer cells.