15th Sunday Reflection: Seeds Of Mindlessness From A Dull Heart
Franciscan Reflections From The Hermitage – 15th Sunday In Ordinary Time – Year A – Seeds Of Mindlessness From A Dull Heart
… For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn – and I would heal them.” (Mt 13:1-23)
Jesus speaks of people’s hearts that have grown dull, without perception, without understanding… lost, and forlorn. Jesus gives us a short list of the journey that leads to this state of joyless confusion… tribulations, persecution, and the deceitfulness of riches.
In the parlance of modern psychology, we might talk of this as living in ‘bubbles of illusion’, seeking always confirmation of our bias and prejudice. Perhaps there really is a very large hole in the bucket when I argue that ‘I think, therefore I am’. Is it really ALL about what I THINK that I KNOW?
Perhaps there truly is a bit of the narcissist in all of us that need the healing of Jesus. A narcissistic personality disorder is described as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy … a grandiose sense of self-importance, consumed by fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love, and are extremely sensitive to criticism.”
A compassionate reading of the harrowing 47-page letter of Franz Kafka to his Narcissistic father in 1919 might reveal in a graced moment of humility that part of our hearts that have also grown dull and need healing.
… You had worked your way so far up by your own energies alone, and as a result you had unbounded confidence in your opinion. From your armchair, you ruled the world. Your opinion was correct, every other was mad, wild, meshugge, not normal. Your self-confidence indeed was so great that you had no need to be consistent at all and yet never ceased to be in the right… What was always incomprehensible to me was your total lack of feeling for the suffering and shame you could inflict on me with your words and judgements. It was as though you had no notion of your power.
Most of us think of ourselves as being in control of our own thought processes and that our minds are in fact our most private and intimate domains and the centre of who we are… our separate and totally individual character.
When I pay close attention, however, I become conscious of my awareness, an observer of those thoughts that I associate with my being… thoughts coming and going, but I am not my thoughts. Events and thoughts come into my awareness and I classify and store what is necessary… this isn’t that, this is, and this isn’t useful to me.
These memories of ‘moments of now’ are stored in different places; a bit over here is classified as an emotion; a bit over there is classified as a warning and a bit somewhere else is classified as good to eat! That is why our memories, unlike computers, are so unreliable and open to manipulation. We look for evidence that will validate our paradigm and miss that ‘which is’, becoming captured in our own little ‘bubble of illusion’. From this, I also listen without hearing in order to impose my particular commentary on your perceived reality.
In 2015, I attended a workshop in Wellington, run by Anna Breytenbach who is a professional interspecies communicator, animal activist, and conservationist. This communication with creation takes the form of projecting mental images rather than words, but must ALWAYS begin by standing in a place of humility without any intention to control or manipulate. Any aim which is formed by personal motives or achievement will block communication. We stand on holy ground purely as listeners and observers. Although it is possible to project mental images of certain outcomes based on certain actions, the most common form of communication only requires an open presence to the other. Through this, we are allowed into the experience of the other.
Interpretation and judgement of this experience must be put aside as this blocks the raw experience of the moment that connects me to the other in the NOW of God. Acquiring this skill assists not only in prayer and meditation but also in the practice of relating to others… truly aware of the other… listening, hearing, and seeing.
When I have chosen an interpretation, I am committed to a particular understanding of reality that predicts certain outcomes, and this in turn blocks my awareness, my hearing, and my vision. Inevitably, this leads to a rigid cold heart…. a dull heart.
Even when we find ourselves attending to the present, we may discover that what our minds churn out is fairly worthless. Most of us are constantly making instantaneous judgements about what we experience. This is… this isn’t… over and over again… judging and classifying. As we allow these trains of thought to continue, we find them leading to other thoughts and judgements that do not have any real substance or value.
No, we’re not ordinarily in control of our minds, despite what we may think. We can’t turn them off, and we can’t always make them do what we want. Judgements, thoughts, and emotions seem to arise unbidden and often unwelcome.
Since mindfulness is the skill of opening ourselves to reality without judgement, it is important that we approach the practice of meditation in this spirit, relinquishing preconceptions, and expectations about the discipline. It is also essential to provide a spiritual and physical context conducive to meditation.
Mindlessness comes at a very high cost… Living with a mind that we don’t know very well, that is often out of control and semi-conscious much of the time, causes us and others to suffer greatly, far more than we realise.
“Whatever an enemy might do to an enemy, or a foe to a foe, the ill-directed mind can do to you even worse.” Is it any wonder we so frequently attempt to silence or alter our minds with drugs, amusements, sex, retail therapy, and other forms of distraction?
Fortunately, most of us don’t reach a mind-driven point of total despair, but we nonetheless endure the consequences of an immensely powerful, but unruly mind.
We find ourselves entertaining thoughts that serve no wholesome value in our lives. We make snap judgements about individuals based on the slimmest and most trivial of evidence. We spin out falsehoods that we ourselves come to believe. We’re constantly comparing ourselves to others, a practice that inevitably leads to pain.
All of this, and more, drives us to lead frenzied lives, often on the verge of misery. Mindfulness is the power of heightened awareness and sensitivity to ourselves and our world.
The sense of dissatisfaction, of which we are more or less conscious at different times in our lives, impels us to find something, anything to bring relief. Unfortunately, our minds have been conditioned to seek solutions to its torment in the most unhelpful ways.
The beliefs that compel us to keep looking somewhere else for something to bring us relief are so common that we rarely consider that it might be time to try another approach. Rather than seek happiness through the usual ineffective and counter-productive means, there is a different way.
It’s possible to cultivate a wholesome mind that will produce thoughts that contribute to our well-being and to the well-being of the whole world. We can shape our mental functions in ways that will remove the frantic, driven, distracted, semi-conscious qualities from our lives… but it is not an easy journey.
When our illusions are exposed and refuted, we are freed of our cold and rigid hearts, finding something wonderful and new emerging… our being is reborn, nurtured, and ever-expanding in a language that uses essence as its Lover, rather than the acid mind of judgement, control and manipulation.
We are poor of vision, because our eyes are blind to wonder.
“We are poor of heart, because we cannot delight in the ecstasy of that wonder.
We are poor of soul, because this materialistic world has robbed us of any sensitivity to that which can neither be seen nor touched.
And because we are the poor man, therefore we will not be satisfied with wonder, with ecstasy, or with anything spiritual or even divine. We will only be satisfied when we have the King alone.
Nothing else will placate us. Nothing, until, in every corner of our world, we find only Him.”
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
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