The (he)art of understanding

Sitting in a beige little room at Wadham College, Oxford, reading a new book on methodology in the social sciences I wonder what I am doing in academia. Methodology. God, what a dry, soulless word, and God, how many things seem to have been written on it that are all about knowledge and have nothing to do with insight or understanding.

Still, it doesn't have to be like that. For some reason, I am convinced there can be heart to research and social science. In fact, I think there has to be heart, or else we will not find a proper way to know what it is we have in front of us. Sometimes I am hit by a vision of the researcher within the social sciences as someone who learns how to maintain a truly open mind and open heart, and who brings this openness, her readiness to listen deeply, her steady presence, into the different context where she goes. She is not "objective" in a superficial, distanced sense, but allows herself to be touched by the people, situations or structures being studied. She is fearless in admitting her lack of knowledge, in exposing herself to what is in people's hearts and minds as they struggle in the dismal swamp of politics. She makes research an art of understanding.

A few months ago, a friend sent me a quote from Thinley Norbu Rinpoche:

There is no communication in relative truth without understanding everyone’s system and idea, so may I adapt to everyone’s system for everyone’s benefit.
There is no liberation in absolute truth without release from everyone’s system and idea, so may I adapt to no one’s system, beyond benefit’s wish.

I have been digesting those lines since I first read them. They leave me exhilarated. There is something absolutely crucial in there, not only for meditators and salvation-seekers, but for peacemakers and emancipators and social scientists and revolutionary leaders. I feel tempted to try to pin it down, of course, but somehow there is nothing to add. There is just letting that paradox work on me, working its way to the heart.

Dispersion - all at once

There is lots of stuff I "should" do right now. Like finish another draft of my bachelor's thesis and send it to my poor supervisor who by now is probably completely fed up with my inability to produce this particular piece of writing. Or send about a hundred different emails. Or work on Cogito's (our think-tank) report on ecofeminism. I just can't make myself do any of that. It feels confusingly good. The protector principle raising it's flame-adorned head saying "NO" - sit still, sit still, and maybe just write down what is in your heart, but no more than that.

Thank you. I am still.

By now, darkness is approaching. Swedish darkness, the heavy, 6-month kind. These september weeks are filled with a lingering, poetic light and warmth. I try to suck it all in, before the darkness, which is almost here. We are preparing for hibernation, while pretending that the darkness is not just around the corner.

So much is happening. For example, I have just been to the second national conference for peace research in Sweden, and presented a paper on Thây Nhat Hanh's practices for reconciliation and social change. Actually, the paper was about how difficult it is to bring engaged Buddhist principles into the social sciences, in spite of the fact that engaged Buddhism is about so many of the things that are at the heart of peace research, since it is impossible to understand engaged Buddhism from a purely intellectual point of view. Presenting it was an interesting experience. Firstly, I felt like I was kind of coming out of the closet. No, I am not the rationalistic semi-marxist you all took me for, I am one of the Weird Ones, talking about the need for spirituality and all sorts of mumbo-jumbo, like consciousness, mindfulness and transformation through meditation practice. Yes, I am. O, my happiness.

And I got some really interesting reactions, that I will share with you some other day soon.

I have a new job. I teach at a university in another city (or town, rather), peace and development studies. Gender and development, human rights and the environment, things like this. I go there a few days a week. Everything is new. Having a work-place where I am supposed to be is a delicious feeling, and very grounding. I am normally a freelance type of person, borrowing a desk here and a printer there, from people with better-ordered lives. I am in love with our students. Just the fact that they are using their precious human lives to try to figure out what these important things mean is enough to make my heart sing. My father who has spent a lot of time teaching says that feeling will go away, and perhaps it will, but for now I just enjoy it. This probably sounds slightly weird, but just seeing them in the corridors, especially the very young ones who for some reason believe they have nothing to offer the world although they are completely bright and shiny and wonderful, gives me such enormous energy. Which is a good thing - I am certainly going to need it to measure up to what they deserve.

I read bell hooks on pedagogy and feel blessed that there are so many wise elders out there.

Today I attended a lecture with Sante Sensei of the Swedish Zen Buddhist Society. It was very enjoyable. He seemed a humble teacher with a deep practice - I felt that intuitive trust in his abilities which usually signal a good teacher. I am looking forward to sitting with his group here in Gothenburg this autumn, when we aren't having our own sittings here, in Thây Nhat Hanh's tradition, in our living rooom. We are starting again next Tuesday, and you are invited.

This post is just as dispersed as my mind has been this week. Writing is indeed very instructive.