Metta Institute.org Hospice Training.

July 17, 2013
Santa Sabina Retreat Center

Metta Institute (mettainstitute.org) Training: Opening into Mystery (or some such deal!)

Wednesday night - Frank Ostaseski's first session

We had a really great hour lecture / talk / discussion tonight and to round it up we had to play the 'repeating question' game.  Two people ask each other a repeating question with a time limit and in this case five minutes each. At the end of the answer the questioner says 'Thank you'.  No responding is allowed or additional follow up questions. Our three questions were:

1.  What is right about knowing?

2.  Tell me a way you hold on to your knowing?

3.  Who would you be without your knowing (or alternatively - What would our identity be if we were not so vested in what we know)?

So for number one there are the inevitable questions and dissection of the question and that was not allowed.  We had to answer it at face value but could talk about the definition during our turn if we so wished and thought it may be helpful.

So my answer was initially about the easy stuff - knowing encompasses EVERYTHING we 'know'.  Stripped away - we know nothing and become infantilized whether that is like a baby or an old person with dementia or alzheimers.  In our follow up discussion this option was removed from the discussion and the question was asked . . . what other possibilities are there?  Does it free us up in any way?  Is it bad, good, irrelevant, indifferent or what?

What is right about knowing is the power inherent in the act. By our knowing we can contribute and we can also teach or help others. In our knowing - others may now know and hence our own ego inflates - not always bad nor good. In knowing we demonstrate our competency and value to others and society.

My other thought was that knowing what you do NOT know is powerful.  Being able to state that without fear or expectation that you are supposed to know 'everything' gives you power, freedom from fear of being or appearing incompetent.

In short - our knowing is deeply tied to identity.  Strip away what we know and what is left?  Do we cease to be who we are . . . or is there a core to whom we are that is inviolable?  For example - we may believe that some people are innately a certain way in their demeanor.  This remains when all else is stripped away.

Question Two - how do we hold on to our knowing?

I answered - tooth and nail with desperation!  Then there are the physical tricks we use - write things down, record it in some way to memory both flesh and silicon.  But is holding on to our knowing can be a weakness - i.e., I suppose that there is freedom is ridding oneself of the need to know so much, the need to know everything and appear competent.  At least in nursing I've done this.  Pretending in medicine can equal death so you get over that pretty quick most of the time.

For question three - What would we be without our knowing? 

Some answered - 'Free'! One woman said she immediately thought of music being played and not just 'folk music with a guitar'!  She thought of giant magnificent paintings.  Then she and others reflected on how much they are invested in knowing and want people to know that they know so they will be accepted and liked.  It took courage for this to be said as most of us would deny it. This person has a Ph.D. and an M.D.

I think that many people will say they like to know, to be knowledgeable so they can pay the mortgage, buy beer and food and pay the bills.  All valid and true (thank you Paulchen!).  But the larger issue is that our knowing is intimately attached to our identity and sense of who we are in the world.  Maybe, just maybe there are other ways of being in the world, of making a contribution that is NOT tied up in the endless quest for knowing more and more to become increasingly competent and be recognized for that and that ALONE.

We are more than just what we know.  It is only a small part of our totality - if so, what remains?

That is to follow.  As Frank said tonight at our ending meditation . . . we have just begun this inquiry, we are just beginning to ask the question, to lift the lid to ask what is underneath.

Thanks for reading.  It it a silent retreat but my mind was anything but silent after such an intellectually and stimulating discussion.  I wouldn't sleep if I did not get this down so I could 'know' and remember!

D