Thoughts, from an Abbot

My one audience with the abbot. I'd been thinking about what to ask him for at least a day and a half of my retreat.

On Thanksgiving day, I went in asking Father Meletios about how to deal with sadness, suffering, and preoccupation with doing things 'right' - so that I could be less self-absorbed, and experience true thankfulness.

[paraphrased per my memory]:

The way we look at it, in the Orthodox Church, would be that you are having a problem with your mind. There is nothing actually causing you suffering right now: you are relatively comfortable, have a roof over your head, by all rights you should be happy. 

The reason you are suffering, then, must be that your thoughts are creating that. We are amazing creatures of habit; you'll find that your current problem will disappear as soon as a bigger one comes along, but once that bigger one is cleared up, you will dredge up the first problem. 

We all experience this. What you may want to try is what we monks learn to do: ignore the thoughts, and focus on what is around you, at hand, in the present. Increase your awareness of the love of Christ. You replace the thoughts with the voice of God, which is always experienced in the present, in whatever form. 

One thing you'll notice is the thoughts are never about the present, they only deal with the past or future. 

The other thing you'll notice is that thoughts are always about one of two things: desire or fear. And both of them hurt. 

One practice that helps is centering your experience on your heart. Not your emotions, mind you, which are your body's reactions to thoughts, but the heart itself, which is always in the present. It shifts your life experience from centering around your thoughts to centering on your heart, and what you'll find is that operating truly from this place of love, there are no words for that. This is Christ living in you. You can have no thoughts when you're in that experience. 

Now I know very few people who can do this constantly - the thoughts come up for us all. Maybe the Saints could live this way. But for the rest of us, even monks, dealing with thoughts this way is a constant practice.

Father Meletios Weber, Abbot of the Monastery of St. John of Shanghai & San Francisco

context and consciousness

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Much has been made of context in literary theory and academia over the last 30 years. Starting within cultural anthropology, anthropologists found that undecipherable behaviors in foreign cultures could often be understood by discovering the context within which the foreign actors understood their own actions. The concept has found its way through liberal academia and religious studies to bear traces of influence within more conservative religious circles, where "author intent," often inferred from cultural context, helps illuminate the words of Jesus and the epistle writers.

In none of these arenas, however, has the flexibility, variability, and significance of mental context been explored that fully, it seems, in terms of consciousness and our power of choice about how each human being chooses contexts which bear on his or her interpretations, decisions, and understanding.

1.0 while aspects of real context are given and fixed at a given time (ie where I live, how much money I have, what my friends and family thought or did growing up, what are the social topics and economic conditions of today), our mental context is chosen and very much within our ability to influence.

1.0.1 for example, the friends I have are an aspect of my real context, based both on factors outside my control (the pool of available friends) and factors in my control (how much effort I have put into pursuing friendships)

1.0.2 the presence of friends in my life has no bearing on whether I live my life in the mental context of "what other people think."

1.1 I may or may not be in a romantic relationship, but whether I am has little necessarily to do with whether I live my life in the context of a relationship.

1.1.1 for example, a person may have committed to a relationship, yet to refuse to consider that person when choosing who to associate with, look at, or how to spend his or her time.

1.1.2 at the same time, although I may not be in a relationship, my mind may waver between accepting the context of singlehood, or fantasizing about being in a relationship with a certain person. In the latter case, that person becomes part of the mental context in which I live my life - although I may have no actual contact with her.

1.1.3 the decision to marry, and "forsake all others," is a commitment to make your spouse not just a part of your physical context, but also your mental context - in which you will make all future decisions.

1.2 the degree to which I live in reality can be measured by how much my mental context incorporates my real context; ie people I interact with regularly, the circumstances limiting my life, the emotional burdens I experience, the ongoing challenges of dealing with my family, for example, etc.

1.2.1 to the degree that my mental context excludes aspects of my real context, I live in fantasy. It is possible, with certain entrenched mental contexts, to live in fantasy and avoid reality for an entire lifetime.

1.2.2 relationships based on reality must deal with the real context of what the other person brings and expresses, rather than mental contexts of fantasy about what I hope the other person to become, or what I imagine for the future.

2.0 spirituality always deals in context. In other words, it asks us to live our lives within the primary mental context of God. (or a set of spiritual laws, or an energy force, etc)

2.0.1 religions offer their mental contexts as superior alternatives to other mental contexts we can choose. Ie, Put on the new creation, Choose the way of Christ over the ways of the world, Live with fear of God.

2.0.2 religions - as they deal with what is not seen or tangible - often propose a hierarchy in which their mental contexts re-contextualize, rather than replace, other mental contexts. ie, you don't have to stop using money, having certain people in your life, or being a sexual creature -- but your decisions made and valuation within other mental contexts must now be made within the overarching mental context of God.

2.0.3 religions can be fantasy-based, to the degree that they ask us to abandon certain mental contexts, rather than simply subordinating them within the overarching mental context of God. Such requests reveal a lack of faith on the part of the 'believer,' and in the more extreme form of demands or rules, signify a cult.

2.1 Christianity's proposal within religions is that we shift our mental context from a set of laws or principles (even those which we may attribute to God) to living our lives in the context of an actual relationship with God.

2.1.1 prayer is an act of reconnecting to the mental context of relationship with God.

2.1.2 "praying without ceasing" can be understood as walking constantly within the mental context of relationship with God.

2.1.3 "making every thought captive to Christ" can be understood as recontextualizing every thought that arises within the context of relationship with Christ.

2.1.4 sola scriptura, as I understand it, seeks to emphasize the primacy of the context of God by enforcing the bible as the only mental context within which our decisions and perspective can be formed.

2.1.4.1 to the degree that it denies that God may pursue real relationship with us outside the context of the bible, sola scriptura is heretical.

2.2 meditation can be approached as a prolonged examination of one's shifting mental contexts.

3.0 addictions can be characterized in part by an inability to allow certain aspects of one's real context to enter his or her mental context

3.0.1 the substance, person, or habit that is the object of the addiction serves as the object on which to center one's mental context, so as to avoid other, undesired mental contexts

3.1 Trauma, abuse, or chaos experienced early in life can effect a domination of one's mental context, to the extent that one's ability to shift mental contexts may become impaired

3.1.1 The predictable character of this impairment is an inability to incorporate oneself into one's mental context.

3.1.1.1 Inability to take care of oneself or take responsibility for one's life as an adult are two results of the inability to incorporate oneself into one's mental context

3.1.1.2 Preoccupation with what others think and constant comparison to others are two workarounds people will use to ascertain their worth, when they cannot incorporate themselves into their own mental contexts (see 1.0.2)

3.1.2 The inability to incorporate oneself - by definition an aspect of real context - into one's mental context, must result in living in fantasy

3.1.2.1 It is also likely to result in addictive tendencies

3.1.3 Practice at incorporating the real contexts of one's life into our mental contexts is required to heal and grow past the effects of trauma, abuse, or chaos experienced early in life, and can be used to address addiction issues as well.

4.0 Mental contexts necessarily affect our energy.

4.0.1 What appears in our mental context can receive energy; what is outside of our mental context can receive no energy.

4.0.1.1 for example, Jesus' reminder 'Where your treasure is, there also your heart will be,' can be understood in terms of mental contexts. How we orient ourselves and what we answer to when making decisions gives our energy to those things, and reflects which mental contexts we give priority. Paying close attention to the mental contexts we adopt can reveal what we consider our treasure.

4.1.1 centering a mental context around a certain person orients our energy toward them and affects a connection, even without direct communication (see 1.1.2)

4.1.2 'praying without ceasing,' through affirming God as a stable part of our mental context, affects an energy connection facilitating the Holy Spirit to work in our lives - both miraculously, and as a guide present in our decision making within other, subordinate mental contexts. (see 2.1.2)

4.1.2.1 the kind of faith which can "move mountains" signifies a profound shift in mental context, beyond allowing God to bear on our pre-existing mental contexts, to the putting on of a God-centered mental context for which we have zero evidence or referents.

4.1.3 in the case of addictive tendencies, where we have an inability to incorporate certain aspects of our real context into our mental contexts, sending energy to these avoided mental contexts is not within our simple willpower. Our energy becomes bound within certain mental contexts we have evolved to avoid the unpleasant real contexts we are avoiding (see 3.0.1)

4.1.4 Mind-body practices, such as yoga, tai-chi, intense exercise, etc, temporarily center our mental context around the body, sapping energy from other mental contexts.

4.1.4.1 This can affect a sort of "reset," thus allowing the possibility of giving energy to alternative mental contexts.

4.1.4.2 Thus exercise - when done with consciousness of the body - can be an important tool in the process of overcoming addiction, obsession, and other chronic unhealthy mental context issues.

..more maybe to come..

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