Lauren Lesser
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Please reflect on your experiences with both eternalism and nilihism. When have you noticed each within yourself? (there are no right or wrong answers here)
I grew up in a household that had roots in eternalist religious traditions although it was a not very Jewish household. I was encouraged to try Hebrew school but when I announced I was done when the rabbi told us “if you have faith you don’t question” there was no pushback. It was the 1960’s and my sense of place was formed in context of the ferment of protests begun (or rather, continued, but begun as in entered my awareness) in the 50’s with the civil rights movement. Tweening and teening, I followed the slightly older kids on protest marches and burned to find my way to join the action. With all the righteousness of that time of life, I firmly and disdainfully rejected the eternalistic Judeo-Christian panoply of patriarchal beliefs and edicts, and was as close as I got to a nihilistic sensibility in my focus on the socio-political here and now, and in my confidence of my ideas of right and wrong.
My involvement with political activism introduced me to my work as a community organizer, which at first, I looked into as a means to an activist end. It became an end in itself, or rather, an enduring process that both supported and helped me evolve, or uncover, my guiding principles in a role as facilitator of discovery, loosening my grip on expectation that allowed me to be present in and inspired by both my work with people as an organizer and later as I evolved to work with people as a psychotherapist that “saved” me from reliance on/adherence to the both the ultimate authorities of eternalistic rules as well as nihilistic beliefs and opened me up to expanded questioning.
When I look back on my life, many experiences tend to lean into an eternal quality as in enduring but not fixed, with perhaps an aid of a cleaner sweep of the nihilistic brush yet with more mystery than I might see; from my sense of awe and of the eternally sacred in my earliest experiences in relationship with art, music, nature, and love and in subsequent roles with work, in shamanic herbal apprenticeships and in moving from Buddhish to Buddhist.Hi Caitlin,
I just absolutely have to savor “supporting discovery allows the wisdom and magic to live in the practice” beautifully, meaningfully said!Hi Rosie,
I confess, I’m drawn to other therapists looking at similarities in these practices and I really liked your leaning into listening and eschewing the advicing 🙂Hi Niki,
I love that you started with the example of the death doula’s practice, it’s so experience-near and it drew me right in to your essay“Reflect on what it means to support discovery. What are the primary tools?”
Meditation, in Susan’s words, in this year’s 21 Day Meditation Challenge, “introduces you to yourself.” In teaching meditation, it means finding space where students journey to discover their introduction to themselves.
This is so meaningful to me because it is so resonant and affirming to the principles that have guided me in all of my work, as it has evolved.
In community organizing, it meant finding space where people move into inhabiting their power to craft their agendas and make their way towards making a difference in this world.
In psychotherapy, it means finding space where people can find ways to safely unfold and soften so they can work with the places that kept them from their fullest lives.
In teaching and supervision, it means finding space where psychotherapists can freely examine, explore and grow into their roles.
At root, and in not dissimilar ways, these are all introductions to oneself.
And what are the primary tools?
After Saturday’s class and a review of the notes, I found, with greater familiarity with Julia Cameron’s exhortation that “the 1st rule of magic is containment,” deeper understanding of how important a container is for discovery.
In meditation, our practice technique provides the container for magic to form. It protects and directs the boundaries that help us know what we can do in supporting the student experience by offering instruction and support to create a sustainable practice combined with further study of the practice and the dharma teachings that help us to know what we cannot do.
We also spoke of listening in class as an essential tool of discovery. Practicing how not to think about what we think about when we hear what someone is saying and further not to take refuge in what we think we know, but to let go and enter a kind of magical energy wave that allows us to open to a deeper connection and understanding of what we hear as well as what we sense, and in communication, often connecting with presence rather than words.
Here too, there are deep similarities in tools; containers, listening and presence, with what I learned and how I worked in other roles, yet I can’t help feeling that this journey we are on will take me deeper, and in directions I can’t anticipate and I suspect, that magic is afoot.
