Liana Merrill
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Hi Melanie! I was enthralled with your essay. First, in a kindred way with your similar Christian upbringing (candlelit Christmas Eve services, choir singing, etc). Then, with your father. Interestingly, my dad is also a Vietnam vet who still deals with PTSD to this day, but with a totally different religious outlook to your dad. In fact, I would say he is one of the most religious persons I know. It turned me off for a long time as I navigated my own relationship with religion, but now, as a 38-year-old, I love talking to him about religion as, in his old age, he has really branched out. He loves reading Thich Nhat Hanh books and he’s currently on his 3rd read of the Tao. So all of a sudden I find myself having these lovely conversations with him that I never in a million years would have expected. Anyway, thank you very much for sharing your personal experiences in your essay. I very much enjoyed reading it, and I look forward to continuing to be in class together.
Rosie, I resonated with so much of what you wrote. Thank you so much for your essay! For me, with a deeply religious background, the “something else” has been a bit more of a recent part of my life. But it is something that feels so close to home and that I love to continue to explore every day (part of why I’m here in this class!). And thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on labyrinths in this context! I feel a similar way, and yet it is something I hadn’t even considered when I was thinking about eternalism and nihilism, so thank you for giving me something to mull over!
I guess my first issue with my experience with eternalism and nihilism is that I have given neither much thought in my lifetime. However, my recent experience with nihilism has been a bit of frustration, mostly because I have felt like I don’t understand it much. I listen to a lot of personal finance podcasts, one of which has a host I don’t much like (so why, you might ask, do I continue listening to the podcast? Who knows). And in this particular podcast, the host brings up nihilism a lot. And it kind of always rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because I don’t much like the host. Maybe because even though he brings it up a lot, I still don’t feel like I have a good grasp on what nihilism really means.
I’m not sure I understand it anymore after our reading (I look forward to continuing to re-read this particular reading, as well as the Week 1 reading, often, because there is SO MUCH in both). But, after the reading and after our class last week and after doing a little more research into nihilism after class, I do understand better why it rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s because, for me, nihilism is just so counter to what I believe and who I feel I am. I actually think I would really enjoy talking to someone who considers themselves a nihilist just so I could ask some curiosity questions, because I deeply want to understand how one can believe that life is pointless. But I want to know more! I wish I could talk to the author of our reading…I can’t get the opening line out of my head (The nihilist point of view is one of the biggest problems for all beings). And maybe by understanding more, I can better reflect on how nihilism has shown up for me in my life. I guess I can say at this point that nihilism may have shown up for me during times of immense hardship (going through a house fire, battling depression, etc.). But even then, they were just small flickers, as even in times of trouble I’ve really always held on to my belief that life still matters. Perhaps this is because of my religious beliefs…
On the other hand, eternalism also makes me feel uneasy. Again, I have never really thought much about this until recently, but now what I do know makes me realize that this is the closest thing to how I was brought up religiously, and religion has played a huge part in my life and continues to be an immense journey for me as I navigate adulthood. I grew up going to a very progressive Protestant, Congregational, UCC (United Church of Christ) church in a small town in New England, and I also grew up in a family with parents who very much portrayed the motto “everything happens for a reason” and “God will take care of us no matter what”. I was led to believe that if I followed all the rules of my religion and was essentially a “good Christian girl” that I would go to heaven and be loved by God and Jesus forever. Now, as a 38-year-old, I still go to a very similar (if not even more liberal) church, but I have a very different relationship with religion than I did as a kid. And in fact, this relationship is ever evolving as I continually grapple with “what do I believe” and “how can I mix my personal beliefs and church”. I guess, now that I think about it, I do wrestle with eternalism more than I thought I did!
I am really looking forward to thinking even more about eternalism and nihilism as I continue on my life path as well as my meditation teacher path.Thank you, Kat, for your image of the sherpa guiding someone through the Himalayas. It made me think of my experiences as an outings leader for outdoors groups, and how those experiences may relate to teaching meditation. Something I had never really thought about before! I love thinking about how, as an outings leader, I aim to provide a safe, comfortable space for others to also enjoy the outdoors. And how each attendant comes with different backgrounds and expectations, and my job is simply to provide the container for them to have their own hike experience. I never thought about supporting discovery in my fellow hikers, but I believe on some level that is exactly what I’m doing when I lead a hike. Thank you for sharing your essay!
Thank you, Octavio, for bringing up the concept of humility here and that it’s ok not to know. It immediately reminded me of when I first started teaching anatomy at a medical school, and I began to be ok with the not knowing. I could get so bogged down and overwhelmed by all I had to teach (and thus, know) every day. When I finally realized it was ok for me to say “I don’t know”, everything changed. My confidence changed, the way I carried myself changed, the way students responded to me changed. Being comfortable saying “That is a great question, and I actually don’t know the answer either. Let’s look it up together” was transformational for me and for my relationship with my students. Thank you for bringing this up and causing me to think about it and how it might relate along the lines of teaching meditation. I’m looking forward to continuing to ponder this as we go through this training journey together.
For me, it feels like there are two main pillars to supporting discovery. The first is in the meditation instruction. Providing simple, clear, and consistent instruction creates the container for discovery. I believe this because I have seen it for myself. Over the past almost 11 years that I have been meditating, I have received the same simple, clear, and consistent instruction from Susan. And through this I have made my own discoveries (which continue on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis). I practice plenty on my own without instruction, but I find coming back to the instruction every so often, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, and so on, furthers my discovery. I know what to expect from the instruction, and yet I hear it anew and hear something different each time that aids in my discovery.
The second pillar, to me, is listening. Specifically, active listening. I have seen firsthand the magic (aka, discovery) that can come from being able to contemplate and speak thoughts aloud to someone who is practicing active listening. I have experienced this personally, as the talker/processor, thanks to my husband and other close friends who have given me the gift of active listening in my lifetime. And I’ve also experienced this as a witness to others’ experiences of discovery, when I’ve served as the active listener. The discovery that can happen in a person when one is allowed to speak from the heart, free from judgment, and then have those thoughts bounced back to them like a sounding board from someone who is invested, in that moment, in their discovery, is nothing short of profound.Hi everyone! I’m so excited to start this journey with you all tomorrow. My name is Liana Merrill and I live in Middlebury, Vermont with my husband. I started meditating in 2015, when a therapist recommended one of Susan’s books. It wasn’t until about 8 years later that I even had the thought that maybe I wanted to teach meditation myself, to others in my community. And now here I am, almost 3 years after that, finally listening to that calling and signing up for the training.
Looking forward to learning with all of you at my virtual side!