2/27/2008

Nontraditional way of viewing the world: An American's feedback

More than a week after Master’s talk at University of Houston, an interesting email showed up in my inbox today. While this person preferred to remain anonymous, she did approach me immediately after the talk and expressed her gratitude toward an interesting talk by the Master. She was very impressed by the way Master addressed freedom and awakening, especially how he was able to give a talk so closely related to readings they have been reading this semester. In the email, she shared her reflection after attending Master’s talk. Here is her reflection:

Research or practice. Freedom or discipline. Individual or community. There appears to be a fundamental disconnect in our lives, a duality if you will, between what we perceive within ourselves and what is observed from without. These dualities often create “either/or” categories which determine unequal distribution of authority and result in depersonalization at the most basic level. Dualities also legitimize certain ideologies and exclude others, by representing “Norms” and casting nonconformists as “Others”.

Buddhism seeks to address dualities by offering what to my Western eyes is a very nontraditional way of viewing the world. Instead of waiting for guidance from without, be it a Bible or a God or a sermon, we are urged to set our moral compasses from within. This, in turn, compels us to scrutinize our own prejudices and belief systems. The notion of taking care of ourselves and examining our own lives before we can begin to examine another’s makes sense to me and speaks to our discussion of Maxine Greene and her concept of wide-awakeness.

Another concept of Buddhism that is difficult to understand from a Western perspective is realizing the impermanence of the things we want to hold close to us. In much the same way Ayn Rand in her Objectivist philosophy urges us to achieve true freedom by not living for another and never expecting another to live for us. Buddhism, to me, addresses much of this idea of freedom in letting go.

How many times have we, as Social Educators, searched for a stepping stone to begin our explorations of something greater within ourselves or within our world? When Maxine Greene asks so candidly in Landscapes of Learning “What shall we teach them? How can we guide them? What hope can we offer them? How can we tell them what to do?” she echoes the doubts of thoughtful educators everywhere while at the same time presenting us a framework of compassion and a route to freedom and wide-awakeness. Social Education through Critical Pedagogy seeks to overcome this “is/ought” duality and the split between theory and actual practice by embracing the idea of paradoxical thinking, which requires we accept the world as more complex and multifaceted.

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