Original Face

A teddy can cause a lot of problems

The teddy bear is about a century old.  It was named for the stuffed animal toy that was given to President Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, Alice.  For almost all of its history it has been a toy that has taken on more than the usual material place in people's imaginations.

The celebrated psychoanalytic theorist, D.W. Winnicott, wrote about teddy bears occupying the important "transitional space" between real, external reality and the internal private world of pure fantasy.  It is this transitional space that provides the psychic locus for art, philosophical inquiry and religion.

Now a teddy bear has come to symbolize something very different and much more sinister.  In the bizarre world of modern Islamofascists, the naming of a teddy bear, an object of affection, after a boy who carries the same name as Islam's prophet, caused a whole population of the Sudan to scream for the death of a middle aged woman grammar school teacher.  Holding a viewpoint that seeks to find offense around any corner and to demand, like borderline psychotics, for complete annihilation of the offender, they provide, in bas relief, a complete perspective of the crisis facing the West.

Teddy Roosevelt would be amused by the circumstances but would not shirk from the clash.  Reason is simply not possible with people who wield machetes and demand that blood, of a simple teacher who permitted her class to name their teddy bear, flow in the streets.

What a punem!

What is Original Face? 

In my first post I said it was a way to ask, "Who are you?" by way of the Zen ko-an:  "Show me your original face...the one you had before your parents were born."  It is the saint, or in eastern terms the bodhisattva, who can show his or her original face.  It is the mark of authenticity.

This authenticity, paradoxically, is found not in the Self but in its abandonment.  At is essence, one's original face is the face of complete transparency. 

It has shed all masks created by the need to hide the true self from the pain of life.  One's original face does not reflect the world but allows the world to see inside.  It has left the need for Ego aside and instead it becomes a conduit to the transcendental. 

Christians would say that it is the face of the Christ.  The theological terms for this face would be kenosis and theosis-- that is, the process of radical self emptying and the absorption into the life of the Godhead.  Buddhists would see one with original face as having reached a state of complete samdhi, or buddhahood.

You know it when you meet someone with his or her original face.  It isn't necessarily a pleasant experience but it is a true one.  Artifice falls away. Dualities collapse into singularity.  It can be frightening to stare at Truth in such an unvarnished manner, but it is transforming as well.

What is your original face?  Do you want to know?  At what cost?

He got it.

It is an almost impossible task to explain how religion informs and colors one's life to those who do not have the faith-impulse.  Recently I had the opportunity to re-read Eric Fromm, the late psychoanalyst and theorist.  In one of his books, Psychoanalysis and Religion (appropriately enough), he describes the compelled condunra which are inherent in the life of a religious individual. 

Although Fromm is not a person of faith himself, his insights are uncanny and his language is clear.  It is the best short statement about a life of faith which I have ever read.  I hope that for those of you who are religious by nature it rings true and for those readers who are not religious, it provides a way to comprehend the lives of those whom you know who are religious.

[F]or the religious person, whether he is a “believer” or not, life is a problem; the fact of having been born raises a question that man must answer.  The most important task of his life, then, is to find answer to this question; not an answer in thought only, but an answer in his whole being, in his way of living.  For this person life is not something “given” which requires no other meaning than to eat and drink, survive, have pleasure, and take part in events in accordance to one’s ethical norms.  He senses the profound existential dichotomies that beset life: that between being free—yet determined; separate—yet united; filled with knowledge—yet profoundly ignorant.  He suffers from his feeling of separateness.  His activity is directed toward finding the optimal solution to these contradictions, while at the same time he knows that there is no solution; and there is no goal in life that is not subordinated to this attempt.  Here lies, in fact the difference between the hedonistic and the ethical man on one hand and the “religious” man on the other.

Oedipus Regina

One aspect of modern sports has always bothered me.  Whenever the ubiquitous television camera would focus on a young professional or collegiate athlete, he would smile at the camera, wave enthusiastically and mouth the words "Hi, Mom!"  Never "Hi, Mom and Dad," let alone someone (other than the 1982 Gold medal goalie, Jim Craig) saying "Hi, Dad."

Now I am all in favor of sons acknowledging their mothers but, hey, how about some consideration for the Ol' Man?  I mean the guy busts him hump at work and comes home to toss the football, play some one on one in the driveway or hits fungos until dark.  Has amnesia of these times together become a prerequisite of making it as an elite athlete?

Or maybe it is just Freud's discovery just being played out on national and local sports television.  If so, I say, let's go LPGA,the WNBA, and all other women's sports! 

What is Oedipus for the goose can be Electra for the gander.

Glenda and Dorothy

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, after reaching Oz and completing her tasks confronts Glenda, the Witch of the North, about her desperate situation.  How, with the fleeing of the Wizard, would she get home?  Without the power of the magician she feels that she will be lost forever.  That she will never have the ability to be with her family and the others in the real world whom she loves and who love her.

Glenda replies that Dorothy has possessed the power to return back home all along and could have gone home anytime she pleased.  Looking cross, Dorothy asks the witch why she hadn't told her earlier.  Because, says Glenda, I could have told you then, but you weren't ready to hear it.

That is what psychoanalysis seems to be.  The answers and the questions in the "hours" are the same, albeit in slightly different forms, but at some point in the process you, the patient, are ready to hear.  That is its mystery and artistry: to become prepared to listen for the truth that has been there all along.

It is in the collaboration of analyst and analysand, like that between Glenda and Dorothy, which makes the moment ready when the inhaling of the answers to the questions can start to occur.  Then one can go home, as if it is for the first time.

The Rain

Every once in a while, for a moment, or two, things make sense.

I remember a number of years ago being in a week long zen practice experience where, all of a sudden, I could hear the rain outside of the zendo.  It was more than just the sound of rain, it was hearing the existence of the rain with a clarity that is comparable in the way HDTV is to regular television.

Today in my analysis something happened.  It was small, but tectonic at the same time.  Just then, rain outside of the office's window began coming down through the trees.  I could hear the rain again.  It felt good.