What EXACTLY did the Buddha say?

The world may never know.  But many scholars thinks he or she know.

Here's an article from an organization that I am not yet familiar with briefly explaining how teachings became text - three months after the Buddha passed away, a First Council happened deciding what should be preserved from his teaching.  The same source talks about how, even though Sanskrit was the language of the educated and priestly caste, Pali is the language of the region at the time when the Buddha lived, his native tongue is said to be closer to a village language called Magadha.

The Pali Cannon is the first collection of the Buddha's teachings, the result of the First Council. 

Storytelling

Collecting definitions of words and concepts that relate to storytelling (and thus applicable to lecturing, writing about storytelling, and getting more smrt). These are words I use all the time when I am speaking with students, or scholars, usually to sound more smrt, but I think it is time to start using them properly and actually understanding their meaning.  AND reading the works that are connected with the constructs as I know them in literary theory.

Allegory 

Monomyth

Semiotics


Rhetoric

metaphor

Using Metaphor as a teaching tool...

As an observation of the students that I am working with this semester, my boss and I have have many chats about the fact that the students don't understand metaphor.  Makes it quite difficult to understand poetry, art, and interpretations of history for that matter.  The students seem to be constantly staring at us with blank looks when we use metaphors to explain concepts in music, dance, and history.

One way I have addressed this in the past is to see it from their shoes - what metaphors make sense in their lives?  There is flat understanding when a teacher uses a metaphor from his/her own life that the students just haven't experienced yet.  Example - having kids, being married, graduating, turning 30, spending 5 years working on a degree that you never end up using in your work.  Is it the teacher's responsibility to come up with the metaphors that work for the students?  Can the teacher know the students' experience well enough to do that?  As the teacher gets older and the students stay the same age, does this process become more and more difficult?

I am looking for some research that my old boss told me about sometime that I always use as an example but can never remember who did the research - that our brains develop fully by the age of 25.  Something about the corpus callosum being the last part of the brain to fully develop?  So juniors and seniors in college still have a difficult time navigating things outside of their worldview - i.e. they process things through their own lens and have a difficult time empathising with others' experiences because some part of the brain is not developed fully yet.  It is a difficult world for them because at the same moment, they are expected to understand how to manage their time, be socially savvy, excellent writers and processors of information, build their resumes with heartfelt humanitarian work, and mind their manners.  That's a lot when you are doing it from one perspective.

That's not to say that holding them to committments and expectations isn't important - if you've been aware of a paper that is due on Friday at 5 pm for three weeks (and it is one of those papers that you have to do a lot of work on for three weeks rather than something you can write in two hours), don't ask for an extension at 2 pm on Friday afternoon!  And teachers, it's our responsibility to say NO to the extension.  Of course, in a skillful way that builds your relationship to the student - asking the right questions (rather than telling them, or putting them on the defensive) to help the student understand how they have been managing their time.

OI - so this come back to metaphor?  somehow.  Nuance.  More than taxonomic understanding.  making connections.  I've always been a visual learner - I notice myself, when a lecturer or facilitator is presenting a metaphor to help me understand some concept, I visualize it in my mind.  I draw the picture in my mind of a cave, a fire, a huge wall, and people looking at the wall and feeling fearful of what they see when someone is describing Plato's allegory.

I do my best when I am the one presenting the metaphor to actually picture it in my head while I describe, or tell stories in hopes that the image comes across through my words. Would the Matrix (Morpheus explaining the matrix to a newly awakened Neo) work better for these guys?

Bringing it Home:
Buddhism is filled with allegory and seemingly mythical stories that one can interpret at many levels - stories and hagiographies telling of powerful beings, manifestations of the compassionate mind, legendary diligence, and boundless wisdom.  These stories serve to inspire us to engage - to search for our own relationship to meaning.  It's our responsibility to figure this out.  (Here are some examples in a recent IDP blog...) The point that these metaphors serve is to wake us up.  To shake us from our habit.  To help us recognize our nature through identifying and then detaching from that identification, for we can see that way how strongly we identify, if we pay attention.

I need a metaphor to explain it.  :)

The Danger of a Single Story

"I would rather be ashes than dust!  I would rather my sparks should burn out in a blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.  I would rather be as a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than asleep and permanent as a planet.

The proper function of a person is to live, not to exist.  I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.  I shall use my time."

-Jack London

Life Lessons from Stargate: Atlantis

I've always been a fan of scifi novels, fantasy novels, and movies that push the boundaries of technological advancement including elements of apocalyptic themes.  Watching/reading this genre causes me to consider two things: 1. my own mortality and 2. the possibility of limitless human creativity, resourcefulness, and spirit.

Mortality shows itself as the viewer/reader follows the characters along their adventures - identifying with their struggles, challenges, victories, wrestling with trust, individuality, resourcefulness, and courage as they face unending threats on their lives.  I see myself in the stories - or at least, can put myself in the preverbial 'shoes' of the characters quite easily.  I ask myself questions as I'm reading/watching Would I make that decision? Would I have trusted that person?  Could I be that strong and vibrant?  Could I kick someone's ass so efficiently?  How long would it take me to recover from such an ass-kicking?  How are MY leadership skills?  I think this is the reason humans like movies, novels, tv shows.  They are (in their brilliant entertaining way) alternate realities we can identify with that help us cling less fiercely to the reality we identify as our own.

Considering, or believing in, limitless human potential is another point.  Maybe MY limitless human potential (Be all you can be - or how much science can one truly understand in one's lifetime) is on the table and considering it motivates me to be less lazy, but to think about the potential of humans to create protective force fields, teleportation devices, magical potions, medical miracles, identify and utilize psychic abilities, storytelling gifts, and (brace yourselves) create a functioning community of trusting individuals gives me a lot of hope.  Yes, these communities I watch/read are imaginary, but it does leave me with the feeling that even if we are idealizing how humans live and work together, it must be possible to do so on some level.  We wouldn't be imagining these scenarios if we didn't have it in us, right?  (See Future Post about my Will Smith Theory).

So with Death and Hope as my overarching themes, this post is just one big justification for spending time watching an entire tv series from first episode to the last one.  A good/new friend let me borrow the entire discography of the scifi drama Stargate: Atlantis.

I'm not a big tv fan - don't own one, never want to.  But laptops work for tv on my own time.  (I fumble with that justification from time to time - what is it I really *like* about the experience of watching movies and tv episodes... the ability to watch when I want, what I want commercial free? or is this just a big fat time waster.  Most probably, the second.)  But here goes, anyway!

Here are some themes from the show that I want to keep track of for future teaching purposes (like my Tuckman's stages of group development through Fellowship of the Ring):

• building trust - how, why, it takes time, how you benefit from it, teamwork and relying on your teammates.  Does everyone need to be in a life threatening situation to learn to trust people? Is it true that everyone has their special place in the team - like a comic book? 
  
• Specialization - being a doctor, fighter pilot, weapons master, diplomat.   It's the ideal that if a team of specialists are brought together, many parts make a whole.  Reinforces importance of specialization rather than being a jack-of-all-trades.
• drawing/maintaining lines - not being pushed around, not dating the people you work with
• making decisions and taking responsibility for them - leadership, ethics, guilt?
• commitment to ideals and to others you trust are working toward those ideals
• working hard - what exactly does this mean?  Not taking care of yourself?
  
• unachievable perfection = perfect humanity
• authority (John subverting it, Elizabeth holding on to it by her teeth, Sam being even, interested, clear, capable, and nondramatic - I don't question her like I questioned Elizabeth's confidence)
  
• diplomacy (Elizabeth) - negotiations vs. destruction - there's always an ideal for 'peace' and trade relations to exist between civilizations, but do not stand idly by while the other agresses.  Not sure I agree with this one... peace as in 'mutual benefit' on both sides, yes.  And the negotiators are responsible identify the needs of each society and have an agreed-upon treaty or limit to the exchange.  What if one or the other feels they are being taken advantage of?  What if they don't?  What if one needs help and the other has the means to help?  
• development (Explorer teams) - teams explore the galaxy looking for viable trade partners.  They have yet to set up a peaceful treaty in almost 60 episodes (end of season three).  When the teams arrive on a new planet, they always assume the people are 'underdeveloped' living in 'simpler times' with no technology. Their assumption is that technology + warfare capability = developed nation.  (#55 "The Game" where 'Sim City' goes horribly wrong)  
  
• speaking your mind vs. holding your tongue: TACT (Rodney vs. Carson) Making excuses - sometimes it's better just to do it rather than make excuses about things.  It can take too much time.  (Rodney)
  
• Never look away from your enemy - it shows weakness. 
• power/energy/resources are limited and need to be utilized efficiently
  
• Small acts of self-protection can be viewed as aggression toward others, even when it's not meant as that.  You might have a war on your hands in a few episodes.
  
• Canadians say "sorry" and "out" differently than US Americans
• If you find a person-sized slimy cocoon/pod/egg thing, don't go looking for the thing that used to be in it.

Things that don't make sense:
everyone speaking english - even the 'alien' human races.  only the 'bad guys' don't speak english.  The ancients used to speak ancient, but they speak english now. 

Good Quotes: 
"Draw from your past, but do not let your past draw from you."