Developing Mindsight

 My entire life has been a personal experience of mindsight offering a higher degree of freedom.Professionally, I have lived my life as and English teacher in all the traditional and non-traditional ways of being so...I consider myself a teacher of stories - the progress of humanity lies in the ability to listen and read and capture the meaning of other people's stories, so that we grow in not only strength but in wisdom...I of course, taught the Western traditional "canon" for my students, but on a parallel track I studied and brought into my teachings the other creation mythologies of other cultures, which of course, led me to Joseph Campbell and his theory of the collective human subconscious mind.  I taught the Renaissance "balance of human spirit" concept, which was taken from Aristotle and Plato in the ancient Greek philosophies:  that (wo)man is possessed of 4 humours: spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual.  Greek Tragedy is based on the tragic flaw, which overpowers the human being, if not kept healthy.  Dan Siefel's article, theory, truth...whatever one  might call it, has been true through the ages.  It sickens me that our human societies "forgot" the need to keep our spiritual side strong and healthy as it feeds the other 3 - there is a balance.  This mindfulness was captured and used by the power brokers on this planet and is still being brokered for dominance.  Louise Erdich's new book LaRose, she narrates about the  indigenous nation of Anishinaabeg, which claims the Great Lakes as its cultural home.  The famiy storyteller, "...This ability to fly went back to the first LaRose, whose mother....&  who had learned this from her father, a jiiskikid conjurer, who'd flung his spirit all the way around the world in 1798 and come back to tell his astonished drummers that it was no use, white people covered the earth like lice."   The power brokers have pasted religion, taboos, sins, & sanctions on so much of what we now call "reality."  My conclusion, at least for today at this moment, is that we all must empower our degrees of mindfulness, allowing ourselves to practice a belief in a higher power if that serves, but always concentrating on this circle of compassion, which allows us to "embrace the reality of this interconnection, being considerate and concerned withlthe larger world."  

 “Mindsight” is a unique word.  From my observations of mindsight, mental chaos has gradually moved into confidence in a Supreme Being and then gradually grew into this serenity.  This serenity then gradually fell into stillness.  All of this happened by letting go.  When I made my transitions from confidence in my Supreme Being to serenity it felt like stepping into nothingness.  This last transition from serenity falling into stillness it felt like I was walking off the edge of the world, or, another way to say this it felt like my ego’s death.  It has taken a faith to make these transitions, moving beyond my ego beliefs and learned procedures. 
 
When realistic faith began it became a given and this unshakable confidence.  This faith recognizes the actual support of Presence and I needed it to counteract the terror and the despair.  It seems to create this distinction from  me the observer to the observed.  It is now where my home feels empty and this home feels like just a place to begin.  This emptiness is the light of awareness and creates something higher wanting to touch the Essential.  The Essential is faith and it is given that offers this unshakable confidence.        

So to me mindsight takes realistic faith from the Essential and it becomes given.       
 

 To me, mindsight means letting go of (or "dissolving" to use the author's word) fixed mental perceptions that restrict our awareness, and seeing what is rather than seeing our preconceived beliefs.  For me, the references in Buddhism to waking up and the references in Christianity to making the blind see are about mindsight, that is, seeing what is rather than seeing one's thinking and assumptions.  I do believe such mindsight fosters wisdom and as the author says catalyzes personal and interpersonal integration.  For me, such mindsight is what religion is meant to be about -- that is, re-ligion literally means to re-connect, reintegrate.  I believe religion in its purest sense is the process of me getting my self together or becoming whole, and me realizing that all of us beings are different expressions of one whole. We can grow in mindsight by always having the beginner's mind, as the Buddhists say, with which we can practice being open and seeing what is.