As the first quarter ends

 

That tiny, faint dot at the lower left portion of the picture, framed by the trees' branches, is Venus.  Took the photo shortly after sunset, two Sundays ago, after taking Sam out for her evening walk.  The sky was clear, though with a bit of a haze.  The air is starting to turn heavy and warm, after several windy days with cool early morning breezes.  Hasn't rained for weeks now.  So summer could just be around the corner.  In Cebu, after our workshop sessions two weeks ago, a colleague was pointing out that the El Niño phenomenon had already set in and would bring back dreaded spells of drought.

Meanwhile, read this online article yesterday about plans by other Earthlings to send another inter-planetary probe through the thick Venusian atmosphere and onto its alien surface with its lead-melting temperatures, bone-crushing pressure, and sulfuric acid drizzles.  The proposition was for a probe that looked much like the Soviet-era Veneras but which could survive in the planet's hostile (hellish) environment for more than two hundred days instead of just an hour and a few minutes - a record set by one of the Veneras.  Now that would really be something.  Another stride for Venusian planetology that hasn't received as much attention as that of the Earth's moon and Mars in recent decades.  That is, if all goes well, the said proposal gets approved and receives sufficient funding.

Incomprehensible how such push for exploration beyond Gaia is happening in times of open armed conflict among nations (with the United States government, egged on by Israel and its Arab allies, now contemplating a ground invasion of Iran; the conflict has been going on for almost eight weeks now and has brought devastation to people's homes and lives in Iran, Gaza, and Lebanon, while detrimentally impacting on livelihoods in other parts of the globe).  In fact, a craft carrying four people was launched a few days back and is now on its way for a rendezvous with Luna.  Decades ago, in 1969, men set foot on the moon while American bombers were trying to send the Vietnamese back to the stone age.  And so that's pretty much the same way we'll close this year's first quarter.  With such madness from Earthlings who dream of greatness.

The political game called "hegemony"

 

Started reading works of Antonio Gramsci many years ago back in college, including compilations of selected essays from Prison Notebooks, and other books about his life and ideas written by other authors.  The latter materials often reflected on what Gramsci as a Marxist thinker and a practicing communist in Italy said about particular aspects of the workers' struggle against a post-industrial capitalist system that was on the cusp of another global conflict.  Never got to finish a single title though (based on my vague recollection now).  Except for this one by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe that I recalled reading at a time when the Berlin wall was being torn down, the Soviet Union was collapsing, and the communist regime in China was violently putting down student protests in Tiananmen square.  A bleak state of affairs for most socialist movements, parties and activists everywhere.  Here in the Philippines, a number of independent Filipino socialists that followed the orange banner of the Union for the Advancement of Socialist Thought and Practice (BISIG), a loose aggrupation of left-leaning intellectuals, trade unionists, community organizers, local feminists, and student leaders - fallouts and renegades from traditional leftist groups and failed coalition-building efforts across these organizations - struggled to sustain its discourse around a local brand of socialism that purportedly forged a middle ground between state socialism of the Soviet and Maoist brands, and the hybrid welfare state models being peddled by the local social and liberal democratic groups.

But even BISIG's Socialist Vision, I think, was not quite what Laclau and Mouffe had in mind when they talked about a notion of hegemonic practice towards a radical and pluralist democracy that was shorn of any presumptions or ideas about which social antagonism was "determinant in the last instance", who or which actor had a decisive and primary role to play at this historical juncture, and what revolution as a deep transformative break from the old order should look like.  While it did carefully outline a broader (and in most cases, more nuanced) line of march for transforming the various aspects and sectors of a capitalist Philippine society that was stunted by its dependency on the world market, its articulation of social ills and vision for an alternative future was still heavily along the mold of its anti-capitalist paradigm.  It would have been such a good research topic then, along Laclau's and Mouffe's line of thought, to look into the history of local struggles that were able to frame their own relations of antagonism, define their own vision of a transformed social order, and articulate how they could contribute to a new progressive path working with other groups including socialists without any proposition for a totalizing strategy (e.g., a vanguard role for a particular class or group) and a decisive rupture from the old order.

Been out of touch with such discussions for decades now.  Perhaps the only threads connecting me now with any related ruminations would be my own reading life (and encountering or re-encountering these leftist tomes like Hegemony and Socialist Strategy), these electoral exercises every three years when I go out to register my vote for this pluralistic party-list group (but which unfortunately has not shown any clear socialist or anti-capitalist legislative agenda, much less positions in relation to key issues of the day for quite a long, long time now), and my current work with a development and humanitarian organization that continues to toy with ideas around "broader systemic change".  Almost half a century ago, I recalled reading this book on the German Greens by Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak (Green Politics: The Global Promise) at about the same time that I was poring over Laclau's and Mouffe's work.  Thought then that the West German Green Party's (Die Grünen) formation, with indefatigable leaders like Petra Kelly helping to forge bases of unity across a diverse set of groups (radical feminists, old communists, deep ecologists, religious groups, retired military officers, local activists, etc.), exemplified Laclau and Mouffe's notion of hegemonic practice albeit in its early less sophisticated stage.  But definitely leading to quite radical convergences and positions (federated economic models inspired by the Swiss cantons, zero economic growth, nuclear-free citizen defense, party-run pubs as community-building spaces) and quite unorthodox political practices and actions.

With the hegemonic blocs that the ultra-right has been able to forge and continue to strengthen in recent years, in the Philippines and other parts of the globe, Laclau's and Mouffe's opus around the hegemonic game should be required back reading for radical activists.  Found a PDF version here.  The work has spawned a whole collection of essays and other books representing both sympathetic and more critical reviews of the authors' positions and political project.  I have yet to read any of them though.  Here's one that promises a comprehensive assessment of both the work's intellectual impact among academicians, as well as its more practical legacies.

Grounding being on the inner light

 

Finished reading "Mystics and Zen Masters" by Thomas Merton.  It took me several months, so I decided to read the first chapter again (with the same title) to get a good idea of what the whole book was all about.  Have known Merton to be this contemplative Trappist monk who was famous for his commentaries particularly on the Vietnam war and on his reflections about Christian theology and spirituality in light of such and other key political and social issues of the day, towards the latter part of the twentieth century.  Knew that he died in tragic and quite mysterious circumstances: alone in his room in Bangkok, apparently electrocuted from a toppled small desk fan.  Not sure about the real reason why I have often confused him with another Christian author who had the same first name.  Have one of Merton's several-volume journals (the exact title of which evades memory at the moment - but I know it has "mountain" in it) somewhere on these shelves at home, and could even recall starting to read it years ago.  Might have to find and read it from cover to cover soon, to better understand the man, his life, his struggles, and his thoughts.

Anyway, Mystics and Zen Masters (the chapter) was a good introduction to this work by Merton which was not entirely about Zen concepts and practice but also touched on other contemplative and mystical traditions, mostly Christian, around the world.  The chapter's linchpin story was that of the fifth Zen patriarch in China, Hung Jen, and his subsequent choice for his successor and the manner by which this was done.  The patriarch asked the candidate monks to compose verses that would embody their understanding and deepest insights on what Buddhist enlightenment was.  Shen Hsiu, the leading candidate, talked about the practice of meditation under a Bodhi tree as something that was comparable to wiping clean a mirror and ensuring that it was free from any speck of dust at all times.  This earned his practice the monicker of "mirror-wiping" Zen. 

Then there was Hui Neng who was not even properly a monk (or was the monk who, as his meditative practice, had been assigned to the kitchen to do all the cooking and the dish washing for the sangha or community of monks).  Taking off from Shen Hsiu's verse, Hui Neng's poem essentially put a question mark on the reality of all notions that Shen Hsiu had in his - the Bodhi being a tree, the mirror standing in front of the meditator, and even the grains of sand or dust that were supposed to dull the "purity" of the reflective surface.  The implications being there was nothing at all to polish and wipe clean, and the whole practice of sitting meditation was not that central to attaining clear mind.  Another reminder of the value of not being too attached to any single practice and to the view of clear mind or enlightenment as something to be achieved.

So the story ended with Hui Neng being named the sixth Chinese Zen master, and his no-mind perspective would later be the foundation of the Japanese Rinzai school of Zen with its famous practice around these sudden flashes of insights and the cultivation of even broader and deeper realizations by meditating on spiritual "riddles" called "koans".  Shen Hsiu and followers would be continuing with their own mirror-wiping practice of Zen, emphasizing the nitty-gritty of sitting meditation and honing such practice and the resulting awareness by counting breaths, simply being aware of all the inhalations and exhalations, and focusing on and watching sensations and thoughts arise and go by during each sitting.  They would go on to influence the Soto school of Zen in Japan that organizes these mentally and physically demanding meditation retreats, with their characteristic zazen ("just sitting") marathons and audiences with the Zen master.

As mentioned above, may have to read again the whole book to recall what the rest of it was actually all about.  Had this vague sense that it went on to examine related practices especially of the Christian contemplative traditions or groups, drawing out insights in the process.  My own path took me from Christianity (i.e., the crash evangelical, "born again" variety in high school) to something much akin to the Soto Zen school's frequent zazens.  At one point, the sitting was interspersed with writing down each unique experience and visions that came with the counting of breaths.  But after reading Charlotte Joko Beck's book "Everyday Zen" a couple of years ago, was more and more enamored with the idea that this whole existence, with all the things that it could throw along the way, was both the practice and the path.  So, it has been a journey so far across various spiritual traditions in an effort to continuously ground being on this inner light, rather than a notion of belonging to or being a part of a single school of beliefs or thought. 

Busy week

 

Finished my fourth 5k run for the week last Friday, and brought the total distance covered to a little over twenty kilometers.  And finally fixed the mobile phone's running application which had failed to keep accurate track of both distance and duration of my runs since Wednesday.  Seemed that it had something to do with the said application's setting which automatically turned off my mobile phone after a while.  This also shut off the GPS (or global positioning system), and thus messed up the stop watch and meter counter.  Had to keep on clicking the phone's power or start button every now and then.  But this strategy still brought my total running time per kilometer to a little over ten minutes (a full two minutes slower compared to previous runs).  So had to make a full stop at one point to recheck the application's settings for the nth time.  Finally saw this button which allowed the application to stay up the whole time, turned it on and then wallah!

That episode with the faulty running app was quite stressful, and brought my panting to a whole new level.  In fact, already felt during those early runs that my lungs were about to explode, after jogging and just brisk walking for a few meters.  Going up the road to the next nearest neighbor's house, slow short steps at a time, still produced those quick, painful gasps, perhaps much like the desperate inhalations from a poor drowning bloke.  Either the oxygen-consuming cells of my lungs have not yet fully recovered from all the damages brought about by the pandemic, or my belly has grown way too big and has been obstructing fuller breaths.  Sam, my skinny Belgian Malinois, her ribcage showing again, could have had way easier times during our long walks around the subdivision.  Her own panting and exhaustion afterwards probably due more to pulling me, especially when going uphill, than to her own exertions.  Still, felt good with runs this week.

Definitely helped to lure the mind away from all those recent crazy moments with work colleagues (meeting that research proposal deadline, finalizing those schedules for learning reviews, preparing that presentation deck to cover several agenda items in a meeting with project partners that was scheduled to take around two hours but which would require me to travel by land and air for three times as long).  Felt inspired after that final run for the week last Friday, so decided to collect garbage along the road.  Got a grocery bag full of plastic water and soft drinks containers, juice packs, cigarette butts, and biscuit, chips and candy wrappers.  It was J.'s birthday last Friday.  Had dinner with housemates at the roof deck.  And finally, early this morning, waited at this coffee and donut place while my second daughter finished her online class.  Read a story in Cixin Liu's collection about the heroic efforts of this cancer-stricken teacher in rural China to provide a scientific education to his young pupils, and how such knowledge saved the whole world from annihilation in the hands of a highly advanced alien civilization.  Pretty grim, but hopeful.  Amazing how Liu grounded a whole space opera about a galaxy-spanning war on a realistic description of the lives of poor people in the present era. 

Guilt and control

 

Finished Elaine Pagels' Adam, Eve, and the Serpent this morning, after taking the dog out for her walk, washing the dishes, and checking on the typhoon's current position in this online weather satellite site.  Had some thoughtful moments from reading those last chapters around the theological debate between St. Augustine and Julian on the proper interpretation of the Christian Genesis story, its implications to the nature of human sexuality and mortality, and what it says about people's current capacities to discern and make moral decisions.  

Augustine arguing until his demise that Adam and Eve's disobedience in Eden caused a major shift in nature, with such "original sin" bringing about all the imperfection, suffering, pain, and death that are now plaguing the existence of all beings.  People, having lost all their power of discernment in the process, fell prey to such uncontrollable passions and strong sexual urges.  Church injunctions and divine grace thus now play a critical role in guiding the individual along the path to forgiveness and salvation.  Quite an attractive proposition, according to Pagels, for both the church leaders (mostly male) who were then slowly contending with the adoption of Christianity as the Roman empire's state religion, and for lay people in general who saw in the whole arrangement a means to control all the suffering that they see or experience around them - their profound feeling of guilt in relation to Adam's and their own transgressions against God's rules, in exchange for a way to somehow make sense of their daily existence and struggles, and wade through all the perceived chaos, meaninglessness, or evilness in the world.

Julian, bishop of Eclanum and championing Pelagian theology, on the other hand denied that the episode in Eden had any effect on the structure of creation or people's capacities to make moral choices.  It was simply in the nature of beings to suffer and die, and these had nothing to do with Adam's disobedience or with the individual's exercise of will.  The latter, rather than having to do with physical death, was bound to lead either to spiritual and moral decay or to reconciliation with the divine.  And people' sexuality, far from being an unnatural faculty, constituted instead a "sixth sense" representing a neutral life-giving force, divinely ordained, and subject to this balancing act between an individual's reason and animal feelings.  Such reliance on individual discernment was of course the main difference and crux of the matter with Augustine's theology.  Less useful and even dangerous to early church leaders of the fourth or fifth centuries who were then involved in this project of slowly shaping the emerging Christian orthodoxy and influencing state power.

An interesting thought experiment: what if Julian's position and similar Pelagian thought prevailed over the early Christian communities and movement?  Would Christianity still have been adopted as state religion of the Roman empire?  Would celibacy among church leaders and priests still be the policy today?  How would present Christians view human sexuality, and position themselves around related issues like reproductive health, women's rights and leadership in the church, and gender identities and sexual preferences?  What would such positions mean in terms of current forces vying for political power in countries with significant presence of Christian groups?

Some key take aways in terms of learning and scholarship: 1) Important to set and make sense of ideas and claims within their proper contexts when dealing with such elements in documentary materials (e.g., what were the attendant situations, meanings or thinking in relation to the author's ideas?); 2) Our own views and previous experiences could shape our readings of these materials - thus the need to be aware of and continuously interrogate such influences; and, 3) Beware of compartmentalized readings - always situate statements within the whole text or discourse.