apple cores

thanks to anonymous for the interesting discussion about the teacher and the apple core. this introduces another kind of loss into the discussion, which i might classify as loss based on expectation. students in a class expect a very specific something from a professor -- it is probably merely face-time during the agreed upon lecture time. maybe it's also a certain kind of behavior. students also don't expect faculty to lie to them -- to say they'll return and then not to do so. from this persepctive, i think, loss is based on unrealized (or perhaps more appropriately) broken expectation.

i think some buddhists might say that these expectations are our desires. we expect not to be caught up in traffic, and when we are it leads to a loss of control. our desire for control when we are controlless makes us angry, makes us generate karma. we expect that if we are paying someone to perform a service (somewhat in the vain of the professor walking from the classroom) that that service will be delivered in a way that is commensurate with our expectations. when it is not, we perceive an injustice. our desire for justice makes us angry, makes us generate karma. we expect good things to happen to us, that we will be surrounded by loved ones. our desire to recapture good times when they are gone makes us angry, makes us generate karma.

and yet, we mourn these umet expectations, always, daily. our logical mind tells us that getting angry while driving accomplishes nothing, that service providers are fallible human beings, that good times can't last. and yet we cling to the expectations.

in my hospice training last wednesday i talked a little bit about my last patient in north carolina. he died days before we moved away. i was so caught up in the move that i never really allowed myself to mourn that loss. while common decency and hippa standards compel me not to say too much, i can say that he was an astonishing human being and one that i was blessed to know. and he's gone. i was the last friend he ever saw. that's an honor that i feel immensely unworthy of, but it is so precious to me that i can hardly bear up under the weight of it.

digging deep. ouch.

daily dharma: Speech is a powerful force. But how much attention do we pay to our speech?...Do we actually bring some wisdom and sensitivity to our speaking? What is behind our speech, what motivates it? Does something really have to be said? When I was first getting into the practice of thinking and learning about speech, I conducted an experiment. For several months I decided not to speak about any third person; I would not speak to somebody about somebody else. No gossip. Ninety percent of my speech was eliminated. Before I did that, I had no idea that I had spent so much time and energy engaged in that kind of talking. It is not that my speech had been particularly malicious, but for the most part it had been useless. I found it tremendously interesting to watch the impact this experiment had on my mind. As I stopped speaking in this way, I found that one way or another a lot of my speech had been a judgment about somebody else. By stopping such speech for a while, my mind became less judgmental, not only of others, but also of myself, and it was a great relief.