Presentation on the Extended Mind

 

Final Notes

Dear Philosophers,

Congratulations on all of your hard work this semester. I invite you to take time to acknowledge your efforts and I salute your choice to pursue education and mental liberation. Below are some things I wanted to share with you.

Dear Philosophers,

Jen and I wanted to extend a warm invitation for you to visit us at our center, The Sanctuary at Shepardfields in East Haddam. We do host a weekly meditation group including a discussion group on the practice of forgiveness via A Course in Miracles, most Sundays from 2-4 PM. The Zoom address for this meditation is the same as for our philosophy class. If you’d like to be included on our email list, please email us at info@oursanctuary.org.   

I thoroughly enjoyed teach/learning with you this semester and wish you the best in your pursuits. You all did a great job coping with, and perhaps thriving a little, in what has been the strangest semester of my 20 years of teaching lol.  

Sincerely Yours, Justin

Finals for Introduction to Philosophy

Dear Philosophers,

Our last official class was this past Monday. We will be meeting during the scheduled exam period for each section next week.

For section one (11-12:15), we will be meeting on Monday, May 11th from 11-12:30. 

For section two (1:30-2:45), we will be meeting on Wednesday, May 13th from 1:30-3.

We will use the opportunity of our last meeting to take stock of the semester, share insights and final project ideas. Please bring something to share.

Your final project (see post below for details) is due Wednesday May 13th by 12 midnight. I can give you extra time if you need it, but you have to let me know in advance.

Good luck, you guys are great!

Yours,
    Justin

Zoom Link

https://zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334

Password: namaste

One tap mobile: 1 646 558 8656  

5/4 Forgiveness and Emotional-Cognitive Evolution

Texts for this class

1. Toru Sato, The Ever-Transcending Spirit, pp. 77-99.

2. Marianne Williamson on forgiveness 

  (and A Course in Miracles)

Gnostic Ethics, Restorative Justice, Forgiveness & Interbeing

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

  Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

1. The Meaning of Forgiveness as a Spiritual Path and Method for Philosophical Liberation

“The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.” Each human being is a strand in an interconnected web of relationships (an expression of Love) which perceives itself as separate and autonomous (an Ego, a holographic ball of fear). 

b

2. Two basic emotions of Love versus Fear, corresponding to two systems of thought, two perceptions of reality (fear-based view that we are all separate from each other versus the love-based view that we are all One.) The Ego is sustained by fear, and is dissolved by love, oneness, the fading of the illusion of separation.

3. The Ego - Principle of Self-denial or Self-hatred, NOT the principle of self-love. An image which replaces, and needs to suppress our awareness of, our true Self. “The ego is the mind’s belief that it is completely on its own.” “The ego is certain that love is dangerous, and this is always its central teaching.” “The ego literally lives by comparisons. Equality is beyond its grasp. The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it.” Narcissism as a form of self-hatred. 

4. Your Ego can only control you if you listen to it (as still invested in it.) “The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so. 2 The ego's voice is an hallucination. 3 You cannot expect it to say "I am not real." 4 Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone. 5 You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. 6 If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.

5. Connection to Indigenous Wisdom / Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (All Are Related) - Lakota prayer. 

Are we separate from each other or are we inter-related and inter-connected? The concept of interrelatedness is key to understanding why needs, roles and obligations are so essential to restorative justice. “In this worldview, the problem of crime - and wrongdoing in general - is that it represents a wound in the community, a tear in the web of relationships. Crime represents damaged relationships. In fact, damaged relationships are both a cause and an effect of a crime. Many traditions have a saying that a harm to one is a harm to all.”

6. Connection to Buddhism: Basic Goodness as a Positive Core Belief (from the Prison Mindfulness Institute’s Path to Freedom)

1. Below our conditioning (habits, patterns, behaviors) is a ground of being that is unconditionally good.

2. When we don’t feel a connection to this, then struggles and problems are all we know.

3. Through meditation we develop an experiential relationship to our own basic goodness and basic ok-ness.

4. Everyone has experienced this - if even for just a few moments. A time when our mind stopped and we connected to something wonderful in life.

5. In that moment, there is a deep sense that “I am okay, Life is okay.”

7. Political Implications: Restorative Justice  

Based on an old, commonsense view of wrongdoing as a violation of people and interpersonal relationships. All indigenous cultures use restorative practices, as do many families. Whereas criminal justice sees humans as separate, autonomous beings, restorative justice sees individuals as part of an interconnected web of relationships. People who are harmed are centered in terms of their harm being seen and valued and addressed, bystanders are called in to encircle the person, the person who harmed is called in to take accountability for what was done.

Criminal Justice	Restorative Justice
Crime is a violation of the law and state	Crime is a violation of people and relationships
Violations create guilt	Violations create obligations
Justice requires the state to determine blame (guilt) and impose pain (punishment)	Justice involves victims, offenders, and community members in an effort to repair the harm and ‘put things right’
Central focus: offenders getting what they deserve.	Central focus: victim needs and offender responsibility for repairing harm.

8. Forgiveness Practice (The Six Steps to Freedom derived from the Choose Again model, as created by Diederik Wolsak 

1. I am upset. Step 1 in the conflict/upset resolution dance is to acknowledge, own, that I am in conflict or upset. The conflict serves a purpose and will lead to a joining if resolved.

2. It is about me. The conflict is not about the other person. (In comes the little voice, “yea, right” ). The conflict is never about anyone but me. Trust this step even if you don’t believe it yet. Without this step, peace and joining will not happen. It is about me. Ok, ok, so it’s about me. I know that blaming anyone for the conflict will not get me what I really want and that is: to be happy.

3. Feel the feeling. How do I feel? It is surprising to see how hard it is to really know how I am feeling. This is where commitment to honesty is essential. I have to know how I feel in order to go to:

4. Remember when I felt this way before. How is that feeling familiar? Now I have to become a detective. I am looking for the source of this feeling. When did I first feel this way? Go back as far as I can in my memory. And after a little searching I’ll remember an incident when someone said or did something that made me feel that way. Now follows:

5. Establish what my judgement of myself was in that moment? What was my perception? How did  I interpret the situation? What was my judgment of myself in that situation? What did it say about me that that person acted or spoke that way? I’m not important. I’m not supported. I’m ignored. I’m not heard. I’m inadequate. What kind of person deserves to feel this way?

6. Embrace the Truth about me. Now I must shift my old perception. Who was the “i” that made that judgement about myself in that moment (eg.- I’m ignored)? Was it the real “I” or the false “i”? If it was the false “I”, the conclusion I made about myself in that moment was also false. My judgment of myself in that moment was wrong. It said nothing about me. Whatever happened way back when was not about me. Who I am is unchanged and unchangeable. The belief I formed about who I am is wrong and doesn’t serve me. It is easy to forgive myself for believing a falsity about myself.  “Forgive me for believing I was _______. 

Forgive me for believing I am ______.” You name it; most of us have at least one of more of these limiting beliefs. So there it is. Now, I’M FREE.

Meditation & Forgiveness Practice Discussion

The Sanctuary's Virtual Meditation Miracles Sangha will be meeting again via Zoom this Sunday, May 3rd from 2-4 PM. We will practice mindfulness meditation for 20 minutes and then continue with our close reading of Chapter 16 of A Course in Miracles [https://www.miraclecenter.org/a-course-in-miracles/T-16.V.php].

Zoom Meeting link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334
Password: namaste
One tap mobile: 646 558 8656

Summary of our discussion so far in Chapter 16:
False (ego-based) empathy Versus True Empathy

To empathize does not mean to join in suffering. Nor is true empathy selective in any way. Both of these ideas pertain to ego-based empathy, which is actually destructive, ego-strengthening, a form of unconscious attack rooted in guilt and scarcity mentality; what Hoffmeister calls ego-induced politeness rooted in guilt and distinguishes from True Empathy, or Spirit-guided courtesy rooted in joyful communion.

Because our ego has convinced us that (Unconditional) Love is dangerous and irrational, we are totally confused about what true empathy (and so morality itself) really are. Our efforts to really connect and help others are often an ego-trip, an ego-strengthening gesture which maintains separation and the insecurity and judgment which keeps it in place.

We confuse people-pleasing (the codependent inauthentic need to have people approve of and like us) with real morality - deep sense of being with another soul - the “miracle” which reveals our power and Oneness with each other, connects us to Purpose, and removes all basis for Fear and Self-Judgment.

Because we “do not know what empathizing means,” we have no idea how to be a moral person, and so are not even really responsible for our relationships. Hence, "you do not want anything you value to come of a relationship. You choose neither to hurt it nor to heal it in your own way. You do not know what healing is."

This is because, to act without knowing what you are doing is not being responsible at all. This is why the study of true empathy returns us to the insight that we must let go of the need judge - to organize our life (our week, our relationships, our responsibilities, etc.) through understanding and through judgments of relative importance. Instead, practicing devotional agnosticism, we devote ourselves to daily prayer, or: asking for, listening to, and acting on, Guidance which we receive intuitively from Higher Self.

“You do not know what empathizing means. Yet of this you may be sure; if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathize with strength, and will gain in strength and not in weakness.”

4/29 Philosophy of Life Force Energy cont.

Reading for this class
Toru Sato, The Ever-Transcending Spirit, pp. 39-76

Zoom Link

https://zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334

Password: namaste

One tap mobile: 1 646 558 8656  

Endgame for Final Project for the Love of Wisdom

Dear Philosophers,

You have three options for your final philosophy project. All projects must be 5 pages long minimum and are due by midnight on May 13th via email to justin@oursanctuary.org

Have fun! :)

First option: Having Good Judgment Vs. Having Non-Judgment: The Relationship between Critical Thinking & Mindfulness 

What did you learn about the importance and possibilities for critical thinking in terms of one's belief system? What did you learn about mindfulness? What is the relationship between these two abilities? Why learn both? What happens if one is missing? What are their respective roles in learning how to learn? 

Use as many examples as possible to illustrate your points, including: how your views have changed, key insights, what questions have come to light as closest to your philosophical curiosity, biggest surprises, cave-related fears, shifts in self-perception, connections between philosophical questions and personal issues you were facing this fall, attitudes towards judgment, mindfulness, etc.

Second option: Reflection on the Purposes of Education

This class has been designed as an experimental departure from many standard practices used for teaching in higher education. If you found these departures interesting or useful to you, you can use your final project as an opportunity to reflect on your college experience, and on what our seminar has revealed or served as an alternative to. 

What should education strive to offer? How well does this work given standard teaching/classroom practices in college? Did the experimental methods you experienced during our class highlight any limitations on conventional practices or suggest other aspects of learning which are important for growth?  

Third option: Questions about Justice, Energy, Forgiveness and Ufos

You may write about anything we discussed in class, in whatever style you wish within reason, (although formally, certain features are generally encouraged, such as (a) having a key point or thesis or question, (b) logical flow (marshaling evidence to support a proposition or perspective) and/or (c) a developing story). Choose one of the following questions to focus on or make up your own.

1. Prison abolitionists argue for a restorative approach to justice to replace the adversarial model of justice currently institutionalized in what Mariame Kaba calls our “criminal punishment system.” How does this restorative model differ from our current carceral approach? What are some of the practices? What is its view of human relationship?

3. Are humans separate from each other or are they spiritually interconnected and inter-existent? What are the moral and social ramifications for how we answer this question?

5. Does evil exist? If so, what is it? If not, why should we deny its reality?

6. What are the philosophical, social, spiritual and/or practical ramifications of Toru Sato’s analysis of life force energy and its relation to the Internal Conflict Model of Happiness?

7. Is Forgiveness possible and why does it matter?

8. Are some unidentified flying objects piloted by non-human intelligence with advanced technologies? Consider and weigh the evidence for the possibility that advanced non-human civilizations are currently visiting the earth.

9. After Disclosure. How might the world change if and when contact between humans and non-humans (extraterrestrial or from wherever) is verified scientifically and acknowledged publicly?

10. What does looking at human relationships and institutions through Riane Eisler's "Partnership Lens" allow us to see?

The Tao of Qi: Presentation on Life Force Energy

4/27 Philosophy of Life Force Energy

Texts for this class

1. Toru Sato, The Ever-Transcending Spirit, pp. 1-37.
2. Brene Brown TED talk (below)

Zoom Link

https://zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334

Password: namaste

One tap mobile: 1 646 558 8656  

Notes on Riane Eisler & Partnership Societies

Riane Eisler's Key Insights

1. Two models of cultural organization: Power as domination (ranking) versus actualization (linking) The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy, but rather partnership (gylany)

2. Eisler’s new terms to describe fundamental modes of cultural transformation:

Androcracy - a social system ruled through force or the threat of force by men.

Gylany- a social system organized through the linking together of male and female through equal partnership.

3. Two kinds of hierarchy:  dominator hierarchy - system of human ranking based on force and actualization hierarchy - systems based on ability to actualize. (105)

Discovery of Partnership Societies in Old Europe’s Neolithic Civilization

4. Remained invisible to mainstream patriarchal scholarship with its assumptions about male dominance (12) Confusion about how to interpret the neolithic Goddess iconography, as a ‘fertility cult.’ (23)

5. Archeological data supporting a different model of society: partnership - equal size graves, no evidence of war, idealizing of female power to give birth. Females in charge of religious rituals, agriculture, social maintenance. (14) Matrilineal order (24)

6. Civilization as beginning before Sumer - women as the original agriculturists, domesticators of plants and animals. (68)

7. Crete: an example of a long standing partnership civilization with a non-violent state, (equalitarian, sexual equality, peaceful, abundant, focussed on spiritual, artistic and technological development) in contrast to standard view of western civilization as starting in Sumer c. 5000 BCE in Mesopotamia characterized by social stratification, constant war and women as non-citizens. Crete gone by 1100 BCE. (53)

More Examples

8. "Socialism" - From each according to their abilities, To each according to their needs. (a society without bosses, without coercion)

Dominator version - Soviet-style socialism or "state capitalism" - Exploitation of workers by private capitalist bosses replaced by exploitation of workers by the State. The State replaces the private capitalists as the boss, maintaining domination.

Partnership version - Worker-owned cooperatives in which the employees of a company own and manage the company in partnership. 

9. Monetary Systems (a rational way to measure wealth and the Commonwelfare)

Dominator version - Privatized Money created by private banks which bears interest, concentrates power centrally and produces wide-spread debt peonage (slavery).

Partnership version - Money created by governments spent into existence to create new economic acitivity which produces no debt (does not need to be paid back.)

10. Retributive versus Restorative Justice

Dominator version - State-mandated criminal justice

Partnership version - Community-based restorative justice

Criminal Justice	Restorative Justice
Crime is a violation of the law and state	Crime is a violation of people and relationships
Violations create guilt	Violations create obligations
Justice requires the state to determine blame (guilt) and impose pain (punishment)	Justice involves victims, offenders, and community members in an effort to repair the harm and ‘put things right’
Central focus: offenders getting what they deserve.	Central focus: victim needs and offender responsibility for repairing harm.

11. Revenge is not Justice. 

A retributive-punishing system is rooted in the mistake of using emotional pain as a basis for public policy. This system does too much punishing (i.e. the mass incarceration phenomenon) and not enough protecting and “making right.” (e.g. Out of 1000 people who rape, 200 are reported, 20 are moved forward to trial, less 5 are convicted, out of those 1 ends up behind bars, while 83% get away with murder.)

12. Restorative Justice  

Based on an old, commonsense view of wrongdoing as a violation of people and interpersonal relationships. All indigenous cultures use restorative practices, as do many families. Whereas criminal justice sees humans as separate, autonomous beings, restorative justice sees individuals as part of an interconnected web of relationships. People who are harmed are centered in terms of their harm being seen and valued and addressed, bystanders are called in to encircle the person, the person who harmed is called in to take accountability for what was done.

13. Three different questions

Criminal Justice	Restorative Justice
What laws have been broken?	Who has been harmed?
Who did it?	What are their needs?
What do they deserve?	Whose obligations are these?

Common Justice in Brooklyn NY as a model of using restorative practices to deal with violent crime.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (All Are Related) - Lakota prayer. 

Are we separate from each other or are we inter-related and inter-connected? The concept of interrelatedness is key to understanding why needs, roles and obligations are so essential to restorative justice. “In this worldview, the problem of crime - and wrongdoing in general - is that it represents a wound in the community, a tear in the web of relationships. Crime represents damaged relationships. In fact, damaged relationships are both a cause and an effect of a crime. Many traditions have a saying that a harm to one is a harm to all.”

4/22 Identifying Domination Systems, Partnership Systems

Hello Everyone!

Thank you so much for our conversation on Monday inspired by Riane Eisler's work on domination systems. The introduction to The Chalice and the Blade shows that we have been taught a limited vision of human alternatives.  We have also been taught to divide the world into opposing camps such as religious vs. secular, capitalist vs. communist, developing world vs. developed world, light skinned vs. dark skinned races, and so on. To gain insight into how these systems and structures affect humanity it is useful to look at the dominator or partnership aspects in each of them.

For tomorrow, please finish reading the Introduction and Chapter 1, in addition to a chapter of your choosing. Select a quote and be prepared to share and talk about it in class, or you may discuss the following question:

1. Name or identify partnership and/or dominator aspects of particular religions, philosophies, and political structures, focusing particularly on contemporary trends toward partnership and the dominator resistance? 

Please also listen to the following talks holding the question:  How and what (domination system) problems do these thinkers, Arundhati Roy and Vandana Shiva, identify? What partnership solutions do they offer?

The pandemic is a portal - written by Arundhati Roy

The pandemic is a portal - written by Arundhati Roy Author Arundhati Roy's article "The pandemic is a portal" published on April 5, 2020 in the financial times. Ful...

Zoom Link

https://zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334

Password: namaste

One tap mobile: 1 646 558 8656  

4/20 Introduction to the Philosophy of Partnership

With Guest Philosopher 
Jennifer Taylor

Reading for this class
Riane Eisler, The Chalice and The Blade, 
Introduction and Chapter One

Zoom Link

https://zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334

Password: namaste

One tap mobile: 1 646 558 8656  

Zoom numbers for today's class, Wed, April 15th

https://zoom.us/j/3407540334?pwd=RHU1WXl1WkwxUlBKeU5ISGd0TWdTQT09

Meeting ID: 340 754 0334

Password: namaste

One tap mobile: +1 646 558 8656 

Exophilosophy Presentation

Exophilosophy Presentation for MILES Oct. 30th 2017

Jerusalem UFO (2011)



Gulf Breeze UFO (1995)



Mexican Air Force video of UFO (2004)

The 2004 USS Nimitz footage of the "ticktack" UFO.