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Edge States class (spring 2020)
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Topic starter
May 28, 2020 9:00 pm
I was quite taken by John Paul Lederach’s approach talked about under the topic of “The Practice of Rehumanization” in Roshi Joan’s book. I love using the future as an approach to seeing the veils that obscure our view in the present. One thing he speaks of is “grandchild imagination” – that our grandchildren and the grandchildren of our enemies may have an intimate and common future I can’t think of a better example of This that the polarization around communism that was so important to all of us growing up in the 50s and 60s and 70s – the blacklisting – The duck and cover – all the propaganda which ‘othered’ Russia so that none of us knew anything real about that country. And now – we work with Russians, we study with Russians, we adopt Russian babies, we elect them as leaders. It’s really quite amazing – that a people once treated as so scary is so NOT. What can this teach us about now?
May 29, 2020 3:37 pm
Pat,
I like this part of the chapter too. When I read this part about “grandchild imagination” I thought about Dogen’s “grandparental mind” that he describes in the Tenzo Kyokun. It suggests our practice involves cultivating a mind of caring for the world including self and other. I suppose you have a point that it may even mean caring for our so-called enemies who may become our friends with time. I also thought about Norman Fisher’s book about the paramitas, The World Could Be Otherwise. He suggests that the practice of the paramitas involves imagining a better world than the one we are in and working in the world to create the conditions for that place.
June 3, 2020 9:28 pm
I was really struck by Zoketsu Fischer’s approach to the paramitas through imagination. This seems pretty creative to me, for Buddhist teaching – we are always invoking reality.