I saw an anonymous quote this week that says,
| We can act ourselves into right thinking easier than we can think ourselves into right acting. |
This turns out actually to be fun - partly because by definition, it means that the outcome is a surprise.
In other words, I have to try something before I can really know what it is that I am trying. For example, I may have heard that it is a good thing to study hard and get good grades, but until I do it, I really don't understand what this means.
An example more relevant to my own recent experience has to do with my efforts to be consistently on-time. I may intellectually understand the benefits of this, but until I experience them, I really don't understand how pleasant it is.
In other words, knowing something is a completely different experience than doing something. The first has all the benefits of intellectual objectivism, and can bring to bear all sorts of disparate subjects. For example, we can talk about "love" in many of its guises, and dissect it emotionally, socially, biochemically, etc. We can compare and contrast it, analyze and extol (or reject) it in all manners of ways.
But doing something is additive. As we do, we move into the idea not only intellectually, but with our bodies. When our bodies experience the action of an idea, we begin to understand all the intellectual information in more nuanced and powerful ways. Now the idea has become a part of the hardware of our brain wiring. We own it, because we are it.
Not only that, but we come to understand it intellectually in four dimensions. That is, we know it in three-dimensional space as it unfolds over time.
My thought is that this class is about practicing, that is doing - in small experimental doses - actions of loving kindness. These actions are the source of the biochemistry that Barbara Fredrickson describes in her book.
The great thing about this class is that our doing and our thinking are the same! By thinking in focused ways that extend loving kindness to ourselves, our friends, family, pets, or even unknown strangers, we are putting the neurons of our hearts and brains through a set of paces that are better for us than push-ups.
Maybe that's why Mikey said,
In other words, I have to try something before I can really know what it is that I am trying. For example, I may have heard that it is a good thing to study hard and get good grades, but until I do it, I really don't understand what this means.
An example more relevant to my own recent experience has to do with my efforts to be consistently on-time. I may intellectually understand the benefits of this, but until I experience them, I really don't understand how pleasant it is.
In other words, knowing something is a completely different experience than doing something. The first has all the benefits of intellectual objectivism, and can bring to bear all sorts of disparate subjects. For example, we can talk about "love" in many of its guises, and dissect it emotionally, socially, biochemically, etc. We can compare and contrast it, analyze and extol (or reject) it in all manners of ways.
But doing something is additive. As we do, we move into the idea not only intellectually, but with our bodies. When our bodies experience the action of an idea, we begin to understand all the intellectual information in more nuanced and powerful ways. Now the idea has become a part of the hardware of our brain wiring. We own it, because we are it.
Not only that, but we come to understand it intellectually in four dimensions. That is, we know it in three-dimensional space as it unfolds over time.
My thought is that this class is about practicing, that is doing - in small experimental doses - actions of loving kindness. These actions are the source of the biochemistry that Barbara Fredrickson describes in her book.
The great thing about this class is that our doing and our thinking are the same! By thinking in focused ways that extend loving kindness to ourselves, our friends, family, pets, or even unknown strangers, we are putting the neurons of our hearts and brains through a set of paces that are better for us than push-ups.
Maybe that's why Mikey said,
| Try it, you'll like it! |
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