Thursday 28 February 2013

Letter to my Grandchildren: How are you going to avoid getting caught up in this mess?




This world has many faces, some of which I have seen.  Some are beautiful; the monkey swinging from tree to tree, the elephant in its silent swaying walk, and the sea’s deep rolling sound.  Others are ugly; plastic littering the undergrowth and choking the rivers; the violence and greed of humanity.  You both have beautiful smiles, and as you run towards us with your arms outstretched it is like being drowned in warming sunshine.   You are happy being you; neither of you want to be anything other than what you are.  Your parents care for you; delight in your company when you are awake and relish the quiet when you are asleep.  You are both very young: one embarking on a new, larger world; the other experimenting with sight, sound and movement.  Steadily, almost imperceptibly, you are moving towards independence, standing alone, thinking for yourselves, being yourselves.

How will you fare in this world of many faces?  Will you be devoured by the brutality of it all?  Or will you hold on to that sensitivity that you both so cheerfully possess?   Will the violence of competition, ambition, aspiration engulf you so that you are left struggling in the mire of life that has so carelessly been left by me and my generation?  I have seen them on the streets of the towns and cities and in the villages of India; children of your age struggling to survive, their thin bodies clothed in rags.  I have seen their smiles, fleeting and questioning under the weight of intense hardship.  I have seen them in the streets of Britain, cowering under the rage of desperate parents, already consigned to the role of the under-class.

Will you continue to learn about life, about who you are and feel free to explore?  Today you play by the sea and walk in the hills; you breathe the air that carries the promise of spring, the scent of a summer to come and feel the bite of last chill winds of winter.  Will you when, hard times come to you, as they do to us all, walk quietly to the trees, the shore or the rivers to gather yourselves, to reflect, to find strength?  You both delight in the flight of birds, the scurrying of animals and the swift, darting movements of fish.  Will you care for them?  Will you share your world with them and not crush them under your feet?

When each one of you sits on my knee and we read a book or look at the world outside, your breathing and your bodies are so strong and yet so fragile.  Sometimes you put your arms around my neck and hold your face next to mine and we are together, all of humanity, timeless in communication beyond words, beyond explanation:  the old man and his grandson, for that moment cease to exist.  Then you laugh, slip off my knee and go back to your playing, whilst I watch and learn about you and me.

Will you be forced to fit in?  Will fear come to dominate your every move, as it did for me when I was young?  Will you have to be the best, or will you decide you are no good?  Like us you are the product of your parents, and yet you carry all of humanity within you.  Will you find out what you really love doing and do that?  Will you care for others without being asked?

Both of you are so full of life; interested, thoughtful, over-flowing with questions.  Your lives are just beginning, whilst mine is approaching its final phases.  Yet our lives, yours and mine, are touched by the same fragility and we share the same uncertainty of our continuity. So, though we are divided by time and separated by distance may we learn together without judgement – you need neither my condemnation nor my approval.  It is the joy of being related to all living things that nurtures our spirit, and it is the delight of discovering this that unites humanity.

Friday 8 February 2013

A Dangerous Lack of Compassion: educating the spirit


This week the news has been filled with reports of hospitals where it is alleged that hundreds of patients had experienced extremes in lack of care: being denied water; left dirty, cold and unfed; being given no or inadequate pain relief; dying in a state of extreme distress and with no sense of dignity.  One of the responses from the Prime Minister was that nurses will be paid by the care and compassion they show towards patients, not just how long they have spent in a hospital.  To me this all too clearly illustrates the appalling state we are in – that the value of everything can be measured against what it is deemed to worth in money, demonstrating the assumption that for humanity the ultimate motivation is monetary gain.  Our post-industrial age has evolved to create mechanical responses to human problems translated through analysing data.  We love data!  It proves whatever we want it to prove.  It is better than observation; it is better than listening; because it can be controlled, manipulated and used as irrefutable evidence.

Last night I watched the end of the BBC programme ‘Africa’, the last in the series, where David Attenborough was filmed stroking the rough hide of a blind baby rhinoceros; there was affection in his touch and in the animal’s response.  David Attenborough was speaking about the global danger of the loss of wilderness in that continent, having already described the imminent demise of many species who had survived for thousands of years before the advent of modern man (I use ‘man’ advisedly). This is yet another example of our blind materialism, proclivity towards greed, and lack of sensitivity. In my lifetime I have observed this movement; from the 1960's when I was at school in which there was a sense real concern about peace, the environment and compassion which, for many reasons, steadily became the fragmented self-absorbed individualism of today.

'It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘try to be a little kinder’.'        Aldous Huxley

It seems to me that kindness is fuelled by affection, which is the lifeblood of the human spirit.  We learn kindness through affection and my experience with children, unless there is a serious problem, is that they are naturally affectionate: smiling readily and are unselfconscious, which is different to being shy.  Our systems have no room for affection; this includes our approach to education.  Our conditioning still has much of the Victorian ‘children should be seen and not heard’ which permeates society.  We have a tendency to indulge little children, demonise teenagers, and patronise those in their early twenties – encouraging a small elite of graduates whilst ignoring the rest in this dirty, aspirational race for success. We admire the focused,  the single minded and the outwardly tough. We are obsessed with exams, with curriculum, with measurement. 

We have no time to engage with developing the inner strength of the human being, and we appear to see no value in this.  To me inner strength implies a sense of balance, a confidence that comes not from competitive self-centred activity, but arises from independent thinking and sensitivity to others.  This is not a strength that comes from faith or belief, as this is dependent on an expectation that exists materially outside the individual.  Instead inner strength implies flexibility or flow, like a stream, as opposed to the rigidity and solidity of a rock.  I do not think that inner strength and mental toughness are the same, for inner strength arises from the heart as well as the mind.  Inner strength finds its expression in kindness.

‘The essence of humankind is kindness.  There are other qualities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one’s existence to have a good heart.’    Dalai Lama

So it is possible to state that in having a good heart one has inner strength.  It seems to me that kindness is fuelled by affection and that this is the lifeblood of the human spirit.  The heart is where affection lies; the brain and heart are inextricably linked; and the mind is the combination of the brain, heart and body, all are interdependent.

The question now is:  How can we develop inner strength in others, particularly the young, and ourselves?

I have some observations which I will explore in the next blog.