Frankl Logotherapy and Ibarra Working Identity - Discussion
This is a good book that just keeps on being relevant:
Viktor Frankl's Man's search for meaning
This quote is a favorite and is similar to the quote of meditating as if your hair is on fire.
Hermanina Ibarra's Working Identity
This one I just finished and is related more to career changes but I think this quote sums up a lot of what happens when we finally stop the monkey mind making our decisions for us.
Sometimes we ignore that life is trial and error. Introspection like chess can only go a few moves ahead. At some point we have to make decisions to move forward so we can see further.
Viktor Frankl's Man's search for meaning
...what matters is to make the best of any given situation. "The best", however, is that which in Latin is called optimum - hence the reason I speak of a tragic optimism, that is, an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for: (1) turning suffering into human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life's transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.
This quote is a favorite and is similar to the quote of meditating as if your hair is on fire.
Live as you were living for a second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.
Hermanina Ibarra's Working Identity
This one I just finished and is related more to career changes but I think this quote sums up a lot of what happens when we finally stop the monkey mind making our decisions for us.
Act your way into a new way of thinking and being. You cannot discover yourself by introspection.
Sometimes we ignore that life is trial and error. Introspection like chess can only go a few moves ahead. At some point we have to make decisions to move forward so we can see further.
Adam . .:
I read man's search for meaning a while ago, and i really don't see how it fits... doesn't he say that we should have strong desires and that a "tensionless existence" is a bad thing?
The tension Frankl talks about is tension related to conscience. I don't see how a disappearing conscience or a disappearing understanding of your potential to do good would be a wise thing to do. If anything the process should attenuate self-referencing that would prevent you from following your conscience, duties, and responsibilities. If a person got a tension in their mind because they needed to take care of some important task that could affect other people and then to ignore the tension instead of heed it would cause regret, unless someone were a psychopath. What is more typical for people is seeing a negative feeling tone over completing an important responsibility and giving up from negative self-referencing. If the meditation practice can get people to accept negative feeling tones more (unless they are unreasonable) then it should be possible for those people to complete those responsibilities with less tension. For example if I wash the dishes and I think about Hawaii or about something else I would rather do, then washing of the dishes will be annoying. If I wash the dishes without thinking of anything else but the task, the desire tension will be less. If I have a tension in my head because the dishes piled up and that desire to have them clean pulls me to consider it then I would look at that kind of tension as good. I desire wellbeing strongly.
I'm sure the Dalai Lama can cry and feel tension based on conscience about what one ought to do:
Dalai Lama crying
Then you've got the problem that people have to make important decisions in their lives before they get to 4th path and if they can find good motivations that blend well with Sila then it's not a bad thing. Of course Frankl was not a non-dualistic meditator but he agrees that one should desire to have a meaning and purpose to life. I think he's looking for people to find meaning even in things that could be mundane. If you have to take care of an ailing family member then that can be a meaning for you. Getting attached to a meaning when circumstances provide you with other examples for meaning would then be a problem he would point out. In one case in the book he has to let a woman know that taking care of her ailing son could also be a meaning. Having a meaning based on status versus have a meaning that is based on results can both be desired but the later one seems more selfless. I'm not an expert on the 10 fetters and from Daniel's book it seems that he thinks of the limited emotional range model like this:
It is extremely tempting if we buy into the limited emotional range models to go around imitating an emotionally limited state, repressing or ignoring aspects of our basic human nature. There are some benefits to repressing the manifestations of negative emotions while simultaneously being conscious and accepting of the fact that difficult emotions occur. However, if we repress them and also pretend that they don’t exist, this sort of cultivated denial can also produce huge shadow sides and a lot of neurotic behavior.
Wow that sounds so healthy it's delicious.
I know even less about Actualism but if it's true that emotions disappear then that's territory that is foreign to my mentality and this book may not apply in that context.