saying something

I thought I would say something about the blog title.. a very northern Irish saying.  I found an article in Sociological Research Online with this same title which asserts: 

"When strangers in Northern Ireland meet, they draw upon a variety of cues in an attempt to ascertain each other’s religio-political identity and, depending on the outcome, enter into what Burton (1978) terms ’systematically distorted’ or ‘pseudo-communication’. "

This brought a smile to my face, although I haven’t lived in N Ireland for a long time (23 years to be exact)…..  all the little cues you looked for in what someone said that would be a dead giveaway as to whether they were Prod or Catholic (ok – what their religio-political identity was).  And the questions you politely asked if you couldn’t work it out in the first minute or two of conversation.  And then the pseudo-communication – oh yes indeed!!  I guess (and I’m very happy to be corrected) that the phrase ‘Whatever you say, say nothing’ is advice to heavily edit what you say unless you know who you are saying it to lest you inadvertantly let slip something that might get you into deep you-know-what.

This made me think about writing a blog and how it’s easy to imagine at first who might be reading it (no-one? your friends? your family?? your preceptor???) and therefore to suddenly find yourself editing the content when you realise that actually all of them could be (although probably none is….).  I suddenly started to realise why so many blogs are anonymous!!  It would be really great to just pour out all those inner thoughts without a care in the world who was going to read them, but it’s just too scary for me, I am a embarrassed to admit.  Work in progress.  There’s a lot more that could be said here in terms of this sort of self-censorship – is it valid or even interesting to write this sort of thing if some of what is going on is edited out?  Is it meaningful communication at all?  What does it mean to me to be typing this at this very moment?  Answers on a postcard please.  Perhaps I will check out Sociological Research again…

Deckchairs

This is just a quick post because I fear my blog is gathering dust…..

Over the new year we ran a retreat on the Four Mind Turning Reflections (or the 4 reminders, as they are sometimes known).  These are:
the preciousness of our human birth
death and impermanence
karma and
contemplating the defects of samsara.
They sound like sobering stuff, and indeed they are in one sense, but in another way if we can really take them to heart they somehow set us free from trying to make our lives ‘work’ in a way that we often know won’t quite come off in the long run. Giving a talk on death and impermanence really pushed me up against the fact that life IS short – an unknown span in fact – and that whatever I want to do with my life I need to get on with it NOW.  Why waste time rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, as a Dzogchen teacher said.  After the retreat I spent a few very enjoyable days in London (yes, doing a certain amount of deckchair rearranging!) – seeing Charlie and my sister Lesley and her family and reacquainting myself with the family gene for deadly competitive charades.  I also saw a great play at the National – The Seafarer by Connor McPherson.  A funny, sad, haunting theme of the human need for connectedness.  Now I’m just about to start another retreat here – this time the 2-week Transcendental Principle, studying the core Buddhist teaching of conditionality.