What is Your Level of Understanding?

Because this is what happens when you start writing at 9:00 PM and things just keep rolling.

This is taken from my message: A Week of Compassion for August 7th, 2016.

               For many of us, Learning has become an after thought. Perhaps, because of the current construct of our academic institutions and the “there is always something more” paradigm, we have actually started “fleeing” or “escaping” Learning in order to find a more “comfortable” place and devoid of curiosity and challenge. In this flight we can also start convincing ourselves that Learning implies resolution and that when we get a multiple choice question correct on a test we have succeeded in learning something- in breaking the tape at the finish line. Like any process, however, Learning is a dynamic JOURNEY that is not restricted to lecture halls or libraries and encompasses something much greater than right or wrong. In order to truly embrace a life where Learning is a pursuit, a process of integration, we must open our eyes to the many ways in which we observe, appreciate and understand the world.

                 Buddhist psychology offers us an interesting framework in which to expand our concepts of learning and understanding. From this framework, the first level of learning involves the acquisition of knowledge through mere observation, hearing others speak, and reading the written word.  In short, this level is basically accepting what you hear and read to be true and incorporating that into your understanding of the world. This level, however, is rife with bias and assumption and it isn’t until we enter the next level involving conscious reflection, action and reflection once more that we begin to truly deepen our understanding. Encouraged by curiosity and the conscious choice to dig deeper, ask questions, and test what you have heard and seen, this level allows for a broadening of your lived experience, but it too, has its downfall in being quite energetically demanding, requiring regular, conscious choice in one’s action and purposeful reflection. It isn’t until we reach the final level of understanding where, through the lived meditative experience, we seamlessly integrate and internalize our world of ideas, descriptions and practices into something that is simply “just us.”

                   For those of you wondering, what in the world does this mean- this is just too out there for me, you are not alone, and so we offer an example of these three levels of understanding in order to bring all of these conceptual ideas into a grounded, practical perspective. Ever remember your mom telling you it was nice to say please and thank you? You might have thought this was important or on the contrary, rather silly, but in its early stages you accepted and understood this to be something you should do because your mom or dad said so. Level one understanding. Moving forward you started choosing to say please and thank you, greeting others with a friendly smile, giving a gracious hug or returning the favor of another with thoughtful card. Consciously choosing and reflecting upon the acceptance or outcome of your actions, you actually started to understand that showing gratitude and giving thanks was something you did not because your mom and dad said you should, but because it felt good to appreciate others, to connect, to rest in the joy that was that perfect hug. Level two understanding. 

                 Now many of us have likely stopped here, which isn’t a good or bad thing, it just simply is. To reach the third level, however, takes another experience all together, one of deeper contemplation and integration. Anyone know that person at work who always volunteers first to bring in food for the potluck and not just chips or soda,  the person who goes out of his or her way on a Saturday night to pick up that one thing from the grocery store you really didn’t need right at that moment, but would certainly be better off having, the person that offers you a ride home despite living on the other side of town, the person who is always there ready to listen as if you were the only person on Earth with problems? These people, it seems, are almost no longer consciously choosing to be gracious, to put others first, to embody compassion, it is just simply who they are and what they do. This my friends, is our attempt at describing the third level of understanding- an internalization that (in this example) gratitude and compassion are exactly what each moment requires, what every human deserves, and what the world truly needs- all of which, for the described “person” above, does not depend on the “conscious” mind, but on an innate understanding of human existence. Pure, manifested love, embodied joy, and selfless giving realized at all three levels.  

How Do You Pick Your Blueberries?

You may be thinking after reading the title for this post “What in the world does this have to do about health, or what are they teaching you again in medical school?” While I can assure you there is not a dedicated lecture for blueberry picking as part of our biochemistry foundations course, a class on such fruitful splendor wouldn’t hurt (and in my humble opinion- would likely help quite a bit). Terrible jokes and attempted puns aside, I am writing to you now to share a deeply moving story from my summer adventures, and yes, ask you the question you’ve been dying to be asked: “How Do You Pick Your Blueberries?”

BUT, before I delve more deeply into that question, however, I want to take a short tangent to express some thoughts related to this post. As I continue to reflect on all of my writing endeavors, from my “scientific” blog posts and random thought explosions (the ones that crash land into my I-phone, usually when its time to walk across the street or down some awkward steps), to my rambling poetry and weekly email of kindness: A Week of Compassion,

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I have come to realize that writing blog posts or stories on seemingly pure “medical” or “health” topics like “6 Nutrients to Heal Your Gut” or “10 Strategies for Incorporating Mindfulness into Your Life” just doesn’t speak to my heart, and, in truth, I know there are many much smarter and more dedicated individuals in the halls of holistic medicine who have already shared such thoughtful wisdom which will remain readily and constantly accessible for your brain to download. So I provide this realization, not to demean or bring down those writing such pieces, for I read and am nourished by such knowledge daily (PubMed rabbit holes anyone?), but to acknowledge their efforts without feeling a need to repeat or reinvent the wheels, and, more importantly, to clarify the true reason I am sharing this story (about picking blueberries) with you now.

It was July 3^rd, a hot steamy day in North Carolina. I had just spent the last two days with my paternal grandparents on gorgeous Lake Norman in Mooresville, North Carolina, and had now made my way to my maternal grandparents’ old home place in Huntersville, the farm of my childhood and still, current residence of my great uncle and aunt, Dan and Linda Whitner. Now, seven years following the passing of my maternal grandmother (Sydney Whitner Stancil) from metastatic cancer, I found myself walking through the overgrown grass and old go-kart tracks remembering those summers spent with my “country” grandparents. While my maternal grandfather (Bob Stancil) who is still alive and kicking, would likely boast beyond his true “country farm” status, my grandmother was born and raised at home in the soil, working in the family greenhouse and teaching youth in the local grammar school about the beauty held with our most precious neighbors: the world of plants. While showing up some 10 years late to be under my grandmother’s formal tutelage, I was lucky enough to attend my grandmother’s “home school,” full of lessons on baking banana bread, building and filling bird feeders, weeding the vegetable garden, and best of all, picking blueberries. Just ask my mom or dad what my favorite food was growing up and you will almost assuredly get an answer that involves blueberries- if blueberry pizza was a thing you can bet that would have been on the list.

But as I look back now, it wasn’t simply blueberries themselves or eating blueberries bought from the store that stoked my fire, but feeling the early morning dew over my shoes as we walked to the blueberry bushes, hearing the birds sing or cackle as we stole their precious fruit, or smelling the honeysuckles nestled nearby spreading a welcoming joy like no other. For you see, I wasn’t in it just for the blueberries, sure I would more than happily stuff my face with two fistfuls of violet deliciousness for every one that made it into my bucket, but I was there for the stillness, the calm, the peace of the morning with my grandmother, one of the only people in my family that seemed to understand and honor the wonder that was and is silence. In holding this space with nature, she taught me not only how to listen and be still, but how to feel through your heart into your hands with the rhythm of the Earth.

Try to grab eight ripe blueberries all at once, as fast as you could and you would end up with four green “rocks” and two brown leaves without the nearest speck of blue goodness For picking blueberries takes a gentle nature, a patient palm and a willingness to let fall was is to be in that moment. We have become so consumed in our modern lives to see how much we can fit onto our plates and still wake up the next morning saying I guess I can stumble out of bed and do it all over again. We are also commonly our harshest critics, unwilling to extend the same compassion to ourselves that we show to our loved ones. Being gentle with ourselves in each moment, resting in the joy that is our spiritual wholeness, and acknowledge that perhaps, OUR plans, or at least the timing of OUR plans, are not necessarily or likely THE plans. I profoundly believe in our free will and have spoken many times about the choice we always hold to pursue each moment from a place of mindful awareness, but I also deeply believe in a greater intention or “dharma” for our lives- in both life and death. Appreciating the talents and qualities that make each person unique and holding fast to your own deepest values for the joy they bring you are far and away the most important “truths” to our collective human existence.

So as I stood on the North Carolina red clay, amidst the resurrected blueberry bushes, transplanted on life support from my grandmother’s original patch to their current home in the backyard of my great uncle- years past their original life expectancy, I couldn’t help but smile seeing the face of my grandmother burning forever brightly in their dried-up roots. During the years under her caring eye, I had learned to receive each moment with peace, to grasp each blueberry with a humble hand, to cherish the love held within each fruitful bounty, the same love held within each of our hearts. While the years following this lesson have sought to hide and discard this truth, it has been alongside some of the most compassionate and generous friends that I have rediscovered my grandmother’s teaching, her blessing. Transformed from living human cells into the mitochondria, cellulose and membranes of these blueberry bushes, my grandmother was still with me in a new form, guiding my hands to her heart so that I could always hold her close. Suspend your disbelief or choose not to believe at all, it doesn’t matter to me, I have already decided to take the road that science cannot explain, breathing gently with each passing soul, asking the mysterious question, “How do you pick your blueberries?”