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Diary Entry for 5/1/02

Bridge Entry: The Necessary Condition.

How about this as a component of, or necessary condition for, "wrong institution" (or the near enemy of "right institution"): "a situation or condition that eliminates, minimizes, or inhibits the direct experience of the consequences of an action." Boy, the implications of that one are pretty amazing! But I think I'm beginning to get at the heart of the issue (as I see it now, at least).

Diary Entry for 5/6/02

Truth in Consequences.

Wow, that one is a real key concept. It has tremendous explanatory power for me. It is one of those conceptual "nodes" that seems to be at the intersection of a whole range of thougt-trains, and suggests even more possible avenues of exploration, of departure from that node in a dozen different directions. I haven't had something resonate that deeply, that richly, since my "days of discovery" at the Tutorial School. I "tried it out" with J at a session today, and it really seems to open up some amazing potential consequence-implication avenues. We had a great, substantial discussion about it.

We discussed it by way of a segue from the "vessel metaphor" of institutions, and it does seem that they flow that way. One of the implications, obvious to me at the time I wrote the "necessary condition" and applicable in our discussion, was this: anything that isolates an individual from the consequences of an action immediately eliminates any sense of scale or proportion. What one person can do amorally to one person, can be done amorally to a hundred, to 10,000, to a million people. But with the sense of consequence and responsibility comes a "de-metaphorization" of the person (or environment, or self). You are in relationship with that person, and to be in a relationship means to understand, to know, to be compassionate towards, that person. You have not "objectified" him through the filter of a system -- legal, religious, cultural, etc. etc. -- that allows you to be free from the consequences of (a.k.a. "justified in") killing him -- the emotional, deep-seated compassionate response to seeing something/one that is "known" suffering because of what you have/haven't done.

If we were to be aware of, and responsible for, our actions and their effects on those with whom we are in relationship, we would not have the time, the inclination, or the right to treat them with anything other than dignity and validation.

From this vantage point, then, it sure looks to me like the relationship between structure and love is that love is the only real structure.

Post Hoc:

Often when you're having trouble identifying what something is, it helps to be able to clarify what it isn't. So one way for me to narrow down the definition of a "right" organization was to establish some of the key characteristics of a "wrong" one. (I personally prefer the Buddhist concept of "near enemy" to the dichotomous idea of "right/wrong," but the concept of "right organization" is a kind of shorthand for me by now.)

The original handwritten entry for May 1 is filled with crossed-out and inserted words, like the draft of an important declaration or something. I really wanted to get the expression right as it appeared to me. It came to me one night just before I fell asleep; I had to jot it down in the notebook on my nightstand (yes, I am a writer) and then re-rendered it the following day in my journal. Even then, I had to struggle with the wording to make sure it captured the nuanced impression that was in my head.

So have I, in fact, "solved" my koan? Well, I sincerely doubt it. Just the act of putting my solution into words limits it ("classifies" it; puts it in a "vessel" -- all those metaphors that I've used here). So the unspoken resonance of it is already more complete than any expression of it can ever be. Not that I've stopped wrestling with it or anything. Not until the day some enlightened Buddhist master tells me that I've "gotten it" -- not a very likely proposition.

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