Three Minute Meditator

I used to scoff at the idea of reading The Three Minute Meditator by David Harp and all the rest of the spiritual and Eastern philosophy books that my wife owned. But when I felt a deep sense of spiritual emptiness last year, I finally gave it a try.

I have not attained enlightenment. That is too much to ask for. But I am happy I read the book for I feel I now have a tool to observe the mind and, little by little, control it. I never realized how powerful the mind works until I tried meditating. I still find myself surrendering to the emotion instead of observing the thought, but I find the awareness liberating.

Everything that causes mental pain begins with a thought. And if the thought can be observed, then mastered, then the pain itself can be avoided or, at least, mastered. If I can integrate meditation into my daily life, I will react better to setbacks. I will overcome them faster. Not only will be a more effective person, I will also be a happier person because I will learn to live in the now.

On the Road

Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty are today's equivalent of people going through a quarter-life crisis. In their case, however, both having failed at their marriage, they seem to have never overcome the crisis. They are a bunch of beat men, hitchhiking and driving across the country several times just for kicks. Life is a series of adventures with no particular goal except to run out of land and reach the sea, the end of the road.

On the Road is a mad series of journeys across America, taking in the thrills of drinking and drugs and jazz music with little regard for the past or the future or the families left behind. It was great to be part of this journey knowing I myself cannot take it for then I would have to be mad or intoxicated as Dean was. Still, it has kindled a desire to be on the road, to see wide expanses of land, to drive up and down mountains, to reach the sea.

Nihilism and Emancipation

Gianni Vatimo's Nihilism and Emancipation is a work that surprisingly resonates with my own thoughts. A postmodern work that rejects foundations, it does not degenerate into a crass moral relativism nor does it resort to a leap of faith to satisfy the sense of grief after realizing there is no Being. Nihilism is simply the recognition that there is no metaphysics, no essential structure on which to found morality. There is only interpretation.

But I share Vatimo's attitude with Dewey in that they do not despair over the recognition that there is no ground beneath our feet. Paradoxically, he sees nihilism as a path to emancipation, which is the reduction of violence. Emancipation is achieved because most constraints to freedom are based on foundationalist claims of a prior Being, a natural law or a deity, used to silence dissent. But Vatimo argues that the alternative to the oblivion of Being is not necessarily a reversion to the state of nature. Rather, rules that respect and recognize history and context evolve through dialogue.

Thus, one arrives at a world where there is more room for love and kindness, and a recognition that we are all human, all too human, rather than one of rules and codes derived from a discovery of Being.

The Continuing Past

Renato Constantino's The Continuing Past is the sequel to his nationalist and revisionist history A Past Revisited. The book covers the end of the Commonwealth period, the Japanese Occupation, and the Third Republic up to the Macapagal Presidency. It is explicit in its nationalist orientation as a critique against standard texts taking a Western perspective. It is devastating and illuminating in its critique of the megalomania of McArthur and the intervention of the CIA to catapult Magsaysay to the presidency. It is not, however, blindly anti-American for while it criticizes American policy, it is even more unforgiving of what Recto labeled as our mendicant foreign policy. It is understandable that America protects its national interest; it is lunacy for Filipinos to think that our interests coincide with America's.

I disagree with Constantino's advocacy for industrialization and criticism of agriculture. Perhaps his views were viable forty years ago, but in today's globalizing world, it would be suicidal to compete against Chinese manufacturing, and Brazil's successful development of agriculture for export is probably worth emulating.

We continued to act like a lapdog when we supported the US invasion of Iraq and we looked even more foolish when we withdrew our contingent of noncombat troops when a Filipino was held hostage by Iraqi fighters. We obviously did not learn our lessons from the extraterritoriality of American bases when we agreed to a VFA that allowed a serviceman accused of rape to be detained in the US embassy. The removal of US bases did not end the special relationship with the US. In foreign policy, at least, the past truly is continuing.

God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy's novel is breathtakingly beautiful. It is poetry masquerading as prose. Its evocation of the hot and brooding atmosphere of Ayemenem overlaid with the complex cultural and political conflicts of the time rivals the Heart of Darkness to which the book refers several times. The innocent worldviews of the twin children are simply devastating when viewed against the backdrop of an inevitably tragic destiny. Inevitable because love is not always enough to overcome centuries of prejudice.

This magnificent work of art is also an expression of Indian culture and language. One is able to peer into the best and the worst of millennia of Indian history. The language is so full of sound, rhythm, and imagery that one can almost hear it in Mayalayam. Roy is truly a gifted writer. I hope I can read a Filipino novel that similarly impresses on so many levels.

Experience and Nature

John Dewey's Experience and Nature is the first pragmatic work I have read. Although at times difficult because of my scant background in the philosophy of knowledge, I found it illuminating and stimulating. The book is an extended critique against the artificial dualities that so extensively pervade the way we think such as the distinctions between mind and body, and experience and nature. It is an argument for understanding the relationship as one of continuity and context.

Indeed, I find it easier to believe that experience is not distinct from nature, but is a part of nature. In the course of evolution, an organism called man developed a mind and a consciousness capable of apprehending nature through the senses and then accumulating such perceptions that then constituted experience, which then influenced how he subsequently perceived nature. To claim special powers for man by saying he has a mind separate from and observing nature from the outside is more difficult to accept from a scientific and empirical perspective, but that is, of course, the Christian viewpoint.

Democracy in America

De Tocqueville, in his incisive political treatise Democracy in America, attributed many of the features of the American polity to the general equality of conditions pervading in society. Because most of the citizens were neither extremely rich nor destitute, they easily formed associations, believed strongly in majority rule, and had relatively uniform views on politics. America may be prone to the dangers of the tyranny of the majority, and the lack of refined aristocratic taste, but the spontaneous formation of groups and the individualistic focus on economic welfare prevented politics from becoming the winner take all, life and death struggle that characterized class-ridden European polities. America just suffered the worst recession since the Great Depression, but it remains the single most powerful and most important nation on earth despite the imminent rise of China.

Through the obverse logic, much of Tocqueville’s analysis may be relevant to Philippine politics and similar countries characterized by high inequality of conditions. A small group of wealthy families continue to dominate politics and economics. Patron-client ties remain the typical relationship between the elites and the masses although the mass media now mediates this as attested by the rise of celebrities in politics. All of this makes the spontaneous formation of associations unlikely, much less the creation of stable political parties, which almost guarantees that elections are won by those with money and fame instead of those with the best party programs. Such is the state of Oligarchy in the Philippines in the 21st century.