Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Fantasy in Buddhism (or the lack of it) and the role of "inventive pretend" in children's activity



There is a strange op-ed by T. M. Luhrmann in yesterday's NY Times about C. S. Lewis, religious belief, and the role of fantasy, at least from a Western perspective. Here's a bit of it:

In “Mere Christianity,” Lewis wrote that to pretend helps one to experience God a real. In “Narnia” he offered a way to pretend — by depicting a God who is so explicitly not a God from an ordinary human church. Aslan keeps God safe from human clumsiness and error. 
What does it mean that our society places such a premium on fantasy and imagination? “No culture,” observes the child psychologist Suzanne Gaskins, “comes close to the level of resources for play provided by middle-class Euro-American parents.” In many traditional societies, children play by imitating adults. They pretend to cook, marry, plant, fish, hunt. 
“Inventive pretend,” in which children pretend the fantastic or impossible (enchanted princesses, dragon hunters) “is rarely — if ever — observed in non-industrialized or traditional cultures,” Gaskins says. That may be because inventive play often requires adult involvement. Observing the lack of fantasy play among the Manus children in New Guinea, Margaret Mead noted that “the great majority of children will not even imagine bears under the bed unless the adult provides the bear.” 
Westerners, by contrast, not only tolerate fantasy play but actively encourage it, for adults as well as for children. We are novel readers, movie watchers and game players. We have made J. K. Rowling very wealthy. 
This suggests that we imagine a complex reality in which things might be true — materially, spiritually, psychologically. Science leads us to draw a sharp line between what is real and what is unreal. At the same time, we live in an age in which we are exquisitely aware that there are many theories, both religious and scientific, to explain the world, and many ways to be human.

Much has been written about the role of ritual in Buddhism, and that might be where it comes closest to the "role of fantasy" described here, but I think it's a false analogy nonetheless. I think it's a false analogy because, at least in my experience, the role of ritual is performative.  The chants are chants, and to put anything more into the chant other than the chant itself is to make it into something it's not and to distract from it.  Chanting the Heart Sutra  - especially in the way it's been given to us via China and Japan and Viet Nam - is to put its "meaning" into a different category than what we in the West might commonly give it.  It is not pretending by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it strictly speaking any kind of literalist assertion - but it winds up being true nonetheless.  Maybe I'll get back to this regular blogging thing by writing 10 posts or so just on the Heart Sutra, because it could be done.  But I digress.

No, I don't think Buddhism has any kind of this fantasy stuff at all; in some forms of Buddhism, there are some particularly elaborate metaphors, and yes, there are Buddhists that take Bodhisattvas and Buddhas to be actual beings, and at least some are.  But we don't "pretend" this to experience something as real, but rather we try to experience experience on its own terms, I think. 

So that brings into question this whole "inventive pretend" thing for kids, because clearly it's not needed for any kind of religious or moral or skillful training in and of itself.  Inventive pretend probably is some kind of double edged sword - inventive pretend might be useful for children incorporating social memes into their consciousness, but it might also be that the social memes which are inculcated also exclude certain unpleasant aspects of the culture, and that these aspects might be excluded to the detriment of the children and society at large. What sort and degree of "inventive pretend" is needed to create a suicide bomber?

My son did not spend long in this phase of life.  Though he did watch Barney too much, until, like every other kid, he was repulsed by that kind of media. 






Sunday, June 09, 2013

Lost in the forest

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I've not been blogging a lot lately because of extreme business, both with work and with other activities.  

But yesterday something interesting happened, and it's worth, um, noting.

I was going running; lately the weather in the Pacific Northwest has been spectacularly good, which is somewhat odd for this time of year.  It seems summer has come early, and I'm making the most of it.  

As is my habit when I go running, I run outside on trails not far from my home. Yesterday, I chose one in Lacamas Lake Park, whose "map" is pictured above.  Note that the trails' signage isn't well laid out.

I got lost.

It's only a couple of miles or so on each side, but after running 40 minutes, about 3.5 miles, well, you can imagine how I viewed the prospect of another 2-3 miles of walking before I found my car.  I was not happy with the signage, to illustrate dishonestly how I deal with frustration sometimes. And all the Middle European folktales came to mind.  Hansel and Gretel. Ah! So that's why they have these tales,  I thought; it's a bit unnerving to be lost in the forest, and if it's a big one you could get dead.  And in fact every year in the Pacific Northwest it happens to at least one or two people.

And after a while, with my legs aching, I realized there was nothing I could do except continue on to try to get out; asking people I saw for the right path out (who said, not particularly helpfully, "There's signs.")  So I kept trying, and luckily had a practice that I kept as I kept trying.

And I realized it was a metaphor for life; we're all lost in the forest, and trying to get out, and there's nothing we can do but keep trying.  We don't want to be there, and it's not entirely "our" fault, but  we're there and we have an honest to goodness plight.  We all have a plight. And the signage may or may not be reliable. Even when it says "YOU ARE HERE" you may still not be where you think you are, and may not know where you're going.  But you've got to keep on the path.

I don't know if there's a koan about this but there really ought to be.  Sometimes it's amazing how existence just has these nice scenarios laid out so you can assign a metaphor to it related to practice, you know? They're there so you can remember to practice.