There's value in experiencing new things, even if you're not sure you'll like them

We simply don't know what the future will bring. That's a basic fact of life. I was reminded of that today when I rummaged through a drawer where I keep blank notebooks and notepads, making room for a new supply I'd gotten from Amazon.

Down at the bottom of a bunch of rarely used stuff was an envelope. On it I'd written "Will (open -- obviously -- only if I die)" It was a one-page document dated March 2, 1991 called Last will and testament. 

I'd written it in a period between my marriage to Laurel in 1990 and whenever we got around to having an attorney draw up wills for us, which ended up being living trusts. My motivation was stated in the first paragraph:

Before I leave on a trip to California, I want to set down my wishes regarding my personal property which would be inherited by my beloved wife, Laurel, and my beloved daughter, Celeste. 

While this informal will now has no effect, I found it interesting to read. Especially this section:

While I unconditionally give all that I have to Laurel, I hope that she will do her best to carry out these two wishes:

(1) It would give me great pleasure to be able to donate 10% of the value of my property to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas in India. This probably should be accomplished through the comparable association in America. Some of the satsangis could help you determine how to do this. But I only want you to make such a donation when and if your financial situation permits it.

Please think of your needs first, and please make this donation over a period of ten years or so. In other words, figure out what the 10% equals, and donate 1% a year, if this is comfortable for you. For twenty years I have given 10% of my time to my Master in meditation, and it seems only right to give 10% of my assets to this Path which has provided me with so much love and satisfaction.

Well, about fourteen years later I'd stopped being a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, having decided that pursuing other forms of spirituality made more sense to me.

But just as getting divorced from my first wife didn't negate all of the love Sue and I had for each other during most of our eighteen years of marriage, leaving Radha Soami Satsang Beas didn't negate all of the wonderful experiences I had during the thirty-five years I was an active member of the organization.

Recently I wrote about transformative experiences in "If an experience promises to transform us, it's difficult to decide about it." The basic notion put forward by philosopher L.A. Paul is that if an experience (such as having a child) is transformative, the person we will be after we go through that experience is different from the person we are when deciding whether to undergo the experience. 

So which person gets our allegiance? This is a tough question with no easy answers. The best answer Paul comes up with in her book, Transformative Experience, sidesteps the question by approaching it from a different direction. 

In her "The Shock of the New" chapter Paul talks about the decision whether to try a durian for the first time. This is a tropical fruit that I'd never heard of before seeing Paul's mention of it. Wikipedia describes why tasting it involves a bit of a gamble. 

Some people regard the durian as having a pleasantly sweet fragrance, whereas others find the aroma overpowering and unpleasant. The smell evokes reactions ranging from deep appreciation to intense disgust. The persistence of its strong odour, which may linger for several days, has led some hotels and public transportation services in Southeast Asia, such as in Singapore and Bangkok, to ban the fruit.

Here's a passage by Paul that describes one way out of the transformative experience dilemma. 

Instead of constructing the decision in terms of whether you will enjoy the taste of durian or whether you will find it revolting, you can choose to try durian based on whether you want to have a new experience for its own sake, that is, solely for the sake of the value of having the experience, whether what it's like to have that experience is subjectively good or bad. That is, you decide to try a durian for the sake of the revelation the experience of tasting a new kind of fruit brings. 

The relevant outcomes, then, of the decision to have a durian are discovering the taste of durian versus avoiding the discovery of the taste of durian, and the values attached reflect the subjective value of making (or avoiding) this discovery, not whether the experience is enjoyable or unpleasant. If you reconfigure the decision this way, your choice can be framed as a choice of whether to try something new solely for the sake of having the experience that is, for the sake of the revelation it brings.

There's problems with this approach, though, as Paul discusses in other parts of the chapter. For example, in trying something new, like the (mythical) experience of becoming a vampire, we not only have a revelation of what it's like to be a vampire, but we likely will end up giving up preferences we had before becoming a vampire -- like being a vegetarian.

Still, there's a lot to like about looking upon trying new things as an adventure into the unknown that, while the specific outcomes are hidden, we can be sure that we'll learn what it's like to experience that thing -- whether this be pleasant or unpleasant.

When I was initiated into Radha Soami Satsang Beas in 1971 by the guru at that time, Charan Singh, I had no idea how this would end up transforming me. For about thirty-five years I was devoted to the RSSB teachings, though I had doubts about them. Then, those teachings stopped appealing to me and I changed my spiritual course.

But I have no regrets about the time I spent with Radha Soami Satsang Beas, just as I have no regrets about the time I spent with Sue, my first wife. In both cases, I had many good times, and also some bad times.

That's the nature of life: you don't know what will happen or where you'll end up. All you can do is make your way through the twists and turns of life as best you can, making the choices that seem right at the time.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Whenever you choose new experience B you choose to leave new experience A.

Since each moment is new and fresh whatever we do and wherever we are, even doing nothing is actually completely new. We never actually choose to do the same thing. Thinking E are is an illusion.

And so the choice is always into the unknown, whether B or A.

Unless we think we are choosing to avoid the old. Then we don't need to make a choice. B and A are new in either case, whether we can awaken to set it or not. It is never the same. It was never what we thought.

But if we are choosing to avoid B in favor of A, still, we are choosing the unknown. In each moment we are being hurled into the unknown.

[Spence Tepper]

Oops "thinking we are is ann illusion."

[777]

Still doubting(?) L OVE CONNECTED durians need time
ALSO BLESSINGS / QE , LOTS OF IT. - the attention power of the soul.
yOU MAY READ MORE AGAIN
Rumi or so
ILike when U startedf
Some is unfinishzq -n
7 7 7

[Tej]

Hi Brian,
Thanks for sharing.
It's a shame though, that you tend to get senseless and mindless comments after a thoughtful and well written blog post.
Sending you durian vibes from Bangkok.

[sant64]

Krishnamurti asks a very pertinent question: What is the value of experience?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuUGotsbUXk

This is related to Buddhism. We crave experience. But why?

And when we have experiences, be they pleasurable or not, do we in any way possess something of any value?

We may say experiences have sentimental value or nostalgic value. OK, what is that precisely?

We may have spiritual experiences. One of the most remarkable spiritual experiences I ever had was an apparent doorway jhana that somehow arose from Zen meditation. I spent 3 days in a state of solid bliss before it began to fade. So OK, I had that experience 35 years ago. I have no idea how to re-create that experience of intense bliss (Lord if I did I'd be the greatest guru of them all). What value then does that experience have? Does it have any value? If so, spell it out.

The same can be said for sensual experiences. Sex, drink, drugs. Where's the value? I always wondered at Baba Rum Raisin for taking his LDS experiences so seriously. He'd write about how 50 years ago he tripped and the walls melted. OK, so what?

In respect to spiritual paths like Sant Mat, it's also fair to question just what value, if any, there is in seeing lights and hearing sounds, in traversing Bhanwar Guptha, etc. Or perhaps just darshan of the guru causing an intense feeling of rapture. OK, those things may have happened. They are experiences. Where are those experiences now?

Krishnamurti and the Buddha suggest that there's something of value deeper than sensual or super-sensual experiences. I find it in Zazen.

[Spence Tepper]

If there really is an underlying balance and harmony to all things, because in some way they are all connected, then exploring them is a natural desire to return to that harmony and balance.

Unfortunately, from where we are, the actual fulcrum of balance may be quite distant, and even feel extreme or wrong.

Or we might have loved Durian but that Durian may now seem to be so disgustingly sickly sweet, to us, that it is inedible.

But it is actually part of the balance. It is we who have unconsciously moved quite far from the point of balance where all things are actually in harmony. Or we were not in balance and connected when we ate it some time ago.

Durian may become inedible after some time, and ever more so in memory after we have been away from it for years.

But if we return to appreciate it for what it is, its place in nature, engineered by evolution over millions of years, we might just eat a bite again and exclaim "it's perfect." We might discover it was never what we thought. Our palate was immature then. Now we taste it again and it is far more subtle than we ever knew.

Can we see it from a balanced place?

The test would be our return to it. Then we may say, "this tastes nothing like I remember."

[Charles M]

I’m a lurker who has peeped in on your blog postings from time to time, as I have immersed myself in the Light and Sound practice, and came across your blog. I appreciate all angles and I appreciate where you are coming from.

I just want to say I think it’s great that you have made peace with your time with RSSB. I don’t know much about them but I respect the time you put into committing to something.

I like your message. Because I myself wonder sometimes what it will all lead to. But I have no doubt that there is meaning to the path we walk, even if down the line we realize we need to chart a different course.

[October]

IMO
experiences as such has no inherent value. But if we dont experience, whats next?

We are experiencing all sort of things all the time. To keep things simple, if we dont experience something new in spiritual path, what else do we have then.

That is paradox.

We want to move spiritually on whatever path, yet we dont want to experience because its just another word is not right way to approach things.

what i have found is that experiences without underlying script is not worth it.

Say i am at a stage where i am finding myself stuck, how do i move out of that if i dont have new experience. .How do i do that then?

Until i have experience in that context, i am always stuck there. Its story around experiences that matter not experience itself.i call that story a script(which itself is fixed because of no free will)

if you are having all sorts of experiences without a credible moving story around those experiences, experiences doesn't matter. But if your story is moving along with the every new experience, experiences are something we should all crave for. Do you see the point?

simply brushing off that experiences doesn't matter is not right.

And after having all sort of experiences, when we realize its not experience that really do matter but the story around experience, thats true enlightenment . And this thing itself is an experience.

anyway,in Sant Mat
Experience of Love is all that matters, thats true awakening. But to reach that point we all have to go through our own story build around all diverse experiences whether spiritual or not.

Ultimately Experience of Love is all that matters. all experiences are subset of this experience and thats true sant mat is all about.

[um]

@ October and Sant64

Maybe you like reading:

Chater 2 Concerning the religious life
Starting in this PDF on Page: 52
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/cook.pdf

BUt in particular the end of that chater starting on Page 55 with: "" IF the family ..."

[October]

@um
There is some hard truth in those lines.
Thanks for pointing it out.

[October]

It appears as if Siddharta is speaking out there in those lines.
very apt for those who practice Zazen

[um]

@ October

You are welcome.

In all spiritual schools they stress the need of a good teacher and the talent and effort of the student. Laying to much stress on one side or the other, easily creates an trap, an trap that can become problematic to get out Uchiyama addresses these traps in language that all can understand.

In this blog you have been able to see how it works out over the years if to much stress is laid on the concept of an "perfect" teacher at the cost of personal responsibility for ones practice.

Uchiyama explains in many ways how delicate that balance is between a teacher, the student and the social-cultural circumstances the have to be active in.

If one can see through the typical japanese accents, what he writes about practice can be a valuable mirro for all to look in ..not only for buddhists, not only for zen buddhists but for all that take themselves , their life and practice serious.