Comfort and Learning

No one learns anything while being inside their comfort zone.

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday.  The noon mass was packed to standing room only.  At halfway through the mass, the priests placed ashes on everyone's foreheads.  When the last person had gotten his ashes, I looked around the church.  It was more than half-empty.  For most people on this day, the appearance of keeping their faith is good enough.  As long as it looks like they are practicing their faith, people are content.

The day before Ash Wednesday, Samantha mentioned to me that she wanted to learn Kung Fu.  It got us talking about the purpose of learning a martial art.  If the purpose of a martial art is to overcome an opponent, then a martial art is only a stepping stone.  When you learn a martial art, you are borrowing someone else's techniques.  It is only after leaving that art to develop your own way of overcoming an opponent will you actually be "learning" how to defend yourself.

Bruce Lee received instructions in Wu Shu when he first practiced martial art, but he didn't really learn about his art until he developed Jeet Kune Do.  Obviously, not all students who take up Wu Shu will go on to develop their own fighting system.  However, unless a student knows his own strengths and weaknesses, he will never be able to apply what he learned to real life situations.  As long as he stays inside the Wu Shu fighting system, he is inside a comfort zone that has everything spells out for him.  No need to think.  Just memorize and regurgitate.

Of course this principle does not limit itself to just martial art, but to all types of learning.  I have already convinced myself to think outside the Western medicine box...AND preparing myself to be outside the TCM box in the near future.

Similarly, if a Catholic does everything the church tells him to do, then he hadn't learned anything about God.  All he had done is to stay inside the comfort confine of the church teaching.  All he had done is to color within the lines.  Until he questions why the lines are drawn the way they are drawn will he start to learn about God.

Learning and Forgetting - part 2

We visited a friend's house the other day and Sam wanted to play in the swimming pool.  The temperature was in the 50's and the pool was not heated.  We told Sam it was too cold but he insisted on going out there.  It wasn't because he didn't understand what "cold" is.  In the past, he had experienced snow, ice cream, ice cubes, refrigerators, and the Pacific Ocean.  What he had not experienced before is a cold swimming pool.  So after fighting with him to keep him inside, we gave up and let him go out there by himself.  After 15 seconds he was back inside looking for a warm place to cuddle.  This is learning and forgetting.

Understand a concept doesn't mean knowing it.  I once worked with an Internal Medicine resident, who could quote the Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine (12th edition) almost verbatim.  It was truly impressive.  Even after having extensive contacts with patients and their diseases, he would still explain medicine to us as if he was reading directly from the book.  He was unable to talk about diseases in layman's term.  This is learning without forgetting, which leaves little room for flexibility and revision.  This way of learning also imprison you to someone else's words and methods.  It will stand in the way of your mastery of the subject.

What is even worse is that learning without forgetting makes you lazy.  If Sam thought that he already knew what cold was, then he would not even try to find out what a cold swimming pool is like.  He would deprive himself of that experience from the very beginning.   That is a danger of thinking that you are a master of a subject.  You stop learning and start defending.

Learning and forgetting does not mean that you retain nothing of what you have learned.  It does mean that you question everything in front of you and retain only that which resonates with you.  If it sounds like selective learning, it is...because all learning is ultimately selective.  What it isn't is learning with preconceptions and prejudices.  It requires you to experience everything for yourself and not to accept other people's truth at face value. 

Learning and Forgetting

Have you ever noticed that every time you learn something new, you blind yourself a little?  As soon as you are enlightened about a subject, it gets placed inside a box.  Every philosophy offers a unique perspective.  Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, Shamanism are all different ways of looking at the world; but they are also different boxes that people use to hide themselves within.  Some boxes are more comfortable than others, but they are all still boxes.

Mystics tell us that all learning is from within.  Does that mean that outside world has nothing to teach you?  The answer is no...and yes.

Yes, the answers are inside every one of us, but sometimes they need to be sparked.  The answers inside us are like tiny tinders waiting for a lighter, which can be anything or anyone who inspires us.  However, once the tinders are lighted, you extinguish the lighter.   Once you have learned something new, you must forget what you just learned.

Once the tinders are sparked, the lighter has done its job.   You continue to keep the fire going by adding more tinders, or more inspirations from within yourself.  You don't keep the fire going by keeping the lighter on.  The source of inspiration may have been started by something outside of yourself in the beginning, but getting to the Truth from that point on is a journey inward.

If you continue to preach and live the dogma that initially inspired you, then you are keeping the lighter going after the tinders have sparked and died away.  You are no longer living your truth.  You are only perpetuating somebody else's truth.