Disambiguation

Isn’t that a wonderful word? It carries a couple of meanings. On the most basic level, it is the act of making unambiguous, or, to put it another way, the attainment of clarity. It also has a linguistic meaning, which is the establishment of a single semantic or grammatical interpretation of a word or phrase – for instance the word “bass” can be both a fish and a low, male voice type. Disambiguation clears it up.

I’m using the former definition in regards to what I experienced this past weekend. I was mired in ambiguity, betwixt and between (to use a cliché), and struggling with anxiety – both of known and unknown causes. Finding myself in a bit of an existential quandary and facing some long-standing demons, I started to listen to and read Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth.” In it, he suggests that we (many, if not most of us) are driven by ego and thoughts, that we define ourselves by what we think and believe rather than who we really are behind our thoughts, behind the received wisdom that colors so much of our thinking and our behaviors. He talks about how we often take (perceive) negative events (even something as impersonal as a snowstorm) personally, as if the weather cares about us one whit!, one iota!, and demonstrates the awakening power of separating one’s self from an emotion and recognizing it for what it is, thereby defanging it of its power to cause anguish.

While this entry will in no way be a comprehensive study of Tolle’s book (I’m still reading it, after all), I would like to share one remarkable re-casting of the word “sin” that he provides early in the book: He writes, “Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering.” Wow. I love that definition. It makes so much more sense to me than my previous understanding of the word, which had something to do with doing bad things like stealing or lying or cheating on your taxes.

In this definition, Christianity’s “original sin” (a term with which I have never been comfortable) is not as harsh as it has always seemed to me. It is a missing of the mark, an error, or, for tennis fans, an unforced error. Isn’t that radically different than a clear “wrong?” Tolle writes of a “dysfunction inherent in the human condition.” This dysfunction is, largely, a confusion between the endless array of thoughts that stream through our minds constantly and the notion of who we really are. We think that our thoughts define who we are when, in reality, who we are is simply who we are. Behind the thoughts. In spite of the thoughts, perhaps. Our thoughts matter, of course, but they no more define who we are than what we order for lunch does.

My first posting to this blog was entitled “Embracing Ambiguity.” This evening, I am enjoying embracing disambiguity. Clarity. Peace. As Confucius said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” I think the beginning of being able to do that is recognizing that our feelings do not define us; they are part of us. Recognizing that our response to any given situation is more operative than the situation itself. As Tolle observes in his book, "The Power of Now," (and I'm paraphrasing here) even on the cloudiest day, the sun is still there, it’s still in the sky, we just can’t see it for a short time. But we can take comfort in the clear and certain knowledge that it is still on the job.

Namaste.