"The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he is unable to sit quietly in his room," wrote Pascal.
I imagine it's pretty hard to sit quietly in your room if you live in Gaza, or any of the troubled areas of the world. (i.e. much of it.)
Did he mean if we sit on our bums, the sum of unhappiness in the world will decline? Is this the ultimate escapism, the depths of irresponsible selfishness, the ultimate political quietism?
I think it needn't be. Eliot said we are "distracted from distraction by distraction." I offer you, good people of the jury, Facebook and Twitter. Whatever is good about them (much, for many) they are also an easily-available seductions into distraction, an invitation to put aside consistent application and reflection, an opportunity for a short snarl, a nasty but brief verbal attack. I think they tend to make us sit unquietly in our rooms, or on a train staring into our phones.
I take Pascal to mean that calm thought, whether it's the longitudinal pursuit of reason and analysis, or the presentmomentness of meditation, or reflective states of creativity, or some kinds of prayer - calm thought is the only way to develop the wholeness of an integrated personality, of someone who may at least have the potential for happiness in him/herself, and therefore of creating happiness in others.
Would you agree that happiness, like unhappiness, can be be infectious?
(You may, like me, feel that happiness - joy, perhaps - is a spontaneous sort of thing, whereas contentment is a more lasting state of being. In which case, please substitute "discontent" for "unhappiness," with due deference to Pascal.)
Living in what might happen next, or what has happened, rather than at least trying to find content in where you are, surely makes us chase our tails. Sitting quietly in a room means our tails can be tucked safely out of the way and we can be what we are right now, for a while at least.
Whilst we were canvassing for a general election candidate yesterday, a good friend who is giving so much more to it than I am, said "I'll be pleased to get my life back on June 9th."
At elections people divide, and argue about the divisions - we have to. Policy choices must be made. Then after an election, people gradually drift back into their usual associations, which frequently work round and over the top of political differences. That re-grouping is essential too. But it's getting harder. It was particularly hard for many of us after the EU referendum.
A bit of sitting quietly in our rooms may be very helpful when all the scratching and blaming and arguing - necessary, unavoidable maybe - is done. But it would help if more of the arguing was more civilised, less of a cheap headline howl, less personalised. It might make it easier to get back normal again - whatever that is.
This man is the tip of an iceberg, in that he is a
successful academic in the field of Buddhism and its ancient languages
(Pali and so on, "so on" being a tacit acknowledgment that I am out of
my depth here...) and a teacher of meditation for over 25 years. He's done the hard yards, went to India aged 17, lived it in India and Sri Lanka
When he talks to you and guides you, as he did
yesterday in Bangor, he's
the tip of an iceberg because he is friendly, informal, relaxed and
engaging. His scholarly knowledge, his experience and his Buddhism he
puts to our use on such a day, not to any self-aggrandisement,
defensiveness, or display. He also uses references from our own
(European, North American) cultures, which help with bridging any gaps between, er, Pali, and me.
He opened with an absolute favourite quote of mine on the destructive nature of not being in the present moment:
"We never keep to the present. We recall
the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming
and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its
too rapid flight.
We are so unwise that we wander about in
times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that
does; so vain that we dream of time that are not and blindly flee the
only one that is.
The fact is that the present usually
hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we
find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away.
We try to give it the support of the
future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have
no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching.
Let each of us examine his thoughts; he
will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost
never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see
what light it throws on our plans for the future.
The present is never our end. The past
and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never
actually live, but hope to live, and since we always planning how to be
happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."
Wise if troubling words, by a shrewd old bird, Blaise Pascal:
Then towards the end of the day John Peacock quoted from a group of peoms I frequently rummage around in, TS Eliot's "Four Quartets," in this instance, "Little Gidding:"
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time...."
Given this congruence between John's favourites and mine, I'm bound to see him as a genius...and will write more soon about the main and many benefits I took from his input. Here's TSE, looking slightly pained by my frivolity, to play us out:
Take it, Tom:
"....Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."
