The contemplative construction of reality

We are born to distraction

We are born to distraction

“ A major perspective in explaining how we perceive reality is the concept of the “social construction of reality” [it]privileges communication as the major channel for creating shared meaning.”
Mara Adelman

When nightingales break the law

"Communication becomes visible only against the field of silence [...] and the social construction of reality has a complement, the also necessary contemplative construction of reality."

"Finding ways to protect silence as an arena of personal and social choice is particularly poignant [...] at this frontier moment for the human species.”

Attention

“The dialectical perspective is grounded in the notion that we need to examine contrary perspectives that [...] vacillate in nature. Like a tightrope, these “oppositions” are held in tension and only momentarily resolved.” Mara Abelman

Is it good or bad?

Contemplation Activism

• Cultivating fluidity to see background and foreground beyond motivated reasoning
• What is not being attended to?
• See the world as it presents itself to the eye not just impose a shape on it
• Mind chatter is the boundary of conscious and unconscious, we train the mind to access it in silence
• Else, fast always wins.

Untitled Slide

Mind chatter

Dialectically, social and contemplative practices can oscillate, feeding into each other, as a cycle of activity and respite; a pulse for everyday life. Mara Adelman

Contemplation Activism fights to maintain the human pulse of life

Bring contemplation (back) to the fore

• Know we embody the obsolete in mind chatter - train the mind
• Protect silence as a personal and social choice - inconvenient choices
• Anthropomorphising the clock, brings only temporary relief
• Every decision excludes (or should) as much as it includes