The Cure For Cancel Culture

By Hunter Reynolds, on November 14th, 2023

In a time when “wrongthink” can get you digitally assassinated and demonized by those you once called “friends”, the place of opinion in everyday life is being called into question. This is particularly true for people on a spiritual path.

What is the function of opinion for those who practice “meditative relating?” Is it delusional or dissociative to bypass opinion and go directly into communion? What does a presence-infused opinion look like?

The answers emerge as we track the progression from “position,” to “point of view” to “stages of lens-cleaning.”

Fixed Position

At some point, we all fall prey to fixed and polarizing positionality. This movement of mind has evolutionary value and is worthy of respect. It reflects the mind’s need for orientation, order and a lawful code of ethics that reign in egoic reactivity and provide for a smooth-running society. At the purely legalistic level, judgement is appropriate.

The problems arise when we take a legalistic approach to personal relationship, extending judgement and unsolicited advice for ego-hardening reasons.

At this stage, “getting others to agree” is essential because it tells “our fleeting mist of skin cells” that it’s having real world impact and that it, too, is solid, separate and real. Innocently and unknowingly, we are asking our reluctant convert to join us in our “dream turned solid.”

At this point, the accuracy or inaccuracy of our advice is irrelevant. The “imaginary other” has become a symbol of all the Samsaric confusion that is tearing down our world and, minus their conversion, we cannot, in good conscience, rest. Alas, there is no end to the evilness and anarchy perceived by “orphaned ego on a countdown.”

Bedeviled by fixed opinion and unsolicited advice-giving? Consider the possibility that the brainwashed and dangerously ignorant “out there” are dark symbols of the real menace within: a runaway problem-solver.

What if “orphaned ego on a countdown” hardens identity through the activity of finding, fixing and feasting on problems? What if “Orphie’s” evangelizing is actually a fit of restless “selfing” and he has, deep down, no genuine desire to enlighten souls or improve society because if he ever succeeded in this endeavor his restless, world-saver paradigm would crumble, throwing him into a debilitating disorientation that, if passed through, might actually awaken him– here and now– to the “better world” he was fighting for?

Perhaps this punchy paraphrasing of the dharma will shake Orphie out of his trance:

Ego is a identity-grasping machine. Only a madman would cast judgement on its gears.

To the shadow hound, communion with ageless innocence is Kryptonite.

There is always only one thing happening: an apparent self is encountering an apparent not-self, testing our powers of concentration. Will the Merciful Witness subsume and absorb the duality? Or will attention get sucked into the erupting chemistry?

Stages of Lens-Cleaning

Opinions that are softly held, tentative and open to revision are, more accurately, “points of view–” implying that an object may be seen from of an infinite number of angles.

Points of view arise as fluid, ever-evolving lenses whose value is measured by the well-being they succeed or fail to evoke– not just in ourselves, but in those we claim to know and love.

Hard-edged opinions relax into points of view. Points of view mature into “stages of lens-cleaning.”

What, exactly, is being wiped clean? Conditioned ideas about who we are, who others are and what we imagine the world to be. Minus meditation– and a community of conceptually quiet, soul-mirroring friends– these pesky preconceptions operate in the shadows, impeding our access to Beginner’s Mind.

Nonetheless, each stage on the journey to “pure seeing” has provisional value, providing essential egoic orientation and grounding, without which we would fracture into psychological overwhelm, chaos and self-destruction.

Truth Bombs

To challenge and crack another’s paradigm prematurely without building up a foundation of trust- a palpable celebration of their soul’s benevolent essence- often causes people to contract and backslide into even more rigid, presence-killing positions.

What is needed is a deeper understanding of the truth-blurting impulse.

As what, are you speaking– awareness having a personality, or a me-story gone rogue?

The truth-bombing mind is self-absorbed. Its well-meaning counsel is ineffective because it speaks mind-to-mind instead of soul-to-soul. Why the mad rush to rewire another’s synaptic activity? Because, for a moment, “knowing” seems to harden an otherwise ephemeral– and largely chaotic–collection of me-stories. In every proselytizer is a “separate somebodyness” desperate for affirmation. They sincerely believe they are saving the world. What they’re actually doing is saving themselves from the ego-dissolving power of the present moment.

Naked seeing, on the other hand, cuts through the fog of knowing, dissolves superficial differences and turns us into brokenhearted self-inquiry coaches. Timeless Presence speaks through us and everything we say is an invitation: “Join me, as we release the fear of extinction that drives chronic “selfing.”

Contemplative Catalysts

Perhaps the following “contemplative catalysts” will help purge us of this identity-grasping positionality:

1. Relative to their previous state of understanding, a so-called “delusional” soul may, in fact, be making great strides forward. If we dismantle their belief we have no way of knowing what dark perspective they will default into before (possibly) adopting ours. Sure you wanna open up Pandora’s box?

2. Orphaned ego-on-a-countdown does not want to be here and any attempt to “enlighten” it enough to adopt our values and philosophy or vote for this or that “world saver” is doomed to fail. Until, by God’s grace, we inhabit consciousness in a way that inspires another soul to know itself as Deathless Being, our so-called “greater truth” is an insufficient upgrade.

3. By pushing others to “see differently” we are not only presuming that our understanding is superior to theirs; we are demonstrating a fundamental distrust in the evolutionary necessity of taking on beliefs that hurt and limit us. Who needs to rush souls through the pain of conceptual adolescence? Have we lost faith in the Omniscience pulling us through this messy, incarnational drama? If so, why on earth would they look through our curriculum-parched eyes?

Bottom line: if we wish to inspire someone to take another step on their lens-cleaning journey we must question the logic of the advice-addict:

The world is saved by hard facts and a well-honed bullshit indicator (not soul-seeing presence) and my unsolicited critique- however aggravating- is justified if it helps you wake up to “my” stage of lens-cleaning.

The Perfection of Imperfection

The urgency to purify another’s point of view reflects a misunderstanding about the role of imperfection in the world. The fact that life is imperfect creates in us a sense of lack that pulls us toward a perfection which is invisible. It pulls us into a deeper reality.

The same holds true for “imperfect” believers.

Whatever joy or pain another’s beliefs are causing them is their divinely ordained work. The question is, will we do the work of having faith in their lens-cleaning journey before attempting to “enlighten” them? If not, we will worry, criticize and condescend–employing all manner of cajoling and manipulation to get them “on the same page” as us. Why?

Ego will say “because I care.”

Years (or lifetimes) later we will, by grace, confess: We needed them to validate our worldview precisely because it was so shaky. Our faith in the divine hand guiding each soul through this lens-cleaning dream of separation was faltering and insufficient, so we took control of the situation by imposing our own ramshackle “order” upon them.

This is how friendships die.

Collaborative Self-Inquiry

Better to cultivate curiosity about the evidence they use to justify their belief and earnestly immerse ourselves in their worldview– then report back to them how it feels to look at the world through their lens. What endarkens us may motivate them. Only in this curious, mutually respectful way will we remember, together, what “beliefs” actually are (stepping stones to the cliff edge of thought) and enjoy the journey from opinion to “point of view” to “stages of lens-cleaning.”

A teacher, counselor or spiritual friend worth his salt earns the right to perform an intervention by first building up trust over time. They must enter— and in some way validate— the person’s worldview before challenging it. If they cannot enter– due to being insecurely self-involved or because their paradigm does not overlap enough with the other’s to successfully communicate– collaborative self-inquiry is impossible.

Agreement or disagreement, at this point, is irrelevant. We have no business commenting.

Beliefism

Remember: opinions, loosely held, are not the enemy. Fashioning a defensible position sharpens logic and encourages ethical accountability. This article is, itself, an exercise in spiritual logic and sensemaking: the cornerstone of self-inquiry and the Dharma.

Clearly, the soul enjoys exercising the mind- if only to infiltrate the other ones! As the Dalai Lama once said of the New Age: “Lacking rigor.”

The problem arises when belief gets mixed up with identity and an attack on one is an attack on the other. I call that, “Beliefism.”

The further along a soul moves from position to point of view to “stages of lens-cleaning” the more forgivable our own and other’s conceptual posturing becomes– until, finally we see it:

Every movement of mind, every stage of seeing, is innocent and essential. They are the twigs God uses to weave a nest for the ground of Being: the ultimate navigator.

How can we move more steadily nestward? By pausing, regularly, to ask: Am I opining or divining?

May God give birth to an army of contemplative catalysts.