OPM 132, June 25th Meditation, Being and Learning, ch 6, pp. 137-138

OPM 132 Day 5 on Mt. Desert Island, , Pine Cone Cabin, Hodgon Pond

The first sentence from the meditation OPM 132 raises the question I was beginning to raise yesterday in my commentary reflection: “If, as Aristotle say, ‘it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach, for artists can teach, and men of mere experience cannot,’ then where are we to situate the Sage who take direction from the Tao, and welcomes the ineffable and the gap that preserves plurality by sheltering the possibility appearing in the ‘not yet’?  If the Sage is the one who takes up residence ‘next to’ Being, becoming the neighbor of openness itself, then how are we to identify [him] within Aristotle’s lexicon?” 

Aside from this opening sentence representing the kind of layered and referential writing that is so characteristic of these meditations, the question is one that prompts a whole series of philosophical questions, most of them revolving around the figure of the ‘artist teacher’ (technician, instructor) depicted by Aristotle, and the figure of the ‘learning leader’ denoted by Heidegger as the one who ‘lets nothing else but learning be learned,’ and ‘has far more to learn than the learner because he has to learn how to let them learn,’ and so is on far less stable ground than they are.  

I’m truly prompted by the question raised  at the beginning of OPM 132, especially after the experience I had today when we were biking on the carriage road around Eagle Lake.  Just after the half way point we encountered a very old mountain stream that ran down from Cadillac Mountain.   The stream has a primeval quality to it.  Indeed, I’ve never before in all my years of hiking in forests encountered a stream with such a consistent pattern of moss covered rocks that are themselves of such a common shape and size.  Here are some pictures.

I’m normally drawn by the sound of the stream’s movement, which is unlike any sound when you experience in the space of a thick forest away from the sounds of machines, or other human made objects.  In this particular spot, the bubbling of the brook was complemented by the songs of birds echoing in the forest.  “This is a place for meditation!” I declared to Kelly.   I sat for a photo, but also, I’d hoped, to be taken in and taken away by this place.  Unfortunately, I was, on the contrary, taken away from the spot by Jaime, who, at that moment, woke from his nap in the Hurley carriage, insisting that we move along (so he could resume his ‘meditation’!)   I share this story because as we got underway I couldn’t help but drift off into reflection, and into the very question that I’m taking up this evening as I reflect on the ‘status’ of the Sage’s ‘knowledge’:  How did I ‘know’ that was a place of meditation?   Was it from year’s of experience in thinking about meditation, and knowing well the iconography of the practice (the artwork, the gardens,  etc., that both inspire and organize meditation thinking)?  Or was there something there that called my attention, that drew me in and invited me to sit, listen and look with reverence? 

What Aristotle calls the ‘man of experience’ might also be the one who has experiences, who is experienced, which is to say, is able to experience the presencing of unique places.   This person ‘knows’ how to receive what is being offered, and also knows how not to ask for more than what is being offered.  He is person of humility, and gratitude.  Aristotle’s ‘artist’ strikes me as one who does not simply take in what he is experiencing.   Rather, he breaks it down into discrete parts.  He also seems to lack a sense of history, or feeling for temporality.  Shifting the metaphor, if the person of experience is one who is humble and grateful for what is being offered, this one who Aristotle claims ‘can teach’ is also one who doesn’t simply thank the host for the fine meal she has made and offered him, but has the audacity to ask for the recipe!