ESSAY 3: ARGUMENT OF CAUSE - Final Draft

Where Are You and What Are You Doing There?

History teaches us that there is no escape from life. As humans on planet earth we are born into a family, a clan, a tribe, a culture; we are born into a heritage and an ancestry, a world of social order that has worked to achieve perfection for millennia. We have built the world up around us, and we assume that everything is in its right place. Plodding along day after day, we become accustom to routine and a sameness that dusts over everything. In a world that has become so small with our growing population it is difficult to “slow down and smell the roses.” Then, when a person does that they might think they can kick through a rock. Why do we think the way we think? How come when I want to be happy I get upset? What can I do to help set my own mind at ease? We are not just playing simple mind games with ourselves. There is a real cause behind our actions. Although most of us rarely take stock of our surroundings, we are affected by our set and setting because we are a product of our environment, we become a part of the situation around us, and we are influenced by our senses.

In his voluminous philosophical account, Being and Time, Martin Heidegger categorically explores the experiences of one’s Self. Inside the section titled, “Analysis of Environmentality and Worldhood in General,” he steps inside the cause of set and settings effects (95). Under the same heading, and within the sub-section, “How the worldy Character of the Environment Announces itself in Entities Within-the-world,” he asks the crucial questions, “But in what way ‘is there’ a world? Does not something like the world show itself for concernful Being-in-the-world? Do we not have a pre-phenomenological glimpse of this phenomena? Do we not have such a glimpse of it, without having to take it as a theme for ontological Interpretation?” (102) Heidegger goes on to explain that as we perceive and use things in the world around us we are constantly relegating these things into mental groupings: Usable, and unusable. It is revealed that when we experience a thing relegated as unusable, “the helpless way in which we stand before it is a deficient mode of concern, and as such it uncovers the Being-just-present-at-hand-and-no-more of something ready-to-hand” (103). To sum up the idea of our perception of things in our environment Heidegger states that, “In conspicuousness, obtrusiveness, and obstinancy, that which is ready-to-hand loses its readiness-to-hand in a certain way” (104).

Early in his discourse Martin Heidegger defines only a particular sense of Self. As a segue to his conclusions of Time and Temporality he analyzes the point that, “whenever we encounter anything, the world has already been previously discovered, though not thematically" (114). Through the explorations of themes, emotions, and context he brings to question our temporality. In the section of his book, “The Temporal Meaning of the Way in which Circumspective Concern becomes Modified into the Theoretical Discovery of the Present-at-hand Within-the-world,” he points out a very curious relationship between ourselves and our set and setting (408). He states that, “this formulation of the question is aimed at an existential conception of science” (408). This is not the typical association of science, as an existential concept. But, Heidegger assures us that “it is by no means patent where the ontological boundary between ‘theoretical’ and ‘atheoretical’ behavior really runs! What is essential to it is that one should have a primary understanding of the totality of involvements within which factical concern always takes its start” (409-10). He shows us, in a scientifically existential way, just how we become affected by the world around us.

But perhaps Heidegger’s message becomes washed out with language, and is taken as confusing philosophy. Rather than pouring over philosophical manuscripts, it is common to look for inner peace through religion or some form of meditation. Bhante Henepola Gunaratana describes, in detail, the methods of vipassana meditation in his book, Mindfulness: In Plain English. In discussing faith and morality as basic tenants of meditation he says, “it [Faith] is knowing that something is true because you have seen it work, because you have observed that very thing within yourself. In the same way, morality is not a ritualistic obedience code of behavior imposed by an external authority. It is rather a healthy habit pattern that you have consciously and voluntarily chosen to impose upon yourself because you recognize its superiority to your present behavior” (16). Gunaratana describes meditation in loose terms stating that “probably every culture on earth has produced some sort of mental practice that could be termed meditation” (29). He says, “the thinking process operates by association, and all sorts of ideas are associated with the word “meditation”...in fact, unless your life is immoral and chaotic, you can probably get started right away and make some progress” (17).

Set and setting are primary factors when meditating, or attempting to meditate. “Zen meditation uses two separate tacks. The first is the direct plunge into awareness by sheer force of will. You sit down and you just sit, meaning that you toss out of your mind everything except pure awareness of sitting. The second Zen approach, used in the Rinzai school, is that of tricking the mind out of conscious thought and into pure awareness. This is done by giving a student an unsolvable riddle, which he (or she) must solve nonetheless, and by placing him in a horrendous training situation. Since he cannot escape from the pain of the situation, he must flee into a pure experience of the moment: there is nowhere else to go” (Gunaratana 30). Gunaratana believes that our need for meditation arises from the fact that “we are simply not paying enough attention to notice that we are not paying attention” (32). “It could be anything,” he says, “an attractive woman, a handsome guy, a speedboat, the aroma of fresh baked bread, a truck tailgating you, anything. Whatever it is, the very next thing we do is to react to stimulus with a feeling about it” (Gunaratana 36).

In ways that are difficult to objectively identify we make choices and act in response to our surroundings. Most people go through their days without taking a mindful inventory of what is occurring around them. It is important to be mindful because our decisions are based on our surroundings. The choices and decisions we make stretch beyond ourselves and begin outside of ourselves. We couldn’t have come as far as we have if humankind took a flying leap every time chaos closed in around us. We seek out shelter and succor to protect not only our bodies, but our minds from the harms in the world. Our mental protection can begin with situational awareness, and knowing the effects our surroundings have on us. A good day begins with a light breakfast. A bad day begins with no heat in the middle of winter. In both instances we woke up as usual; but our set and setting make for very different outcomes.


--Works Cited--

Gunaratana, Bhante. Mindfulness: In Plain English. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2002.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. San Francisco. Harper Collins Publishers, 1962.