Crazy is as Crazy is Decided

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Overnight I dreamt about thanksgiving and gratitude. How are they the same? How are they different? But this led me to another question, an age old question, the question of measurement.

The measure reveals more about the measurer than the measured. The measure is a set point created by the measurer. Of course, there is no set point except in the mind of the measurer. Absolute zero? No. In relation to what?

With human beings, we measure in ranges. Normal is between this and that range of something. Not going outside of these limits can be very important, say for our health, if we are talking about body temperature, for example.

Measures of value, quality, and behavior, these on the other hand, are a challenge. We measure in relation to our set point. In physics and chemistry, this point may be established through empirical testing. Absolute zero is as low as we can go: no motion of molecules in relation to one another. But in life sciences, the matter changes drastically as the observer is now measuring himself. I say life sciences and include earth science, biology, and psychology in this because even earth science chooses as its set point the ability of human beings and other life forms to survive. Measurement can only occur in relationship and all measure is a mental construct.

From a Zen point of view, a point of view that requires a dissolution of (or complete integration of) set points, measurement is a product of delusion. This is to say, it is a product of dualism. In Zen, the Absolute and the Relative are one.

I am reminded of Alan Bates in the film, "King of Hearts" or Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or one of the core messages of Hellerman's "Catch-22". What is crazy? What is aberrant? We assume we know as we place behaviors in a context of values relative to ourselves. Axe murderer? Definitely aberrant. Why? Because she/he behaves in ways decidedly not like me. Extremes, however, do not make a case.

My point is that as part of our spiritual practice we must be willing to realize that how we see, how we evaluate, and how we then behave are not based on anything but social norms established by the group. As groups change, so too, the basis for evaluation.

This is important to us because we tend to forget the essentially relative nature of our judgements and live with them as if they are the manifest truth. As we do this, we become more and more blind to diversity and its value, change and its value, growth and its value.

We become prisoners of our own minds.

Zen practice is about releasing us from such constraints.

As we practice we are free and easy in the marketplace.