Preamble 6: “Subjectivity is a Distorting Mirror”

“Where … have I been?” (from Chapter 5). Indoors, hearing my own words making up a world. This isn’t just a matter of getting out doors. I can’t emphasize enough how long it takes me, out gathering wood for the winter, to actually be there out of the chittering orbit-absorption of self-narration. Being there takes a while. It is, however, a practice you can become practiced in. Sort of like this: in studying the ways of birds, or the inscription of a right-angled triangle inside a circle, or working on an essay whose topic is elusive, and so on.”

This sort of meditative remaining with the object of meditation, this gathering, requires, then, of me, a certain level of “cultivation” (Bildung), but what is thus cultivated is not exactly my “self” but my ability to forego how my self persistently tries to foreground itself. It is a sort of “getting over myself” by giving myself over to detailing how things are (Dharma) with, say, that species of bird, or this unseasonal warmth of clothes on the line, January 28, 2016—both a pleasure and a slightly nightmarish portent. Of course. Buddhism, ecology, hermeneutics: these are all lineages regarding how to come to understanding and intimately experience what is happening to us. Pedagogy.