givenness

Now try twisting your head a little, and take this as a premise:

Everything gives... The sun, the tree, the cat, the building, the desk, the tea, the atom... they emanate light, color, shape, smell, sturdiness, elusiveness... all kinds of quality, that the more we bracket our anti-nature attitude, the more their givenness floods into our consciousness.

Then come these inferences:

Givenness is happening all around us.

Givenness comes from a gift that keeps on giving.

Givenness is received to the extent your heart seeks it.

My knowledge of things is initiated not by me but by the things that give themselves to me.

"What gives?", or rather, "Who gives?"... there must be a source that gives, a Giver.

The Giver notices me, so It gives, I notice, so I receive.

A most fitting response to the generosity of givenness is the reciprocal generosity of giving away.

Nothing is lacking where everything is given.

Here is a gracious Chinese song titled "Dedication", that I like to translate to "Giving", with lyrics:

長路奉獻給遠方　玫瑰奉獻給愛情
Long road gives itself to the remote, rose gives itself to love 

我拿甚麼奉獻給你　我的愛人
What do I have to give you, my love

白雲奉獻給草場　江河奉獻給海洋
White cloud gives itself to greenfield, river gives itself to ocean 

我拿甚麼奉獻給你　我的朋友 

What do I have to give you, my friend   

我拿甚麼奉獻給你
What do I have to give you 

我不停的問
I keep on asking 

我不停的找
I keep on looking 

不停的想
I keep on thinking 

白鴿奉獻給藍天　星光奉獻給長夜
White dove gives itself to blue skies, star give its light to the long night 

我拿甚麼奉獻給你　我的小孩
What do I have to give you, my child 

雨季奉獻給大地　歲月奉獻給季節
Rain gives itself to the ground, time gives itself to the season 

我拿甚麼奉獻給你　我的爹娘
What do I have to give you, mom and dad?

Merry Christmas!

bracketing

Do you live a forensic minded life? Do you observe things like a police blotter report, "male, Caucasian, 5 foot 8 inch tall, brown hair, blue eyes, age 35..."

In our haste to "get a quick grasp" of things we encounter, we categorize them with canned ideas and set parameters to stipulate what we think they are, skipping the peculiarities and the subtleties that constitute the whole.

Starting the days when "natural philosophy" became "natural science", when Enlightenment thinkers such as Francis Bacon and John Locke encouraged people to treat nature as an object to be studied, experimented, then conquered, we have gotten better and better slicing nature thinner and thinner, reducing it to nothing but a working mechanism of chemical and physical actions and reactions.

That analytical, indiscriminating mind eventually turns its head on its own kind, treating humanity's "other people" as "the other", the object.

Does knowing the how's and what's lead us to understanding the why's? Do all the detail, technical deconstructs of things and events explain away the mystical sense we feel at heart when we experience wonder and awe?

To quote the conclusion of a short true story I once heard:

"When we fall in love, there are surges of hormones and chemicals and processes that produce the euphoria. So should we just shrug it off and say 'no, love is not worthy of poetry, because it's all just biochemistry', or should we embrace the joy and marvel at the experience?"

Say we try "bracketing" (withholding) such anti-nature attitude for a moment, leaving all our sensory faculty all open, receiving all natural data as they come, with no categorization, no precalculation... like when I swim, instead of forcefully exhale and inhale every time I bob my head above water lest (I thought) I should lack oxygen, I just let go my breath smooth and easy as I row my body through the water, feeling the thrust of my palms against the flow, body slivering through the stream, then inhale smooth and easy when I raise my head above the water; and when sitting in the cool-down well after a hot bubbling one at sauna, instead of counting "one alligator, two alligators, three alligators..." and missing out the ultimate pleasure of feeling my body heat and the surrounding cold meet their perfect equilibrium, I just loosen up my body and quiet my mind, enjoying all the sensations that come and go as they do...

That's Phenomenology 101.