Well-Being and spiritual friendship

Well-Being  The idea of well-being is about what is convenient for us as human beings. In this sense, all human beings are interested in their well-being, whether or not they actually recognise what it truly consists of and whether or not they contribute to it. But, in any case, we act in pursuit of what we believe to be convenient for us in some respect; and so we can say that human beings do indeed act in pursuit of what they believe to be their own well-being.

However, we are fallible with respect to what may be good for us. There are merely apparent "goods", which in reality turn out to be detrimental to us. Therefore, not everything that is presented to us as good -and that we therefore desire- is actually good. To think that just by satisfying our desires we could achieve genuine well-being is a recurrent idea in our times, but one that would have seemed extremely naive to most philosophers and traditions who have seriously reflected on these issues since ancient times. There is a deep truth behind the old adage "be careful what you wish for, lest it come true" 

For these reasons, ancient philosophers considered that a careful examination of what is truly desirable in life - and what is not - is of the utmost importance. As Plato thought, human beings do not really know what they want, for the normal human condition (statistically speaking) is characterised by ignorance of what is truly desirable. Trying to overcome this ignorance is the origin of an explicit philosophising about well-being, good living, and the good life.

spiritual friendship “Of the things wisdom acquires for theblessedness of life as a whole, far thegreatest is the possession of friendship.”Epicurus 

We can contribute to Earth and collective well-being by forming and sustaining relationships of genuine spiritual friendship *1, which can form webs of people who (at least occasionally) have deep communication and who are willing to serve each other sincerely, to reciprocate in words, actions, feelings and also services and goods. Webs of people that embrace an intention of standing by each other and remaining true and loyal to each other. The underlying assumption is very simple: we can’t live good lives if we remain separate, living individualistic lives in an upside-down world. Neither can we expect some superior instance to save us; we must do something in our lifetime. 1 For an operative definition of “spirituality” and related terms, such as “spiritual exercises”, etc. a good and I would say “neutral” approach is to be found in the Hermeneutics of the Subject, ch. 1, of M. Foucault.

Let’s consider that spiritual friendship is, first, friendship between simple, regular people. Not very wise, not very enlightened; just regular people who share a motivation of living life in a more authentic and profound way; people who understand that the "normality" of our world is only statistical, and that it does not provide a valid index of how we should live; people who realise that the sickness of the world is also their own sickness, and from that realisation have given primary importance to the purpose of healing themselves so that they can flourish in their unique singularity: "In his heart every human being knows quite well that, being unique, she will be in the world only once and that there will be no second chance for her oneness to coalesce from the strangely variegated assortment that she is: she knows it but hides it like a bad conscience—why? From fear of his neighbor, who demands conformity and cloaks himself with it. " F. Nietzsche

Often, the spiritual relationship between humans has been conceived in terms of a master-disciple dialectic; but the idea of friendship is that of a relationship among equals. Of course, this is not to deny differences between people: there will always be people with greater and lesser experience, wisdom, service, insight... the point is not to disregard our differences but to honour them as people who seek together, and who know that we need each other in order to have a chance at something bigger in our existence.

When speaking of friendship, let’s consider also that this shared spirituality should not be understood primarily as a business, nor as a means to make a living, nor as a professional service to be offered -among the many others that are part of the "Well-Being industry” we have today. Friendship is something basic to human life, an essential need for our well-being, much closer and more intimate than most of the things the world tells us are real and necessary. We need this kind of ancestral, genuine and essential material to start building patches of real collective well-being.

To accomplish this, a natural path is just talking to each other in our daily lives, including professional situations or during leisure time. Moreover, we can also share with each other through spiritual practices or exercises such as meditation. Both are of course complementary, and sometimes they can even come together.

Compartir la palabra   “The roots of language are irrationaland of a magical nature.” J.L.Borges

Compartir la palabra is an expression in Spanish language, present in South American circles, that literally means “to share the word” *2. As far as my experience goes, you can hear about compartir la palabra mainly in indigenous -amerindian- circles or among people who are walking a path in which indigenous ways are present. In principle, it is all about something very simple: sharing a physical space in which we meet to talk, to listen, to converse; often for periods of considerable length, and very often accompanied by plantas de palabra (plants of logos) or plantas maestras (master plants), such as coca, tobacco or yagé. 2 Yet, I don’t feel it can be adequately translated in this way, even if it would be a literal translation. Therefore I'll leave the Spanish expression untranslated. 

However, it is not just any space, nor just any kind of sharing, nor just any kind of words. Ancestrally, we share in the middle of wild Nature, in a ceremonial context, and words of various kinds, but which share a common core carrying the possibility of some learning for life. The words can take the form of stories, reflections and even jokes. In any case, what compartir la palabra demands of us is that we be attentive: that we stay present to everything that is happening there. Not only to the words, but to the gestures, to the looks, to the silences and also to everything that happens in the environment: to the winks of Mother Nature. For sharing the word is not only, nor primarily, about sharing meaning, but about the encounter of unfathomable mysteries: the mysteries which we call persons and also the mystery of Nature; the mystery of the relationships and the great mystery of the One Life itself.

The complexity of such an encounter between mysteries cannot be exhausted, nor even glimpsed, in a merely conceptual understanding. This is why compartir la palabra  is so demanding. It’s a game of mirrors in which, if we know how to cultivate the right attitude, we can allow ourselves to be woven by the logos. The word that is shared has a deep effect on all the parties involved and mainly on the relations among them. In this way, the basic aim of the practice is always the common and systemic and not just the individual. 

By engaging in this kind of spiritual work with our communities and the environment, we educate ourselves and celebrate life. It is not like education is there as a product available to be acquired in exchange for money; or, as if we were told: “here is the knowledge”, “this is important”, “take note of this”. Nothing of the sort. Just as in ordinary life, education must be conquered through one's own effort, one's own attention. It is an intimate discovery that each one makes of the Great Mystery, the Reality of Life *3 3. “Great Mystery” and “Reality of Life” are two beautiful and pregnant expressions present in amerindian cultures to refer to the source and true reality of what is.

Thus, it is common among indigenous people to say that the person who dedicates herself to the study of life obtains a different and peculiar knowledge, although complementary to that of the other sabedores *4. So the work depends, to a large extent, on each of us, as reflected in the perennial notion that the lips of wisdom will remain closed, but to the ears that are open to hear it. 4 Term often used among amerindian people to designate people dedicated to the search of essential knowledge and wisdom.

The importance of contextual factors in sharing the word should not be underestimated. Conversing in a ceremonial context is not the same as conversing in any other context; participating in a ceremony in a small flat in the middle of the city is not the same as doing so in the middle of the virgin forest. However, the need to connect in deep ways and to be there for each other is even more important. For this reason, I believe that today we can still echo this ancient human tradition, trying to retain some of its core elements, but at the same time adapting it to our current circumstances. We can thus connect with each other in deep ways in a downtown café, in a park or even through digital voice messages; it may not be the same as the ancient way, but it can definitely have an important value for our lives.

There are two kinds of conversations, which are often intertwined and complementary to each other, just like form and content, which are to be considered in this scenario.  Form is what we could call spiritual truth or dharma. Content refers to the concrete lives of people: their feelings, fears, desires, conflicts, etc. Of course, compartir la palabra is an act and an expression of freedom, and the conversations do often take many different ways and subjects, far broader than what is outlined here. Nonetheless, these two topics -dharma and the struggles of people- seems fundamental for the possibility of well-being.

DHARMA When speaking of dharma or spiritual truth, let's not refer to a particular doctrine or a particular tradition. Rather, we can think in the idea of common, universal features of human existence that are relevant to the possibility of our well-being and a deeper understanding of life. Relevant here means: depending on how we relate to these dimensions of existence, it will decisively affect the quality of our life and well-being.

Dharma thus deals with things that are always present in human life and to which we cannot avoid having to relate in ways that are always concrete.  The uncontrollability of life, the incompatibility between our desires, frustration, pain, fear, inner resistance, the gaze of the others, our own death, uncertainty, our mental conflict, the ever present inner monologue, the impermanence and transience of all things, etc. *5, are some examples of these common features of human existence that constitute the fundamental dimensions on which what is here called dharma is based. 5 I discuss most of these issues in the book Elementos por una teoría de la paz mental [Elements for a Theory about Peace of Mind] (2020).

When we reflect or converse about dharma, we remain attentive to these relevant aspects of existence, the modulation of which affects us directly, and also to our concrete daily life, insofar as it is illuminated by our understanding of them. Spiritual truth is thus not something that can be “learned" for good, something that we can understand and memorise and be done with it.  Rather, it is something that we must keep looking at, remembering, analysing and assimilating over and over again in our concrete existence (very much as with food) and for which it is usually indispensable that we can share with others.

Spiritual exercises The idea of sharing in spiritual exercise contexts is, first and foremost, that practice is an essential component of spirituality. We need to really live, to embrace life, so that our whole being is affected, not just our concepts or intellectual capacities. In the practice of spirituality, we expose ourselves to be transformed through it. We understand that true education is not only about intellectual formation, and therefore cannot be accessed only or mainly through intellectual or theoretical training.

We need practices that put us in situations where our whole being is at stake, so that we can also work with our intuition, our emotions, our capacity to be attentive and silent and, in general, with everything that K.G. Jung has called "the shadow", i.e. all those aspects of ourselves that we find difficult to accept and hence are difficult to see. On the other hand, through shared practice we give ourselves an opportunity to temper our relationships in a more sincere, naked sharing, whereby we can recognise each other as siblings taking part in the same dance, through the pains and joys of practice that are a reflection of life itself.

Different spiritual traditions seem to coincide in a common call, as if they were saying: "We human beings need to work on our spirit; without that work we simply will not be able to look deeply into things, nor to live well. Life is maya, samsara, dukha, etc.: our "default" situation is not one of being ready to know and grow ad infinitum but a very different one: we are inside Plato's cave, we mistake the illusory for the real and thus the illusory dominates our choices and lives. Moreover, we cannot free ourselves from that prison, since we do not even realise that it is a prison: we are ignorant of our own ignorance.”

The good news is that there were people who went beyond the basic confusion of existence and through chains of people we have received the heritage of what they understood about overcoming that basic state of confusion. There are traditions entirely dedicated to enabling us to integrate the dharma into our lives, not in a dogmatic way, but through our own practice, experience and discovery. The diversity of spiritual traditions reflects the diversity of life; each person will naturally have a greater affinity with some paths and practices rather than others. Discovering the specific form and orientation that dharma will take in one's own life is up to each individual. Important, however, is to understand that we can and shall be dharma siblings, even if our traditions and practices are different.