On Monsters and Heroes

By Niall Twohig

Dear Friends,

This morning, I woke to a torrent of thoughts about our class:

Is this new direction making sense to students? Is the old direction better? Am I leading us on the right path? What do I need to do next week to get us on track, to get students on board, to get students to see the benefits of contemplation?

I did my 10-minute sit, doubtful it would stop the torrent. I was right. The thoughts still surged. But I did find moments when I wasn’t trapped in the torrent, moments when my awareness dropped from my mind to my heart. And the heart told me:

It’s okay. Trust the materials. Trust the practice. They’re leading you right.

That sit brought me enough balance to write you a few honest words to show you that I’m practicing alongside you, and to connect this week with next. So, here’s my little “Easy Essay” for the day.

 

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Let me start with a quote that keeps bubbling up as I sit:

We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known...
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination
we shall find a God.

And where we had thought to slay another
we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.

- Joseph Campbell

I first read this quote in college during disorienting times. The Twin Towers had just been destroyed. The United States waged wars to enrich oil companies. My Da was struggling to pay the mortgage after a hard divorce, while my Ma evaded me and numbed herself with work. I was majoring in a field I hated because I thought it would lead to the success that eluded my folks. I felt aimless. The people I looked to for guidance seemed just as aimless.

I found direction in books. I related most to heroic stories that began with a child born to unimportant or overworked parents. On the threshold of adulthood, they would hear a call that pulled them beyond their village into perilous realms. They encountered monsters that ripped men apart, that burnt earth to ashes, that crept into men’s bodies or minds. These characters became heroes by entering that darkness, by facing these monster head on. They were sometimes broken in the process. But those cracks revealed their hidden light. And that light always cut through the darkness.

Reading these stories, I found a thread that continues to lead me through the labyrinth of life.

My hope is that you find that thread in the heroes you met this week: in the dusty farmers who meet on the road and share food, in workers who demanded bread and roses, in little Rose Chernin who changed the world, in that student who faced the monster that took his mother.

These heroes lived in different worlds than you. Yet, at the core, their struggles are the same. They want to breathe freely. They want clean water, good food, a safe home, healthcare. But they are pushed into wastelands by monsters who grow stronger as they decimate people and the planet. Only by entering the wasteland, only by confronting the monster, do they discover their true light. And sometimes they break or are broken; but those cracks reveal a brighter light.

As you walk your path, look to their stories as maps. These maps show us the way from the false self (atomized and separate) to the true self (interconnected). They show us the way from the “I” to the “We.” They show us that we find power, joy, and meaning in this movement.

Our practice points this way too. We walked together. We sat together. We found and struggled to find words together. Together, we listened to cicadas and bomber planes. Perhaps we even find each other in the silence of our daily sits. That togetherness is our natural state, as natural to us as it is to pelicans floating gracefully over waves. But our built world makes it appear unnatural and weird. As Chomsky says, that natural impulse towards solidarity has been pushed out of our minds.

I’m grateful that we have this time to reclaim it.

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Next week, we’ll pick up this thread of solidarity. You’ll meet more heroes, some whose names are new to you. You’ll encounter them here:

These materials bring us to the Civil Rights era (1960s – 1970s). To set the stage for you: The labor struggles of the previous decades have won victories for working people. They have forced government to become more socially oriented and to fetter the corporate monsters of the Gilded Age. Added to this, the U.S. post-war economy booms and, on paper, its standard of living is unmatched.

But a monster is still alive in this affluent society. It builds paradises for the rich out of poor people’s hells. It encloses black and brown communities in resource deprived ghettos where life is cut short by backbreaking work, toxic conditions, and overpolicing. It poisons people’s minds with ideologies that allows them to ignore, or to perpetrate, racial inequality, racist violence, and imperial warfare.

This is the monster we’ll see the heroes moving against next week. They won’t fight this monster with rifles or bombs. They will move against it by linking their arms in Love.  

I’m excited to see what speaks to you in these materials. Write down quotes that resonate on a human level. Record their words. Sit with them. See what bubbles to the surface. Then: write.

Cicada Song >