Posts

Showing posts from June, 2022

What I mean by modulo

This is an idea that I use often but don't express, because it's a little technical. However, I'm also really excited I am about it, so I'll try to explain it in this blog post. In math, modulo—or "mod"—is an operation that gives the remainder when one integer is divided by another.  In other words, a (mod n)  =  b , means that  when you divide a by n , the remainder is  b . This can also be stated as a and b are the same—except for differences accounted for or explained by n . So for example,  5 mod 2 = 1  and   2 mod 5 = 2 .  The shape of this operation is taking something out and looking at what's left. The question that I am asking myself when I try to "mod" something out of my experience is "What is there other than this?," and because the answer is always "a lot," I employ several different strategies for quantifying the a lot, such as looking for the holding (i.e., "what's my relationship to this?"), pr

The shadow of owning your experience

Owning your experience is one of Circling Europe's Five Principles of Circling . To me, owning my experience is a way that I can continuously practice recognizing that my experiences are a projection of my own mind. While this is just one lens we can use to interpret the world, it can often result in less suffering than the lens of blaming others or putting responsibility onto them. However, like any other principle, when "owning your experience" is taken as absolute dogma, we can start to more clearly notice its shadow. (cf. Alexandre Dumas: "All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.") The ugly part of ownership that I've observed in myself and many others is that in trying to own our experience, we inadvertently end up reinforcing our own ideas of who we are, as well as a sense of being separate from and invulnerable to others. The shape of this pattern is similar to how, in practicing equanimity, we can accidentally suppress or repress our feeling