On Being Wrong

[Jiken]

http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz ... wrong.html

Interesting video "On Being Wrong"

Comments?

[AlanLa]

Re: On Being Wrong

"I err, therefore I am." Lots of really great lines like that in here.

Mistakes can be great gifts if we just allow them to be rather than fighting against or fearing them. I deal with a regular supply of perfectionist students, am dealing with one later today actually, and it's a terrible place for them to be. To act in the world is to be wrong sometimes, and to accept that can make acting in the world a whole lot easier. There is no right without wrong, and to get trapped on one side of that is to close yourself off to the wholesome reality called life.

Article from Tricycle here where they asked some well-known Buddhists teachers/practitioners to talk about a time in their life they were wrong: http://www.tricycle.com/feature/my-bad

[Tb]

Re: On Being Wrong

Hi.

About 12 min in the video she goes on to say "The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is, but as it isn't" and talks around that.

Not to mention the cryptotheme, " thought something were to happen and someting else happened instead."

Priceless.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[Taigu]

Re: On Being Wrong

Mike, everybody,

This is one of the most inspirational talks I have ever heard.

True Dharma articulated in a modern language, non religious, not contaminated.

Dogen, our great Buddy Buddha full of his own bullshit too, wrote something in Genjokoan I quote all the time : "Those who greatly realize delusion are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are ordinary beings".

See how deluded and wrong you can be, see it, and again and again. And open yourself up. As this amazing big lady says at the end of the speech: " If you really want to redescover wonder you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and look out at the vastness and the complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say whow, I don' know, may be I am wrong!"


Nothing to add.


gassho



Taigu

[Hoyu]

Re: On Being Wrong

Hi All,

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I think this was an amazing lecture!! Thanks for sharing this Mike, it is a truly life changing outlook!

Gassho,
John

[Jundo]

Re: On Being Wrong

Wonderful.

Life is this big BIG cake we try to bake again and again ... with a billion trillion ingredients ...

... some things we can (or think we we can) control in the making ... so many things (the interactions of ingredients or just the air temperature that day, and a trillion billion things more) we cannot ...

... sometimes it turns out, sometimes not (even when thinking we are doing the exact same thing as yesterday) ... sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, sometimes it collapses into a pile of mush (though, of course, we try to avoid that and do our best to bake a delicious cake) ...

... sometimes we wrongly think we're adding sugar ... but have mistakenly grabbed the salt instead ...

... a cake tasted differently by all of us, some who prefer chocolate and some who like the strawberries, some who like more sugar or less ...

... a cake as vast and complicated as all space and time ... a cake we all need to share ...

... yet we argue and fret over the "one right recipe" and "the best way to bake a cake".

Something like that. May we all make beautiful mistakes, and be tremendously wrong today. Yummy!

Gassho, J

[ChrisA]

Re: On Being Wrong

Agreed: that was terrific. I just sent the link to my entire faculty.

Taigu, I thought of that "deluded" line from Dogen too! Especially when she said, "Trusting too much in the feeling of being on the correct side of anything can be very dangerous." Love that "tiny, terrified space of rightness" too.

Gassho, Mike!

[Kyonin]

Re: On Being Wrong

Oh man... I felt like this talk was intended for me.

How many times I've walked into the abyss only to realize I was wrong a second too late! Hell, I have even been into situations where everyone can see I am wrong, I know what they are thinking and still I get myself in trouble.

Life changes and everything is impermanent. One day you wake up ready for your routine and suddenly... BOOM! Everything changes and you have to adapt.

This talk was full of dharma. Thanks for sharing, Mike. Just passed the link to my friends.

[Dosho]

Re: On Being Wrong

Hi all,

Great talk Mike...thank you for sharing it.

I quite often tell my son that the most important answer to any question, whether it be science, philosophy, religion, whatever...is, "I don't know." All knowledge springs from that statement and we'd be nowhere without it.

And if anyone truly wants to have an appreciation for how I grew up, the "Series of Unfortunate Assumptions" fits exactly with the way my mother goes about her daily life. Being wrong was and is a terrifying prospect for her, so much so that she would often refer to me as either ignorant, stupid, and yes, sometimes even approaching evil. Because being wrong was and is so impossible to deal with that she made her own husband and two sons feel like lesser human beings so she can always feel right.

And have I mentioned that I forgive her? I don't really want to...my mind usually seeks some sort of revenge...but yeah, I forgive her...and myself.

Because, what the heck do I know? I'm not always right...but I'm not always wrong.

I'm always a human being, which is really all I do know absolutely for sure.

Gassho,
Dosho