Apologies to All – this is an addendum to my earlier posting today.

 

I wrote – “What I admire about European Buddhists is how, in abandoning the esoteric languaging of thinking held in the Judaeo-Christian construct, they ‘master’ a whole new and exoteric languaging. What is amazing about Jekan Adler-Collin’s doctoral journey is that not only is he learning Japanese, not only is he learning an ‘esoteric’ action research, living theory language (living theory languaging is esoteric by definition because it is ‘my language for my research knowledge’) in which to frame his ‘practitioner knowledge’ he is also learning a new ontological language as a practicing Buddhist: and all of these languages Jekan is juggling at one and the same time.”

 

What I left out of the note was an important linkage in terms of my meanings; and this is the addendum:

 

In the midst of this multiple take up of ‘new languages’, Jekan Adler-Collins has also been ‘de-learning’ a language. He has been de-learning a particular and secretive terrorist esoteric language of family in which an underlying assumption that a grammar of love is operational was corrupted by the actual syntax of sexual pathology in which Jekan Adler-Collins was trapped, and through which his innocent humanity was violently abused. As I picture Jekan as a child an image of Zaki, my grandson, comes into my head and feelings of fear, protectiveness, and an understanding of terrifying wrong connect me with Jekan across the miles and oceans, and virtual space, across many years too as neither of us grows younger, and I feel the tear drop on my cheek.

 

Jekan’s narrative was the subject of a British television documentary and so I’m not speaking about anything that Jekan hasn’t placed in the public domain prior to my posting.  However, my insights are my own and I take authorial responsibility for these. In recovering from this esoteric language of violent abuse to construct a ‘livable life’ is a testimony to the power of Nietzsche’s superman. Jekan seems to be decolonizing himself from the grip of esoteric languages while at the same time immersing oneself into others [forgive my inarticulate stumbling here; this is only my exceedingly partial and clouded perspective Jekan). It is this insight as a practitioner-researcher that I should have added in my posting to Brian Wakeman’s note. The categories ‘esoteric and exoteric’ are presented in Brian’s posting in the form of a binary oppositional logic: what we need is not to be ‘esoteric’ but to be ‘exoteric’. This way of framing esoteric versus exoteric makes me feel like I’m being ‘forced’ to choose between two options, and the tensions arising from choice are present in me as I write this.  But I don’t want to take sides between esoteric and exoteric: these aren’t sides; they are part of the wholeness in which I place my languaging. In my life as a practitioner and as a researcher I’m operating within and through the flow of esoteric~exoteric thinking and languaging.  I love the way i-chat on Mac technology enables me to see this inclusional flow happening: just try it for yourself. I am in my esoteric space with my esoteric idea as I speak with Jack, say, and as ‘we~i’ explore the exoteric implications of my emic knowing wrapped up in my esoteric language, we move back and forth, like a two-way rippling movement in flow form such I completely lose sight of esoteric and exoteric as we seem to enjoy the pandemic moment.  And in that proximal moment (lovely Keith, thanks bro) that I see Jack’s face light up my screen in a smile of mutual availability I feel the boundary between esoteric and exoteric simple fall away, dissolve, because esoteric and exoteric no longer ‘exists’ as categories and are replaced by ‘wholey communion’.  

 

So the value of Brian’s posting is enormous; through it I’m getting closer still to appreciating the multiple quality standards of relational judgment that can occur when I ditch categories, explore flow, and refuse to get hooked into invitations to either/or. Unhooked thinking is the possibility available to us here: unhooked thinking is thinking that isn’t hooked into traditional binaries, canonical either/or’s and other the constriction of categorizations.

 

Respect to all

 

Yaakub Murray