#in french autism means suffering and i think that’s beautiful

[silver-and-ivory]

Howe was appalled by the horrifying conditions in which many “idiots” lived—crammed into almshouses, kept in cages, left to wander unwashed and uncared for. He demanded that society do better by this vulnerable group. When the community failed “to respect humanity in every form,” Howe wrote in a letter to a state legislator, it “suffers on account of it” and “suffers therefor [sic] in its moral character.”

Part of his agenda was to persuade the legislature to fund a school for the mentally disabled. He succeeded. After reading an interim report about his survey, lawmakers appropriated $2,500 for the purpose, which allowed Howe to take in ten mentally disabled students at Perkins. He proved, in short order, that they could indeed be educated. Based on that success, Howe founded a second school—the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded, subsequently renamed the Fernald State School, and then the Fernald Center. Unfortunately, in later decades, his innovative facility fell victim to the neglect that defined many similar institutions in the 20th century. More like warehouses than schools, these institutions confined people in overcrowded conditions, while delivering little that could be called education. Despite real efforts at reform in the last part of the 20th century, the center was finally closed for good in 2014.

[silver-and-ivory]

[I agree with this but wanted to add something.]

I don’t think the sole fact that some autistic people have trouble with something is sufficient to show that it’s also hurting everyone else— maybe the social norm in question is something more like sarcasm, where accommodations should be made for people who have trouble understanding it but it’s not always hard to understand for everyone.

For this reason, I think that the “hurting everyone else” part needs to be shown on its own. This is kind of hard to do for the reasons unknought mentions (it might be less obvious harm to allistics), especially when the people you think it’s hurting don’t feel they’ve been hurt.

There’s a widespread idea (which is apparently somewhat contested) that amphibians tend to be especially sensitive to environmental toxins and that for this reason you can, by looking at diseases and declining populations among amphibians, notice dangerous contaminants building up in the environment before they have such major effects on other taxa.

Anecdotally, I have the impression that you can similarly notice some types cultural “contaminants” by looking at their effects on autistic people. There are narratives and patterns of behavior which are harmful to lots of people, but which usually cause harms which are subtle and subliminal and easy to dismiss. A lot of the time, the most dramatic and visible instances of people being hurt seem to come from autistic people.

In these situations, it can be unfortunately easy for allistic people to dismiss the complaints. They’ve been marinating the same attitudes and messages and they’re fine, so obviously the problem isn’t with the culture but with the complainant, and more specifically with their autism. There are a couple responses I want to make to this. First is that even if autistic people were the only people being affected, harm to autistic people is still bad and still a reason to question whether the existing culture needs to be changed. Second is that frequently autistic people aren’t the only ones being hurt, just many of the people being hurt most dramatically. The things which are hurting them are pervasive and evil and hurting everyone, and autistic people are simply the most vulnerable victims.

[asdmumramblings]

THE BEAUTY OF AUTISM AND HOMESCHOOLING

Becoming a parent is the best thing I have ever done. There will never be another accomplishment that matches the joy they bring to my life. All three of my brood have been diagnosed with Autism. Scarlett was diagnosed at 5, Lillyanna at 10 and Edward at age 3. They all have their own individual quirks and make me laugh, out loud, on a daily basis. Lillyanna and her best bud could easily become the next French and Saunders. Both are quick witted and possess the same dark sense of humour my husband is blessed with.

Yesterday, as I watched the news she unexpectedly exclaimed,

“That woman from China who ate bats, is like the best serial killer EVER!” Rather dark but yet a welcome distraction from the BBC.

She is visually very amusing too and captivating to watch. I am always left in fits when she describes things to me. She isn’t always intentionally funny but her ability to laugh at herself is one of the qualities I love about her. Like the time she was throwing a ball up in the air and catching it. I asked her a question mid throw, she forgot she even had a ball which abruptly landed on her head. We both started to laugh and were glad it was a soft ball.

Lillyanna currently has long covid and suffers extreme exhaustion. This has made homeschooling difficult. She doesn’t seem to gain much from the live sessions so we often print out the information and learn together. Well today we studied Science and energy consumption. Including calculations for KW used per hour and that sort of thing.

“This will be easy,” I though. “She is good at maths.” How wrong was I.

Although she is great at mechanical maths she has always struggled slightly with the worded questions. Many autistic people do because they have to pick out the relevant information buried within the text. Therefore we begun the task by underlining the information we needed. We talked through the calculations we needed to do. I had mentioned a couple of times that you can use a calculator for scientific related maths, yet she continued to perform complex equations on paper. Well done Lillyanna! although it was dragging things out so I decided to reiterate,

“Remember you don’t need to use long multiplication in science questions.” She then paused for a period of time. “What’s the matter? You okay?”

“I’m confused. I don’t know how to work it out.”

“But you know the calculation. Just find the answer. Remember you don’t need to do the long multiplication if you don’t want to.” I said expecting her to get her calculator. She looked really stressed and began to write random numbers down. “What are you doing?”

“Well you said, ` you don’t use long multiplication in Science.` I’m trying to find the answer without it.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself correctly. What I mean is you don’t need to work the answers out on paper in science, showing your working. You can use your calculator to find the answer instead.” We both enjoyed a chuckle over my lack of explanation and her literal thinking. Then we had to use percentages. Now she fully understands these when in maths class but asking her to use the information for Science. Well, it was like I was asking her to talk in another language. Science was then abandoned and you tube percentage reminder began.

“Why are you showing me this? I know how to do percentages.”

She is kidding right? Nope. I give you the `inability to transfer knowledge to new/other situations` conundrum. Many autistic people struggle with this concept. For instance if they learn a new skill at home they may not use that new skill in a school setting for some time. It’s as though their brain files information in a given section and will not access it automatically to use in other situations. This is where interventions come in handy. That and being clear on what you would like them to do. Something which I failed at today.

[eirian-houpe]

All Our Past Mistakes - Chapter 8

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Milah/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Belle/Gaston (Once Upon a Time)

Characters: Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Belle (Once Upon a Time), Milah (Once Upon a Time), Red Riding Hood | Ruby, Gaston (Once Upon a Time), Mad Hatter | Jefferson

Additional Tags: Angst, AU, Smut, Accidental Voyeurism, Assault, Extramarital Affairs, Child Neglect, non cursed storybrooke, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Dubious Consent, Teacher-Student Relationship

Summary: Doctor Gold, professor of history at the local campus of Maine University, is stuck in a loveless, and one might say abusive relationship with a wife who is less than attentive to their family, and whom he suspects cares little for her marital vows. His resolve to maintain his own faithfullness is sorely tested by the presence of one of his new students - a junior by the name of Belle French - whom it seems fate is determined to put in his way. The two become embroiled in a passionate, and redemptive relationship, but not before suffering numerous setbacks and separations.  This is no instantaneous happy ever after, but a tale of two hurt souls finding their way together through darkness and despair.

Read Previous chapters on AO3

[Chapter1]  [Chapter 2]  [Chapter 3]  [Chapter 4]  [Chapter 5]  [Chapter 6]  [Chapter 7]

Chapter 8 - Truth and Dare

Gold felt what he was to ask, what he was saying, was wrong even as the words came tumbling out of his mouth, but he couldn’t help himself in the face of Belle’s genuine concern. He couldn’t remember the last time - or ever - that anyone, no… amend that, he told himself, any woman had shown him even a modicum of care. It was both a relief and painful at the same time. Even so, to involve Belle, his student in his personal life was…

“For several weeks now, Mrs Gold and I have been… somewhat estranged and—”

Belle held up her hand to stop him, and he did at once, his entire body almost sagging in relief with the thought that she was about to tell him that this was all none of her business, and he shouldn’t be speaking of it to her, no matter that she’d just collected his son from school and was to be the boy’s tutor.

“Before you go on, Sabrael,” she said softly, and he felt the tension prickle at the base of his spine again, “I feel I should tell you something Bastion said to me earlier.”

He looked into her face then, into her eyes and thought he saw the same kind of war going on inside of her as was inside of himself. “Go on,” he said slowly.

“Bastion said that his mother often took him with her to visit a man he named ‘Kellon,’ on a boat, and that they take ‘naps’ together… and that he has to wear what he called a ‘puffy orange thing’ in case he falls in.” She shook her head, “I could make assumptions as to what all of that means, but…”

Gold shook his head as she trailed off. He didn’t need for her to spell it out, and it was the confirmation he needed, but didn’t want. He sighed, shook his head again and spat with heavy sarcasm, “At least they put him in a fucking life vest.”

He felt Belle’s fingers tighten over his arm, and he took a deep breath, and then covered her hand with his as she said, “You don’t seem all that surprised.”

“I’m… not. Not really,” he said. “I had my attorney draw up papers weeks ago, just didn’t feel that it was… proper to file them; like I didn’t have reason, but… today my son’s doctors suggested that his learning difficulties are not because of autism or ADHD or any other ill, but because of his emotional interactions with his mother. She refused to hear it of course - even went so far as to dare to call him retarded, and then, just before I called you—”

He broke off, realizing he’d said too much from the sharp look that had entered Belle’s blue eyes. He swallowed and shook his head with an apology. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t involve you in my personal problems, I—”

“I don’t mind,” she told him, “and I promise it will go no further than the two of us.”

He saw sincerity in her gaze and once again his belly tightened. He already knew - and had been fighting with himself for some time - that he thought her beautiful, but to know that she cared made that fight all the more difficult - near impossible.

“But you’re my student,” he argued, trying to hold on to the last shred of his rapidly crumbling shield.

“Sabrael, when we’re at the university, yes, I’m your student, but… here, I’m an adult, with my own mind, and the responsibility for my own thoughts and actions and feelings. Please don’t feel like you’re taking some kind of advantage of me. You’re not. I’m happy to listen, and I am happy to help with Bastion, if that’s what you were leading up to asking before all of this came out?”

“Yes,” he nodded, before going on, “Yes, actually that’s exactly what I was going to say. I… spoke to my attorney earlier today and told him to proceed, and first thing tomorrow, I have a locksmith coming to change all the locks.  Forgive me, I took the liberty of examining your schedule, and I wanted to ask if—”

“Yes,” she said before he could finish, and then he watched her blush, and something in him snapped, He reached out hesitant fingertips toward the redness in her face, as she went on, “I’d be delighted to pick up Bastion from school - as often as you like - I can study here just as easily as the library, and I’d be on hand to help with his homework too…” she trailed off again as his fingertips made contact with her still reddened cheek.

“Belle…?” Gold asked softly, and watched as she swallowed and leaned almost imperceptibly into his touch.

“I… um,” she began then faltered, before beginning again in a rush as though trying to get all the words out before she could stop herself. “I know I shouldn’t… probably… because things seem complicated enough in your life as it is but I have to be honest with you, Doctor Gold, and—”

“Sabrael,” he corrected. His insides felt as though they were on fire, and he knew he was holding his breath against her words; against the fight he was losing as his fingertips left her cheek to slide into her hair as his palm cupped her cheek.

“Right, yeah…” she swallowed again, “But you… I…” she blew out a breath and in the next instant berated herself. “God, this is ridiculous, I’m behaving like a middle-schooler with her first crush, I—”

“I feel the same way,” he interrupted her discomfort, sounding more self assured than he felt. “I have for some time, and I’ve been fighting with myself because… well, the reasons are obvious, really.”

**

At his words, the breath left Belle in a rush and all of the feelings that were bubbling inside of her, and the sensations scalding her at his touch settled deep in her core leaving her aching for greater contact, and when she looked up at him, her eyes fell almost immediately to his lips, wanting to kiss him so badly it almost hurt.

“They… might be obvious,” she said, her voice a little unsteady, “but I think we should still speak them, I… I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings… not between us.”

He looked at her for a long time, as though he were contemplating her words, frozen in the moment, almost balanced on a knife edge.

“You are right, of course,” he said quietly.

“Then…?”

“I have fought my feelings because I didn’t trust them - or myself; because, as you said, at the university you are my student, and whilst anything that could have happened between us wouldn’t have been illegal, it would certainly have been… unprofessional.”

“Could have?” she echoed, soft and wistful in her tone, almost mournful. “You mean still to fight?”

He sighed then, and swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down before he said, “I don’t want to, but—”

“Then don’t,” she said, and shuffled a step closer to him.

“—but anything we might start now would be… so very complicated,” he finished.

“I don’t care,” she said before she could stop herself.

“But I do,” he said. “I don’t want you getting dragged in to what is bound to be an acrimonious divorce. I don’t want your reputation dragged through the mud along with mine.” He sighed again. “On top of that, here you’re my employee and that’s—”

“No,” she snapped rather more forcefully than she intended, and though she tried to soften her voice as she went on, she didn’t think she had been at all successful. “I won’t take payment for looking after Bastion. He deserves to be cared for and I’m happy to be someone that does that for him. So, here I’m just someone who cares enough to do the right thing… and here I’m someone that wants… to explore what we could have… together.”

She felt the shiver that went through Gold’s body and deeper than that, through the contact of his fingers, still laced into her hair.

“You… don’t know what you’re saying,” he argued, but she could hear the cracks in his resolve.

“I told you, I’m an adult, and I know my own feelings,” she said, “and whatever happens - whatever we have to go through, you’re worth it; Bastion is worth it.”

“Belle,” he breathed her name as though it were a prayer, and leaned down to rest his forehead against hers. “I don’t deserve it; don’t deserve you.”

“Well,” she said, and gathering her courage in both her hands, pressed her palms against his chest, the silk of his shirt hot against her fingertips as she slipped the touch upward toward his shoulders. “That’s unfortunate, because you’re stuck with me.”

She felt his fingers tighten in her hair, the imperceptible shift in the tilt of his head as she rose up on her toes just a little, and the heat of his breath against her already tingling lips; the softness of his barely touching hers before…

A tiny little cry was the only warning either of them received before a small bundle barreled into Belle’s legs, wrapping his arms around them and holding tightly.

“You’re still here!”

She heard such relief in Bastion’s voice that her heart dissolved, and she almost didn’t notice the way that Gold released her with a guilty start and moved away to a respectable distance.

“Bae…” he began, but Belle shook her head, and somehow managing to dislodge Bastions grip on her legs, turned and crouched down to him, taking him in at a glance, then wrapping him up in her arms.

“Of course I’m still here,” she said softly, and reached up with a hand to wipe at the tears she saw on his face. “It’s all right. Did you have a bad dream?”

Bastion nodded wordlessly, and leaned against her, pressing his head into her shoulder and sagged as though he were exhausted. Belle looked up at Gold as she ran her hand over Bastion, and found him wet. She mouthed the word to Gold. He nodded, and crouched beside her, encircling both of them with his arms.

“How about we get you clean and dry, Son?” he said softly.

Bastion shifted so that he pulled his father into the hug he was sharing with Belle, and whispered softly, “I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean to.”

Belle watched, her heart breaking all over again as Gold lifted Bastion from her arms to hold him close. “You’re not in trouble, Bae,” he said. “You’re never in trouble. It was an accident.”

“But… Mama…” Bastion’s voice hitched with a sob.

“Won’t hurt you any more,” Gold murmured softly, further twisting the broken pieces of Belle’s heart. “So, how about it? Nice warm bath… clean pj’s…”

“Miss Belle,” Bastion almost pleaded with his father, and Gold caught her eye over his son’s shoulder.

Belle reached out to stroke Bastion’s hair, and said softly, “Are you kidding?  The chance to share another bed time story?  I’m in!”

Bastion smiled, and threw an arm around Belle’s neck, pulling her back into the joint embrace only a second after she caught Gold wiping away a tear from his cheek.

[garywonghc]

The Path of Foolish Beings

by Mark Unno

One of the implications of the Mahayana Buddhist idea of emptiness is that the important question is not “What does it mean to be a Buddhist?” It is “What does it mean to be a human being?” That’s because emptiness applies to Buddhism itself as much as it does to ordinary objects of attachment. It is only when one has been “emptied” of all preconceived categories, including those of Buddhism, that the deepest reality of being d?human becomes apparent. As the Zen master Dogen states, “To study the buddhadharma is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.”

In our usual thinking about human nature, we tend to turn toward various specialists. For example, a scientist might consider our ability to stand erect (homo erectus) and use tools with opposable thumbs to be the defining endowments of human nature. A philosopher might regard the ability to think as the distinguishing characteristic of human nature, as the French thinker René Descartes suggested with his statement cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am.” Some point to the human ability to express sublime emotion through poetry and art or to make moral judgements. Others see skilled surgeons, artful ballerinas, basketball stars, moral leaders, and the like as the pinnacles of humanity. Parents hope their children will become mature human beings, making full use of their bodies, minds, and hearts, and will lead lives that are fulfilling for themselves and others.

But does this account for all of human nature? What about failure, loss, separation, and death? What about people who may have talent but do not live up to their promise? For every musician who aspires to a concert career, how many abandon their dreams for lack of opportunity or finances? Of all the young men and women who aspire to play pro basketball, how many succeed? How many are injured or fail to meet the right coach? How many people wish to escape cycles of oppression and violence but are unable to do so?

When we begin to see that failure and shortcomings of all kinds — economic, social, moral, and spiritual — are as commonplace as so-called success, it becomes necessary to revise our definition of human nature. What we had initially conceived of as human nature, our first nature, as it were, turns out to be only half of the story. There is a second nature, what in Shin Buddhism is called bombu, or foolish being, which is just as much a part of our humanity as our first nature.

Shin Buddhism, the largest development of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, emphasises our foolishness, or karmic shortcomings. Although we may have a desire or impulse to do good, we are often our own greatest stumbling blocks, the victim of our own circumstances. But while we cannot escape the external karmic consequences of our past actions — legal, economic, social, and so on — this does not mean that we should punish ourselves inwardly for things that have happened in the past. Rather, by recognising our foibles and quirks, we open a window into our own karmic nature, without which we cannot realise buddhanature. For it is only when we recognise and take ownership of the full scope of our humanity that we can see ourselves as truly, fully human. This is when our foolish nature, or second nature, becomes second nature. Only then do we see that the mask of success — the social self we present to others and to ourselves — is only part of our story, and we can look at ourselves and others with more humour and gentleness and with a greater sense of awareness and compassion. As Ryokan, the Zen monk who was also steeped in the Shin path, wrote, we may learn to be more like the maple leaf in autumn that bares all without pretence:

Showing front Showing back The falling maple leaf Embracing Our Foolish Being

What we usually regard as failure, loss, and pain may seem negative because we have a limited view of ourselves, based on our preconceptions and attachments to ideas of who we think we are or should be. As the ancient Daoist master Zhuangzi states,

If a man sleeps in a damp place, his back aches and he ends up half paralysed, but is this true of a loach? If he lives in a tree, he is terrified and shakes with fright, but is this true of a monkey? Of these three creatures, then, which one knows the proper place to live?… Men claim that Maoqiang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the ocean, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, which knows how to fix the standard of beauty for the world?

We label things good and bad, desirable and undesirable, based on our limited understanding, but when we become free of our fixed labels, then all things become potentially meaningful and are embraced in the great flow of life.

Consider the case of Dr. Temple Grandin, associate professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. She has a condition, usually given the label of autism, that makes social interaction very challenging, but she has grown through her struggles — struggles that have led her to her current work. She cannot sense and decode complex human emotions like most people can, but she has an acute awareness of animal emotions, which are generally simpler and purer. She has developed deep empathy with animals such as cows and pigs and has worked to have them treated as humanely as possible. Sensing the fear that animals experience as they enter the slaughterhouse, she has invented a curved entry into the slaughterhouse that keeps each animal from seeing the fate of the one in front it. Now, fully one-third of slaughterhouses in the United States have adopted this curved shoot.

Some might argue that if she really felt empathy for these animals, she would be a vegetarian and work to convince others to be vegetarians. Perhaps this is so. Yet her approach is in some ways close to that of Shinran (1173–1262), the first and foremost teacher of the Shin Buddhist path. In Shinran’s time there were farmers, fishermen, butchers, and grave diggers, many of whom relied on taking the lives of other beings or of benefiting from their deaths for their own livelihood. Recognising how he was implicated in the suffering of the world, Shinran chose to become one with all beings rather than set himself apart from them. In this way, he could share with them the path of Amida Buddha’s compassion, through which each being is also gradually transformed into a vessel of compassion.

Amida Buddha (from the Sanskrit, Amitabha Buddha) means the Awakened One of Infinite Light, but to express its dynamic character, it can be understood as the awakening of infinite light. Shin Buddhism focuses on the practice of intoning the name of Amida Buddha. Namu Amida Butsu means roughly, “I entrust myself to Amida Buddha.”

Turning bad into good, tenmaku jozen, is at the heart of the Pure Land path, in which the limited self of foolish being is transformed into the boundless compassion of Amida. Like Temple Grandin, it may be that ordinary human beings can sometimes be insensitive to the feelings of others, but unlike her, we may not yet be aware of our shortcomings. To the degree that we become aware that we are foolish beings, we are illuminated by boundless compassion. Namu is “foolish being”; Amida Butsu is “boundless compassion.” Amida walks with us step-by-step, as it were, as we discover our foolishness. Namu Amida Butsu is the expression of foolish being coming to be embraced, resolved, and dissolved in the limitless flow of Amida’s primal vow, which is the vow to realise the oneness of ego-self and Amida-self, the oneness of all beings in the ocean of compassion.

CULTIVATING BEGINNER’S MIND, RETURNING TO FOOLISH BEING

It is one thing to understand the working of shinjin, of true entrusting in the primal vow, at an intellectual level and even to have some feeling for the way it unfolds. However, it is difficult to live in the continual awareness of Amida’s compassion. We may gain some understanding by further study, but the continual sense of openness to the limitless possibilities of life is virtually impossible to maintain. As Shunryu Suzuki states,

In Japan we have the phrase shoshin, which means “beginner’s mind.” The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind. Suppose you recite the Prajnaparamita Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation. But what would happen to you if you recite it twice, three times, four times, or more? You might easily lose your original attitude toward it. The same thing will happen in your other Zen practices. For a while you will keep your beginner’s mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, three years or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of original mind….

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s there are few.

This does not mean that we should forget everything and become raw beginners. Rather, the true expert is the one who makes use of her knowledge without becoming attached to it. Approaching each situation with a fresh and open mind, she can really use her knowledge by becoming attentive and responsive to the ever-changing, actual conditions of the present moment.

Honen, Shinran’s teacher, similarly emphasised the importance of becoming free of any pretence of knowledge, especially with regard to the spiritual path. Shinran quotes his teacher, saying, “The person of the Pure Land path attains birth in the Buddha Land by returning to his foolish self.”

No one was more aware of the difficulty of maintaining beginner’s mind, of truly realising one’s foolish being, than Shinran himself. His follower Yuien asked him about this very point, saying, “Although I say the Name, I rarely experience joyful happiness, nor do I have the desire to immediately go to the Pure Land. What should be done about this?” To which Shinran replied,

I, Shinran, have been having the same question also, and now you, Yuien, have the same thought…. It is the working of blind passion which suppresses the heart that would rejoice and prevents its fullest expression. All this the Buddha already knew and called us foolish beings filled with blind passion; when we realise that the compassionate vow of other-power is for just such a person like myself, the vow becomes even more reliable and dependable.

Normally when we hear about “beginner’s mind” or “foolish being,” we tend not to really listen and instead think that these are ideas about something or someone else. Yet, according to Shinran, there is no time or place that we can realise the meaning of these things apart from the present moment. It is precisely this self in this moment, filled with blind passion and foolishness, and thereby unable to feel the flow of Amida’s vow, that is being called by life itself to join the great flow of boundless compassion. Like a lonely boat afloat on the ocean whose occupant is afraid of sinking, we do not realise that it is actually the ocean itself that keeps us afloat. In fact, when we come to truly trust in the deep currents of life, then we know we should dive right into the ocean of compassion. When we realise that the vow of Amida, the boundless flow of life itself, is waiting for no one else but us, then “the vow becomes even more reliable and dependable.”

This also describes the relationship between self-power, jiriki, and other-power, tariki — between foolish beings and Amida Buddha. There is no other-power apart from self-power. In each moment, by exerting ourselves to the fullest, by diving into life, we are simultaneously shown our foolishness — the limits of self-power — and illuminated by boundless compassion, which is other-power. Thus Shinran describes the two types of deep entrusting that are complementary: deeply entrusting oneself to self-power and deeply entrusting oneself to other-power. Without the one, the other cannot be realised. As the Shin Buddhist teacher and poet Kai Wariko sings,

The voice with which I call Amida Buddha Is the voice with which Amida Buddha calls to me. Becoming One with All Beings

As one gradually deepens awareness of the true self, the gentle awareness of foolish being becomes second nature and foolish being merges with boundless compassion. Of course, Amida’s compassion was always there, but for us human beings, the realisation of this oneness takes time, just as a reluctant child learns to swim by first slowly dipping his toes in the water.

As awareness deepens, the spiritual sojourner realises that all beings have always been there in oneness. We can see this by exploring the simple question, who am I? Am I husband, teacher, son, Japanese, American, Japanese-American? Am I made of blood, muscle, and bone, or do I think of myself more in terms of my mind? At one time, I was nothing more than an embryo in my mother’s uterus. Receiving the nourishment that came through the umbilical cord, her body became my body, her dinner mine. But did I not also receive the personality and character of my parents? Of my grandparents?

And what of my life ever since my physical birth? I have received nourishment, both physical and mental. Through experiences with other beings, they have become one with me so that I could live today. Even the hearts and minds of ancient peoples enter into me through words on a page and images in ink and stone. Their legacy includes their accomplishments, yes, but also their failures and sufferings, which become one with mine to teach me about the deep bonds of humanity and all sentient beings. As Thich Nhat Hanh sings,

Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope, the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive….

I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving….

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.

The more I reflect, the more difficult it is to draw the line between my life and the life of others: family, friends, dogs, cats, birds, the sky, the moon, and the stars. In each moment, the deep interconnections between my life and that of all other beings come to life. It is only when I look away, hoping to create connections in a world of abstractions, that I lose my way. Seeing this profound web of interdependence, Shinran states,

I, Shinran, have never even once uttered the Name for the sake of my father and mother. The reason is that all beings have been fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, in the timeless process of birth and death. When I attain Buddhahood in the next birth, each and every one will be saved.

In the path of Pure Land, intoning the Name, Namu Amida Butsu, affirms the oneness of all beings and expresses becoming one with them. Since this cannot be realised apart from the present moment, here and now, it is important to recognise that there is no realisation of true compassion apart from each recitation of the sutras, each bow, each utterance of the Name — in fact, each activity throughout the day. Paradoxically, the realisation that “all beings are one with me” moves one to become one with all beings. The Pure Land of oneness is already here, and yet I have not realised it.

EXPERIENCES OF BOUNDLESS COMPASSION

When one tastes deeply the flavor of compassion, one is able to see moments of positive significance in times of difficulty and to see more clearly the web of interdependence as it informs one’s life.

Second World War internee Shinobu Matsuura relates an episode from her husband, Issei’s, life as they lived separated in distant internment camps in the United States. Reverend Issei Matsuura was presiding over the funeral of a friend who had died in the camp. Listening to the simple ceremony in the stark setting of the camp, one of the guards became curious and began to ask him about the Buddhist teachings.

“How does a person gain salvation?” asked the guard.

“Good person, evil person, all beings will be saved,” replied Issei.

“You mean they repent and reform and then they are saved?”

“No. Just be embraced in the Great Compassion, and recite the Name, and one is saved as he is.” “Where does one go?”

“Pure Land.”

“But, if the good and evil ones are saved as they are, won’t they keep on fighting as they did in this world?”

My husband, in his own kind of English, with earnest zeal, explained the universality of the pure taste of water. “Everyone, all beings, become Buddha. It is a boundless teaching.”

The ones under guard, the guard, all forgot their differences. The sun was down already. In the snowy night, they reached the prison in mutual warmth.

Even in such difficult circumstances, the Shin path can provide an opening into the heart of compassion for those who have been defined as enemies by the external world. Mrs. Matsuura also relates her own experience during a period of difficulty. When we become troubled or preoccupied, we often become inattentive to our surroundings, which then reflect our inner state back to us. Mrs. Matsuura describes this relationship in terms of an experience with a plant that she had bought but had neglected due to her own recent struggles:

One day I was agitated about something. I was in low spirits and out of sorts. By chance, my eyes glanced at the plant forgotten in the corner of the room. It had withered and appeared miserable. I can see myself reflected in the plant. When in anger, there is no warmth, no peace, no flexibility, just like this dried up plant. Once in a while, when someone compliments me, I am elated and swell proudly. But one small false step and immediately I shrivel and freeze…. Indeed I am just like the plant.

At once, I put the plant in the sunlight and gave it fresh water. Before my eyes, it glistened, fresh and alive. The pure strength, the growing image, and I, too, became calm, and in joy, I became encouraged…. Around us, immeasurable dharma flows and unbound compassion shines.

When one is steeped in the Buddha’s teaching for one’s whole life, the feeling of compassion overflows to encompass all things, even objects. Ryokan expresses this eloquently in a poem about his begging bowl:

I’ve forgotten my begging bowl but no one would steal it no one would steal it— how sad for my begging bowl

As Jason Rabbitt-Tomita explains,

Ryokan did not say “How lucky for me, I can keep my bowl!” Rather, his own gain is a cause for sadness for what most consider an “inanimate object.” This is an attitude showing thankfulness for all life. In a strict sense, the compassion he feels for his bowl is not “Ryokan’s” compassion; instead, compassion encompasses him and all beings until Ryokan becomes all beings and all beings become Ryokan. He bows before his bowl; he plays with the children; he suns the lice from his shirt on the windowsill, and then places them back in his shirt. Bowing towards each thing in life, the Name arises of itself. Namu Amida Butsu.

REALISING THE PURE LAND

Shinran makes a distinction between two key moments in the realisation of the Shin path: the moment of shinjin, or true entrusting, in which the foolish being entrusts herself to Amida Buddha as her deepest reality, and the moment of death, when one enters the Pure Land, nirvana, emptiness. The reason that the moment of true entrusting and the entrance into the Pure Land are not completely the same is due to our karmic limitations. The distinction between the two is roughly equivalent to the difference between the historical Buddha Shakyamuni’s attainment of nirvana at the age of thirty-five and his entrance into parinirvana at eighty. The initial nirvana is known as “nirvana with a remainder” because, while he was still in his limited mind and body, negative karmic residue remained. Although he was a great and enlightened teacher, he also fell physically ill, he had disagreements with disciples, and the sangha was beset by political turmoil and split into two. When he left this world and the limitations of his body and mind, he entered complete nirvana, or parinirvana.

Similarly, one attains true entrusting in this life and enters the complete Pure Land in the next. The Pure Land has always been there underfoot, yet we cannot fully see it until we become free of the blind passions that are an inevitable part of life. Though seemingly illogical, this is the reality of life for the Shin Buddhist: the vow to bring all beings into the Pure Land has already been accomplished by Amida Buddha, but we must continue our journey on the path to the Pure Land. In fact, precisely because the path has already been laid out for us, we see that we are not there yet. Deep down, we sense the oneness of the flow of reality, and thereby we are moved to realise it in each moment of life. We say Namu Amida Butsu beginning with ourselves (Namu), but it is Amida Butsu, Amida Buddha, that brings one to the realisation of Namu, one’s foolishness.

BEYOND LIMITED NOTIONS OF LIFE AND DEATH

It is said that what set the Buddha Shakyamuni on his path to seek enlightenment was the sight of old age, sickness, and death. To grow old, become ill, and die is as much a part of our human nature as anything else. In fact, to truly live, we must be able to acknowledge and embrace all of this. If death is truly part of us, then it dwells deep within us, even among those who are in seemingly robust health.

Amida’s compassion, boundless life, is beyond preconceived ideas of life and death. At each step in life, this boundless oneness is always there, and great compassion awaits one at death just as it does at every turn in life. In the depths of the human heart, life and death are as one in the great flow of existence. Aoki Shinmon, a Buddhist mortician, was washing his hands after preparing the corpse of a young mother for burial. As he dumped the water from a bucket into a bamboo grove, he saw a dragonfly whose belly shone with the translucent light of a belly filled with eggs:

As I was doing the coffining surrounded by people crying, no tears came, but when I saw the eggs shining in this dragonfly, tears filled my eyes. This tiny dragonfly dying after just a few weeks has been bearing eggs in unbroken succession to perpetuate its life form from hundreds of millions of years past. As I thought of this, tears started to flow and would not stop.

The name of Amida Buddha leads beyond the usual separation of life and death into oneness of reality.

In the Japanese tea ceremony, there is the expression ichigo ichie, “one time, one meeting.” Although we may see family and friends on a daily basis, if we really think about it, each meeting is the first and last. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus states, one cannot step in the same river twice. Each time we meet a person, however familiar, they have changed, and we have also changed, so that the encounter is unique, for that time only. When the inexorable force of the vow, of the power of life itself, breaks through our foolish complacency to make us realise the preciousness of each moment, then we are moved to utter the six-syllable Name, Namu Amida Butsu.

This life, wholly unexpected I receive this moment now. Unlimited suffering Boundless compassion Namu Amida Butsu Namu Amida Butsu

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What does weak central coherence mean?

What are the autistic thinking styles?

selection effects on perceptions of autism

i think the emphasis on social behaviors in autism is probably way overblown.

if you’re interacting with someone whose cognition and perceptions are unusual, you don’t have the opportunity to directly observe their cognition and perceptions. but you have lots of opportunity to directly observe their social behaviors. so if their cognition and perception have any sort of effect on their social behaviors, it’s going to look like whatever weird thing is going on with them is inherently social.

and that’s not the only bias we should expect if our model of autism derives primarily from the observations of clinicians.

imagine you’re a therapist of some kind, and an autistic person shows up in your office. what is there to notice about them?

there’s the way they greet you. they way they talk, their vocabulary and sentence structure. the awkward feeling when they respond in unexpected ways to your non-verbal social signals, or fail to take turns in conversation. the way they move, how they rock back and forth or flap their hands or make other repetitive movements. the way they tend to repeat everything you say. the way they keep talking about horticulture session after session despite your every attempt to change the topic. the way they cover their eyes and start yelling when you turn the lights on or forget to hide your yellow jacket, but don’t react at all to the sound of their mother calling their name from the doorway. the way they melt down when you ask to meet at a different time next week.

you see the same behavior patterns over and over in this certain group of clients. so autism appears to be a condition characterized by 1) social deficits in emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communication, and social participation in general; 2) repetitive movements and speech patterns, 3) unusual intense focus on highly restricted interests, 4) something really odd about how they react to sensory inputs from the environment, and 5) insistence on sameness or rigid adherence to ritualized behavior patterns.

i have blind-men-touching-an-elephant feels about this description of autism. or maybe even looking-for-your-keys-under-the-lamp-post,-even-though-that’s-not-where-you-dropped-them,-because-you-can-see-here,-and-over-where-you-dropped-them-it’s-all-dark feels.

…except like it’s not even an elephant but instead some kind of enormous dinosaur with parts that are way too high up to reach. if people try to figure out what it is by touching its feet, one person says “it’s a thing with claws”, and another person says “no, it’s a thing with feathers”, and a third person who’s very clever responds, “the underlying truth is that it’s a thing with both claws and feathers”. eventually everyone agrees that whatever the thing is, it has claws and/or feathers of various types and to varying degrees. (which just clears everything right up, yeah?)

when you can only touch its feet, there’s no way to draw a picture of anything like the real animal, because nearly all of it is out of reach. your drawing will be all feathers and claws, and no torso or tail or head or teeth. you’re not *wrong* that dinosaurs tend to have feathers and claws, but you’re missing the true shape of things anyway.

importantly, a dinosaur would have a hellofa time recognizing itself in your drawing. especially an unusually tall dinosaur, or a dinosaur with few feathers, or one who’s been filing their claws way down since age five.

autism is a cognitive/perceptual style that *impacts* socialization, movement, speech patterns, conversation topics, reactions to sensory inputs, and preferences about order and sameness. but *none* of those factors carves reality at its joints.

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I am curious about how planter families in the antebellum South treated their own autistic or relatedly neurodivergent children. If anyone here knows about this subject I’d love to hear more!

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The behavior of the so-called Holy Fools of Russia, who went about nearly naked in winter, seemingly oblivious to the cold, speaking strangely and appearing uninterested in normal human interaction, has also been reinterpreted as autistic.

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At least one of his parents was an alcoholic, he had one near relative who was mentally ill or disabled, and Billy himself was given to masturbation.

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I don’t actually think this is true for all mistakes that autistic people make?

[As far as I have heard,] some autistics have problems, *always*, with using personal pronouns. Even when they have optimal levels of everything they still don’t use personal pronouns in the typical way or at all. This thing specifically seems like an aspect of syntax and grammar that autistics have trouble understanding and which adult nt allistics almost never have trouble understanding ever, even when they are very tired or somesuch.

Perhaps I’m just misunderstanding your point?

tbqh “autistic” speech errors like the pronoun thing are… really not that far off in terms of the brain mechanics involved from just regular old speech errors that allistics make, too

because when you break all of them down into component pieces, the errors aren’t just random wrong words or sounds; they tend to involve one or more conceptual/grammatical/phonological pieces appearing in the correct place, mixed with another cognitive “part” of the word that’s garbled up with influences from surrounding phonological contexts, other things you might have just been thinking about, the next word you’re intending on saying, something you’re reading or hearing in the background, etc.

(I think conceptually-relative language tends to result in word glitches with autistic people more often than other sorts of things because, well, relative language is simply cognitively more complex and taxing, regardless of neurotype. it’s just that when you add autistic language difficulties to that, you end up more likely to get errors in those areas simply because the autistic person is already closer to their “low cognitive bandwith; glitches likely” threshold than the allistic person as a baseline.)

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your proprieter has social anxiety and has trouble figuring out how to social norms, part 578 of infinity

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If you're interested in autistic schools I have some experiences with one (in the UK) that seemed pretty rare but also seems like the model on which all schools like it should be run

Oh, I’m curious what this is in response to?

I am interested in autistic schools, incidentally, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned anything related to this recently?

Anyway, yes, I would be very interested in hearing your experiences with an autistic school!

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chocolate cookies stress me out because the chips are distributed unevenly

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only got a 30/50 on the autism quotient today lads

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> Other surveys of the community suggest we have high percentages of depression, anxiety, autism and ADHD. Anecdotal evidence suggests we have a high proportion of socially maladjusted people who are some combination of heavily introverted, awkward, hyper-individualistic, oblivious, overly trusting, previously ostracised and confrontation avoidant. In an achievement sense we have a staggering percentage of people who have the intelligence to enter the higher echelons of society, but instead fell through the gaps due to burnout, untreated ADHD, major depression, defiance of authority figures, and other related causes.

[silver-and-ivory]

I've never read anything which encompassed certain parts of my life as well as these. Having a pretty strong emotional reaction. The "having to walk around all day beating yourself up inside for being such a failure for being unable to remember or accomplish simple tasks" and the torture involved and the expectations you can never fulfill and the way you are seen as intentionally bad or lazy because you don't do the thing and the amount you suffer trying to do the thing and still fail.

cont-

>pt 2 And the agony of your body’s response to the way people criticize you for it and they take so long to do so and repeat themselves so many times and put so much emotion into it and you try so hard and you bite your cheek and you desperately somehow try to be what they want you to be and CAN’T DO IT and they just don’t understand and they take all the things you *are* good at as evidence that it’s your fault for Not Trying and you can’t even deconstruct things with them because they *won’t*

Yes! All of this is something I have experienced! It’s really gratifying (though also sad) to hear that someone else has experienced these things. I’m glad that I’ve helped articulate something for you and hope that both our situations improve. :)

The part where being criticized for things is literally torture is called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and seems to mainly be a physiological response, best treated by medication. It’s an adhd/add (I have no idea what the difference is between the two) thing.

The thing where people are being painfully slow and repetitive and you just fucking need them to get on with it already, is also an adhd type thing.

The thing where you can’t do things is (as you probably already know) an executive functioning problem and all of [medication, accommodations (as in, other people helping), and cognitive strategies] can be useful for dealing with it.

As we have both noticed, a significant number of people are assholes about all of these problems, because they don’t understand how uneven abilities can be a thing (“I can read 100 pages in 30 minutes and do complicated math problems in my head, but also am awful at showering” type things). Also because they don’t know about or don’t understand executive dysfunction.

What do you mean “and you can’t even deconstruct things with them because they *won’t*?