Examine the Present Moment

I love doing research. I love working on a problem to better understand a situation and try to make it better. And I love it when I reach those understandings and have something to contribute that really do make things better. But recently, I got stopped in my tracks while reading a book and had to back up and think about my approach to conducting research in the field and analyzing the data.

I have been reading The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path by Ethan Nichtern. On pages 140–141, Nichtern discusses the concepts of generalization and emptiness. In discussing how we generalize, Nichtern states:

“But that ‘always’ is just a generalization. In the realm of phenomena, nothing is always happening. That word, ‘always,’ only serves to create a defense against examining the present moment directly, in its specificity.”

A little further on, in discussing emptiness, he writes:

“…emptiness refers to the inability to isolate events and phenomena from one another,” and then uses an example of remembering what a pear is and tastes like to make a point about the narratives we tell ourselves:

“…we receive no real nourishment from just saying the word ‘pear.’ The word ‘pear’ only points sloppily to to the memory of actually tasting one. Whatever way we try to signify ‘pear’ fails to stand in for the actual experience of eating one. When we solidify a narrative about pears and then replay the narrative as a recurring story line in our mind, we actually slip further and further away from a real pear.”

How Do I Generalize and See Emptiness?

An important part of research — at least for some of it — is the ability to generalize. We want our work to be able to help society. In some ways, the ability to generalize is a good thing because it has helped many people.

But I do social science research. I’m particularly interested in adolescents who have academic reading difficulties. I want to understand the problem, and then I want to help address it. A central part to working with any population is defining it.

Who are adolescents with academic reading difficulties? How will I define who I will look at? How do I set my boundaries?

This is where Nichtern has got me thinking.

Once I set up a definition — once I define my construct — I have put narrative into play. I am contributing to the larger societal narrative of what it means to be an adolescent who has academic reading difficulties. I have to be careful. How am I isolating this group of adolescents from others? Am I, by putting a boundary around them, disconnecting them from the larger social and cultural contexts in which they reside?

I am not perfect. I am most certainly contributing to a narrative. All research contributes to larger societal narratives. We have to know that, and we have to accept our role in it.

Engaging the Complexities

It’s very easy to simplify what it means to be an adolescent with academic reading difficulties. If I wanted to, I could reduce it down to what a person scores on a test. And that is a very clean and neat way to do it — superficially at least. But if my work has taught me anything, it’s that adolescents — even those with significant reading difficulties — are complex individuals. And it’s important to find ways to represent those complexities in my research.

How do I do this? For starters, I often think about the larger narrative. Let’s say I want to identify five adolescents who have academic reading difficulties and follow them around for a year. Instead of constructing my own narrative about them — instead of imposing my definition — I start by looking at how the community the students are situated in defines them. Maybe I agree, and maybe I don’t. But I look at how the students get positioned and how they position themselves and each other. I don’t impose my own narrative (I try not to) or my own working definition.

I do all I can to let go of even having a definition in which to bound them by.

I next work to examine them within the moment and the context they are in. This is the hard part. As a researcher, I have significant experience in working in schools. I have significant knowledge about research on similar populations. I have my own long and extended narrative about what it means to be an adolescent with reading difficulties, how they are likely to behave, and what teachers should do with them.

I am not saying to ignore previous knowledge and experience. But I do try to embody Nichtern when he says:

“…the study of emptiness always has the same punch line, which can be summarized in a two-word mantra: LET GO. LET GO. LET GO. The purpose of letting go is to release our fixation on narratives that stop us from fully opening to the present moment as it is.”

I must let go of existing narratives and be open to what is happening in the present moment. I might see connections from a previous narrative to a current one, but I have to let go of what I think I know. I have to let go of what past narratives have said. And I must — I MUST — accept responsibility that whatever I put out into the world will contribute to the larger narrative of who and what I am studying.

If I cannot let go of previous narratives, then I limit what I can see in the present. I owe it to the people I work with — the people who are participating in my studies — to remain in the present moment with them and tell their story in a way that represents their moment and not a past one.