Philosophical availability involves agility of thinking, openness to new ideas even if they conflict with what is known, observation and interest in the world and alterity, and exercise of articulating conclusions. The thinker is available to the universe, and assumes the universe is available to them in return. It is an attitude of curiosity and willingness to be wrong and revise or be surprised. It requires attention and interest in learning, where ideas are hypotheses, much more easily rejected than accepted, with emphasis on the process of thinking, trying, supporting, and kritiking.
The Oracle of Delphi proclaimed that Socrates was the wisest man in the world, which he accepted because he did not presume to know things—he knew that he did not know. He investigated the foundations of ideas, not granting assumptions immunity from exploration. Philosophers who practice his method exercise availability with learned ignorance, asking instead of accepting, questioning presuppositions, playing with an agility of perspectives. They search to understand, open to ideas that challenge. They empty themself of themself, as much as it is possible, in order to be tabula rasa to new experience, new ideas, new inspiration. Philosophers are curious to observe the world and how it works, as it represents the order, logic, and principles of existence, and to observe the others and how they think, as they each represent rational creatures with reason, language, emotions, desires, dissonance, souls that long for immortality, and bodies that demonstrate unavoidable signs of mortality. In order to observe, they must be available.
The philosopher must untrain their instinctive reactions to be available. The child refuses to eat broccoli because he knows he does not like it; in contrast, the philosopher experiments with their life and their thinking ritually. For instance, the philosopher might fast from one of their habits for a few days in order to experience life without the habit, to take account of the habit’s benefits and detriments, to decide whether they want to continue the habit. The philosopher thinks about their thinking, their emotions, their appetites, their relationship to themself, their relationship to alterity. The stoic teachers had their students carry barrels of rotting fish through the city streets, wash the floors, and donate their wealth to the poor to challenge nature and nurture. Philosophers may still laugh, they may still become defensive, they may still brush their teeth. But they train themself to take a moment of pause, to become conscious, in these human activities to reflect on why they laugh, or whether they must defend themself, or what would be the worst result if they did not brush their teeth.
Hakuin was known in his land as a wise Zen Master who lived a pure life.
One day a beautiful young girl from a neighboring town was found to be pregnant. When her parents insisted on knowing the identity of the father, she named Hakuin.
The parents in anger confronted Hakuin. In reply he said only: “Is that so?”
Months passed and the child was born. The parents brought the baby to Hakuin, demanding he take care of it. He responded: “Is that so?”
Hakuin tended to the child, sharing his food, stitching her clothing, and teaching her lessons. Meanwhile his reputation was tarnished and students stopped coming to learn under his wisdom.
More months passed and the girl confessed in shame that the father was in truth a young fishmonger. The girl’s parents went to Hakuin to ask for his forgiveness and praise his generosity. As he yielded the child back to them he said again: “Is that so?”
Hakuin reacts in a surprising way in each step of the story. The normal, expected reaction would be defensiveness, disagreement, blame, objection, or bewilderment. But he exhibits equanimity instead. We see the parents on the other hand reacting in the expected manner—in the moment, emotional, within their private logic. They have the facts of the moment, the truth as it has been revealed to them, and they do what they believe is right and just. They seem to melt to the background each time Hakuin responds to them, as secondary characters, unimportantly out of focus in the narrative. They play their small part unremarkably. Hakuin’s actions are notable because he breaks the rules. It is not logical, practical, or socially responsible for Hakuin to allow the accusation to destroy his reputation and position.
Even as the main character, Hakuin stands out in his passivity. He is not the naive Hercules who sets out to rewrite his fate. Hakuin is open and available to what the universe intends for him. Without this surprising accusation, a monk would not have the experience of being a father, sharing his life with a child, which is a rather normal human experience. Nor would he have the experience of shame, of being drawn back down from the pedestal his reputation of a wise zen teacher he had gained, where students would travel from afar to learn from him in reverence. He remains unreactive, which is usually taken as an admittance of guilt, for what innocent man would not plead his case? With his question, his only engagement in the narrative, we see his willingness to experience the next step of the journey with no objection. He dedicates himself to the task at hand, open to experience what fate has for him.
That's great, Kate. To be open to the world, to trust it, to gain knowledge as an experience of living the situation. To be right, it is enough to be self-confident, to feel right in oneself, he does not need to justify himself, because any justification is when I present myself as someone else, not as what I am. My only answer is to ask people: What do you think? Is this really the way it is? Is that so?