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Suffering and the Human Terroir
Author(s) -
Muller Rick
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
anthropology of consciousness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1556-3537
pISSN - 1053-4202
DOI - 10.1111/anoc.12078
Subject(s) - terroir , embodied cognition , compassion , environmental ethics , natural (archaeology) , metaphor , aesthetics , psychology , social psychology , sociology , wine , epistemology , geography , philosophy , archaeology , political science , art , law , linguistics , visual arts
Fully embracing one's embodied suffering, rather than denying it or mentally explaining it away, can open an individual to a broader sense of interbeing, to the ability to endure, survive, and move through pain and toward a deeper sense of compassion, peace, joy, and liberation. The self benefits from exploring interbeing using an environmental metaphor to consider the human body: the body as terroir. Terroir is analogous to the specific microclimate and natural environment in which quality wine is produced. Appreciation of oneself as a unique mobile terroir can reveal estranged aspects of the host/guest (ghos‐ti) relationship of interbeing within the individual body/self. Perhaps this is what those who practice interbeing in the real world have come to understand.