Categoria: Idiomas

The Birth of the Brazilian people, the University and Popular Knowledge

Leonardo Boff4 Comentários


As a people, Brazilians have not yet finished being born. Representatives of 60 different countries are being mixed here in an open process, that will culminate in the birth of a new people.

From the Colony we inherited a highly selective state, an excluding elite and immense mass of the deprived and the descendants of slaves. In his original interpretation of Brazil, the political analyst Luiz Gonzaga de Souza Lima  tells us that we were born as a Transnational Enterprise, condemned up to the present to be a supplier of natural products for the world market (cf. A refundação do Brasil, 2011).

But in spite of this socio-historical limitation, in the midst of this enormous mass, leaders and movements were slowly maturing that created all types of communities, associations, and groups of action and reflection, ranging from the associations of coconut breakers of the Marañon to the peoples of the jungle of Acre, the landless of the South and the North-East, the base communities, and the unions of the Paulista ABC.

The democracy exercised within these movements engendered active citizens; and from the relations among them, with each maintaining its autonomy, a generating energy of the Brazilian people is being born, that is slowly becoming conscious of its history, and is projecting a different and better future for all.

No process of this magnitude is accomplished without allies, without organic linkage with those who handle a specialized knowledge with the social movements of the committed (los comprometidos). And this is where the University is challenged to broaden its horizon. It is important that educators and students attend the living school of the people, as Paulo Freire did, and that they allow the people to enter the classrooms and listen to the professors on subjects relevant to them, as I myself used to do in my classes at the Rio de Janeiro State University.

This vision presupposes the creation of an alliance of the academic intelligencia with the popular misery. All universities, especially after the 1809 reform of their statute, in Berlin, by Humboldt, that allowed the modern sciences to acquire academic citizenship, alongside the humanistic reflection created by the old university, universities became the classic place for the questioning of culture, of life, of humanity, of human destiny and of God. The two cultures –the humanistic and the scientific– communicate more and more with each other in the sense of thinking of the whole, the destiny of the technical-scientific project itself in the face of the interventions that humans make in nature and humanity’s responsibility for the common future of the nation and of the Earth. This challenge demands a new form of thinking which does not follow a simple, lineal logic, but that of the complex and of dialogue.

The universities are being compelled to search for a way of developing organic roots in the peripheries, in the popular bases and the sectors directly linked to production. Here a fecund interchange of knowledge can be established between popular wisdom, formed by experience, and academic knowledge, based on the spirit of criticism. From this alliance will surely grow a new range of theoretical subjects, born of the contradiction between the popular anti-reality and the valuation of the vast wealth of the people in their capacity to find, by themselves, solutions to their problems. Here occurs an exchange of knowledge, some complimenting others, in the style proposed by Ilya Prigogine, 1977 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry (cf. A nova aliança, UNB 1984).

This union accelerates the genesis of a people; allows for a new type of citizenship, based on the co-citizenship of the representatives of the civil and academic society and the popular bases, that themselves take the initiative and submit the State to democratic control, demanding basic services, especially for the great peripheral populations.

In these popular initiatives, with their distinctive fronts (housing, health, education, human rights, public transportation, etc.), the social movements feel a need for professional knowledge. This is where the university can and must be spreading knowledge, offering guidance for original solutions and opening perspectives sometimes unsuspected by those who are condemned to fight for survival.

From this rich coming-and-going between university thinking and popular knowledge there can appear a bio-regionalism, sufficiently developed for the eco-system and the local culture. From this practice, the public university will regain its public character, and really serve society. And the private university will realize its social function, since in great part it is hostage to the private interests of the classes and is the incubator of their social reproduction.

This dynamic and contradictory process will only prosper if it is imbued with a great dream: to be a new people, autonomous, free and proud of their land. Antropologist Roberto da Matta emphasized that the Brazilian people has created a really enviable patrimony: «all our capacity to synthesize, relate, reconcile, thereby creating zones and values linked to happiness, the future and hope» (Porque o Brasil é Brasil, 1986,121).

In spite of all the historic tribulations, in spite of having been considered, so many times, a Don Nadie and good for nothing, the Brazilian people never lost either its self esteem or its enchanted vision of the world. Brazil is home to a people of great dreams, invincible hope, and generous utopias, a people that feels so impregnated of divine energies that it believes that God is Brazilian.

Perhaps this enchanted vision of the world will be one of the main contributions that we, the Brazilians, can offer to the emerging world culture, with so little magic and such a diminished sensibility for play, humor and the co-existence of the opposites.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar

The Chinese wisdom of caring: Feng Shui

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

One advantage of globalization, one that is not only economic-financial but also cultural, is that it enables us to access values that are not well developed in our Western culture. Here, we will touch on the Chinese Feng-Shui. Literally, it means wind (feng) and water (shui). The wind carries Qi [pronounced, chi], the universal energy, and the water retains it.  On a personal level, it means “master of the prescriptions”: the wise one who, starting from the observation of nature and of close harmony with Qi, would point out the path of the winds and the flow of the waters and, this way, how to properly construct a dwelling.

Beatriz Bartoly, in her brilliant thesis of philosophy, of which I served as advisor, at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), writes: «Feng Shui gives us a form of loving jealousy» –we would say caring and tenderness– «with respect to the banality in our existence, that in the West has long been discredited and underrated: to care for the plants, for the animals, to arrange the home, care for the cleaning, the maintenance of the bedrooms, preparation of meals, to adorn daily life with the prosaic, and simultaneously, with the majestic beauty of nature. However, more than buildings and human endeavors, the principal objective of this philosophy of life is conduct and action, because more than in the results, Feng-Shui is interested in the process. The value is in the action rather than its effect, in the conduct rather than the end result».

As is deduced, the philosophy of Feng-Shui is centered more in the subject than the object, more in the person than the environment and the house itself. The person must be involved in the process, to develop the perception of the environment, capture the energetic flows and the rhythms of nature. The person must assume a conduct in harmony with others, with the cosmos and the rhythmical processes of nature. The person who has created that interior ecology will be able to successfully organize its exterior ecology.

More than a science or art, Feng Shui is fundamentally a wisdom, an ecological-cosmic ethic of how to correctly distribute the Qi throughout our environment.

The multiple facets of Feng Shui represent the final synthesis of care in organizing the garden, the house or apartment, with a harmonious integration of the elements that are present. We can even say that the Chinese, as the classic Greeks, are tireless seekers of the dynamic equilibrium of all things. The supreme ideal of the Chinese tradition, that found its best expression in Buddhism and Taoism, represented by Lao-tzu (VI-V century a.C.) and by Zhuangzi (V-IV century a.C.), consists of procuring unity through a process of integrating the differences, especially the known polarities of yin/yang, masculine/feminine, space/time, celestial/terrestrial, among others. The Tao represents that integration, the ineffable reality with which it attempts to unify the person.

Tao means path and method, but also the mysterious and secret Energy that produces all the paths and projects all the means. It cannot be expressed in words.  Before it, only respectful silence suffices. It underlies the polarity of yin and yang and manifests itself though them. The human ideal is to reach such a profound union with Tao that the satori, the illumination, results. For Taoists, the supreme good is not found beyond death, as it is for Christians, but here, in time and history, through an experience of non-duality and integration in the Tao. A person who dies is submerged in, and unified with, the Tao.

To reach this union, harmony with the vital energy that courses through heaven and Earth, called Qi, is essential. Qi can not be translated, but is equivalent to the ruah of the Jews, the pneuma of the Greeks, the spiritus of the Latins, the axe of the yoruba/nago, the quantum vacuum of the cosmologists: expressions of the supreme and cosmic Energy that underlies and sustains all beings.

Through the strength of Qi, all things are transformed (see the I Ching, the Book of Changes), and permanently remain in process. The Qi flows in the human being through the meridians of acupuncture. It circulates in the Earth through the subterranean telluric veins, composed of the electromagnetic fields that lie along the meridians of ecopuncture that are interwoven along Earth’s surface. The expansion of Qi means life, when Qi retracts, there is death. When Qi acquires weight, it appears as matter, when it turns subtle, as spirit. Nature is the wise combination of the distinct states of Qi, from the heaviest to the lightest.

When Qi emerges in a given place, a harmonious scene is created, with soft winds and crystalline waters, sinuous mountains and green valleys. It invites the human being to build his abode, or locate an apartment there, where he can find himself “at home”.

The Chinese vision of the world favors the space, in contrast to the West, that favors time. Space for Taoism is the place of encounter, of confraternity, of the interactions of all with all, because all of us are carriers of the Qi energy that envelopes the space. The supreme expression of space is realized at home, in the garden, in the well cared for apartment.

The human being who wants to be happy must develop topofilia; love of the place where one lives and where one’s home and garden, or apartment, is found.  Feng Shui is the art and technique of building well the house, the garden, and of decorating the apartment with a sense of harmony and beauty.  In the face of the dismantling of caring and the present ecological crisis, the millenarian wisdom of Feng Shui helps us rebuild the alliance of sympathy and love with nature. That remakes the human presence (that the Greeks called ethos), based on caring and its multiple facets, such as tenderness, charity and cordiality.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

The essential caress that rescues our humanity

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

The caress is one of the supreme expressions of tenderness which we dealt with in the previous article. Why do we say, the essential caress? Because we want to distinguish it from the caress as a pure psychological action, in function of a passing desire and without history. The caress-action does not involve the whole person. The caress is essential when it is transformed into an attitude, a way of being that defines one as a whole, in one’s psyche, thinking, will, one’s inner self, and relationships.

The organ of the caress is, fundamentally, the hand: the hand that touches, the hand that caresses, the hand that establishes relationships, that gives warmth, that brings calm. Through the hand and by the hand everyone reveals a tender mode of being. The caress touches the depth of the human being, where the personal Center is located. For the caress to be truly essential, one must cultivate the profound Self, the “I” that seeks the most intimate and truthful in ourselves, and not just the superficial ego of consciousness, always preoccupied with worries.

The caress that emerges from the Center produces repose, integration and trust. Hence its meaning. When caressing a child, a mother communicates the most guiding experience that exists: the fundamental trust in the goodness of life; the trust that deep down, and in spite of so many distortions, everything has meaning; the trust that peace is not a dream, that peace is the truest realization of life; the trust of shelter in the great Uterus.

Like tenderness, the caress demands total altruism, respect for the other and renunciation of any intention other than to like well and to love. It is not the skin to skin contact, but the giving of affection and love through the hand and skin, the skin that is our concrete self.

Affection does not exist without caresses, tenderness and caring. As the star must have an aura to shine, likewise affection needs the caress to survive. Caress of the skin, of the hair, of the hands, of the face, of the shoulders and of sexual intimacy, make affection and love concrete. The quality of the caress assures that the affection is not misleading, false or doubtful. The essential caress is as gentle as the soft opening of a door. There is no caress in the violence of slamming doors and windows, that is, in the invasion of the intimacy of a person.

Colombian psychiatrist Luis Carlos Restrepo, in his beautiful book on The Right to Tenderness, (El derecho a la ternura, Arango editores 2004), says: «The hand, a human organ par excellence, serves both to caress and to grab. The hand that grabs and the hand that caresses are two extreme facets of the possibilities of inter-human encounters».

In a wider cultural reflection, the hand that grabs embodies the way-of-being of the last four centuries, of the so-called modernity. The articulating axis of the modern paradigm is the will to grab everything, in order to posses and dominate. The whole Latin American Continent was grabbed and practically devastated by the religious and military invasion of the Iberians. And it extended to Africa, to China, to everything in the world that could be grabbed, and even to the Moon.

The modernists grabbed nature, dominating her, exploiting her goods and services with no consideration or respect for her limits, and without giving her the time to rest that would allow her to reproduce herself. Today we are harvesting the poisonous fruits of that practice, that lacks any type of caring or sense of caressing that which is alive and is vulnerable.

To grab is an expression of power, of manipulation, of turning the other or of things to my way of being.  Seen correctly, what has occurred is not a globalization that respects all cultures in their rich diversity. What has happened is a Westernization of the world, and in its most pedestrian form: the hamburgerization of the North-American life style, imposed on all corners of the planet.

The hand that caresses represents the necessary alternative: the caring-way-of-being, because «the caress is a hand full of patience, that touches without hurting and lets go, to allow mobility to the being with whom we enter into contact» (Restrepo).

In the present days it is urgent to rescue in human beings the dimension of the essential caress. It is within all of us, even if covered by a thick layer of materialistic ash, consumerism and futility. The essential caress returns to us our lost humanity. In its best meaning, it also strengthens the most universal ethical precept: to treat humanly each human being, this is, with understanding, acceptance, caring and with the essential caress.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, cybermelinaalfaro@bandalibre.com.

Tenderness: the life-blood of love

Leonardo Boff7 Comentários


The paths that connect the heart of a man to the heart of a woman are mysterious. Equally mysterious are the paths between the hearts of two men and similarly between the hearts of two women who find each other and declare their mutual love. From those connections is born the falling in love, love; and finally marriage or permanent union. Since we deal with liberties, the couples are exposed to imponderable events.

Existence itself is never established once and for always. It exists in permanent dialogue with the environment. That exchange leaves no one immune. Everyone lives exposed. Mutual loyalties are tested. In a marriage, passion is followed by daily life with its dull routine. In their lives together the two experience separations, volcanic passions erupt with fascination for another person. It is not uncommon that the ecstasy is followed by deception. There are twists, forgiveness, renewal of promises and reconciliation. But the wounds always remain, such that even when healed, scars remain as a reminder that once they bled.

Love is a living flame that burns, but that can diminish and slowly be covered with ashes, until it is extinguished. It is not that the persons come to hate each other, rather, they become indifferent to each other.  That is the death of love. The 11th verse of the Spiritual Canticle of the mystic Saint John of the Cross, which are songs of love between the soul and God, says with acute observation: «the pain of love is only healed with presence and closeness». Platonic, virtual love, or love at a distance are not enough. Love demands presence. Love needs the concrete closeness that, more than just the physical, is the face-to-face, and the heart feeling the throb of the heart of the other.

The mystic poet puts it well: love is an ache that, in my words, is only cured with what I would call essential tenderness. Tenderness is the life-blood of love. If you want to guard, fortify, and give sustainability to love, be tender with your companion. Without the balm of tenderness the sacred flame of love is not nourished.  It burns out.

What is tenderness? To begin with, let us set aside psychological and superficial concepts that identify tenderness as a mere emotion and the excitement of feeling the other’s presence. To concentrate only on feelings creates sentimentalism. Sentimentalism is a product of insufficiently integrated subjectivity. It bends in on itself and celebrates the sensations provoked by the other. It does not reach beyond itself.

Tenderness, by contrast, arises when one is not centered only in oneself, but reaches out in the direction of the other, feeling the other as other, participating in the existence of the other, and allowing oneself be touched by the history of the other’s life. The other marks the subject, by its lingering in the other, not for the sensations that it evokes in one, but for love, for the appreciation of the other and the value of that person’s life and struggle. “I love you not because you are beautiful; you are beautiful because I love you”.

Tenderness is the affection we give to others for themselves. Tenderness is caring without obsession. Tenderness is neither effeminacy nor renouncing of rigor. It is an affection that, in its own way, opens us to the knowledge of the other.  Speaking with the bishops in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis asked them for “the revolution of tenderness,” as a condition for a true pastoral encounter.

In reality we only know each other well when we have affection and feel involved with the person with whom we want to establish communion. Tenderness can and should coexist with extreme undertakings for a cause, as was truly exemplified by the absolute revolutionist Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-1968). We hold dear his inspiring sentence: “we must be hardened but without losing tenderness” . Tenderness includes the creativity and self-realization of the person next to us and through the person we love.

A relationship of tenderness does not involve anguish, because it is free from the search for advantage and domination. Tenderness is the heart’s own strength, it is the profound desire to share paths. The anguish of the other is my anguish, their success is my success and their salvation or perdition is my salvation and, in deep down, not only mine but of all.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662),  XVII century French philosopher and mathematician, made an important distinction that helps us understand tenderness: he distinguished the esprit de finesse from the esprit de géometrie. The esprit de finesse is the spirit of purity, of sensibility, of caring and of tenderness. The spirit does not only think and reason. The spirit goes beyond: to reason it adds sensibility, intuition and the capacity of feeling in depth.  From the spirit of purity is born the world of excellencies, of the great dreams, of the values and commitments to which it is worth dedicating one’s time and energy.

The esprit de géometrie is the spirit of calculus and work, interested in efficacy and power. But where power is concentrated there is neither tenderness nor love. This is why authoritarian persons are hard and without tenderness and, sometimes, without pity.  But this is the mode of being that has dominated all modernity. It has cornered, and placed under great suspicion, all that is related to affection and tenderness.

From here also comes the terrifying vacuum of our “geometric” culture, with its plethora of sensations but without deep experiences; with fantastic accumulation of knowledge but with scant wisdom, with too much muscular vigor, too much sexualizing, too many artifacts of destruction, as shown by the serial killers, but without tenderness or the caring for one another, for the Earth, and her sons and daughters, for the common future of all.

Love and life are fragile. Their invincible strength comes from the tenderness with which we envelope and nourish them forever.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU