August 2, 2026
Principle 8. Comprehended Action. Week 1
You Will Make Your Conflicts Disappear When You Understand Them In Their Ultimate Root, Not When You Want To Resolve Them
Last time: The Great Game
This time: Hidden Depths, two illustrations, a joke, and a story
Here’s a Few Things to Consider this Week:
We start off this month by looking at the basic structure of the principle eight, the principle of comprehended action. We will consider its general meaning and broad implications.
Along with our effort to delve deeply into this principle we are always trying to turn the principles as a whole into a dynamic and permanent meditation. That is to say, into a practice applicable at every moment of our lives. In that way we go on shaping a style of, or way of, engaging
To help gain some new perspectives we will also play the game of the week.
Find It!
The rules for this week’s game are simple, and summed up in its name, Find it! We are always looking for examples of the principles in our daily life and personal experience. In the game of Find It! we extend that to the cultural environment around us.
This week’s story, joke, and images might be considered as examples of what someone playing this game found. During this week keep your eyes and ears (and memory and imagination) open for things around you that illustrate the principle.
To kick things off we offer a few examples. But your search can be drawn from contemporary culture, and can include jokes, songs, movies, etc. The point is that the thing you have found captures or transmits aspects of this month’s principle.
General Considerations and Personal Reflections:
Here are some personal reflections. I offer them in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, and look forward to hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, this principle.
It has been said that when facing difficult or conflicted situations this principle encourages us to avoid actions that are not thought through. It doesn’t say we should do nothing about problems, but rather that we should try to more throughly understand the difficulty itself and our actions (our proposed solutions). It’s normal to become anxious when facing conflicts and to compulsively attempt to solve them even before comprehending their roots. In this way problems are made even more complicated and in a chain reaction, generate more problems.
Found!
1) Attached is an illustration by our friend Rafael Edwards (whom we rely on so often for his creativity and talent with images). I think it captures in a single image the basic idea of the principle.
2) And an old joke:
A man goes to the doctor and complains that he has horrible pain everywhere. To demonstrate he pokes his own chest, crying out in pain. He then pokes his knee and screams, "Ouch! That hurts too!" He pokes his forehead and yells, "Even my head hurts! Doctor, my whole body is failing!"
The doctor runs some tests and says: "You are in great shape. The only thing wrong is that your finger is broken. Misdiagnosing the root cause makes you think the entire system is falling apart when really it is just one faulty tool.”
3) I asked AI to generate a story illustrating the principle but I didn’t like it much. So, here’s my attempt at it.
Root and Branch
Once upon a time and far away, there was a small village where every summer, they found their fields and gardens overgrown, and their crops being strangled, by choking purple weeds. Tiring of the unending labour of removing this threat to their food supply one of the village elders, declared: “Enough of this, and more than enough! Let us fast in silence for three days and then gather together and pray that this horrible plant withers away and leaves our crops alone”.
Having done as he suggested the villagers gathered together in the town square, closed their eyes, and prayed to their God with all their hearts. But the purple stalks remained. Angered, the village elder ordered everyone to take up their hoes and shears and chop the weeds to dust and then burn that dust.
Looking at the fields, finally free of every trace of the weed the elder said: "Look, we have cleared every purple plant from the ground. You can clearly see the problem is resolved."
But within the week the problem had returned, worse than ever.
In despair and with nothing to suggest the elder cried out: “what shall we do when this horror can spring back from nothing.” Then the village drunkard spoke up: "Of course, it sprang back. You did nothing but clear the surface, but below the surface are the roots.”
So, following the injunction of this unlikely advisor they took up their tools and dug down until they had removed every trace of every root of each one of these troublesome weeds. After that this problem plants ceased to trouble them and soon passed into memory, remembered only in folktales, and this saying of the grandmothers: “You cannot cure a fever by painting the skin; to heal the surface, you must delve into the heart of the matter”.
4) Another visual example. This time a historical one.
Below is an etching from 1754 by William Hogarth. He called it A Satire one False Perspective. It’s another illustration of how superficial understanding can lead to various errors and hide true solutions. As Hogarth said of the work: “Whoever makes a design without the knowledge of perspective will be liable to such absurdities."
According to Wikipedia there are at least 25 such “absurdities.”
Here’s just a few to get you started:
-The man climbing the hill is lighting his pipe with the candle of the woman leaning out of the upper story window.
-The line from man in the foreground's fishing rod passes behind that of the man behind him.
-The two-story building, though viewed from below, shows the top of the roof, as does the church tower in the distance.
Homework:
- Reflect on your basic understanding of the principle, it’s general meaning and implications.
-Play the game of Find It! Above are four examples (two illustrations, a joke, and a story) to get you started. What will you find?
Consider:
We are trying to change or strengthen our mental direction. We want to move from a situation of internal conflict to one of internal unity, i.e. agreement between what we think, what we feel, and what we do.
Worth Repeating:
Some forms of meditation require that you sit down and close your eyes, and that is one part of Silo’s teaching.
Note:
Besides the opportunity to participate in the weekly experiences, our next meeting will be a chance for an interchange about your thoughts, insights, examples and questions.
Peter J has offered to be our host for the next meeting.
We hope you can join us.
Thanks to Rafa, and Mani, and William Hogarth for the illustrations.
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website www.dzuckerbrot.com
Don’t forget:
In some moment of the day or night inhale a breath of air and imagine that you carry this air to your heart. Then, ask with strength for yourself and for your loved ones. Ask with strength to move away from all that brings you contradiction; ask for your life to have unity. Don't take a lot of time with this brief prayer, this brief asking, because it is enough that you interrupt for one brief moment what is happening in your life for this contact with your interior to give clarity to your feelings and your ideas.
Silo_ La Reja, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005
