SuperSatellite ||

The fundamental idea of Buddhism is to pass beyond the world of opposites, a world built up by intellectual distinctions and emotional defilements. - D.T. Suzuki…

A new reflection on a meditation concept is long past due I think. Yesterday evening I went up to St. Mary’s Colgan to lend a hand at their forensics work night. I met a nice young lady there that I got to talk to her for a few minutes regarding what it means to be Buddhist, and how its philosophy is not mutually exclusive from other religions. In having that conversation, it just reminded me how important education is. And more so, communication. We can do more good just talking and listening to other people than almost anything else.  In that way, I need to talk more I think.

Anyway, none of that is actually my point. My point is up in the first couple lines. By the way, I pull these handy quotes from an RSS feed through amidabuddha.org. As much as I wish I was smart enough to pull pieces of wisdom like that out of my head on demand, I cannot. Give me a few days, I’ll see if I can do better.

It seems like today, as in the present, we are becoming ever more attached to binary concepts. By that I mean if something is right, something else must be wrong. If one person is lucky, another is unlucky. You are liberal, or conservative. Morlock or Eloi.  As analytical beings, we like the idea that concepts are absolute. It can be hard to reconcile gray areas when we are weighing pros and cons (another binary idea!). But the truth is that everything is gray. What is unlucky for you one day could turn in to great luck the next. Life is all about balance. Kharma keeps events in constant flux so that things essentially always stay neutrally balanced.  Bad events aren’t happening to you to screw you over, they are just events, happening in the natural flow of life the way they must to remain in equilibrium.

The idea of the Yin and Yang is a Chinese philosophy rooted in the concept of the unity of opposites. On the hand that everything has what amounts to a positive and negative component, I would have to disagree.  There is no binary.  Again, the goal is to see beyond that kind of polarity, and to understand that things are exactly how they need to be, regardless of labels of perception.  However, the fruit of the philosophy is sound. That idea that the whole is comprised of the parts, that to be positive, something must have a negative component, and in that way the subject is balanced, is a good way to view a world of opposites. It gives it context and allows us a way to better grasp the concept that we might call something good or bad, in reality it is neither. In a way, by understanding the words and concepts of the opposites, you can destroy your precepts that they actually exist.  Once you see the wall, you can proceed to scale and pass it.  Once you are past it, the wall is no longer a factor that must be included in the equation.

Will Smith recently came under fire for a comment he made about Hitler.  To paraphrase, he said basically that as bad as Hitler was, he didn’t wake up each morning thinking “What’s the most evil thing that I can do today?”  The point being that under his philosophy of thinking, he was not the bad guy.  Perception is the problem.  How can good and evil exist when the very gauges by which such things are measured are in constant flux and open to interpretation.  By buying into those kinds of labels and philosophies, the truth is completely lost, because real truth lies beyond those labels, and cannot be reached through them.

The only absolute, the only thing that matters is suffering.  How do you know the Holocaust was not the correct course of action for Hitler to undertake?  Ask that to someone on the street.  Ask them why they are so sure that wasn’t a just action.  The answer would come back in some form of “Well duh, he killed millions of people, and that’s wrong.”  To say it’s wrong, means that in some context, it could also be right though.  Example: The Holocaust cost some 5.9 million Jewish lives.  We say that was wrong.  In comparison, the Axis suffered 7.4 million military deaths (this ignores civilian costs).  But that was right.  Because of perception.  In a world of opposites, killing 6 million Jewish people is somehow worse than killing 7 million soldiers.

A human life is a human life, regardless of where and when it was taken.  One is not more valuable than another.  Right and wrong in this case is merely an intellectualization that allows us to excuse our actions.  Killing people causes suffering.  Therefore you do not do it.  Period.  It isn’t about right and wrong, it’s about dharma.  Life is not black and white, life is suffering, and the only thing that we should concern ourselves over is getting rid of that, not adding to it.  Add it all started with opposites.  Jewish people were bad, Germans were good.  An emotional defilement.  The Allies were righteous, the Axis was evil.

These opposites are painfully and intrinsically linked to the entire founding principle about how not getting past these ideas leads to suffering.  Those are large scale examples of course, but again, scale is only a matter of interpretation.  The principle is the same at any level.  Don’t be guided by right and wrong, be only guided by the principles that removing suffering.  That isn’t the right choice, it is the only choice you can make that is without fault.

This thought for the day is a two part idea, one from my own head that I have spent some time thinking on.  Now I think I can effectively break down into words the underlying principle behind this simple phrase.

There is a common example I see pop up from time to time in the discussion of kharma.  It is the idea of the young girl who is raped and killed by some evil man.  He is never caught, and she ends up gone.  The question inevitably arises: why does she suffer, why doesn’t kharma punish him, what did she do to deserve that?  Before, I generally viewed this as a simple misunderstanding of how kharma works.  For the most part, it is usually believed that kharmic effects don’t actually take place during the same lifetime in which they are incurred.  It is only our desire for immediacy, and our inability to grasp that sometimes things take time to play out that confuses the issue.  The show My Name is Earl, while cute and funny, is entirely inaccurate with its handling of the concept of kharma.  I’ll still watch it though   My old answer was a simple expansion on the idea:  the innocent girl was not balancing out an act of this life, but something prior, and the criminal will indeed get his.  Maybe not now, but later.

That being said, I found the flaw in my logic.  While that answer is not entirely incorrect, it has one trap that we tend to fall into, and that is over-humanizing.  We do this particularly in the girl’s case.  We believe that due to her age, she is, by default, innocent.  We believe that youth brings with it an inherent form of amnesty.  That is not the case.  The events that might take place to the young body do not change the idea that the impact on the being of the mind is entirely different.  The self that goes beyond the physical body is far older, and far more experienced.  The body is a vessel for that.  It will get another, grow, and move forward and upward, knowing that now it is that much closer to escaping kharmic rebirth. 

To us, we would view the event as a tragedy because we attach ideas like age of mind and body all to one constant, a point of birth.  We then further apply false ideas of innocence on top of that.  Layer upon layer of things that aren’t actually real.  The result is that what really happens, never happened to a little girl.  It happened to something older, wiser, and far more capable, beyond any understanding we can really apply with human concepts.  The confusion comes from mixing long held, and widespread ideas, like the one of the one-off life of mind, body, and soul.  One of the primary teachings of Buddhism is that we must escape that sense of "I"-ness.  The belief that I am my body, that they are part of the same thing.  What we refer to when we say I does not actually exist.  The word "I" is just a lingustic tool to ease the association of relationships, the same way "he" or "she" is.  The true nature of that person, what they are and who they are, lies far beyond our shortsighted words.

My second point is on the loss of self (don’t worry, this one should be shorter).  I was talking to a friend the other day about having wisdom teeth taken out.  Luckily for me, I was born without them, so it isn’t an experience I’ll have to deal with.  But, the point was raised about anesthesia.  As a Buddhist, we know we are supposed to avoid all mind altering substances.  Clarity of the mind is a precious thing, and not something one should artificially cloud.  You should never purposefully lose that sense of self, or control.  That’s easy to say for substances of choice: alcohol, chemicals, drugs, etc.  But what about surgery aids?  What if you are in a car accident, knocked out, and they administer drugs to keep you under and do surgery, etc?  It’s an interesting point of conflict.  Obviously, the reasonable answer is that I would have to decline such types of treatment.

I dunno.  It just raises an interesting point about how far one could go before the physical need for relief would overpower the mental need for clarity.  One could argue that someone well trained in Buddhism and/or meditation could, through mental effort, block out and isolate any pain with little more than a local numbing agent.  In that case, providing their own for of anesthesia.  In any case, hopefully I don’t need to force my hand on the matter.

First, I want to take a quick moment to direct you to this article at Yahoo discussing the rise of Buddhism in the US.  It’s the 4th largest religion in the country currently.  It’s a nice, long article that is really well written I think, and very much worth taking a few minutes to read.  This includes a brief mention of those who actually retain then "home" faith, while incorporating Buddhist principles.

I found this daily meditation from a couple days ago particularly interesting, after comments I made in one of my previous meditation blogs.  The timing was just very good I thought.  There, I discussed how one might be able to see some Truth at any given point in time, but that its true form and meaning can be somewhat distorted until we learn to see past some of the complications that occur due to dhukha.

Those two sentences lay out this concept better than I think I was able to do with a whole blog.  The term "clarity" very well represents, I think, the feeling and idea of what we pursue.  Clarity is a concept that I believe applies to more than just ideas, but rather it implies freedom within any kind of perception and interpretation.

So, the pursuit of freedom from dhukha outlines as part of it’s goal, the achieval clarity.  That opens us to the freedom to take in what is around us without taint, and without noise.  In interpersonal communications you learn the process of transmitters, receivers, channels, and noise.  Any time people work together, there will always be some degree of noise in the channels they use to communicate.  When we achieve clarity, however, we gain the ability to eliminate that noise, and perform pure communication (this assumes communication with a like person, otherwise the counterpoint would still create their own noise.  This would affect them, but not you).

Imagine a world like that.  One where point and counterpoint interact without complication.  Where they may interact without belief in hidden motives, in agendas, or with fear of being misunderstood.  These are the benefits having clarity of perception provides.  This is what makes it such a valuable tool, and worthwhile pursuit.  You might not make it now.  Those in the monastic followings spend years upon years over several different periods in their lives studying and meditating on this very thing.  But it can come to anyone with time.  And perhaps you don’t find it, but you can learn to turn down the noise some.  Clarity is not an all or nothing entity.  It’s something you can work on, improve, and hone.

Yay for me! I made my first Facebook group. It’s nice and Buddhist themed for all the Pitt people who would like to link with the rest of us in the area.  I don’t know about you, but I’m getting really tired of standing on street corners yelling to ask if anyone knows any other Buddhists around here.  I invite anyone interested to come join in (even if you’re not Buddhist). And if you’re not interested, pass word on to any friends that you think might be interested.  Just click your mousey doodad here.

Why do you do what you dowhen you do those things you do?  I’ve had a couple conversations with people regarding my use of things like the word "morals" in my past couple blogs.  That what I call Truth and they call morality are intrinsically the same thing.  I explain that morals are a reflection of the society in which they are created.  Truth is different than that.  However morality may contain some truth nonetheless, but Truth is not morality.  This [morality] is just one aspect of a mechanical behavior.

Why do we do what we do?  Why make the choices that we do?  Most people do it simply because it is what they are taught.  Human nature is to accept things without question in a lot of instances.  Once we do that, once we accept a rule as imperative, we react to situations where it is involved like a knee-jerk reaction.

Imagine for a moment children being indoctrinated into Mujahideen.  News agencies have shown film of little children, 5, 6, and 7 years old who will proudly proclaim that they want to be Mujahideen.  They want to kill people so they can go to heaven.  The search for Truth forces us to question this philosophy, as it’s patterns are a source of dhukha.  But these children are conditioned to not question.  They are programmed to provide a mechanical response and serve a purpose.  Many are eventually raised into being suicide bombers, because they are so brainwashed, they will do whatever they are told, and they are of much use beyond that.  It is an awful process, but one supported, encouraged, and built by the society and it’s religious, political, and military leaders.  To them, that is moral.  That is their code, their pattern, and their norm of behavior.

One important aspect we must maintain on the path to enlightenment is that we have to maintain clear vision and never respond to something out of impulse or reflex.  Time can wait for us.  Be conscious of your surroundings and what is happening.  Evaluate and make a decision that is educated based on what Truth tells you.  If an intruder breaks into your home, one social reflex would be to capture and punish that person (how many people do you know keep guns for home protection and would use them?  Probably more than you think).  You might shoot him, or beat him.  You do this out of fear and because society tells you that it is okay to severely hurt a person who invades your home.  Instead, call the police, try to trap the person, or capture them in a way that forces submission, but minimal harm.  Remember, they have as much right to be given the chance to learn and grow from experiences as you do.  This is why it is important to forego impulse and conditioned responses.

Sometimes society is wrong.  Tommy Lee Jones has a few lines in Men in Black (bear with me) where he say: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."  Don’t trust society and tradition to tell you how to live and make choices.  You have the power to do that yourself, and often times in a manner better than you could have in the first place.

The past few blogs I’ve posted in this vein have all been very simliar, in that they all have drawn heavily on the concept of what Truth is, and how you find it.  I have discovered that this is the case largely due to the fact that it is, after all, one of the primarly goals of Buddhism.  By understanding what Truth is, and by learning to See it, you can find the end to dhukha.  So it is natural that many different things would be attached to the idea, and that a lot of time is spent studying and reflecting on it.

Truth isn’t just something you reference from time to time.  It’s not something that pops up when you need it, or a fact that floats in a book waiting to be researched.  Truth simply is, and the realization of that fact is a singular event.  Truth is what can guide every act you do.  I have discussed before that morality isn’t a good basis for choices.  You shouldn’t choose how to do something based on what societies or laws say.  You do it because by knowing the Truth of those actions, you understand all at once the consequences.

And sometimes you know that it might not be the best.  As the saying goes, truth hurts.  Truth might mean knowing that someone you love is going to make a decision that will have poor kharmic influences, or that you will have to choose between two things that will hurt others regardless.  Eventually however, you can seperate from that.  It’s not that it "hurts" so much as you understand what Truth is, and that you must make the choice that is best for everyone.  Until we have perfected our ability to See, the "human filter" applies the sense of dhukha to choices we make because we understand the Truth.  Imagine wearing glasses that were not quite your perspective.  You can still see things in front of you, make out where you are going and such, but the view is still twisted and off a little.  If you take off those glasses though, suddenly your site returns to a normal and much more clear state.  You still see what you saw before, but now without the added influence of the bad glasses.

If making those choices bothers you, it is because you have not yet reached past the entire understanding of Truth.  You still define your choices with some regard to the dhukha they possess.  You’re still wearing the metaphorical incorrect glasses.  With practice, that can stop.  And educated choice should never hurt.  What you learn is that Truth doesn’t cause dhukha, Truth is the solution to it.  We just have to train ourselves to understand and use that.