Abuse, Anger & Threats - Do We Have a Choice?

     “The Brahmins, the priest caste in India, were not very friendly toward the Buddha because he was undermining their livelihood. He preached that one didn’t need an intermediary between oneself and the gods in order to gain happiness, also that it wasn’t very useful to pour ghee over stone gods and offer flowers and incense. Since this was the livelihood of the Brahmins, although many of them did eventually become followers of the Buddha, there were others who dislike him thoroughly.
     One day one of the Brahmins who objected to the Buddha came to listen to one of the Buddha’s discourses and, while he was still speaking, walked up and down in front of him. Then he proceeded to abuse the Buddha, using quite rough language. He said the Buddha was the teacher of a wrong doctrine, that he should be chased out of the country, that he was breaking up family life because the young men were following him into monkhood, that the people should not support him; he reviled him in every possible way he could think of. 
     When he had finally run out of words the Buddha, who had been quietly sitting there listening, said, ‘Brahmin, do you ever have guests in your house?’ The Brahmin answered, ‘Yes, of course we have guests in our house.’ The Buddha said, ‘When you have guests in your house, do you offer them hospitality? Do you offer them food and drink?’ The Brahmin said, ‘Well, of course we do. Of course I offer them food and drink.’ The Buddha continued, ‘And if they don’t accept your hospitality, if they don’t take your food and drink, to whom does it belong?’ The Brahmin said, ‘It belongs to me. It belongs to me.’ The Buddha said, ‘That’s right, Brahmin. It belongs to you.’ 
     This is a good story to remember. Any abuse, anger, or threat belongs to the one who is uttering it. We don’t have to accept it.”

      Ayya Khema. “Being Nobody, Going Nowhere. Meditations on the Buddhist Path.” Wisdom Publications, 2016. 

Love Knows No Boundaries

Sand Castles

     “Some children were playing beside a river. They made castles of sand, and each child defended his castle and said, ‘This one is mine.’ They kept their castles separate and would not allow any mistakes about which was whose. 

     When the castles were all finished, one child kicked over someone else’s castle and completely destroyed it. The owner of the castle flew into a rage, pulled the other child’s hair, struck him with his fist and bawled out, ‘He has spoiled my castle! Come along all of you and help me to punish him as he deserves.’ The others all came to his help. They beat the child with a stick and then stamped on him as he lay on the ground. … Then they went on playing in their sand castles, each saying, ‘This is mine; no one else may have it. Keep away! Don’t touch my castle!’ 

     But evening came; it was getting dark and they all thought they ought to be going home. No one now cared what became of his castle. One child stomped on his, another pushed his over with both hands. Then they turned away and went back, each to his home.”

       from the Yogacara Bhumi Sutra, translated by Arthur Waley
          Jack Kornfield, Gil Fronsdal eds. “Teachings of the Buddha.” Shambhala, Boston, 2007. 

from the web

Ego is the last to go ...

     We're usually far more eager to claim ownership of a concept or the messenger, than to really understand and embody the message.

     There's an old story of several blind men coming across an elephant. Based on which part of the animal each had their hands on, each of their descriptions was completely different. The fellow holding the elephant's ear vs the one holding the foot, the belly etc. Yet they were all correct - partially.

     But most of us would rather grab hold of & claim as ours anything, even a partial truth, than to open up to & become porous to all of reality. Just more useless attempts at creating & maintaining a solid sense of self - ego.

Being Swept away by Tribal Hatred is Easy - Only Evolved Human Beings can Live Wisely

     "The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.”                Winston S. Churchill


     "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them..."                       Adlai E. Stevenson


     “The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.”         Thucydides
 
 
     “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?”               Bill Watterson


     “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”                          Herbert Hoover


     “Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.”         Mahatma Gandhi


     "That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw."         Hesiod 
 

                                 “War is over ... IF you want it.”                 John Lennon


        Our Choice: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/08/381-each-moment-new-beginning.html

Power, its Origin, & How to Use it

     An exceptional true story about authentic power:

     “The train clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. Our car was comparatively empty – a few housewives with their kids in tow; some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows.
     At one station the doors opened, and suddenly the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into the car. He wore laborer’s clothing, and he was big, drunk, and dirty. Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that the baby was unharmed. 
     Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. The laborer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood up. 
     I was young then, some twenty years ago, and in pretty good shape. I had been putting in a solid eight hours of aikido training every day for the past three years. I liked to throw and grapple. I thought I was tough. Trouble was, my martial arts skill was untested in actual combat. As students of aikido, we were not allowed to fight. 
     ‘Aikido,’ my teacher had said again and again, ‘is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection to the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.’ 
     I listened to his words. I tried hard. I even went so far as to cross the street to avoid the chimpara, the pinball punks who lounged around the train stations. My forebearance exalted me. I felt both tough and holy. In my heart, however, I wanted an absolutely legitimate opportunity whereby I might save the innocent by destroying the guilty. 
     This is it! I said to myself as I got to my feet. People are in danger. If I don’t do something fast, somebody will probably get hurt. 
     Seeing me stand up, the drunk recognized a chance to focus his rage. ‘Aha!’ he roared. ‘A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!’ 
     I held on lightly to the commuter strap overhead and gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I planned to take this turkey apart, but he had to make the first move. I wanted him mad, so I pursed my lips and blew him an insolent kiss. 
     ‘All right!’ he hollered. ‘You’re gonna get a lesson.’ He gathered himself for a rush at me. 
     A split second before he could move, somebody shouted, ‘Hey!’ It was earsplitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it – as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something and he had suddenly stumbled upon it. ‘Hey!’ 
     I wheeled to my left; the drunk spun to his right. We both stared down at a little old Japanese. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me, but beamed delightedly at the laborer, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share. 
     ‘C’mere,’ the old man said in an easy vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. ‘C’mere and talk with me.’ He waved his hand lightly. 
     The big man followed, as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and roared above the clacking wheels. ‘Why the hell should I talk to you?’ The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbow moved so much as a millimeter, I’d drop him in his socks. 
     The old man continued to beam at the laborer. ‘What’cha been drinkin’?’ he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest. ‘I’ve been drinking sake,’ the laborer bellowed back, ‘and it’s none of your business!’ Flecks of spittle spattered the old man. 
     ‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ the old man said, ‘absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night me and my wife (she’s 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree has done better than I expected, though, especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It is gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening – even when it rains!’ He looked up at the laborer, eyes twinkling. 
     As he struggled to follow the old man’s conversation, the drunk’s face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I love persimmons too….’ His voice trailed off. 
     ‘Yes,’ said the old man, smiling, ‘and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife.’ 
     ‘No,’ replied the laborer. ‘My wife died.’ Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. ‘I don’t got no wife, I don’t got no home, I don’t got no job. I’m so ashamed of myself.’ Tears rolled down his cheeks; a spasm of despair rippled through his body. 
     Now it was my turn. Standing there in my well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier than he was. 
     Then the train arrived at my stop. As the doors opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. ‘My, my,’ he said, ‘that is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it.’ 
     I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy, matted hair. 
     As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench. What I had wanted to do with muscle had been accomplished with kind words. I had just seen aikido tried in combat, and the essence of it was love. I would have to practice the art with an entirely different spirit. It would be a long time before I could speak about the resolution of conflict.” 

     Dobson T. “A soft answer.” From: Nelson RF ed. “The overlook martial arts reader. Classic writings on philosophy and technique.” The Overlook Press, Woodstock NY, 1989. 
     More about the author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Dobson

 

Persimmon   gardening.ktsa.com

What Works, What's Practical Right Now?

     Isn't it mind-boggling, when we look objectively, at the incredibly foolish things that supposedly mature, educated, intelligent people - including ourselves - have done?
     From the third-person observer's perspective, or our own 20-20 hindsight, the act is incomprehensible. Yet obviously, to the perpetrator, at the time, it was the best or even the only conceivable option!  
     This is why it's so easy to be harshly judgmental towards others as well as ourselves. With a clear, balanced perspective, a situation will appear radically different than through the ego's frosted lenses. And when our ego is threatened, we feel precisely as if our very life is in mortal danger - rational perspective can instantly vanish - welcome to the land of "temporary insanity" - "crimes of passion" - "that wasn't me" - "I don't know what got into me" - "the devil made me do it".

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin

     So here's a very practical question: when we're in deep trouble, whose advice should we listen to, an objective third party's - OR - someone who supports our current perspective?

Dalhousie University campus - February 13, 2014

 

Choice, Freedom, Responsibility - Beyond Automatic Self-centeredness

     "Choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered."                  David Foster Wallace

 

Do We Really Need More "Nuclear Giants" who are "Ethical Infants"?

     “Higher education looses upon the world too many people who are masters of external, objective reality, with the knowledge and skill to manipulate it, but who understand little or nothing about inner drivers of their own behavior. Giving students knowledge as power over the world while failing to help them gain the kind of self-knowledge that gives them power over themselves is a recipe for danger – and we are living today with the proof of that claim in every realm of life from economics to religion. We need to stop releasing our students into the wild without systematically challenging them to take an inner as well as outer journey.”

        Palmer PJ, Zajonc A. The heart of higher education: A call to renewal. Transforming the academy through collegial conversation. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2010.