The Basic Basics

     It's eye-opening to periodically travel to another country. Just taking off in a plane, I feel as if I'm leaving all my usual concerns & responsibilities behind, and a whole new world of possibilities seems to open up. We see more clearly who / what WE are - or want to be!

    Individually, most of us, especially in our “WIERD” (Western Industrialized Educated Rich & Democratic) culture, have a gnawing, usually unexamined sense of "lack," "not enough."
    But get a group of insecure individuals together, it's very easy to rouse an energized mob mentality. Populist politicians expertly manipulate mobs to do anything at all. Throughout history, we've done, & continue doing, every type of collective bullying - "rape, pillage & plunder" - at least partially to avoid our personal nagging inferiority complex. We've called group bullying different names in different times: feudalism / monarchy / dictatorship, patriarchy / sexism / misogyny, religious conflicts, colonialism, slavery, multinational corporations, racism, etc. The ultimate result is always destruction of intelligent, nurturing collaboration and along with it, indigenous peoples & cultures.

    Bullies with the most powerful military, defeat & impose their own political, financial & religious ideas on the vanquished. In their enthusiasm to plunder, invaders are ignorant & intolerant of the human beings, ways of life, values & cultures they destroy. The "winners" go on to write creative history & celebrate their victory over "savages, heathens, etc." "Might makes right!"

    All colonial powers profited immensely from plundering former colonies. Other nations also profited from centuries of free slave labor. "The typical wealth of the 600-700 aristocratic families in Britain is estimated at about £16-20 million ... you likely can double it to account for estate planning." 

    Especially those who've profited most from centuries of bullying, would do well to humbly face the often lurid details of how their personal fortunes were made, and tone down the self-satisfied celebratory hubris. Those of us who've earned our own way in life from nothing might find it easier to empathize with the less fortunate, and be more generous & nurturing.

    Embodying our true nature, imho, is our ONLY security - to nurture all, and in the process, heal ourselves & our planet.

Even as a parent protects with their life  

their child, their only child,  

so, with a boundless heart  

should one cherish all living beings!

Radiating kindness over the entire world ...
freed from hatred and ill-will.
This is what should be done  

by those who are skilled in goodness.

The Metta Sutta (The Buddha's Words on Lovingkindness)

‎⁨St Mary Redcliffe Church⁩, ⁨Bristol⁩, ⁨England

The Vital Shift

     Our usual way of doing things is obviously NOT working. Despite our wealth & scientific advances, quality of life continues to decline as seen by rising rates of depression, anxiety, misogyny, divorce, racism, antisemitism, trauma, burnout, addictions, homelessness, suicide, violence, incarceration, wars, hunger, climate change, populism, partisanship, white nationalism, extinction of species, etc etc etc. Life, as we know it, is UNSUSTAINABLE!
     So we must change for our own sake, but especially for the sake of our children & grandchildren. A part of us resists change, even a change we all know is urgently essential. One bright fellow's thoughts on this:

     “Of course I’m romanticizing prehistory here, but we went from a matriarchal society: Nature-honoring society, mother-honoring society – both actual biological mothers, but also The Mother as our archetype of reality, and probably with the onset of agriculture, everything shifted to a patriarchal religion. And Judaism is at the pinnacle of patriarchy, as is Christianity & Islam. But we moved to this patriarchal & parochial kind of religion, and that has brought us ecological devastation, pandemics, “storms of the century” recurring yearly, fires and all this stuff – the earth is trying to shake us off. But all of this I think is because we’ve lost the wisdom of the Divine Mother in Jungian archetypal terms. And that wisdom is the wisdom of interconnectedness, the wisdom of interdependence, the wisdom of cooperation, mutuality. All those things are in patriarchal religions, but they’re just not emphasized. And that devolution into patriarchy is, I think, the root cause of 90% of our problems. And the solution is going to be a radical shift, but it’s not going to be comfortable, it’s not going to be graceful, it’s not going to be slow. It’s going to entail a collapse of the norms that we have lived by for centuries. And the questions we have to ask ourselves are: ‘Are we going to collapse mindfully or mindlessly?’ ‘Are we going to collapse compassionately or cruelly?’ and ‘Are we going to collapse with a sense of grace, or just a sense of horror?’ And I think it’s all about horror, cruelty and mindlessness. That’s what it looks like to me, but it doesn’t have to be that way. But I think that’s where we’re at at the moment.
      If you asked me what would be part of playing our cards right, it would be for individuals to take on a kind of spiritual practice that would, in Hebrew terms they talk about being of two minds: one is narrow or egoic mind, where it’s us against them, me against you, and I’m apart from nature, God & everything else; and the other is spacious mind, where I’m a part of the whole. And spiritual practices - every religion has them, and I’m not talking about formal liturgical, go to church, go to mosque, go to temple, go to synagogue. I’m talking about meditative practices, which doesn’t have to be silent sitting cross-legged on a mat, but contemplative practices that allow the egoic mind to drop of its own accord, and for you to experience something greater – that direct experience of the vastness of which we are a part. I think that has got to be a part of the mix. And if it is, I think that shifts us (out of our current downward spiral) and toward a more ideal future.”
     Rami Shapiro March 14, 2021 EXCELLENT (2hr) interview: https://batgap.com/

Unconditional Love

     “… scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth. We build scientific theories to organize and manipulate the world, to reduce phenomena into manageable units. Science is based on reproducibility & manufactured objectivity. 
     As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter & energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable.
    Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.”
       Paul Kalanithi MD. “When Breath Becomes Air.” Random House, 2016.
 
      "The essential dynamic of the shadow patriarch (dark side of male energy), whether operating within a man or woman, is the unrelenting drive to power, dominance, and control. In many ways this attempts to compensate for the loss of connection, love, & belonging, and ultimately for the loss of an ability to feel intimacy with life.” Thanissara

     “It’s great if we become a super cool meditator ... but if the heart isn’t free from suffering – or at least moving in that direction – we may have missed the point. In other words, we need to reflect on the results. What are the effects of meditation practices in my life? Are wholesome qualities of heart increasing – like generosity, kindness, & wisdom? Are unwholesome ones – greed, hatred, & delusion – decreasing?" Kittisaro

     “Love is the bridge
      between you and everything.” Rumi

     “If you judge people (* including yourself *), you have no time to love them.” Mother Teresa
 
     “The love & attention you always thought
      you wanted from someone else,
      is the love and attention
      you first need to give to yourself.” Bryant McGill 

     “It’s not a luxury to feel loved and cared for — it’s what makes us emotionally secure. If it didn’t happen when we were children, meditation can help us develop a secure emotional base now.
     … connecting with our true nature in order to gradually make our minds freer is a real possibility. And that same capacity for attunement translates into more genuine connections.” Tara Bennett-Goleman PhD

     “Your task is not to seek for love,
      but merely to seek & find all of the barriers
      within yourself that you have built against it.” Helen Schueman

“There is a light in this world, 

a healing spirit more powerful 

than any darkness we may encounter.  

We sometimes lose sight of this force 

when there is suffering, too much pain.  

Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge 

through the lives of ordinary people 

who hear a call 

and answer in extraordinary ways.”

Mother Teresa

www.buddhadoodles.com

Look in the Mirror!

     It feels good to belong to a group that professes comforting values (especially when mere membership advertises some version of heaven). But because of our evolutionary history, we have a strong 'negativity bias'. And so behavior, which reflects actual values, can starkly contrast professed values. 
      The more fear, anger, greed & hatred we harbor, the more likely we are to elect a nasty brute who shares our actual values: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, because I'm the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley."

     "Every nation gets the government it deserves." Joseph de Maistre 

     "The truth is, going against the internal stream of ignorance is way more rebellious than trying to start some sort of cultural revolution... The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart... Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence." Noah Levine