hardly convincing

to give is to live

if anyone is interested, check out awakening the mind, a blog of my friend and I. Each article here is written there as well. raviananda.wordpress.com

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.     -Lao Tzu

Imagine desiring to learn how to play a musical instrument. Does anyone believe that an untrained person can just pick up a guitar and beautifully jam away, causing instant audible bliss? More than likely, this is not the case. Learning an instrument, and similar to learning a new language or learning how to ride a unicycle, takes hard work and constant dedication. With time and practice, your muscles and brain become well-equipped with the ability to handle more impressive techniques and maneuvers.

Interestingly enough, as with learning anything, one’s capacity to give to others requires the same commitment and earnestness. By learning to give a little at a time, whether it be time, money, or food, the muscles become stronger and eventually the concept of greed and desire slip away.

But why revolve an article on the idea of giving?

For one, giving is the root of all happiness. To elaborate, let’s think of the opposite of giving– taking. When we grab and take for ourselves, we create monsters bent on protecting all we collect. And for what? To make our lives just a bit more comfortable? In reality, a bit is never quite enough and we become itchy for more. The more we accumulate and consume, the more we desire and crave, leading to higher paranoia toward those objects that can now go missing–mo’ money mo’ problems. Excuse the cliche, but if you want to understand the idea of a vicious cycle, look no further than greed’s dirty antics. Oscar Wilde explains grasping in an interesting way. He states that, “there are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.” My man Oscar knows what’s up and places the all-mighty-but-mistakenly-so ego as the seed to greed.

In contrast, the more we let go of the possessions we have, the less that can be taken away from us and the happier we will be. Our minds will be clear and intent on something other than the self. And as mentioned above, if this is something that is new to us, we must start slow because most people just do not have the hard earned skill to be a giver, including myself. Luckily so, we can all be giving maestros with a little bit of practice.

Stretch your muscles and prepare yourself– if you have a little extra time or money or food or love, set it aside and make someone’s day more positive. 5 dollars or 5 minutes is enough for now. We really do not understand the consequences of our actions, but they are far-reaching, and as long as you give with sincerity and earnestness, the amount does not matter.

We all think that if we won the lottery, making us $20 million, that we would be willing to give away a few million to a charity. This line of thinking is identical to believing that an untrained person can pick up that guitar and start playing a breath-taking rendition of Classical Gas. This is not realistic.

Start small — learn a few chords, give a little bit today.

the community of the ego

I passed a hotel on my way home from work yesterday. It was in my town, and located in an area that I am very familiar with frequenting. I thought to myself, rather crudely, “I would never want to waste my money and time staying in this hotel because the area is so common to me.” I then translated this notion to apply to any other person that may choose to stay there, “Why would anyone want to stay somewhere that is so familiar?” Of course, this thought was quickly rescinded, but I caught myself thinking this truly absurd idea. It occurred to me in a flash of insight that whatever I find familiar, everyone else must find familiar as well. I know how to use the computer perfectly well, why can’t my mom even know how to open her e-mail? Why should I hold the door for anyone if no one holds it for me? Although preposterous, I don’t believe other people would necessarily disagree with this. Why do I postulate it this way? Well, I believe this is where anger builds its furious house. Why else would we ever be angry with someone or something? Is it possible that our anger stems for our misunderstandings?

Like most things read on this website, the problem of anger and misunderstanding is rooted in the ego. The ego is discussed with high frequency, but for excellent reason. As the philosophical father of Taoism, Lao Tzu, profoundly states, “To see things in the seed, that is genius.” The ego is the seed of all our misconceptions and anger and desires and fears. To become aware of this can be seen as the first step toward breaking down the walls of the ego. Anger’s house, fully equipped with decorated porch and finished basement, resides firmly within these walls.

The ego can be simply broken down into the concept of self and other. ‘I’ am separate from ‘you and everything else’ and ‘I’ must protect myself from these things in order to be safe. Where self and other exist, distinctions appear. Once we separate things into categories, we are not far off from utter selfishness. In this world, what I’m feeling must be directly associated with how everyone else must be feeling. If I am sad, then the entire world appears sad. If I am lustful, the whole world seems to be situated in such a way that only lust is vital. Everything becomes magnetized toward my tiny, narrow worldview. We become trapped in this peculiarly tight area, with very little room to move. Nothing else exists but me and how I feel. If we are able to be truthful to ourselves, doesn’t this sound very ordinary in concerns to our own lives?

Feeling this way is common, whether we believe it or not. When our worldview is squeezed and choked in this manner, we are not able to understand anything outside of our immediate feelings. Ironically, without understanding, we demand to be understood. Anger ensues and a sphere of desperation is created.

If we can destroy this misconception about ourselves, we will be able to open the doors of perception and realize that there are an infinite amount of other doors not yet opened. With this, we can learn to be compassionate and patient in our endeavors.

the wave that moves

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.

In this Taoist tale, the neighbors and the farmer represent two possible avenues our thoughts can choose to follow at any given moment: on one hand, the unawakened, habitual thinker whose ideas and concepts fail to escape the toiling and illusory components of a cause and effect worldview; and on the other hand, the always-present, non-judgmental thinker whose refusal of the past and future create an undiscriminated domain for perfect, spontaneous action.

To clarify, the neighbors react to each event that occurs by recalling that event’s outcome from a previous time. Memories or stories of losing a horse is terrible for reasons we can all easily imagine (assuming you can place yourself in a farmer’s shoes from centuries ago).  As the neighbor’s exclaim, “Such bad luck,” it is clear that they can not see past the single event.

This is not so according to the farmer. In his view, the horse escaping is only a point on an infinite line of interconnected events where good and bad buoy with the consistency of the ocean’s waves— up and down, up and down, up and down. The farmer understands the nature of waves and instead of reacting to the event by remembering a past occurrence of losing a horse, heresponds to the apparent trough in the wave by a simple ‘maybe’. Maybe it is bad luck, maybe it is good luck, or maybe there is no such thing as good or bad and events simply occur.

The awakening mind is the mind that grows in order to see itself, at which point its existence is no more. Inner growth is essential to becoming aware of the power of no-mind, which I believe is encompassed within the old farmer’s ‘maybe’.

To the farmer, things just are. It is the mind that decides to compartmentalize what, in reality, is just one. By practicing the de-compartmentalizing of the mind (i.e. by not allowing the mind to incessantly think and try to figure things out), we become less judgmental of outcomes and enter into a world devoid of separation. Viewing the story as a whole nicely illustrates this idea: a farmer loses his horse, only to return with three wild horses, in which his son happens to fall off of one and break his leg, and in turn excuses him, unlike the other sons in town, from entering war— feel the pulse of life? The farmer elects to see things as they are, without his mind always trying to figure things out singularly. And yet, events are so interconnected I believe the farmer can not even perceive the up and down of the wave; he simply discerns movement.

Osho connects this idea with acting gracefully and spontaneously,

Whatever situation arises, joyously you respond to it, with your totality, with your intensity. And this response will not only change the situation, it will also change you.

To live moment to moment, wave to wave, is true joy. Leave the past and present and other disabling thoughts to fight each other in an imagined fairy world.

the misery-addicted mind

At any early age, we learn to attach to misery by any means possible— not knowingly of course. Instead, we are disillusioned into thinking that through identification, we will one day be happy. We become fixated and obsessed with convincing, yet imaginary thoughts: “I am [Enter Your Name Here]”, or “I am really smart”, or “I am compassionate”. By attaching to things, ideas, and emotions throughout our lives, quite the contrary occurs— we become jealous, angry with rage, creatures of habit, depressed, and full of shame. 

When life does not affirm these solid-as-cement convictions, we feel lost and confused and feel as if we exist in a cruelly paradoxical world. “Who am I?”, “I am told I am smart but why do I always feel so stupid?”, “I sometimes just want to punch everyone in the face”. How can we be one thing and act otherwise? We have trouble accepting the fact that our convictions about ourselves, as well as about other people, may be plain wrong. 

Why is this so? The answer lies in the vulgar and illusory nature of the mind. The mind is only satisfied by incessant validation; it seeks permanence in an impermanent world. Due to this, the permanence we seek to protect with limitless fervor is endlessly thwarted by the natural order of things; the world is simply not definable. This puts our identity into question and ironically, instead of seeking an answer, we pour more effort into solidifying our identities— the end result being a life of continual suffering. 

Seen this way, the mind is a senseless feign, gorging mindlessly on heaps of plentiful misery. It has no regard for anything other than that which allows it to gorge some more. The mind aches for distress and the absence of such makes it shake with a maddening fever. 

And yet, if we could see past the temporary, sickening withdrawal of allowing our minds to attach to dangerous notions about the world around us, the light of awareness will shine with a clarity unimaginable— unimaginable for the simple reason that the mind will not be. To take its place is the silent witness; detached from all that occurs yet keen enough to sense the appropriate response to every situation. 

With the silent witness, what happens to the questions of “Who am I?” or “I am told I am smart but why do I always feel so stupid?”? Without judgement and without an identity to grasp to, the witness observes events as he would to passing clouds— quietly accepting its presence with an understanding that with little time, the cloud will depart as quickly as it arrived. The paradoxes of the world according to the ego are of no concern because the silent witness is poignantly aware of the impermanent nature of the world. The watcher simply observes. 

Every being on this planet has this heart. It is only a matter of awakening to the immense power it holds. This process is underway once we become aware of our motives, and begin to shed the layers of our fears and desires. As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj explains, “Just give full attention to what is crude and primitive, unreasonable and unkind, altogether childish, and you will ripen. It is the maturity of heart and mind that is essential.It comes effortlessly when the main obstacle is removed— inattention, unawareness. In awareness you grow.”

In essence, I believe Maharaj speaks of heart and mind as one. And to repeat: every being on this planet has this heart. 

how the world spins

this has only 70,000 views: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5THXa_H_N8

and this has 619 million: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4&ob=av2e

the United Nation’s only answer

plot synopsis of the long running reality CBS TV show Survivor from Dec 9, 2010: 

With only seven players left in the game, Sash is the most wanted and needed player this season at this point. Two alliances of three are wheeling and dealing to get Sash on their side so they can control the game and protect the alliance they now have formed. Holly, Jane and Chase look solid. Benry, Dan and Fabio look iffy.

muddling storyline of the UN Conference on Climate Change in November, 2009 in Copenhagen:

However, at the decisive moment Europe’s politicians were forced to stand by helplessly while China, India, South Africa and Brazil met in a hotel room and took matters into their own hands. They took the draft Copenhagen agreement and struck off all binding obligations. Later on the plotters were joined by Barack Obama. The outcome of this paring-down is now known as the “Copenhagen Accord.” In international negotiations, this vague draft resolution now stands alongside the specific plan demanded by the Europeans. A month after the Copenhagen debacle, German negotiators complained bitterly to the Americans. They said the “Europeans were unhappy that they had not been included in important negotiations between the US and China.”

Looks like there is only one solution for the UN Conference on Climate Change…