🚀 go-pugleaf

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John Waterman wrote:

Evelyn Ruut: <<My husband is a brown belt in Gosshin Ru Karate, a notoriously
tough kind, an expert marksman with a large gun collection, and a war Veteran in
top physical condition.   I have not told him the whole story about this yet,
....intending to, but not looking forward to it.... (he is very protective of
me).

We also own a couple of well trained large protection dogs and even though I am
in the country, we have an excellent police force around here, with whom I am
good friends.    Tang should remember that likewise we also do not live too far
away from him and the roads go both directions.>>

John: <<Some words from Ajahn Sumedho:........

"At this time, there are many pressures on people to take sides in various ways.
Our minds easily look for a fixed position to hold on to. The position can be a
political view, a religious view, a national view, or a personal view. It can be
a view about class, race, or sex. People desperately take sides on the most
ridiculous issues. We feel the need to adopt some particular position that we
can use to feel a sense of purpose and meaning in life. If we didn't have an
opinion, we'd probably be considered a hopeless bore.

Yet we begin to see that when we do take sides-when we attach to a particular
viewpoint-we tend to become obsessed with that side, and we can lose our
perspective. We can be so caught up in our righteous views and behavior that we
lose all sensitivity, even toward our own group or family, not to mention the
opposite side. We can be so fanatically dedicated toward a political viewpoint
that we are willing to destroy the whole world just to hold to this view.

Of course, only the extreme type of human beings would fall into that trap. Most
of us do have some sense of perspective, but we tend to wobble and waver. We
become confused because we are not quite sure on which side we should align
ourselves-whether we are fully left or fully right-so we wobble between the two.
Sometimes we can even feel envy for those who are very sure that their side is
absolutely right at all times, and we wish we could be that strong, that
convinced. We imagine how secure we'd feel if things were as clear-cut as that.

But most of our life is in this realm of neither right nor left. We are just
getting on with life as best we can on the physical plane, trying to get along
with the people around us, trying to find some peace and friendship. Even the
most dire fanatics have to come to terms with the facts of life. They have to
eat food, find a place to live, and clothe the body; they get old, suffer from
illnesses, and lose loved ones. We all suffer from the desire of wanting things
we don't have. And there is the inevitable death that we all must experience.

The teaching of the Buddha relates to life as it actually is. It allows all of
us to open our minds to life, without being forced to take a position. This is
not to say you shouldn't have any viewpoints, any opinions whatsoever; we need
to have opinions in order to live in the world. But we also need to reflect on
the tendency we have toward being attached to opinions. This tendency is a
particularly strong problem with Western civilization: we have become very
idealistic and completely caught up in theories and views about how everything
should be.

Nowadays, people have very high standards; they know how everything should be. I
meet very few people who are deliberately mean, uncaring, and selfish; those are
rare. Most of the people I've met would like to have everything at its
best-whatever "best" might mean to that particular person. We can conceive with
our minds how things should be, and that's why we become so critical. We can see
that society isn't really what it should be: it should be better. We can become
so aware of the things that have gone wrong-the inefficiency, the bureaucracy,
the injustices. These become dominant in the mind because we can imagine a
Utopian society in which everything is as it should be. We can envision the
paradise where everything is fair, equal, kind, and loving. But what we
experience is life as it is. How is it for you? What is your life really like?

This is what we call opening the mind to the way it is, not criticizing or
affirming anything, but being truly sensitive to the good and the bad, to
Justice and injustice, the day and the night, the sun and the rain, the heat and
the cold. In Buddhist terms, this is being mindful. The way out of suffering is
through mindfulness. When it is fully present without judgment, the mind is
full, open, attentive, and receptive.

With mindfulness, we are not forced to take positions, take sides, get caught up
in the quarrels and problems of our families, organisations, and societies.
Rather, we are able to open the mind to each conflict. The mind is capable of
embracing both sides; it can be sensitive to everything. It can be open,
receptive, and clear with regard to the right and the left, the good and the
bad.

With mindfulness, we can be independent of the positions other people are
taking. We can stand on our own two feet and take responsibility for acting in a
virtuous way, regardless of what the rest of society is doing. I can be kind,
generous, and loving toward you, and that is a Joy to me. But if I make my
happiness dependent upon your being kind to me, then it will always be
threatened, because if you aren't doing what I like-behaving the way I want you
to-then I'm going to be unhappy. So then, my happiness is always under threat
because the world might not behave as I want it to. Its clear that I would spend
the rest of my life being terribly disappointed if I expected everything to
change-if I expected everybody to become virtuous, wars to stop, money not to be
wasted, governments to be compassionate, sharing, and giving-everything to be
just exactly the way I want it! Actually, I don't expect to see very much of
that in my lifetime, but there is no point in being miserable about it;
happiness based on what I want is not all that important.

Joy isn't dependent on getting things, or on the world going the way you want,
or on people behaving the way they should, or on their giving you all the things
you like and want. Joyfulness isn't dependent upon anything but your own
willingness to be generous, kind, and loving. It's that mature experience of
giving, sharing, and developing the science of goodness.

Virtuousness is the Joy we can experience in this human realm. So, although what
society is doing or what everyone else is doing is beyond my control-I can't go
around making everything how I want it-still, I can be kind, generous, and
patient, and do good, and develop virtue. That I can do, and that's worth doing,
and not something anyone can stop me from doing. However rotten or corrupted
society is doesn't make any difference to our ability to be virtuous and to do
good.">>

Of course, John, I can only join you in rejoicing in what Ajahn Sumedho has to
offer us here.

As he says: "Virtuousness is the Joy we can experience in this human realm. So,
although what society is doing or what everyone else is doing is beyond my
control-I can't go around making everything how I want it-still, I can be kind,
generous, and patient, and do good, and develop virtue. That I can do, and
that's worth doing, and not something anyone can stop me from doing. However
rotten or corrupted society is doesn't make any difference to our ability to be
virtuous and to do good."

Tang Huyen