Cancer Ward (Solzhenitsyn)

I read this book when I was 18 or so. It is one of these books so imbued with a profound human feeling, so harrowing, that it makes you wonder why on earth you had been reading these other books all along and whether there is any point in continuing to do so. Indeed, that resonates with this comment by Solzhenitsyn:

Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers—such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.

To Fall in Love or to Rise in Love? (Osho)

To fall in love is so easy. Why is it so difficult to fall out of love? So many discussions, tears, fights, fears…. I don’t want to hurt the person I’ve been with, because it’s not that there is no feeling. I’m so confused. And the love for you is a different feeling altogether. Can you say something?

Handbook to Higher Consciousness (Ken Keyes Jr.)

Millions of years ago when our animal ancestors had to survive in the jungle, it was necessary to have an instantly effective fight or flight mechanism. When a tiger was about to spring, an automatic emotional response was a life saver. A nervous shock was needed to squirt adrenalin into the blood so that muscles became jet powered. Emotional alarms were needed to command full attention. When a tiger was ready to jump, there was no time to admire the beautiful sunset. As a jungle survival mechanism, our animal ancestors were programmed for automatic duality—automatic feelings of otherness, threat, and paranoia. Survival required instant domination of consciousness to meet the perils of the jungle.

We are the pioneers in the evolution of human consciousness. It was only about 10,000 years ago that our ancestors built the first cities. As civilization grew, survival no longer depended on the instant fight or flight of the jungle. Survival and happiness now depend on tuning in to the overall situation involving ourselves, the people around us, and the total environment of the here and now. Perceptiveness, wisdom, and oneness are now the ingredients of effective and happy living. But our biocomputers are still programmed for jungle fight or flight—for a fast release of adrenalin into the blood stream, and for rapid heartbeat—for automatic anger and fear. In our social interactions, our consciousness magnifies molehills and makes them into mountains—and this constant distortion destroys our energy, our insight, and our ability to love.

All great, all beautiful things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum

The entire system of higher education in Germany has lost what matters most: the end as well as the means to the end. That education, that Bildting, is itself an end-and not "the Reich"-and that educators are needed to that end, and not secondary- school teachers and university scholars-that has been forgotten. Educators are needed who have themselves been educated, superior, noble spirits, proved at every moment, proved by words and silence, representing culture that has grown ripe and sweet-not the learned louts whom secondaryschools and universities today offer our youth as "higher wet nurses". Educators are lacking, not counting the most exceptional of exceptions, the very first condition of education: hence the decline of German culture.

What the "higher schools" in Germany really achieve is a brutal training, designed to prepare huge numbers of young men, with as little loss of time as possible, to become usable, abusable, in government service. "Higher Education" and huge numbers-that is a contradiction to start with. All higher education belongs only to the exception: one must be privileged to have a right to so high a privilege. All great, all beautiful things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum. What conditions the decline of German culture? That "higher education" is no longer a privilege-the the democratism of Bildung, which has become "common"-too common. Let it not be forgotten that military privileges really compel an all-too-great attendance in the higher schools, and thus their downfall.

In present day Germany no one is any longer free to give his children a noble education: our "higher schools" are all set up for the most ambiguous mediocrity, with their teachers, curricula, and teaching aims. And everywhere an$ indecent haste prevails, as if something would be lost if the young man of twenty-three were not yet "finished", or if he did not yet know the answer to the "main question": which calling? . . . Our overcrowded secondary schools, our overworked, stupified second ary-school teachers, are a scandal: for one to defend such conditions, as the professors at Heidelberg did recently, there may be perhaps causesreasons there are none.

... If one wants an end, one must also want the means: if one wants slaves, then one is a fool if one educates them to be masters.
Nietzsche's Theory of Education, VII. Theory of Opportunity
http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Nietzsche.html

An atheist’s call to arms

[Transcript]

That splendid music, the coming in music- the elephant march from Aida- is the music I've chosen for my funeral. And- you can see why. It's triumphal. I am- I will, I won't feel anything. but If I could, I would feel triumphal at having lived at all, and at having lived on this splendid planet, and having been given the opportunity to understand something about why I was here in the first place, before not being here.

Can you understand my quaint English accent?

Like everybody else, I was entranced yesterday by the animal session. Robert Full and Frans Lanting, and others- the beauty of the things that they showed. The only slight jarring note was when Jeffrey Katzenberg said of the mustang "the most splendid creatures that God put on this earth." Now of course we know he didn't really mean that- but in this country at the moment you can't be too careful.

I'm a biologist, and the central theorem of our subject- the theory of design- Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection- in professional circles everywhere, it's of course, universally accepted. In non-professional circles outside America, it's largely ignored. But in non-professional circles within America,

(slide, from anti-evolution website: "Handy Dandy evolution Refuter")

it arouses so much hostility that it's fair to say that American biologists are in a state of war.

The war is so worrying at present, with court cases coming up in one state after another, that I felt I had to say something about it. If you want to know what I have to say about Darwinism itself, I'm afraid you're going to have to look at my books, which you won't find in the bookstore outside. (laughter)

Contemporary court cases often concern an allegedly new version of creationism, called intelligent design, or ID. Don't be fooled. There's nothing new about ID. It's just creationism under another name. Re-christened- I choose the word advisedly (laughter)- for tactical political reasons. The arguments of so-called ID theorists are the same old arguments that have been refuted again and again since Darwin down to the present day.

There is an effective evolution lobby coordinating the fight on behalf of science, and I try to do what I can to help them, but they get quite upset when people like me dare to mention that we happen to be atheists, as well as evolutionists. They see us as rocking the boat. You can understand why.

Creationists, lacking any coherent scientific argument for their case, fall back on the popular phobia against atheism. Teach your children evolution in biology class, and they'll soon move on to drugs, grand larceny, and sexual 'preversion' (sic).

(slide: website for National Center for Science Education)

(slide: book cover, Kenneth R. Miller's Finding Darwin's God, caption: "Educated Christians are Evolutionists too")

In fact, of course, educated theologians from the Pope down are firm in their support of evolution. This book, Finding Darwin's God, by Kenneth Miller, is one of the most effective attacks on intelligent design that I know, and it's all the more effective because it's written by a devout Christian. People like Kenneth Miller could be called a 'godsend' to the evolution lobby (laughter)- because they expose the lie that evolutionism is, as a matter of fact, tantamount to atheism. People like me, on the other hand, rock the boat.

But here I want to say something nice about creationists. It's not a thing I often do, so listen carefully. (laughter) I think they're right about one thing- I think they're right that evolution is fundamentally hostile to religion. I've already said that many individual evolutionists, like the Pope, are also religious, but I think they're deluding themselves. I believe a true understanding of Darwinism is deeply corrosive to religious faith.

Now it may sound as though I'm about to preach atheism, and I want to reassure you that that's not what I'm going to do. In an audience as sophisticated as that- as this one- that would be preaching to the choir. No, what I want to urge upon you- (laughter)- Instead, what I want to urge upon you, is militant atheism. (loud laughter & applause)

But that's putting it too negatively. If I wanted to- If I was a person who was interested in preserving religious faith, I would be very afraid of the positive power of evolutionary science, and indeed science generally, but evolution in particular, to inspire and enthrall precisely because it is atheistic.

Now, the difficult problem for any theory of biological design is to explain the massive statistical improbability of living things. Statistical improbability in the direction of good design. Complexity is another word for this. The standard creationist argument- there is only one, they all reduce to this one- takes off from statistical improbability. Living creatures are too complex to have come about by chance, therefore they must have had a designer.

This argument, of course, shoots itself in the foot- any designer capable of designing something really complex has to be even more complex Himself. And that's before we even start on the other things He's expected to do, like forgive sins, bless marriages, listen to prayers, favor our side in a war, disapprove of our sex lives, and so on. Complexity is the problem that any theory of biology has to solve. And you can't solve it by postulating an agent that is even more complex thereby simply compounding the problem.

Darwinian natural selection is so stunningly elegant because it solves the problem of explaining complexity in terms of nothing but simplicity. Essentially it does it by providing a smooth ramp of gradual step by step increment. But here I only want to make the point that the elegance of Darwinism is corrosive to religion precisely because it is so elegant. So parsimonious. So powerful. So economically powerful. It has the sinewy economy of a beautiful suspension bridge. The "God theory" is not just a bad theory, it turns out to be in principle incapable of doing the job required of it.

So returning to tactics and the evolution lobby, I want to argue that "rocking the boat" may be just the right thing to do. My approach to attacking creationism is- unlike the evolution lobby- my approach to attacking creationism is to attack religion as a whole. And at this point I need to acknowledge the remarkable taboo against speaking ill of religion. And I'm going to do so, in the words of the late Douglas Adams, a dear friend who, if he never came to TED, certainly should have been invited.
(voice offstage: "He was.")
He was- good. I thought he must have been.

He begins this speech, which was tape recorded in Cambridge shortly before he died- he begins by explaining how science works, through the testing of hypotheses that are framed to be vulnerable to disproof. And then he goes on. I quote-

"Religion doesn't seem to work like that. It has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy. What it means is- here is an idea or emotion that you are not allowed to say anything bad about. You're just not. Why not? Because you're not." (laughter) Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the universe began, about who created the universe- no, that's holy. So we're used to not challenging religious ideas. And it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it." He meant me, not that one. "Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it. Because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally, there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other. Except that we've agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be."

That's the end of the quote from Douglas.

In my view, not only is science corrosive to religion, religion is corrosive to science. It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial, supernatural, non-explanations, and blinds them to the wonderful real explanations that we have within our grasp. It teaches them to accept authority, revelation, and faith, instead of always insisting on evidence.

(photo of Douglas Adams)

There's Douglas Adams, magnificent picture from his book Last Chance to See.

(photo, cover shot of The Quarterly Review of Biology)

Now there's a typical scientific journal, The Quarterly Review of Biology, and I'm going to put together as guest editor a special issue on the question "Did an Asteroid Kill the Dinosaurs?" And the first paper is a standard scientific paper presenting evidence (reading list of paper descriptions from a fake "Contents" page): "Iridium layer at K/T boundary and potassium argon dated crater in Yucatan indicate that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs." Perfectly ordinary scientific paper. Now the next one: "The president of the royal society has been vouchsafed a strong inner conviction that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs." (laughter) "It has been privately revealed to professor Huckstain (sp?) that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs." (laughter) "Professor Haldley was brought up to have total and unquestioning faith that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs." (laughter) "Professor Hawkins has promulgated an official dogma, binding on all loyal Hawkinsians, that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs." (laughter)

That's inconceivable, of course. But suppose-

(photo of George Bush Sr., w/ caption "Supporters of the Asteroid Theory cannot be patriotic citizens")

(laughter & applause)

In 1987, a reporter asked George Bush, Sr. whether he recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who were atheists. Mr. Bush's reply has become infamous- "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens. Nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation, under God."

Bush's bigotry was not an isolated mistake, blurted out in the heat of the moment, and later retracted. He stood by it in the face of repeated calls for clarification or withdrawal. He really meant it. More to the point, he knew it posed no threat to his election. Quite the contrary. Democrats, as well as Republicans, parade their religiousness if they want to get elected. Both parties invoke "One Nation, Under God." What would Thomas Jefferson have said?

(photo of engraving of Jefferson, caption: "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty"-Thomas Jefferson)

Incidentally, I'm not usually very proud of being British-

(photo: backs of English pound and US dollar, Darwin's picture highlighted on the pound, "In God We Trust" highlighted on the dollar)

-but you can't help making the comparison.

(laughter and applause)

In practice, what is an atheist? An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor, or Baal, or the golden calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one God further.

(laughter and applause, cheers)

And however we define atheism, it's surely the kind of academic belief that a person is entitled to hold without being vilified as an unpatriotic, unelectable non-citizen. Nevertheless, it's an undeniable fact that to own up to being an atheist is tantamount to introducing yourself as "Mr. Hitler" or "Miss Beelzebub." And that all stems from the perception of atheists as some kind of weird, way-out minority. Natalie Angier wrote a rather sad piece in the New Yorker, saying how lonely she felt as an atheist. She clearly feels in a beleaguered minority.

But actually, how do American atheists stack up numerically? The latest survey makes surprisingly encouraging reading. Christianity, of course, takes a massive lion's share of the population, with nearly 160 million. But what would you think was the second largest group? Convincingly outnumbering Jews, with 2.8 million, Muslims with 1.1 million, Hindus, Buddhists and all other religions put together? The second largest group, with nearly 30 million, is the one described as 'non-religious' or 'secular'.

(pie chart showing statistical breakdown of religions circa 2001)

You can't help wondering why vote-seeking politicians are so proverbially over-awed by the power of, for example, the Jewish lobby- the state of Israel seems to owe its very existence to the American Jewish vote- while at the same time, consigning the 'non-religious' to political oblivion. This secular non-religious vote, if properly mobilized, is 9 times as numerous as the Jewish vote. Why does this far more substantial minority not make a move to exercise its political muscle?

Well, so much for quantity. How about quality? Is there any correlation, positive or negative, between intelligence and tendency to be religious?

(series of photos of George W. Bush, one with balloon saying "Them folks misunderestimated me", caption "Is religion correlated with IQ?")

(laughter)

The survey that I quoted, which is the Eris (sp?) survey, didn't break down its data by socioeconomic class, or education, or IQ, or anything else. But a recent article by Paul G. Bell in the MENSA magazine provides some straws in the wind. MENSA as you know is an international organization for people with very high IQ. And from a meta-analysis of the literature, Bell concludes that, I quote,

(chart: "Is Religion Correlated with Educational Ability?")

"of 43 studies carried out since 1927, on the relationship between religious belief and one's intelligence or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection."

That is, the higher one's intelligence or educational level, the less one is likely to be religious. Well, I haven't seen the original 42 (sic) studies and I can't comment on that meta-analysis, but I would like to see more studies done along those lines. And I know that there are- if I can put a little plug here- there are people in this audience easily capable of financing a massive research survey to settle the question. And I put the suggestion out for what it's worth.

But let me now show you some data that have been properly published and analyzed on one special group, namely top scientists. In 1998, Larson and Witham polled the cream of American scientists, those who'd been honored by election to the National Academy of the Sciences, and among this select group, belief in a personal god -

(chart: NAS religious breakdown, caption: EJ Larson & L Witham (1998) Leading scientists still reject God, Nature 394, 313)

-dropped to a shattering 7 percent. About 20% are agnostic, and the rest could fairly be called atheists. Similar figures obtain for belief in personal immortality. Among biological scientists the figure's even lower, 5.5% only believe in God. Physical scientists it's 7.5%. I've not seen corresponding figures for elite scholars in other fields, such as history or philosophy, but I'd be surprised if they were different.

So we've reached a truly remarkable situation. A grotesque mismatch between the American intelligentsia, and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe, which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists, and probably the majority of the intelligentsia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I'm right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it. The intelligentsia. Unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly, American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest. (applause)

I'm not a citizen of this country, so I hope it won't be thought unbecoming, if i suggest that something needs to be done. (laughter) I've already hinted what that something is. From what I've seen at TED, this may be the ideal place to launch it. Again, I fear it will cost money.

We need a consciousness raising coming out campaign for American atheists. This could be similar to the campaign organized by homosexuals a few years ago, although heaven forbid that we should stoop to public outing of people against their will. In most cases, people who out themselves will help to destroy the myth that there is something wrong with atheists. On the contrary, they'll demonstrate that atheists are often the kinds of people who could serve as decent role models for your children. The kinds of people an advertising agent could use to recommend a product. The kinds of people who are sitting in this room.

There should be a snowball effect, a positive feedback such that the more names that we have, the more we get. there could be non-linearities, threshold effects, when a critical mass is obtained, there's an abrupt acceleration in recruitment. And again, it'll need money.

I suspect that the word atheist itself contains- or remains- a stumbling block, far out of proportion to what it actually means. And a stumbling block to people who otherwise might be willing to out themselves. So what other words might be used to smooth the path? Oil the wheels? Sugar the pill?

Darwin himself preferred 'agnostic', and not only out of loyalty to his friend Huxley, who coined the term.

(slide: caricature of T.H. Huxley (1825-1895), agnostic, caption "I took thought...")

Darwin said, "I have never been an atheist, in the same sense of denying the existence of a god. I think that generally an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind." He even became uncharacteristically touchy with Edward Aveling. Aveling was a militant atheist who failed to persuade Darwin to accept the dedication of his book on atheism.

(photo: Edward Aveling, 1851-1898, caption: "Agnosticism writ aggressive")

-Incidentally giving rise to a fascinating myth that Karl Marx tried to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, which he didn't, it was actually Edward Aveling. What happened was Aveling's mistress was Marx's daughter, and when both Darwin and Marx were dead, Marx's papers became muddled up with Aveling's papers, and a letter from Darwin saying "My dear sir, thank you very much but I don't want you to dedicate your book to me" was mistakenly supposed to be addressed to Marx. And that gave rise to this whole myth which you've probably heard- it's sort of urban myth, that Marx tried to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin.

Anyway, it was Aveling, and when they met, Darwin challenged Aveling- "Why do you call yourselves atheists?" "'Agnostic'," retorted Aveling, "was simply 'atheist' writ respectable, and 'atheist' was simply 'agnostic' writ aggressive." Darwin complained, "but why should you be so aggressive?" Darwin thought that atheism might be well and good for the intelligentsia, but ordinary people were not, quote, "ripe" for it. Which is, of course, our old friend the 'don't rock the boat' argument. It's not recorded whether Aveling told Darwin to come down off his high horse. But in any case, that was more than 100 years ago. You think we might have grown up since then.

Now, a friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew, who incidentally observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity,

(slide: drawing of teapot orbiting Mars, with ringed planet in background, caption: "You cannot disprove God. So atheism is exactly as irrational as theism.")

-describes himself as a "tooth fairy agnostic." He won't call himself an atheist because it's in principle impossible to prove a negative. But 'agnostic' on its own might suggest that God's existence was therefore on equal terms of likelihood as His non-existence. So my friend is strictly agnostic about the tooth fairy, but it isn't very likely, is it? Like God. Hence the phrase, "tooth fairy agnostic."

Bertram Russell made the same point using a hypothetical teapot (cut back to drawing above) in orbit about Mars. You strictly have to be agnostic about whether there is a teapot in orbit about Mars, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as on all fours with its non-existence.

The list of things which we strictly have to be agnostic about doesn't stop at tooth fairies and teapots, it's infinite. If you want to believe one particular one of them, unicorns, or tooth fairies, or teapots, or Yahweh, the onus is on you to say why. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why not. We who are atheists are also "a-fairy-ists," and "a-teapot-ists." (laughter) But we don't bother to say so. And this is why my friend uses "tooth fairy agnostic" as a label for what most people would call atheist.

Nonetheless, if we want to attract deep-down atheists to come out, publicly, we're going to have to find something better to stick on our banner than "tooth fairy" or "teapot agnostic." So how about humanist? This has the advantage of a worldwide network of well organized associations and journals and things already in place, my problem with it is only its apparent anthropocentrism. One of the things we've learned from Darwin is that the human species is only one among millions of cousins, some close, some distant. And there are other possibilities like "naturalist", but that also has problems of confusion because Darwin would have thought "naturalist" - "naturalist" means of course as opposed to "supernaturalist" and it is used sometimes- Darwin would have been confused by the other sense of "naturalist", which he was, of course, and- I suppose- there might be others that would confuse it with "nudism". Such people might be those belonging to the British lynch mob which last year attacked a pediatrician in mistake for a pedophile. (laughter)

I think the best of the available alternatives for "atheist" is simply "non-theist." It lacks the strong connotation that there's definitely no god, and it could therefore easily be embraced by "teapot" or "tooth fairy agnostics." It's completely compatible with the God of the physicists, the- when people like- when atheists like Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein use the word "god" they use it of course as a metaphorical shorthand for that deep mysterious part of physics which we don't yet understand. Non-theist will do for all that, yet unlike "atheist" it doesn't have the same phobic, hysterical responses.

But I think actually the alternative is to grasp the nettle, of the word "atheism" itself, precisely because it is a taboo word, carrying frissons of hysterical phobia. Critical mass may be harder to achieve with the word "atheist" than with the word "non-theist," or some other non-confrontational word, but if we did achieve it, with that dread word "atheist" itself, the political impact would be even greater.

Now I said that if I were religious, I'd be very afraid of evolution, I'd go further- I would fear science in general if properly understood. And this is because the scientific world view is so much more exciting, more poetic, more filled with sheer wonder than anything in the poverty stricken arsenals of the religious imagination.

As Carl Sagan, another recently dead hero, put it:

(photo: Carl Sagan, 1934-1996, with quote below):

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths."

Now, this is an elite audience, and i would therefore expect about 10% of you to be religious. Many of you probably subscribe to our polite cultural belief that we should respect religion. But I also suspect that a fair number of those secretly despise religion as much as I do. If you're one of them- and of course many of you may not be- but if you are one of them, I'm asking you to stop being polite- come out and say so. And if you happen to be rich, give some thought to ways in which you might make a difference. The religious lobby in this country is massively financed by foundations- say nothing of the tax benefits- by foundations such as the Templeton Foundation, and the Discovery Institute. We need an anti-Templeton to step forward. If my books sold as well as Stephen Hawking's books, instead of only as well as Richard Dawkins' books, I'd do it myself.

People are always going on about "How did September the 11th change you?" Well, here's how it changed me: Let's all stop being so damned respectful. Thank you very much.

Eight Steps to Happiness by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Chapter1 - Introduction

This book is based on the widely renowned Eight Verses of Training the Mind (Lojong Tsig Gyema in Tibetan), which was composed by Bodhisattva Langri Tangpa, an eleventh-century Buddhist Master from Tibet. Though comprising only eight four-line verses, this remarkable text reveals the essence of the Mahayana Buddhist path to enlightenment, showing how we can transform our mind from its present confused and self-centred state into the perfect wisdom and compassion of a Buddha.

Every living being has the potential to become a Buddha, someone who has completely purified his or her mind of all faults and limitations and has brought all good qualities to perfection. Our mind is like a cloudy sky, in essence clear and pure but overcast by the clouds of delusions. Just as the thickest clouds eventually disperse, so too even the heaviest delusions can be removed from our mind. Delusions such as hatred, greed, and ignorance are not an intrinsic part of the mind. If we apply the appropriate methods they can be completely eliminated, and we shall experience the supreme happiness of full enlightenment.

Everyone wants to be happy and no one wants to suffer, but very few people understand the real causes of happiness and suffering. We tend to look for happiness outside ourself, thinking that if we had the right house, the right car, the right job, and the right friends we would be truly happy. We spend almost all our time adjusting the external world, trying to make it conform to our wishes. All our life we have tried to surround ourself with people and things that make us feel comfortable, secure, or stimulated, yet still we have not found pure and lasting happiness. Even when we succeed in fulfilling our desires, it is not long before our desires change and we want something else. We may find the house of our dreams, but a few months later we feel that we need a bigger kitchen, an extra bedroom, or a larger garden, and we begin to think of moving. Or perhaps we meet the `perfect' partner, fall in love, and move in together. At the beginning our partner seems to be the most wonderful person in the world, but before long we begin to see faults in him or her. We discover that we are no longer in love, and soon we are looking for someone else to fulfil our desires.

Throughout history human beings have sought to improve their external situation, yet despite all our efforts we are no happier. It is true that from the point of view of material development many countries are making progress. Technology is becoming more and more sophisticated, and worldly knowledge has increased dramatically. We know so many things we did not know before and can do things we never even dreamt of. Superficially it looks as if our world is improving, but if we look a little more deeply we shall see that there are now many problems that never existed before. Terrifying weapons have been invented, our environment is being poisoned, and new diseases are appearing. Even simple pleasures like eating or lying in the sun are becoming more dangerous.

The result of an unbridled pursuit of happiness from external sources is that our planet is being destroyed and our lives are becoming more complicated and dissatisfying. It is time we sought happiness from a different source. Happiness is a state of mind, so the real source of happiness must lie within the mind, not in external conditions. If our mind is pure and peaceful we shall be happy, regardless of our external circumstances, but if it is impure and unpeaceful we can never be truly happy, no matter how hard we try to change our external conditions. We could change our home or our partner countless times, but until we change our restless, discontented mind we shall never find true happiness.

If we have to walk across rough and thorny ground, one way of protecting our feet is to cover the whole ground with leather, but this is not very practical. We can achieve the same result in a much simpler way - by covering our feet. Similarly, if we wish to protect ourself from suffering we can either try to change the whole world to make it conform to our wishes, or we can change our mind. Until now we have been trying to change the world, but this clearly has not worked. Now we need to change our mind.

The first step towards changing our mind is to identify which states of mind produce happiness and which produce suffering. In Buddhism, states of mind that are conducive to peace and happiness are called `virtuous minds', whereas those that disturb our peace and cause us suffering are called `delusions'. We have many different types of delusion, such as desirous attachment, anger, jealousy, pride, miserliness, and ignorance. These are known as `inner enemies' because they are continually destroying our happiness from within. Their only function is to cause us harm.

Delusions are distorted ways of looking at ourself, other people, and the world around us. The way a deluded mind views these phenomena does not accord with reality. The deluded mind of hatred, for example, views another person as intrinsically bad, but there is no such thing as an intrinsically bad person. Desirous attachment, on the other hand, sees its object of desire as intrinsically good and as a true source of happiness. If we have a strong craving to eat chocolate, chocolate appears to us to be an intrinsically desirable object. However, once we have eaten too much of it and start to feel sick, it no longer seems so desirable and may even appear repulsive. This shows that in itself chocolate is neither desirable nor repulsive. It is the mind of attachment that projects onto it all kinds of desirable qualities and then relates to it as if it really did possess those qualities.

All delusions function like this, projecting onto the world their own distorted version of reality and then relating to this projection as if it were true. When our mind is under the influence of delusions we are out of touch with reality and are, in a sense, hallucinating. Since our mind is under the influence of at least subtle forms of delusion all the time, it is not surprising that our lives are so often filled with frustration. It is as if we are continually chasing mirages, only to be disappointed when they do not give us the satisfaction for which we had hoped.

The source of all delusions is a distorted awareness called `self-grasping ignorance', which grasps phenomena as inherently, or independently, existent. In reality all phenomena are dependent arisings, which means that their existence is utterly dependent upon other phenomena, such as their causes, their parts, and the minds that apprehend them. Objects do not exist from their own side, in and of themselves; what they are depends upon how they are viewed. Our failure to realize this is the source of all our problems.

The type of self-grasping that harms us most is grasping our own self, or I, as inherently or independently existent. We instinctively feel that we possess a completely real and objective self or I that exists independently of all other phenomena, even our body and mind. One consequence of grasping at our self as an independent entity separate from the world and other people is that we develop self-cherishing, a mind that regards ourself as supremely important. Because we cherish ourself so strongly, we are drawn to the people and things we find attractive, we want to separate ourself from the people and things we find unattractive, and we are uninterested in the people and things we find neither attractive nor unattractive. In this way attachment, anger, and indifference are born. Because we have an exaggerated sense of our own importance we feel that others' interests are in conflict with our own, and this in turn gives rise to competitiveness, jealousy, arrogance, and lack of consideration for others. By acting under the influence of these and other delusions we engage in destructive behaviour, such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and hurtful speech. The result of these negative actions is suffering for both ourself and others.

Even though our delusions are deeply ingrained, they are not an intrinsic part of our mind and so they can definitely be removed. Delusions are just bad mental habits, and like all habits they can be broken. Through making a sincere and consistent effort to become familiar with constructive states of mind we can eliminate even the most stubborn delusions and replace them with the opposite virtues. For example, we can weaken our anger by familiarizing our mind with patience and love, our attachment by familiarizing our mind with non-attachment, and our jealousy by rejoicing in others' good fortune.

To eradicate delusions completely, however, we must destroy their root - the mind of self-grasping. To do this we need to familiarize our mind with the true nature of reality, or ultimate truth. If we destroy self-grasping, all other delusions cease naturally, just as the leaves and branches of a tree die if we destroy its roots. Once we have completely eradicated our delusions it will be utterly impossible for us to experience unpeaceful states of mind. As we shall no longer have the internal causes of suffering, external causes of suffering, such as sickness or death, will have no power to disturb our mind. This permanent cessation of delusion and suffering is known as `liberation', or `nirvana' in Sanskrit.

Although attaining our own liberation from suffering is a wonderful achievement, it is not enough. We are not isolated individuals but part of the family of all living beings. Everything we own, everything we enjoy, all our opportunities for spiritual development, and even our very body come from the kindness of others. Are we to make our own escape from suffering and then abandon everyone else to their fate? This would be like a young man imprisoned together with his aged parents who makes his own escape but leaves his parents behind. We would not admire such a person. We definitely need to make an effort to liberate ourself from the mental prison of our deluded minds, but our ultimate aim must be to help everyone else do the same.

Thus the final goal in Buddhism is the attainment of full enlightenment, or Buddhahood. The Sanskrit term `Buddha' means `Awakened One', and refers to anyone who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and is free from the dream of mistaken appearance. Because ordinary beings like us have not yet awakened from the sleep of ignorance we continue to live in a dream-like world of mistaken appearances and do not see the true nature of things. This is the fundamental reason why we experience suffering and are of limited benefit to others. Through completely removing all traces of the darkness of ignorance from their minds, Buddhas attained omniscient wisdom and the limitless ability to help all living beings.

Their boundless and all-encompassing compassion gives Buddhas the energy to work without interruption for the sake of others. They understand the real causes of happiness and suffering, and they know exactly how to help living beings in accordance with their individual needs and inclinations. Buddhas have the power to bless people's minds, causing their delusions to subside and their virtues to increase; and they also have the ability to emanate innumerable forms for the benefit of others. Of all the ways in which Buddhas help living beings, the most effective is to teach them how to control their minds and follow the spiritual path to liberation and enlightenment.

The founder of Buddhism in this world was Buddha Shakyamuni. After attaining enlightenment, Buddha gave eighty-four thousand teachings, all of which are advice on how to subdue and overcome delusions by cultivating virtuous states of mind. Buddha's teachings, as well as the inner realizations achieved through putting these teachings into practice, are known as `Dharma'.

In the text on which this book is based, Bodhisattva Langri Tangpa has condensed the very essence of Buddhadharma into eight short verses. Through contemplating the meaning of these verses we shall see that they contain a step-by-step path to complete inner peace and happiness. If we sincerely put these teachings into practice we shall gradually subdue our destructive and self-centred habits of mind and replace them with the positive minds of unconditional love and compassion. Finally, by practising the instructions given in the chapter on ultimate bodhichitta, we shall be able to overcome the fundamental delusion of self-grasping ignorance, together with its imprints, and thereby experience the bliss of full enlightenment. This is the real meaning of seeking happiness from a different source.

Although Eight Verses was written over nine hundred years ago, it is as relevant today as it was then. Whether Buddhist or not, anyone with a genuine wish to overcome their inner problems and achieve permanent inner peace and happiness can benefit from Langri Tangpa's advice.

REBIRTH AND KARMA

Since some background knowledge of rebirth and karma is useful for understanding the main practices explained in this book, there now follows a brief introduction to these topics.

The mind is neither physical, nor a by-product of purely physical processes, but a formless continuum that is a separate entity from the body. When the body disintegrates at death, the mind does not cease. Although our superficial conscious mind ceases, it does so by dissolving into a deeper level of consciousness, called `the very subtle mind'. The continuum of our very subtle mind has no beginning and no end, and it is this mind which, when completely purified, transforms into the omniscient mind of a Buddha.

Every action we perform leaves an imprint, or potential, on our very subtle mind, and each karmic potential eventually gives rise to its own effect. Our mind is like a field, and performing actions is like sowing seeds in that field. Positive or virtuous actions sow the seeds of future happiness, and negative or non-virtuous actions sow the seeds of future suffering. This definite relationship between actions and their effects - virtue causing happiness and non-virtue causing suffering - is known as the `law of karma'. An understanding of the law of karma is the basis of Buddhist morality.
After we die our very subtle mind leaves our body and enters the intermediate state, or `bardo' in Tibetan. In this subtle dream-like state we experience many different visions that arise from the karmic potentials that were activated at the time of our death. These visions may be pleasant or terrifying depending on the karma that ripens. Once these karmic seeds have fully ripened they impel us to take rebirth without choice.

It is important to understand that as ordinary samsaric beings we do not choose our rebirth but are reborn solely in accordance with our karma. If good karma ripens we are reborn in a fortunate state, as either a human or a god, but if negative karma ripens we are reborn in a lower state, as an animal, a hungry spirit, or a hell being. It is as if we were blown to our future lives by the winds of our karma, sometimes ending up in higher rebirths, sometimes in lower rebirths.

This uninterrupted cycle of death and rebirth without choice is called `cyclic existence', or `samsara' in Sanskrit. Samsara is like a Ferris wheel, sometimes taking us up into the three fortunate realms, sometimes down into the three lower realms. The driving force of the wheel of samsara is our contaminated actions motivated by delusions, and the hub of the wheel is self-grasping ignorance. For as long as we remain on this wheel we shall experience an unceasing cycle of suffering and dissatisfaction, and we shall have no opportunity to experience pure, lasting happiness. By practising the Buddhist path to liberation and enlightenment, however, we can destroy self-grasping, thereby liberating ourself from the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth and attaining a state of perfect peace and freedom. We shall then be in a position to help others to do the same. A more detailed explanation of rebirth and karma can be found in the books Introduction to Buddhism and Joyful Path of Good Fortune.

You Can Have Anything You Want, but You Can't Have Everything You Want

Peter McWilliams, LIFE 101


When I ask people that simple yet profound question, "What do you want?" they sometimes answer, "I want it all!" I often wonder, "If they had it all, where would they put it?"

I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH

There's an awful lot of "all" out there. And there's a lot more "all" to be experienced inside. The people who say they want "it all" either have not taken the time to explore what they really want, or don't realize one simple fact of life: "You can have any thing you want, but you can't have every thing you want."

Living on this planet has some down-to-earth limitations. First, we can put our body in only one place at a time. Second, there are only 24 hours a day, 365 (or 366) days per year. Third, the human lifetime is only so long (150 years seems to be tops).

The limitations become even more severe when we consider the time we spend on maintenance: sleeping, washing, eating--and some of us even have to make money to pay for all that.

We can't have "it all" because "all" is more than our "container" of time and space will hold.

Before you cry, "Foul!" consider: You can have anything you want. Pick what you want most and--if it's available, if it doesn't already belong to someone else (who wants to keep it)--you can have it.

The history books are full of people who said, "I don't care if everybody thinks it's impossible, I think it's possible, I want it, and I'm going to get it (or do it)." And they did. You can, too.

The catch? The more unobtainable the "want" you want, the more you must sacrifice to get it. It's not that you can't have it, it's that you'll have to give up many--and maybe all--other things.

I was once on a talk show and a woman called in. She said she wanted to be an actress more than anything else. She was quite upset that she hadn't succeeded yet. Our conversation went something like this:

The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.

CHARLES F. KETTERING

–How much time do you spend on your career?
–I spend all my time.
–You don't sleep?
–Of course I sleep.
–Are you in a relationship?
–Yes, but I only see him four or five nights a week.
–Do you have a job?
–Of course--I have to work to support my two daughters.
–How old are your daughters?
–Four and eight.

As you can guess, this woman spent about an hour a week on her "career." What she meant to say was that she spent all of her free time pursuing acting. Unfortunately, it's not likely that an hour a week will give her the success she craves.

My advice to her? After establishing that she loved her daughters and loved her boyfriend and considered them more important than show biz, I suggested she be grateful for the choices she had already made and her successful implementation of them. I told her there were any number of successful actresses who wish they had two healthy children and a loving, romantic relationship. The acting? Make it a hobby.

The phrase "spending time" is a precise and accurate one. We all have only so much time this time around. Spend it well.

Who begins too much accomplishes little.

GERMAN PROVERB

It's as though you were in a large store (Earth). You are given enough money (time) to buy anything in the store, but not everything in the store. You can fit a lot of things in your cart (projects you start). When it comes time to pay, however, if your money runs out, that's it. And this store does not give refunds. At best, the store may reluctantly buy something back as used merchandise--at a fraction of what you paid for it.

Some people put a "want" in their cart--a new career, a relationship, a car, a house, a project--and fail to consider its cost: the time it will take to obtain and maintain the want.

They like to quote Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light.

While reciting it, however, they are secretly worried about the wax dripping on the new rug--which hasn't yet been paid for. At some point, they find themselves "out of time," quoting Samuel Hoffenstein: "I burned my candle at both ends, and now have neither foes nor friends."

Some protest: "Time is money, and with money you can buy time." Up to a limit, that's true. But you can't hire someone to do all the things you want to do yourself (flying a plane, ballet, race car driving, reading, watching videos). And do you plan to hire people to spend time with your friends, eat your pizzas, or to entertain your lover(s)?

At a certain point in most everyone's life--rich, poor, organized, or scattered--the wants outnumber the available hours in the day. At that point, a want must go a-wanting.

The solution is preventative: choose carefully at the outset. Be grateful that, although you can't have everything, some very nice anythings await your selection.
Peter McWilliams, LIFE 101


Also, by J M Barrie:

You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.

And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love!

German: Und hüte dich auch vor den Anfällen deiner Liebe! Zu schnell streckt der Einsame dem die Hand entgegen, der ihm begegnet.
English: And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him.
Nietzsche, "Thus Spake Zarathustra"

This has been for years a favourite Nietzsche quote for me and it describes me perfectly. Here is some more:


The Way of the Creating One.

Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and hearken unto me.

"He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.

The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.

Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.

But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!

Art thou a new strength and a new authority? A first motion? A self- rolling wheel? Canst thou also compel stars to revolve around thee?

Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness! There are so many convulsions of the ambitions! Show me that thou art not a lusting and ambitious one!

Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than the bellows: they inflate, and make emptier than ever.

Free, dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thought would I hear of, and not that thou hast escaped from a yoke.

Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.

Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall thine eye show unto me: free FOR WHAT?

Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy law?

Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one's own law. Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the icy breath of aloneness.

To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes.

But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I am alone!"

One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: "All is false!"

There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if they do not succeed, then must they themselves die! But art thou capable of it--to be a murderer?

Hast thou ever known, my brother, the word "disdain"? And the anguish of thy justice in being just to those that disdain thee?

Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they heavily to thine account. Thou camest nigh unto them, and yet wentest past: for that they never forgive thee.

Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee. Most of all, however, is the flying one hated.

"How could ye be just unto me!"--must thou say--"I choose your injustice as my allotted portion."

Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my brother, if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that account!

And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue--they hate the lonesome ones.

Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the fire--of the fagot and stake.

And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him.

To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy paw; and I wish thy paw also to have claws.

But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself always be; thou waylayest thyself in caverns and forests.

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way!

A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a sooth-sayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.

Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the creating one: a God wilt thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils!

Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the loving one: thou lovest thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself, as only the loving ones despise.

To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth! What knoweth he of love who hath not been obliged to despise just what he loved!

With thy love, go into thine isolation, my brother, and with thy creating; and late only will justice limp after thee.

With my tears, go into thine isolation, my brother. I love him who seeketh to create beyond himself, and thus succumbeth.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Relationships Don't Work - from Everyday Zen: Love & Work by Charlotte Joko Beck

I recently returned from Australia. I went there hoping to enjoy some normal weather-so the first two days it poured, which was fun. Then for the last five days of sesshin in Brisbane there was a cold gale. It was so strong that we could hardly stand up as we ran between buildings. We had to fight just to keep our balance. The wind was like a truck, roaring over the roof the whole time. Anyway, it was a good sesshin, and what I got (as I always do) is that no matter where you go, people are people: they are all wonderful and they are all troubled, as people are everywhere; and the same questions plague Australians as plague us. They have just as much difficulty with relationships as we do. So I want to talk for a few minutes about the illusions we have that relationships are going to work. See, they don't. They simply don't work. There never was a relationship that worked. You may say, "Well, why are we doing all this practice if that's true?" It's the fact that we want something to work that makes our relationships so unsatisfactory.

In a way life can work-but not coming from the standpoint that we are going to do something that will make it work. In everything we do in relation to other people, there is a subtle or not-so-subtle expectation. We think, "Somehow I'm going to figure this relationship out and make it work, and then I will get what I want." We all want something from the people we are in relationship to. None of us can say we don't want something from those we are in relationship to. And even if we avoid relationships that's another way of wanting something. So relationships just don't work.

Well, what does work then? The only thing that works (if we really practice) is a desire not to have something for myself but to support all life, including individual relationships. Now you may say, "Well, that sounds nice, I'll do that!" But nobody really wants to do that. We don't want to support others. To truly support somebody means that you give them everything and expect nothing. You might give them your time, your work, your money, anything. "If you need it, I'll give it to you." Love expects nothing. Instead of that we have these games: "I am going to communicate so our relationship will be better," which really means, "I'm going to communicate so you'll see what I want." The underlying expectation we bring to those games insures that relationships won't work. If we really see that, then a few of us will begin to understand the next step, of seeing another way of being. We may get a glimpse of it now and then: "Yes, I can do this for you, I can support your life and I expect nothing. Nothing."

There is a true story of a wife whose husband had been in Japan during the war. In Japan he lived with a Japanese woman and had a couple of children with her. He loved the Japanese woman very much. When he came home he did not tell his wife about this love. But finally, when he knew he was dying, he confessed to her the truth of the relationship and the children. At first she was very upset. But then something within her began to stir, and she worked and worked with her anguished feelings; finally, before her husband died, she said, "I will take care of them." So she went to Japan, found the young woman, and brought her and the two children back to the United States. They made a home together and the wife did all she could to teach the young woman English, to get her a job, and to help with the children. That's what love is.

A meditative practice is not some "airy-fairy" process, but a way of getting in touch with our own life. As we practice, more and more we have some idea of this other way of being, and we begin to turn away from a self-centered orientation—not to an "other-centered" orientation (because it includes ourselves), but to a totally open orientation. If our practice is not moving in that direction then it is not true practice. Whenever we want anything we know our practice has to continue. And since none of us can say other than that, it just means that for all of us our practice continues. I have been practicing a long time, yet I noticed that on this trip I just took (which was a long trip at my age, even though the sesshin was good, with strong impact on a lot of people) I was saying, "Well, it took too much out of me, I don't know if I will do it next year.

Maybe I need more rest." The human mind is like that. Like anyone else, I want to be comfortable. I like to feel good. I don't like to be tired. And you may say, "Well, what's wrong with wanting a little comfort for yourself?" There is nothing wrong with wanting it, unless it is at variance with that which is more important to me than comfort, my primary orientation in life. If that primary orientation doesn't emerge from practice, then practice isn't practice. If we know our primary orientation, it will have its effect on every phase of life, on our relationships, our work, everything. If something doesn't emerge from practice that is more than just what / want, what would make my life more pleasant, then it's not practice.

But let's not oversimplify the problem. As we sit like this, we have to develop two, three, four aspects of practice. Just to sit in strong concentration has value. But unless we are careful, we can use it to escape from life. In fact, one can use the kind of power it develops in very poor ways. Concentration is one aspect of practice; we don't emphasize it here, but that ability must be acquired at some point. The Vipassana-type practice (which I prefer) in which you notice, notice, notice, is very valuable and I think the best and most basic training. Yet it can lead to people who are (as I think I was at one time) almost totally impersonal. There was nothing I felt emotionally because I had become an observing machine. That can sometimes be a drawback of this kind of practice. There are also other ways of practicing. Each way has strengths and each way has drawbacks. And there are various psychological and therapeutic trainings which are valuable; yet they also have drawbacks. The development of a human being into what I would call a balanced, wise, compassionate person is not simple.

In a relationship, whenever we sense unease -that point where it doesn't suit us - a big question mark should shoot up as to what is going on with us. How we can practice with the unease? I am not saying that all relationships should be continued forever, because the point of a relationship has nothing to do with the relationship itself. The point of relationship is the added power that life gets in working with it as a channel. A good relationship gives life more power. If two people are strong together, then life has a more powerful channel than it has with two single people. It's almost as though a third and larger channel has been formed. That is what life is looking for. It doesn't care about whether you are "happy" in your relationship. What it is looking for is a channel, and it wants that channel to be powerful. If it's not powerful life would just as soon discard it. Life doesn't care about your relationship. It is looking for channels for its power so it can function maximally. That functioning is what you are all about; all this drama about you and him or her is of no interest to life. Life is looking for a channel and, like a strong wind, it will beat on a relationship to test it. If the relationship can't take the testing, then either the relationship needs to grow in strength so that it can take it, or it may need to dissolve so something new and fresh can emerge from the ruins. Whether it crashes or not is less important than what is learned. Many people marry, for instance, when nothing is being served by their relationship. I am not advocating that people dissolve their marriages, of course. I simply mean that we often misinterpret what marriage is about. When a relationship isn't working, it means that the partners are preoccupied with "I": "What I want is . . ." or "This isn't right for me." If there is little wanting, then the relationship is strong and it will function. That's all life is interested in. As a separate ego with your separate desires, you are of no importance to life. And all weak relationships reflect the fact that somebody wants something for himself or herself.

These are big questions I am raising, and you may not agree with everything I'm saying. Still, Zen practice is about being selfless, about realizing that one is no-self. That does not mean to be a nonentity. It means to be very strong. But to be strong does not mean to be rigid. I've heard about a way of designing houses at the beach, where big storms can flood houses: when they are flooded, the middle of the house collapses and the water, instead of taking down the whole house, just rushes through the middle and leaves the house standing. A good relationship is something like that. It has a flexible structure and a way of absorbing shocks and stresses so that it can keep its integrity, and continue to function. But when a relationship is mostly "I want," the structure will be rigid. When it is rigid, it can't take pressure from life and so it can't serve life very well. Life likes people to be flexible so it can use them for what it seeks to accomplish.

If we understand zazen and our practice we can begin to get acquainted with ourselves, and how our troublesome emotions wreak havoc with our lives. If we really practice then very slowly, over the years, strength develops. At times this is a horrendous process. If anyone tells you differently they are not telling you about real meditation. Real meditation is by no means a flowery, blissful process. But if we really do it in time we begin to know what it is we're after; we begin to see who we are. So I want you to appreciate your practice and really do it. Practice is not a trimming on your life. Practice is the foundation. If that's not there nothing else will be there. So let's keep clarifying what our practice is at this moment. And who knows, some of us might even find ourselves in a relationship that works-one that has a very, very different base. It is up to us to create that base. So let's just do that.

Relationships Don't Work - from Everyday Zen: Love & Work by Charlotte Joko Beck from Amazon com
Relationships Don't Work - from Everyday Zen: Love & Work by Charlotte Joko Beck from Amazon UK