April 6, 2009

  • everything matters/nothing matters

    I have read, and accept as true, that simply being born into this world gives you the right to try to change it. Thing is, you need to be very wise and very kind and very careful about what you do to folks, what you say to them–and to avoid taking something from them unless you are prepared to give them something better in return.

    On the other hand, one might argue that it doesn’t matter–that at the Highest Level, good and evil are the same. And that since we all have immortal souls, what happens in any single lifetime cannot possibly matter in the long run. This too is true.

    But we don’t exist in “the long run”–we exist–or at least ideally, we do–we exist in the here and now. Right here. Right now.

    When you get down to it, right now–this present moment– is all we have to work with. And every moment is a gift–which is why we call it “the present.”

    So, how do we resolve this paradox? Or is it even a parodox, but rather a paradigm? Brother, can you paradigm? Or does three of a kind beat two paradox? And what does this mean, anyway?

    We create our own reality. (Except for when we don’t.) So it all means exactly what we choose for it to mean. That is, events–what some might see as deep omens or portents–have NO intrinsic meaning. This is not nihilism, I think, but enlightened materialism. That is, we create our reality, our own personal universe, out of the one billionth or so of the vast chaotic quantum soup that passes for subjective reality which our limited senses can perceive–or misperceive.

    How do we avoid misperception? I would suggest this–look through the eyes of love, and you will always see that which is most bright, most true, most enduring.

    Look through the eyes of fear, and you will see snares and delusions.

     
    __________________
    Disquietude is always vanity because it serves no good. — St John of the Cross
    What is known as the teaching of the Buddha is not the teaching of the Buddha. — Diamond Sutra
    Can I explain the Friend to one for whom He is no Friend? — Jalal-uddin Rumi

    (Submitted for Featured Grownups topic of “change.” )

     

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