Best Of

"I'm going to speak my mind, so this won't take very long.

"Despite what they say graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it's actually one of the most honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.

"A wall has always been the best place to publish your work.

"The people who run our cities don't understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit, which makes their opinion worthless.

"They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society, but graffiti is only dangerous in the minds of three types of people: politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.

"The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every allowable surface but you're never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

"Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place."

— Banksy (British graffiti artist)

What can we do?

Perhaps....
Stop thinking that "what can we do" is anywhere other than right where we now are.

With each nanosecond, a choice toward greed, anger & delusion
or compassion, love & wisdom is there to be made.
Neither self, nor the rest of existence, can be isolated, from the other.
Is there anything that one can do beyond what this one present, fleeting moment offers?

Does one awaken or continue snoozing within a dreamer's dream?
What can we do?

I love it. In some sense I think that has been my motivation in practice for a while now. To try to be a light in the world, to help maintain a path that people can turn to once they've become disillusioned with the negativity.

"I can lose my hands, and still live. I can lose my legs and still live. I can lose my eyes and still live. I can lose my hair, eyebrows, nose, arms, and many other things and still live. But if I lose the air I die. If I lose the sun I die. If I lose the earth I die. If I lose the water I die. If I lose the plants and animals I die. All of these things are more a part of me, more essential to my every breath, than is my so-called body.”
— Jack D. Forbes

I came across this elsewhere and thought it would be worth reposting:

Since I have been back in the States, I have become much more aware of the endless negativity infecting the world. Violence, Greed, Hatred, and Deceit are spreading like weeds. How badly we need to tend to the garden before it becomes completely overgrown. To see what I could do to put a stop to the negativity, I asked the spirit of ayahuasca for advice.

"What can I do to stop the negativity in the world?"
This was my question. After a few moments of deep concentration and determined intention to find the answer. A voice in my head replied with the following beautiful message:
You cannot stop the flow of the River of Negativity, and it is not your job to. This river has been here since the beginning of time, constantly pouring into the Sea of Misery, and it shall continue to do so until the end of time. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
What you can do is clear a space by the bank of the river, and at this space you can build a dock, and from this dock you can make a trail going away from the river and eventually joining up with the Great Path, which leads to the Eternal Light of Love and Compassion.
And when people float by on their rafts of bad habits, they will see the dock and know they have choice. And if they decide to get off their vehicles of defilement and put an end to their path towards misery, the dock will be there to make it easier to disembark. Then, when they get to the shore, they will have a new path to follow, one that will lead them on a journey towards their own salvation.
A time will soon come when the waters of the River of Negativity will become so polluted, that no one will wish to travel it. There will soon be a migration away from the Sea of Misery and towards the Mountain peaks of Love, Peace, and Harmony. Know the paths up these mountains... and when a guide is needed, you will be prepared.

This was a very inspiring exchange. I hope that reading it will give you more determination to continue on the healing path. The world can and will be healed, not by stopping the negative, but by our own decision to head the other way, towards the light.

It puts me in mind that Buddhism is a large dock by itself, with its focus on virtue and doing the right things. But perhaps there is more we can do each individually, by making our own small docks, encouraging people to leave the River of Negativity.