Mindfully reading the news - Korea
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I know we've been over this a few times recently but I think there's more to say. I've been working on mindfully reading the news, in order to get a better grip on where emotive impulses come from. Today's topic was North Korea wanting to achieve "military parity" with the United States.
So what I was reading was that Kim Jong-un wanted to create a situation in which no-one would dare to attack North Korea for fear of nuclear reprisals, and I noticed I was becoming quite angry, that I wanted them to quickly attack North Korea so that they wouldn't become a threat or locking all those poor people into their dictatorship.
Now... I live on the other side of the world, I have no personal connections with Korea except perhaps a fondness for its pottery. But somehow inside I have a little "me" who makes a snap decision about how it should be and then internally says "I know it better, you should do what I say" and then generates anger because all these darn foolish people are not listening. Which gets suppressed.
It's just one of those areas where coming into contact with the real world causes a reaction to manifest which is a challenge to cope with in a Buddhist or loving sense. When the goal is to free oneself from desire, hatred, fear, anxiety, anger and so on it shows we still have a ways to go, but whenever you find something like that it's worthwhile to chase it down. It puts me in mind of the hsin hsin ming...
The Great Way is not difficult
for those not attached to preferences.
When not attached to love or hate,
all is clear and undisguised.
Separate by the smallest amount, however,
and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.
By Seng-ts'an, third Zen patriarch
http://www.mendosa.com/way.html
Maybe I should meditate more on being non-judgmental...
Comments
This is another area where computer games form a bad habit, if you ask me - they teach you to be very cavalier and instant with your judgments. Time in a game is often precious and it teaches you to make snap judgments and look no further than the obvious... at most you'll be familiar with strategy games which teach you to carefully examine a position. But it's not the same as learning to look deeply, where one needs to rely on reason and insight to see what lies beyond a certain occurrence. Learning to look deeply is a key skill in learning about yourself.
But they can only have whatever affect you choose to accept. I've never been forced-taught anything. Everything I have ever learned has been a decision process to adopt what I was taught as valid. But that doesn't always make it so and as an adult I have the tools to revisit those decisions every day, and as they come up, I do. Nothing teaches me something I don't choose to be taught. Including games, teachers, parents, my children, books, videos, dharma talks, etc.
I quite enjoy putting myself in the other shoes when I am looking at conflict issues. Choosing to see things from varying perspectives makes it much harder to form and adopt a firm stance because you can see so many sides. I take sides on few issues, and can play Devil's Advocate from almost any side. Some people think that is wishy-washy, but I don't find it necessary to take a hard stance on most things. Doing so exactly pits "us vs them" with ourselves as the priority, without realizing taking into consideration the causes and conditions of everyone else involved. Once you start to learn what those causes and conditions are, you can no longer solely defend your own life against theirs.
(Effect....)
my apologies, @federica , typing too fast
I knew it was probably that.
I always type freind, and form, instead of friend and from....
@federica the other day at work (I work from home doing social media management and customer service stuff) I sent an email to a customer that said "Your address is terrified" when I meant verified. At least he found it amusing,
A friend of mine once had a party with the theme "Ghosts, vampires and fiends".
She decided to send formal invitations to the event, to around 500 people (it was her 30th birthday) and had the cards professionally printed.
She had the Artwork designed by the in-house graphics guy at the printer's, specifying that one of the lines should read, Open to all my good guys and Ghouls - bring a Fiend!"
She proof-read the design, loved it, approved it, and off it went to print.
The printers took it upon themselves - in spite of her signature of consent - to rectify the spelling of 'Fiend' to 'Friend'.
She was not a happy Bunny.
@federica oooh I'd be mad, too! You'd at least think they could call to verify! Or terrify.
Our esteemed president spoke at the UN today. Listening to him talk about North Korea (or anything else) is like talking politics with drunk people at the bar.
It'd be hilarious if it wasn't real and he wasn't serious. On top of the other obvious problems and implications in their "I'll destroy you first! Nuh uh we'll completely destroy YOU first!' contest, the Korean people continue to suffer under the regime and now al of the sanctions passed down. As if passing sanctions is hurting the regime. It's only hurting the people and it's not like they care about that. Not that I am suggesting obliteration is the answer, of course, it's just a maddening situation all around that of course none of us have any control over but is hard to let go of because of the humanity-wide implications. I suppose on the plus side, dealing with Trump is a constant reminder of impermanence, because you never know which day he'll rip which carpet out from under the stability you thought you knew in life, 