Suffering from Dichotomy, Resolving to Persevere
Blogging on politics is playing hell with my Buddhist practice. I feel myself regressing into the angry man I want to overcome. sometimes, during my meditations, my thoughts latch into a point my subconscious brings to fore, and I try to phrase it into a coherent post. Then I realize what is happening, and I return to my breath, chagrinned at myself.
In the context of blogging, it is impossible to hold a conversation. Bloggers can only trade virtual punches through their posts, with a time lapse while the sparring partner takes aim. Such sparring is often without virtue. Anonymity make people tactless, bold and sometimes stupid. When I suffer from such ailments, I do so because I slip into familiar patterns I know are dangerous. I do so because I forget the Dharma.
I find reading the news causes frustration that turns into anger which, when the steam runs out, gives way to despair. I believe this is common. Much anger and disparagement is evidence in Blogopolis. I have a familiarity with anger and despair. They’re old friends. One on each shoulder, they’re sometimes mistaken for chips, sometimes for boulders. The very act of scrounging for content, tempting my muse, is my downfall.
There’s a saying in the Dharma which I’ve always liked: "Will it matter in one hundred years?" If the answer is "no," as it likely is, then the reasoning is that it doesn’t matter now. This works fine on a person scale, but with the confluence of crises happening in the world, I find it hard to answer "no" to that question. I cannot help but believe that what happens now will affect the next hundred years dramatically.
It’s hard to see the nation one lives in become an empirical war machine. People don’t want that. But in America, the average person has no say. Gone is the illusion of the power of individual vote. Gone is the fallacy of rule of the people.Gone is any say in the matter at all. We are told lies, spoon-fed fear, and condemned as traitors if we dare question. Karl Marx, Adolph Hitler, and George Orwell are all laughing in glee.
Humanity must turn away from this path. Between war, disease, hunger, pollution, religious conflicts, and the widening imbalance of wealth, the road before us is dark, indeed. I’ve heard much lately how my views are unrealistic or naive. I keep hearing the same thing from dissenters - that the world "doesn’t work that way." These otherwise intelligent people miss how that kind of thinking is part of the problem, how by doing nothing to change the status quo they are enabling mankind to escalate atrocities. Acceptance of what many call "human nature" is a failure to understand that humanity must rise above the base instincts that we live under: murder; hatred; greed. Responding to our faults by reciprocating them is not the answer to our global issues.
To me this is obvious, to many it is not. As a result I despair, then I get angry, then frustrated at myself for internalizing such anxiety. The cycle repeats. As there seems no end to outward strife, there is also no solace from inward strife. The extremes are not reconcilable.
I am sometimes paralyzed between seeking inner peace and the outer manifestations of conflict I read about daily. While I know that humans are intrinsically good beings, I cringe at what is going on in the world. Even as people profess to intimate knowledge of a loving God, they fire missiles at each other. While the affluent, educated minority of the world have an unprecedented technological power to aid the poor, feed the hungry, and heal the sick, instead they control government to find ways to hoard their wealth. Such is the dichotomy of our age.
I struggle to find peace within when there is none to be found without.This blog exacerbates my distress. It’s tempting to quit Tannishblog, re-bury my head as I did for many years, pretend nothing’s wrong and quietly age. Instead I speak out, try to turn a few minds, to enlighten however feebly, thereby doing what little I can to aid others to question the madness. If people cannot overcome our penchant for self-inflicted injury, then we are doomed. Until that is determined I will continue to offer an alternative. And you thought all we Buddhists did was navel-gazing…