I find it interesting that people frequently express disbelief in the possibility of something, while sitting right in front of them, pervading all experience is existence itself, and they have no problem accepting that! That is, if existence is possible, why couldn’t anything else be, imaginable or not?
Of course existence itself, and its cousins, awareness and experience, are unfathomable in scope, so the easy way to deal with them is to ignore them in our day-to-day lives and relegate them to philosophy class.
From the moment we begin accumulating experiences and associating them with pleasure and pain, we accumulate a value system which guides our choices. We tend to trust those people and experiences that bring us pleasure and distrust those that bring us pain. But because experiences are additive, when those that gave us pleasure or comfort in the past all of a sudden bring us pain, it can be confusing and can result in perverted perspectives, such as can result in children of abusive parents, where what is thought of as “love” can be twisted. Similarly, if someone attends a party and accidentally spills something on his clothes and is embarrassed, he may avoid future parties to avoid the pain he now associates with parties, when, in reality, fear of embarrassment, and not parties, is the issue.
For this reason, the Teachers urge each of us to question everything and examine the sources of our beliefs. Parents can be in error, tradition can be in error, schools can be in error, society can be in error. The earth turned out not to be flat!
So who and what do you believe? I love what my Tai Chi teacher, David Cheng, a Taoist master humorously said, “Don’t trust your mind too much. It’s barely good enough to earn a living!”
Perhaps some of the best advice comes from Jesus: “By their fruits ye shall know them”. Is there love (joyful acceptance and joyful giving) and its fruit, kindness, or is there fear and its fruits, anger and cruelty?
So how do you feel about what you’re reading? Does it resonate with you?
