Saturday, July 09, 2005
Another Day Dawns Bright
...and the air is fresh and cool... I will go Upstate again today ...I have taught hard and well this whole week, and now I want to sit and chant and garden and read.
My dearest Drew gently admonished me about the despair I felt the day London was bombed....and about the way I expressed it in writing, suggesting that perhaps I had given a false sense of what Buddhism is about...especially our Nichiren Buddhism..summing it all up by saying that it is not what happens in the world as much as the way we re-act to and live with it...what we do in the aftermath of violence that determines how the world will heal,and how we ourselves will become stronger messengers of hope. Of course I agree with Drew.And still, there is an empty hole of essential meaninglessness at the core of every issue, which gives each "side" the license to interpret the issues any way they wish...and in that sense they believe that they ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT TO KILL US, because they believe that what they know to be true is indeed true...we feel the same about them and about what we believe to be true....they even think that people being killed and maimed is BOTH a punishment and a reward: i.e.they martyr themselves all the time to get at us, because then, they believe, they will go to their Heaven and get to fondle many pretty virgin girls!!! So for them DEATH has an entire other set of meanings....
That being said, looking at the entire thing as two sets of irate children harming each other in play, the "meaning" of it all does seem less than important...we cannot even agree on the idea of death being something bad....so...finally, it's all so stupid....mere destruction of physical matter, including flesh and bone...physical matter is destroyed every moment of every day and night...rather, physical matter changes. lable it any way you wish...destroyed, transformed,transmuted....and for each person of ours they kill, we have most certainly killed one of theirs...and so the world works.
And why? For what? Who the hell actually knows the "MEANING" of that one?
"They" ARE us. And we are them. And, unless you want to go down to a more basic philosophic level, what IS the meaning of that? Well, my bottom line is: I will certainly never kill someone else (I'd better watch what i write), and I am pretty damned sure I will never blow up a bus or a subway...also, whereas I view PEACE as an actual creative option, and terrorism as the opposite of that, there are brilliant people in the world who would totally disagree with me, and who would gladly kill me and anyone else in their path, who disagrees with them on that or any other subject. So, what is the meaning in that?
Finally, sadness IS an option. A good, human, tricky, often dark option. Sadness hurts. Tears honor. And despair? Well, there is that thing about having to hit bottom before genuine healing can begin. I respect that.
The entire human mess of it.
More later.
My dearest Drew gently admonished me about the despair I felt the day London was bombed....and about the way I expressed it in writing, suggesting that perhaps I had given a false sense of what Buddhism is about...especially our Nichiren Buddhism..summing it all up by saying that it is not what happens in the world as much as the way we re-act to and live with it...what we do in the aftermath of violence that determines how the world will heal,and how we ourselves will become stronger messengers of hope. Of course I agree with Drew.And still, there is an empty hole of essential meaninglessness at the core of every issue, which gives each "side" the license to interpret the issues any way they wish...and in that sense they believe that they ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT TO KILL US, because they believe that what they know to be true is indeed true...we feel the same about them and about what we believe to be true....they even think that people being killed and maimed is BOTH a punishment and a reward: i.e.they martyr themselves all the time to get at us, because then, they believe, they will go to their Heaven and get to fondle many pretty virgin girls!!! So for them DEATH has an entire other set of meanings....
That being said, looking at the entire thing as two sets of irate children harming each other in play, the "meaning" of it all does seem less than important...we cannot even agree on the idea of death being something bad....so...finally, it's all so stupid....mere destruction of physical matter, including flesh and bone...physical matter is destroyed every moment of every day and night...rather, physical matter changes. la
And why? For what? Who the hell actually knows the "MEANING" of that one?
"They" ARE us. And we are them. And, unless you want to go down to a more basic philosophic level, what IS the meaning of that? Well, my bottom line is: I will certainly never kill someone else (I'd better watch what i write), and I am pretty damned sure I will never blow up a bus or a subway...also, whereas I view PEACE as an actual creative option, and terrorism as the opposite of that, there are brilliant people in the world who would totally disagree with me, and who would gladly kill me and anyone else in their path, who disagrees with them on that or any other subject. So, what is the meaning in that?
Finally, sadness IS an option. A good, human, tricky, often dark option. Sadness hurts. Tears honor. And despair? Well, there is that thing about having to hit bottom before genuine healing can begin. I respect that.
The entire human mess of it.
More later.
Comments:
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Evalyn- Are we the only ones we know thinking about this stuff? See June 26th...I know you don't agree, but sure wish we had scads of time to sit and discuss, clarify and understand...ABJ
# posted by 
: 10:47 PM
: 10:47 PM
Ev,
That was really touching, and inspiring at the same time. There is a certain degree of humanness (is that a word?) to terrorism, as hard as it is for us to understand it. Thank you~
That was really touching, and inspiring at the same time. There is a certain degree of humanness (is that a word?) to terrorism, as hard as it is for us to understand it. Thank you~
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