Being Negatively Wise
Positively, A Negative View
In many "wisdom" writings seeming paradoxes abound. Polar concepts are merged, or one pole seen as a necessary aspect of the definition of the other. One of these infinite polarities is the basic one of the positive and the negative. In my life at present there is much that is what one would usually refer to as negative. People I love, family and friends, have received serious life threatening or health impacting diagnoses, four in all, in the last few months. On the wider front, it appears my growing inner unease about the state of the planet politically, socially and environmentally, is being unfortunately borne out. Things don't look good at all. Quite negative, with numerous almost insurmountable problems emerging, greatly fuelled by a seemingly uncontrollable human population explosion.
Some of my refelctions:
1. Creation and destruction, illness and health, violence and peace, ignorance and wisdom are all, utterly and totally contained in The One Reality.
2. All is endless change, whether on a microbial level or at the level of superclusters of a myriad galaxies. When something new is created, something else is necessarily destroyed. As each moment passes in death, a new moment arises in life. Ultimately nothing is a permanent, independent thing in itself. All is interwoven. Many sages, preeminently the great Buddha, have reminded us of this. To expect otherwise is unnecessary mind-created pain.
3. This total view of life accredits all and denies nothing. The validity of grief is equal to the validity of joy. To know joy, the capacity to experience grief arises at the same time. To sob at the loss of species upon species or the loss of a friend, is as real as the joy of a splendid sunset, ironically enhanced by the increasing pollution.
4. Every emotion is part of this All too. To rail at the stupid madness of destroying the forests that produce clean air and reduce the CO2 happens to those that see it, and is neither right nor wrong, more enlightened or less. Seeing clearly is not to do with the tranquil emotions of the mountain view alone, but also in the turbulent. Awareness and acceptance (not the do nothing sort), gives clarity to any action. To be clear, one must know the turbulent, look at it, experience it, not to deny human emotional realities but to look them fully in the face. Awakeness without aversion or clinging, - to anything. This makes us actually more effective, avoiding the unseen perils of denial.
In sum, It looks like we should try not to deny anything that is negative nor hate it. Look it fully in the face. This is the negative that is happening in my life and those about me now. A time of illness, possible death, even disaster. I am not being asked to enjoy it, nor not feel grief or unhappiness. These negatives too are to be fully recieved. We are not to float unrealistically or without compassion on some thought-divorced cloud. In awareness and full awakeness is our fullest response to life.
Awareness is increased by times of quiet reflection, times of withdrawal. This, in our frenetic world, we do not practice enough. And with increased awareness, our way, while we walk the negative, the nighttimes of our lives, will become clearer. We may be more effective in our actions, less swayed by emotional turbulence, but not without compassion.
...If you want it (The Way) to appear
Be neither for nor against.
For and against, opposing each other,
This is the mind's disease."
Seng Ts'an
Zen Patriarch ca 600 c.e.
In many "wisdom" writings seeming paradoxes abound. Polar concepts are merged, or one pole seen as a necessary aspect of the definition of the other. One of these infinite polarities is the basic one of the positive and the negative. In my life at present there is much that is what one would usually refer to as negative. People I love, family and friends, have received serious life threatening or health impacting diagnoses, four in all, in the last few months. On the wider front, it appears my growing inner unease about the state of the planet politically, socially and environmentally, is being unfortunately borne out. Things don't look good at all. Quite negative, with numerous almost insurmountable problems emerging, greatly fuelled by a seemingly uncontrollable human population explosion.
Some of my refelctions:
1. Creation and destruction, illness and health, violence and peace, ignorance and wisdom are all, utterly and totally contained in The One Reality.
2. All is endless change, whether on a microbial level or at the level of superclusters of a myriad galaxies. When something new is created, something else is necessarily destroyed. As each moment passes in death, a new moment arises in life. Ultimately nothing is a permanent, independent thing in itself. All is interwoven. Many sages, preeminently the great Buddha, have reminded us of this. To expect otherwise is unnecessary mind-created pain.
3. This total view of life accredits all and denies nothing. The validity of grief is equal to the validity of joy. To know joy, the capacity to experience grief arises at the same time. To sob at the loss of species upon species or the loss of a friend, is as real as the joy of a splendid sunset, ironically enhanced by the increasing pollution.
4. Every emotion is part of this All too. To rail at the stupid madness of destroying the forests that produce clean air and reduce the CO2 happens to those that see it, and is neither right nor wrong, more enlightened or less. Seeing clearly is not to do with the tranquil emotions of the mountain view alone, but also in the turbulent. Awareness and acceptance (not the do nothing sort), gives clarity to any action. To be clear, one must know the turbulent, look at it, experience it, not to deny human emotional realities but to look them fully in the face. Awakeness without aversion or clinging, - to anything. This makes us actually more effective, avoiding the unseen perils of denial.
In sum, It looks like we should try not to deny anything that is negative nor hate it. Look it fully in the face. This is the negative that is happening in my life and those about me now. A time of illness, possible death, even disaster. I am not being asked to enjoy it, nor not feel grief or unhappiness. These negatives too are to be fully recieved. We are not to float unrealistically or without compassion on some thought-divorced cloud. In awareness and full awakeness is our fullest response to life.
Awareness is increased by times of quiet reflection, times of withdrawal. This, in our frenetic world, we do not practice enough. And with increased awareness, our way, while we walk the negative, the nighttimes of our lives, will become clearer. We may be more effective in our actions, less swayed by emotional turbulence, but not without compassion.
...If you want it (The Way) to appear
Be neither for nor against.
For and against, opposing each other,
This is the mind's disease."
Seng Ts'an
Zen Patriarch ca 600 c.e.
posted by R.M.L. | 2:48 PM
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