Easy
Answers
“It's
very easy to be unconscious. There's nothing easier in a way. It
takes something very compelling to turn around, to turn away from all
of the easy answers.” Joseph Goldstein
In
the teachings of the Buddha, we are told that suffering is intrinsic
to being human; not because Buddhism is a terribly fatalistic
religion, but because so many of us insist on being unconscious. We
choose to be so because it's easy; we don't have to work at it; we
can ride the coattails of someone else who speaks in a way that
sounds like power. We can echo their rhetoric and not have to think
for ourselves or wrestle with the complex issues of our times, or
even those of our personal lives.
When
things don't go the way we want them to, our first response is often
anger. Someone told me just yesterday about strolling on a city
street with his wife. They started to cross a street, but the light
changed while they were in the middle. The first motorist waited for
them to cross, but my friend said that within seconds, the man in the
second car blew his horn and screamed obscenities out the window at
them for holding up traffic. Now that's suffering! If you
can't bear to wait a few seconds for something as simple as a
pedestrian in a cross walk, then you're in big trouble for the real
difficulties of life. His suffering is self-inflicted, as is so often
the case, and he is unconscious of that.
Yield.
Be like the branches of a willow tree that blow about in the wind but
are not broken. That's a great image of how not to suffer so much.
Understand that all life is complicated; that we are only one among
many who are trying to navigate the complexities of the day. Learn
patience. Suffer less.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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