NOVEMBER 14, MONDAY

CHOOSE YOUR REALITY

One of the things that Stephen Jenkinson felt strongly about was was why he was here on earth to begin with. His feeling is that he, and presumably everyone else, is here on earth is because they are called to make the earth a better place. His feeling about the world we are in is that along with climate change and consumerism and global inequality that the problems humans are causing themselves are growing and growing. So he is called to first clarify what is happening and then to do something about it.

I‘m not sure called is the right word, but I think what he means is that in a world of suffering caused by human activity we have a choice. We can be sensitive to what is causing us to harm ourselves or, as the Buddhists do, to accept suffering as being the human condition and to deal with suffering by renouncing our attachment to the world. He didn‘t doubt that many Buddhists are good people doing good, but that while renunciation may reduce your own personal suffering, it is a way of dealing with the problem of human suffering by shutting yourself off from it.

(At this point I am again pretty sure that he wouldn‘t put anything in these terms and that this is my take on what he said, based on my own wrestling with the issue.).

But what I am feeling my way toward, I think, is that the calling he feels comes from somewhere inside him just as my response to him comes from somewhere inside me. From my perspective the reason he feels called to committing himself to changing the world is because committing himself to changing the world makes him feel very alive. He feels most alive as an activist. Doing something about the dismal state of the world makes him feel good through actively trying to change the world by persuading other people that they can also change the world. I’m tempted to say that do gooders do good because it doing good feels good.

But Buddhism, in my view, makes a person feel good by going in the opposite direction, by letting go of the inevitable suffering of life—illness, accident and death—through a person detaching themselves from life. And this renunciation, by itself, frees a person from suffering and can even lead to a detachment that somehow allows freedom from the transitoriness of life and brings a sense of bliss, ananda, a form of centeredness, moksha when you let go of attachment and are free to let a feeling of joy well up within you. (All of this from my perspective.)

For a person who finds letting go of attachment to be primary, being a do gooding activist almost seems just another form of attachment. Such a detached person will accept others in almost a disinterested and unattached way, sharing and caring without trying to change the world. For this person a change of attitude or awareness brings fullness of life, not activity.

I‘m not disputing what Stephen Jenkinson finds to be most alive for himself and for others. I am just wondering whether it simply depends upon what perspective makes you feel most alive (probably also depending upon your gender, your DNA, what culture you are born into and what you have been taught).

I was trying to explain this to my friend Tom Showalter as we walked along our road. He had little patience for either of these perspectives if they made what most interests him, the study of history, into a study either of a morality tale that needs to be altered or the study of the impermanent and unreal that we need to detach ourselves from, particularly the latter. He is interested in the way humans have behaved with each other, the realistic facts, with little interest in becoming a politician and changing things. He gets a kick out of understanding human history not rejecting it or dedicating himself to changing history.

If each of these perspectives is satisfying for individuals who are unlike each other, then there is no point in arguing about which one is best or most useful, or at least this is the way it seems to me. And if that is the case then what each person has to do is to feel her or his way to the perspective that feels most alive to them and then stick with it. I think I will wonder about this next, and see if I can identify what makes me feel most alive.