The Political Front

I found this in my drafts from October of last year.

I close my eyes and I wait. Already it is apparent that the visual faculty has some white noise to it - like the ear faculty. You know, you get that little hum in your ear. If you plug your ears you still hear something if you really focus. But if nothing outside is making noise we call that ‘quiet’. It isn’t quiet in terms of there not being a sound - its just that we can call that lack of outside noise ‘quietness’. So silence is relative quietness. That is also true of the visual faculty. If you close your eyes you might consider that dark, but there is something there. If you focus your attention then there are still things to be seen.

I am just closing my eyes and waiting. I want to write, “I am going insane”. But I don’t have any follow up. I am buffeted by feelings.

I feel tight but light. Like a tightness born of light. There are many things that help the mind to understand that it is the nature of light and bliss. These things bring about a strong resolve and a deep understanding. But it still feels a certain way. The intellectual assertion is only a spring board. It is important also to understand the way ignorance automatically arises. Tightness born of light.

I am inclined to always write about the mind and such — Buddhism and such. If it weren’t for Buddhism, I don’t know what I would write about. Politics?

Okay, so the political situation in the world is like the storm system situation in the world. All the world governments are cold fronts and warm fronts in relationship to each other. People are particulates in all of this. They are the raw material. That’s how politics seems. One can scream about it - sometimes screaming is the right thing, but it is still in accordance with the various political fronts. So, sometimes its evil, sometimes it is good but moving it as an individual is like the effect of a drop of water in the ocean. That is a bad attitude in a Democracy, I think. It can’t be that all the drops think like me, or there can be no Democracy. But realistically, I think there is only one way an individual can have a strong affect towards peace and that he become like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, MLK, Nelson Mandela, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Those types of people have this huge influence. We as only the benefactors of our governments are only drops. So I am not saying that we should all try to be like those people - like those great people. Many times people have very limited views of themselves and so they can not even imagine themselves being that beneficial to beings, so I think it is maybe too much to say that it is necessary to be like that. Indeed, I doubt that those great people tried to be great people. Like one day they weren’t sitting on their couch and watching the Dukes of Hazard when they jumped up, Mother Teresa - or Teresa Abdul at the time - Teresa Abdul jumps up and says, “TO HELL WITH THESE POTATO CHIPS, I’M GOING TO GIVE HOPE, HOME, AND COMPASSION TO THE LEPERS AND THE UNTUCHABLES AND DIE A SAINT TO ALL MEN”. So what to do? I think getting all wrapped up in Government - having that sort of focus is pretty ineffectual for most of us. But we can’t be the Dalai Lama (we think we can’t be the Dalai Lama). So what’s a drop to do?

Well, get into being a drop. Be simple like that. Look around and see all the other drops and get into that. Be into being. Be a human being. Get to know yourself deeply and don’t think, “I get it”. Don’t be anything other than what you are. Then you are a friend to everyone.

When I was a kid one of my friends threw human poo in my face. He ‘flicked’ it at me with a stick and it got on my face. I thought that was so gross and I didn’t like him very much at the time. The funny thing is that I continued to be his friend after that. I was young and so I didn’t hold grudges. So think about it, at that time you could have thrown poop in my face and I might still be your friend, but these days if you are a Democrat and I am a Republican then we can’t be friends.

We stop being human when we become Democrats and Republicans. We are human democrats. Humans can always get along with humans. If you ask someone who he is and he says, “I am just a human”, it could mean that he is very friendly, that he is willing to connect on that level. But if you ask someone and he says, “I am a democrat” then he is already setting himself off from other groups. Also, “I am Christian” and “I am Buddhist” is like this. We stop being basic drops in the ocean of creation and become drops with adornment and so you gotta have the ‘christian’ drops over there and the ‘Buddhist’ drops over here. Democrats, Republicans, Cops, Robbers. Identifying ourselves with a group isolates us. That might make us feel more secure, but in the end, we are being limited. We are limiting ourselves and denying ourselves genuine communion.

That’s probably the way those great people went. Their trip was probably like that. They probably see themselves as drops in an ocean of humanity. The Dalai Lama always says, “I am just a simple monk”. He says that even in his dreams he only sees himself that way. So basically my message is to not get so hung up in politics and screaming and stuff. First develop introspection and genuine connection to others, then you will affect the ocean as a very good drop. Forget being Poseidon for now.