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'So Much Trouble in the
World'
'So much trouble in the world'. Reggae
legend Bob Marley reminds us of the veracity inherent in Buddha's first noble
truth, that all life is suffering. We, as 21st Century human beings, when
exploring this concept, can accept it as fact, but, I believe, we do not
truly understand it. This is a great problem in our present world as our
lives become more interconnected, but especially, for those populations so
clearly suffering beneath regimes of terror, like in Burma. When Buddha delivered his sermons across northern India and Nepal, he would lecture to audiences of what he had brought back with him from nirvana. He did so with the intention of freeing humans from this suffering he had experienced in his youth, and on his quest for enlightenment. Yet, he witnessed that so many of his followers and listeners, instead of absorbing the message behind the words, got lost in the words, and created new constructs out of them from which to live by. Instead of using the message as a vehicle for moving towards enlightenment, they used the words to perpetuate the suffering. This caused Buddha much consternation, probably much more than is recorded. However, one instructive interaction came as Buddha was preparing to deliver a sermon and realized the folly of sharing his words with this greedy audience. Instead of speaking, he picked up a nearby flower and held it in his hand, gently, under the mid-day sun. People stirred in the crowd, restless and excited, but one of Buddha's followers, Kasapa, in spontaneous recognition of this monumental exchange, grew light and beamed with a great smile that shook his whole being. It is unknown whether the spectators saw this and if so what they thought, but it is known that Buddha, aware of Kasapa's moment of ecstatic perception, placed the flower he was holding on the ground, gently rose from his seat, and walked away. What this says to us is beyond words - as Kasapa understood at that great moment - but its value to us is great. These words, which hold so much power over men, have grown infinitely more complex in 2,500 years and are now not simply words, but also mental constructs, layers of cultured perceptive models, and even material items. Simply put, the message is diffused even greater by the complexities of modern life. So now, when offered messages of purity and goodness, we destroy them by grasping at distorted mental processes or external, inanimate objects charged with a common value. We can't see because we have lost the ability to look. What we look for is not beauty but the shared recognition of beauty; what we value is not goodness but the accepted definition of what is good; and so on. In other words, we have lost our ability to find our own personal message, via the universal message, by confusing what is good and right for us by what we are told is good and right for us. Buddha knew that people were skipping over the first noble truth claiming that they understood it and eager to go on to the other three truths, leading towards enlightenment. That is why, I believe, frustrated by all the words, and all the idle talk, he raised the flower in his hand, for all those restless minds to see. And, like usual, only one man saw. Holding in my heart a message from the Burmese people, I can empathize with Kasapa. Having returned from experiencing the incredible suffering among the Burmese population (in exile), I am confounded at the lack of concern among westerners. Because it is not headlined in the newspapers or CNN, people do not value it. If it is Kosovo, Tibet, or Cuba, people are filled with opinions and solutions for the suffering of those particular people, but since they are so force-fed with propaganda and lies, the majority of the western population has lost the ability to comprehend truly what suffering is, and what it means. Of course, we have been inculcated with the values of goodness, rightness, compassion, etc., but these were not borne out of our own direct experience in life, but out of some lowest common denominator that seems to run on 'common sense'. Once we live within these conditioned parameters, we are alright, we are safe, and we can feel OK about our lives. Or, if we were Buddhists, we could move on to the next three noble truths. But, it seems to me that one of the greatest tasks of our present era is to live within this first noble truth, to accept it, to be it, and to graduate from it only with such an ecstatic perception as the one Kasapa had when seeing that flower. If we conceptualize our understanding of it, it is not the same, and we are doomed to perpetuate the suffering. We must embrace the message behind all the words. And we must do this for ourselves. This leads back to my indictment on westerners, particularly, only because it is my immediate experience, regarding the violent oppression of the Burmese people. With the tentacles of globalization such as the internet, cable television, multi-media, the United Nations, trade organizations, and such, there is no excuse for us to remain so ignorant on the reality of world affairs. We have a duty, a responsibility, as world citizens, to uphold certain basic human rights. We cannot rely on others to do it for us, and in reality, it is as simple as becoming knowledgeable about the realities of the world. Like the saying goes, 'Ye shall seek the truth, and the truth shall set you free'. But who, like Kasapa, is willing to seek the truth? Who is willing to sacrifice 'common sense' for some abstract ideal? Who, I ask, is willing to take that risk? Being conditioned as we are, praying to such false gods as money, power, sex and organized religion, we do not have the required flexibility to recognize our inherent responsibilities, nor do we care much about investing the time and energy into things outside of our own collapsed spheres of life. We seem contented, on a superficial level, to stay within these parameters and work solely for our own well-being, and maybe, that of our families. This is a simple explanation for why we are unable to engage in such a vital process as grasping Buddha's first noble truth. We are so disconnected from direct interaction with our fellow man, not to mention our own inner lives, that we cannot possibly touch the experience of suffering, though we claim over and over that we know it in our own lives. So, we prematurely graduate ourselves from Buddha's first noble truth and move on to the next rung in the ladder of enlightenment (or else remain forever stranded on the island of 'suffering' - though it is an isolated, egocentric and unreal level of existence). The people of Burma, and billions elsewhere around the world, get left behind, clutching at that first rung in the ladder, barely able to scream for help. And those few of us, mainly westerners, busy climbing the rung of achievement, leave them behind to die. We could never use such strong a strong word as 'die' within our worldview, but certainly, we would hear something like 'So much trouble in the world…' We grew up singing this, dancing to a reggae beat, but so few of us went inwards, behind the words, to grasp the message of this Jamaican prophet. We get lost in the words, they become our words, and we go on to bigger and better things. Kasapa is still sitting there, so many years after Buddha has passed on, but now, his moment of ecstatic perception is long gone, and he is covered in tears, in despair. The flower that Buddha had held up still sits before him, rotted, nearly as dust, an effigy to the destruction of purity and goodness. The people of Burma go the same way, as the world goes on - a few people growing richer, bigger, and fatter off the suffering of so many innocent lives. Yet, those same few are also growing fundamentally more oppressed by the incredible suffering in the world. This fact is universal. For what we, as westerners, do not and obviously cannot understand is that the people of Burma are engaged in the same struggle as we. Their struggle, as dramatic and violently expressed as it is, is parallel to our own path towards joining Kasapa, where he awaits us, in his lonely despair. For if we are to truly graduate from the first noble truth, and begin our noble procession towards enlightenment, we must do it as a global community of devotees. But, and this is the most important fact out of all, what we are devoted to is not the image of Buddha, nor his words, nor the image of our own enlightenment, but to the message conveyed by the simple flower Buddha held up in his hand. Of course, what this says to us is beyond present comprehension, but its value to us is great. Kasapa is still sitting there though the flower is rotted, nearly as dust. He awaits us to join him in acceptance of the despair in the universal psyche. We can do this by accepting our own inner truths, and following them, and by challenging our preconceptions on life. For unless we do so, we will lose the message that lives and breathes - yet which we fail to see - and continue to recite the mantra that will grow stronger with each passing day, 'So much trouble in the world'. With this, we will lose the people of Burma (and so many more), we will let them fall prey to the suffering we perpetuate in our own lives. We may not care - not now - but when that trouble reaches us, we will cease singing, cease dancing, and join all of our struggling brothers and sisters clutching to that first rung in the ladder, barely able to scream. Then, we might just see Kasapa, sitting there, with tears in his eyes. HOME PAGE & ARCHIVES
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