Oh, why don’t you save all the money you earn?
If I didn’t eat, I’d have money to burn.
…
When springtime it comes, oh, won’t we have fun;
We’ll throw off our jobs, and go on the bum.
There’s a Week-9 update out for The Experiment of Non-Ownership, and I want to point out two things from it.
In the physicalist worldview, you imagine that I am not you, I imagine you are not me, and neither of us is the stray cat that limps, or the endangered polar bear.
That all these things are separate, separated, existing in separation.
And this imagining makes it easy to live lives defined by:
exploitation and pillaging and destruction and uglification and unequal accumulation.
“Civilized” lives in a hegemonic capitalist context, yeah?
The intention of the experiment is not to get you to live or believe this way or that.
Rather, it is to get each of us to ask:
Are we happy with the way we’re living; living the lives we want?
Are our lives of separation causing destruction? … and … are we really okay with that?
Are our lives creating equality and harmony in the world
or rather playing into the mass usual consensus trance of Inequality and Disharmony?
We both know the honest answer, right? Right? So …
How exactly do we go about moving in a better direction?
How is it (even in theory) possible, to reverse these horrifying trends: to reverse the trend of civilization?
***
The first step for me and for you is to return home to ourselves and take good care.
And the second is to enjoy every moment of washing the dishes.
That’s what Thich Nhat Hanh said about it last time, and so far I’m on board. Also:
Sometime in “October” there comes an impulse to add artificial heat to the environment by starting to eff with the thermostat and thus the furnace. Then half the year later in “April”, it can be shut off again and ignored for the other six-month.
That is the point we’re at now. Day highs above 80. Night lows above 40. Done and so begin, Alleluia.
***
The Four Noble Truths “are traditionally identified as the first teaching given by the Buddha”, but there is widespread theological disagreement about what exactly they are, or how important.
The Fourth Noble Truth embodies and reveals the 8-fold Path.
The Noble Eightfold Path (Sanskrit: आर्याष्टाङ्गमार्ग, romanized: āryāṣṭāṅgamārga) or Eight Right Paths (Sanskrit: अष्टसम्यङ्मार्ग, romanized: aṣṭasamyaṅmārga) is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara … (and) consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi (‘meditative absorption or union’; alternatively, equanimous meditative awareness).
Again and broadly speaking, that’s all good. To my eyes, some interpretations of the Path seem vitally necessary and spot-on, while others feel like Rules, or culturally bound suggestions, or even completely optional (are we meant to take the stuff about reincarnation literally, and does it even matter?).
So on this April morning, I am by my own hand shutting down the furnace, and nominally (let’s call it) “converting to Buddhism”, but neither action specifically solves anything.
By Halloween, provided that my consciousness still exists, and in this same environment, I will still feel the shiver of cold, and will still be compelled to address that unique form of suffering, maybe by just turning the damn creaking thing back on again, maybe by lighting the first fire in a brand-new and properly vented wood stove, or maybe by means completely unforeseen here before the beginning in the space called Spring.
Likewise, with the belief systems, and the chosen practices.
Early in the Horse talk, the venerable Thay (god rest his soul) spends a lot of time explaining why there will be no god-damned Facebooking permitted during the upcoming meditation retreat. I agree completely with the rationale.
However, there’s no email allowed either, and that would and will be a much tougher nut to crack, way over here in this Plum Village brother … not necessarily impossible; still pretty hard, but …
I don’t intend to whine about it.
What I do intend is a question in the process of answering itself
Now.