The other day, after I posted how I am a passionate bodhisattva here to
wake up myself and the world, Carol James asked me (respectfully indeed)
how one might do that gig without being a compulsive rescuer or neurotic
worldsaver type.
An excellent question.
I offered her a reply, and posted it here too. But today I remembered a
strong post (and thank you Connee for YOUR strong post....I like it like
THAT) which I sent to another list at the tail end of a little skirmish
started by some passionate bodhisattvas who happened to be militant
vegetarians.
I made a gentle, tho deliberate, remark about bible thumpin...which of
course goosed em real good. (grin) And of course, what with me being a
bible thumpin man for not a few years, and a preacher to boot, I know
whereof I squeak.
And then, while they were unrufflin their thumped tailfeathers, I slipped
in this wee bit of dharma...personal lessons learned along the way on this
particular question Carol so kindly pointed to.
Here it be...for what it's worth. Mebbe it'll be grist for your mill, or
another photo for your personal Scrapbook of Desire, you dolphin you.
And if it's too damn cryptic, I'll happily reply to all pem's.
Strong Vision and B I G L O V E,
NetPaul
====================================
First of all, lemme start by saying that I don't see any "us vs them" in
the recently concluded fun and frolic re animals, vegetables and (I believe
someone even mentioned) minerals. And just to recap my own involvement,
where I jumped into the tub was in my admittedly rascally post (and yeah, I
am rascally at times) re "bible thumping"a deliberate thrust into a
meta-discussiona perspective some others appropriated in their own ways,
in their own terms, as well.
And (I think it's good to say this) bible thumping by passionate
bodhisattvaspeople who care deeply about changing the mass reality for the
betteris not something THEY do. It's something WE (as a race) do. It's
something I door have donemany many times. I think such behavior is no
more limited to fundamentalists than it is to sethians, or urantians, or
ken wilber fans, or buddhists, capitalists or communists. I think it's a
meta-behavior of the race transcending the particularities of the issue at
hand.
And I think that regardless of the forum, the agenda, the particular
beliefs or POV's, the arc of the discussions become entirely, and (for me,
at this point in my life, depressinglyor sometimes merely annoyingly, or
worst of all maybe...boringly) orthogonal. People too often end up talking
AT each other, rather than WITH each other or even TO each other.
Paranoid perceptions manifest (s/he wants to nail me), bifurcations abound
(us vs them; we're right, they're wrong), downsizing and disparagement
diminishes the entire shebangwhether those thoughts and feelings are
couched in YCYOR (I create you as a pimple on my ass) or conventional
(you suck, you annoying fuckhead you) terms.
And while this IS a new-agey tub after all, and liberalism is the order of
the day, and YCYOR a foundational gospel truth, and we are now at the
unravelling/joking/moving on stage of the Great Vegetarian Debatewhile all
this may be true, I can assert with a reasonably high probability of being
perceptually accurate that in the recent goings on people got nasty pissed
at one another, and some perhaps are pissed still. I've seen it in the
posts here...and also in some barely oblique comments in the reality next
door.
Someone recently mentioned that understanding the detailed mechanics of
creation is her particular personal interest tho not necessarily that of
others, even perhaps others here. I have one or two personal (and not
necessarily globally shared) interests, too. One is finding better ways,
or at least other ways, perhaps more effective ways, for passionate
bodhisattvas to share their (our) vision with the world.
And just as my own personal journey on the pathless path began with a very
unpleasant push experience of a hard stick rather than the pleasant pull
promise of a sweet carrotso my impulse here originates (but does not end)
with my perception that balkanization is not simply something happening in
the Balkans, but in the global mind as well, whether viewed on the talking
head bashing of cable tv, in the shrill halls of academia, behind police
barricades in front of abortion clinics, or in what often descends into
flame-o-ramas on the net in forums such as these.
So here are two ideas (surely not the only two) for the potential to create
some alternate realities for those of us who might self-identify as
passionate bodhisattvasone taken from my observation of other dolphins who
(imo) are masters at this sort of work/play, and the other from my own
personal take as well as my personally and deliberately chosen field of
play (at this particular time):
-------------------------
Alternate reality 1: A Passionate Bodhisattva with a Hot Button Issue
Bodhisattvas with hot button issues are trying to change the world "bottom
up", to use a systems perspective. Instead of focusing on the entire
spectrum of human belief and manifestation, they are focusing on some
particular subset which they feel an impulse to address right now. In that
category I would surely put someone like our resident vegetarian
spokespeople, with their passionate intensity about alleviating the
suffering of animals.
Two modern examples of master players of the "bottom up" game come quickly
to mind: Ghandi, whose hot button issue was the self determination of his
country in the face of British colonialism, and Martin Luther King, who
took Ghandi as his primary model in his struggle for the civil rights of
American blacks. What both of these dolphins did that I find so
instructive, so useful, and so laudatory, is that they succeeded in putting
their vision of what SHOULD BE and COULD BE on the table over and over
without downsizing their opponents in one way or another.
My view (only mine) is that they were able to do this because they had
succeeded, by some means or other, in purging themselves of sufficient
shadow material so that when they presented their vision and their
challenge they could finesse the usual tendency for the mass reality to
crack and splinter into these negativity drenched bifurcations which are so
very common.
Just to dip into American history for a bit for contrast's sake, that's
exactly what DIDN'T happen post Civil War during the period called the
Reconstruction. The unexamined, unpurged shadow material of the northern
victors got such play that the sense of bifurcation continued to be a
dominant belief construct in the southern vanquished for well over a
centurythus (imo) slowing down the process of integration and creating
backlash contra creations such as the KKK, Jim Crow, etc. Lincoln (another
master dolphin in the same mold) took a bullet to the head, and thus his
vision for forgiveness, healing, bridge building was lost in the "we're
gonna get 'em" zeal of the radical reconstructionists.
As a society, we are still paying the price of that error today. (Not
necessarily a YCYOR perspective, but there it is anyway).
-------------------------------------
Alternate Reality #2: A Passionate Bodhisattva With An Primary Interest In
Global Consciousness Change
This is the one that rings my personal chimes. It is a "top down"
approach, rather than a "bottom up" one
I get this perspective from the understanding I have evolved to over
interaction with a number of my fave metaphysical sources...probably the
Tao Te Ching more than any other.
In a nutshell, the idea is this:
The natural state of the individual and the mass society is one of
effortless flowing with ATI, called here the Tao. In such a state of flow,
good stuff...right action...arises automatically. What we "learn", on the
other hand, all too often is a myriad of consciousness contraction stuff,
unconscious discrimination stuff, unconscious belief stuff, deliberately
implanted stuff on ethics, rightness, wrongness, a case hardened sense of
who we are and who we're notall things which restrict the simple flow of
Tao like hair restricts the flow of water in your bathtub drain.
Thus, the great work of deconstruction: getting the hairball out of the
drain (or the cat gullet, as the case may be).
This process of deconstruction leaves us freer and freer to simply manifest
our deepest impulses, with less and less contra-creating crap,
individuallyand corporately too.
Soa passionate bodhisattva operating from THAT modelthe top down one
which is concerned not with a subset of the spectrum of human beliefs and
actions, but the entire rainbowseeks by word, thought, interaction to
deconstruct, both in self and others, the entire contracted business...and
then the Tao flows wild and free, and ain't it a pretty thang, tho!
Below is the model for alternate reality #2 in Lao Tzu pithy terms. I may
have posted these before, but they're so on target in this context that
I'll take the chance and share em againno thumpin' thopromise. :o)
NetPaul the Occassionally Serious
18
When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body's intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
patriotism is born.
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19
Throw away holiness and wisdom,
and people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice,
and people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
and there won't be any thieves.
If these three aren't enough,
just stay at the center of the circle
and let all things take their course.
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3
If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.
The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.
Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.
