How am I not myself? How am I not myself?...

Hello! For those that care, those who are bored, those who stumble here from I don't know where, salutations! I've been workin it lately, picking up some employ, and preparing for the great 24 hours that is Halloween. But enough about me (I hate self-righteous bloggers: I'm pretty sure no one cares how you had an existential crisis over your cereal, ya know?) we have more important things to attend to. More specifically, I am really interested in concept that has been floating around humanity's ethos far longer than most countries have had their borders situated as they currently do, and that is the idea that we don't exist.

In fact, nothing does. But this non-existance does not spend time with the solipsist, for the truth that non-existance is trying to point out is the idea that what we think of as ourselves, as the world around us, is merely the construct of the ego; the fact is that we never stop being the alpha and the omega of our existance, in fact we never stop being all that is around us. I know that this seems like a fairly heady claim, unless put the wrong mushrooms on your pasta, in which case you could see what I am saying, but it actually will become self evident with an example.

Take the LGBT community. These fine folks have had to put up with discrimination not based on anything but private habit and the gonder they are attracted to, fear based on absolutely nothing, and hate for being amoung other things the end of civilization, the antichrist proper, you get what I'm saying. At the same time, when I (you, he, she) get to know the GLBT community, what is rightly found is not only that they are like everyone else (that is, prone to the same passions and feelings, thoughts and concerns) but they also have another and very interesting and rewarding perspective, another good glass to look through when seeing the world.

Now what did that rambling example teach us? That the GLBT community is both awful and wonderful, demonic & saintly, kind and amoral. Ok, ok so what's going on here? How can this one group be responsible for both such good and such evil? There is a saying that intelligence is the ability to hold to diatomically opposed ideas, but I don't believe that here, someone has to be right in the whole debate. Right?

The truth is, (and this is the important part) that neither view is right according to the Buddhist. They would take umbrage with the idea that there was a group to harrangue in the first place. If you don't get it yet, you will. This group of folks is both all and nothing that their detractors and benefactors claim. In fact we all are. We all have the potential to be and do whatever we want. Like the Buddha, who was a slut & a prude, and King & a vagrant, an aesthetic and a dionesiac, we have an infinite nature. Said otherwise, we live in a unified nature in which we can perform just about any action: the choice of action, they say is in what we train our minds to pick up.

Now here comes the fun part. In the case of the Buddha, which part was the real him? The prince, the Enlightened One under his treee? Or even better, take a look at yourself: your actions are different everyday, your thoughts and feelings changing by the minute. Anyone I know who lives with at least a small disregard for what they are supposed to think and feel have both hated and loved the same person in the same day, perhaps the same hour; so which part of your actions are you? Are you a lover, a hater, ambivalent? No good answer today huh? (And for those of you that think you have an answer I think you are full of it, I really do) That's the crux of the matter: how can we have a concept of self when there is constant, permanant change occuring at all times? Said otherwise,it is that our growth, maturation and change is constant, and since we cannot freeze time (I'll leave that to kitch '80's kids shows) we can never validly say that we are talking about that person at any given time.

I don't know how well I explained it, but this concept of no self is of parmount importance to everyone, whether practicing buddhist or harried mother. When we get frustrated at others, it is for something that they always do, or for something they will forever lack. What we really need to see is that whomever we are actually ticked off at just happened to run through a form that disagreed with what we saw as ourselves at that moment. Thus our frustration is merely the instance of two egos, who shouldn't even exist intersecting unhapilly based upon what we think that we need.

What we think we need? Come on now, just think of any 3rd world country. Is the suicide rate just astronomical due to the extreme poverty and unheathly living conditions? Hell no, in fact, they seem to be about as happy as we are in the States, perhaps even more so, due to their tight family ties and consumerism free existance (This is in no way an endorsement of poverty, although if I did I wouldn't be the first to do so. The point is, you are not what you think you want; desire is the root of all suffering).

I guess the moral of the story is get off your high horse you are nothing that important. Note though, that you are also everything important. Humanity is now at a brilliant crossroads to open up and see what is actually going on: The draw of a nonmaterial, selfless-centered lifestyle is waining in the East due the heavy inroads of materialism and technology. At the same time though, such a paradigm is gaining straingth in the West, due to our disenchantment with our technology and materialism. For when we realize that technology makes "major contributions to minor needs of man" we can also become aware that we have become cogs in an out of control machine, living in a system which is fundamentally dehumanizing, turning good people into nothing more than consumers of things.

Now don't go blowing up your nearest starbucks, but try to see things from another position: if you buy that we really have no self so to speak, then where do we get off getting angry at others for doing us wrong? Or even getting angry at yourself? We can only hope that those around us are doing the best that they can, and if they are not, we hope that soon they will get back on the horse. Mission for the day: forgive someone you usually get angry or frustrated with in the situation that usually angers you. Last time I did I learned some things about myself and what actually makes me angry v. the kneejerk reaction that we often employ. Sometimes I am amazed humanity has lasted as long as it has.