As It Is ~ FREEDOM MUST BE EARNED
HOW OFTEN DO WE hear
people say ? or even say it ourselves ? "I'm
not happy," as if it is their lawful right to
be happy? By thinking in this way, we do not give
ourselves a chance, and cause ourselves to be unhappy.
If we understood this, our minds would be much more
receptive to, or capable of, happiness; we would open
the door to let happiness come in ? if and when it
will ? instead of barring the door to it.
Now, why should we, in the first place,
even think that we ought to be happy? Who says we
should? Where is it written? It is an unwarranted
assumption, is it not? Observe nature all around you,
and you might realize that the only right we have
is to struggle, and perhaps to carry forward the torch
of human endeavor for a few steps, before passing
it on to someone else waiting in line, and then stepping
back, having played our parts as components in the
unfolding of the great drama whose text is written
as we act, instead of before, no one knowing what
will happen next.
For, just as we ? you and I, and all others
like us ? have inherited the sum total of human history,
so we must pass it on to those who come after us;
it does not begin or end with us; we are merely links
in a chain that stretches out to infinity on either
side of us, but our links, like those on either side,
are indispensable for the continuity. Thus, we participate,
and in so doing, happiness might be found, or stumbled
upon, but as a result and not as something that we
deliberately set out to achieve. Struggle, in this
sense, might be joyous, and not necessarily something
sad or miserable. Our efforts to achieve happiness
for ourselves individually are doomed to failure.
There is a saying: "Give him an inch
and he'll take a foot," meaning that it is common
for people to be discontented with what they have
of what they are given, soon take things for granted,
and begin demanding more. There is always a very real
risk that when 'rights’ such as freedom of speech
and movement are accorded to everyone equally without
them being sufficiently prepared through education
about the responsibilities that accompany them, that
some people will not understand and appreciate, and
it will not be long before abuse sets in. Just imagine
what would happen if food were served on porcelain
dishes to a group of monkeys: would it be surprising
if some of the porcelain got broken? Or would it not
be more surprising if it didn't?
Freedom is not a right but a privilege,
and to bestow it on those who do not understand the
responsibilities that go with it, or who will not
accept them, and who are therefore not ready for it,
will only result in the destruction and loss of freedom.
Take the widespread and increasing vandalism in our
society, for example: the smashing of phone boxes,
the slashing of seats in buses and trains, the spray
painting of ugly graffiti on any available surface,
and so on; this is done by barbarians ? and let's
call a spade a spade ? who have had freedom served
to them without earning or deserving it. I am not
suggesting that we should have a society with two
kinds of people ? those who have freedom, and those
who don't ? like in days gone by when slavery still
existed, but that we should be educated about the
meaning of freedom, of the struggle involved in achieving
it, and of the importance of treating it with respect,
as the treasure it is, before being given it; in other
words, we should be initiated into freedom. It's too
late, in many cases, to do this, but it could be started
now, in the hope that future generations will learn
from past mistakes. And it is a matter of education;
much could be done to correct the situation if we
took the time and trouble to explain to kids in school
about things like this; if you throw mud at a wall,
much of it will fall off, but some of it will stick
there. We need not wait for people to evolve and understand
by themselves, for though some undoubtedly would,
most would not; many of us need someone to explain
things to us, or better, to show us.
If I live next door to people who make a
lot of noise, I will try to tolerate it as far as
possible, without crying about 'my rights,' and will
try to avoid doing anything to annoy them; if they
annoy me, it is one thing, and I can make allowances
in my life for that, because I feel that, having understood
something of the Dharma, I have the moral high ground,
and the responsibilities that go with it; but if I
annoy them, it is another thing, for which there is
no excuse. We cannot expect too much from people who
don't understand.
A few years ago, I lived next door to a
young couple who frequently quarreled, and sometimes,
in the early hours of the morning, I was awakened
by screams, shouts, and other loud noises made by
the husband beating his wife up. She would then rush
out of the house, calling for help, jump into her
car, drive off, and wouldn't be seen for a few days.
But, after they had both had time to cool off, she
would return, and everything would be fine until the
next explosion. Needless to say, I didn't feel very
good about all this, and contemplated calling the
police; perhaps I failed in my civic duty, and should
have done. At other times, I thought the wife was
a damn fool for staying with such a man. Anyway, I
put up with it while I was there, and when it came
time for me to move, and I informed my neighbors that
I was leaving, they seemed genuinely sorry that I
was going, and said I had been a good neighbor! I
wish I could have said the same about them!
And, three doors from where I was staying
recently, lived a woman who had ambitions of becoming
an opera singer; she would spend hours every day loudly
practicing her scales, and I felt really sorry for
the people who lived next door to her, as it was bad
enough from where I was. She obviously felt great
about singing like that but that did not mean that
everyone else enjoyed it. When we are living in close
proximity to others, we cannot do just whatever we
feel like doing, but must consider their feelings,
too, otherwise problems might easily arise.
The 'rights' that we so fortunately enjoy
under the laws that we have made are of recent origin
only; moreover, we should take care of them, as they
are fragile, ephemeral, subject to change, and are
often flouted and bent by those with the power and
inclination to do so. And, just as I have said that
freedom is not a 'right' but must be earned, so too,
happiness is not a 'right.' If it were, we might pass
laws commanding everyone to be happy, with the proviso
that anyone caught with a sad or unhappy face would
be fined or imprisoned.
The concept of 'rights' has turned our heads,
it seems, and we have come to expect more from life
than is reasonable, as if life is something that we
can control in every way. We would not complain so
much about things if we understood more about the
nature of life. And what is the nature of life? Can
we ? dare we ? define it? We may try ? we have the
freedom to do so ? if we wish, and I will do so here,
in an attempt to grasp it by the heel and make some
sense of it. In doing so, however, I will avoid theology
(which I do not consider to be a 'logy' [a science
or a branch of knowledge], at all, but merely a matter
of speculation and conjecture about a God or gods),
but will refer to the biological and psychological
aspects of life.
It must be realized that Nature is not anthropomorphic
(that is, having the form and qualities of human beings),
and does not see things through human eyes; it does
not operate by our concepts of 'good' and 'bad,' or
by our new found ideas of 'rights.' Rather, it is
impersonal, impartial, and impervious to suffering,
pain, and tears, and cares not who lives or dies,
nor how many, or in what manner. If we expect life
to adapt to us and our desires, we will surely be
disappointed, and it will be useless to complain;
it is we who, having understood something of Life's
ways, must adapt to it when we cannot change it. Our
bodily functions of excretion, for example, are things
that we feel rather embarrassed about and perform
in private, and no matter how much we would like to
be free of such functions, we cannot; each person
has to answer the calls of nature, and cannot delegate
them to another (some people consider them so 'earthy'
that they deny that great Masters like the Buddha
or Jesus had any need to perform them, yet perform
them they did!)
I would like to quote here from THE LIGHT
OF ASIA, Sir Edwin Arnold's epic poem about the Life
and Teachings of the Buddha:
The
First Truth is of Sorrow. Be not mocked!
Life which ye prize is long drawn agony:
Only its pains abide; its pleasures are
As birds which light and fly.
Ache
of the birth, ache of the helpless days,
Ache of hot youth, and ache of manhood's prime;
Ache of the chill gray years and choking death,
These fill your piteous time.
Sweet
is fond love, but funeral flames must kiss
The breasts which pillow and the lips which cling;
Gallant is warlike might but vultures pick
The joints of chief and king.
Beauteous
is earth, but all its forest broods
Plot mutual slaughter, hungering to live;
Of sapphire are the skies, but when men cry
Famished, no drops they give.
Ask
of the sick, the mourners, ask of him
Who tottereth on his staff, lone and forlorn:
"Liketh thee life?" ? these say
the babe is wise
That weepeth, being born.
This appears to be a very gloomy picture,
but that is not all there is to it; it is merely a
diagnosis of the condition of life as lived by most
of us, and though this aspect is very real in context,
there is much more to life than this. But, even though
most of us know little more than this, life is dear
to us, and we are reluctant to let go of it and die,
even on our death beds; we cling to life out of fear
of death and of what lies on 'the other side.' If
we had a broader vision of life, and saw more of its
opportunities, we might think of it as something to
rejoice over.
If we were genuinely concerned about happiness,
instead of just superficially, it would help us to
know that to search for happiness is the greatest
obstacle to being happy; the more we search for it,
the further away we drive it. It is rather like trying
to catch the wind in a bottle: you may catch air,
but not wind. Open your hand and stretch it out, however
and the wind may blow through your fingers, but it
can never be yours, as a possession.
The Way is not difficult to understand,
but to understand it is not enough; it must be applied
in our lives. So, we must begin with ourselves (as
there is no other place to begin), and then see others
as we see ourselves. This means, of course, applying
the Golden Rule, which has been enunciated by all
the major religions, in different forms:
C H R I S T I A N I T Y:
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should
do to you, do ye even so to them."
C O N F U C I A N I S M:
"Do not unto others what you would not like them
to do to you."
B U D D H I S M:
"In five ways should a man minister to his friends
and relatives: By generosity, courtesy, and benevolence,
by treating them as he treats himself, and by being
as good as his word."
H I N D U I S M:
"Do not unto others, which if done to thee, would
cause thee pain."
I S L A M:
"No one of you is a believer until he loves for
his brother what he loves for himself."
S I K H I S M:
"As thou deemest thyself, so deem others. Then
shalt thou become a partner in Heaven."
J U D A I S M:
"What is harmful to yourself do not do that to
your fellow man."
J A I N I S M:
"In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief,
we should regard all creatures as we regard our own
self."
Z O R O A S T R I A N I S
M:
"That nature only is good when it shall not do
unto another whatever is 'not good for its own self."
T A O I S M:
"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain,
and regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss."
The Golden Rule has not been superseded
over the ages, and is still an excellent rule to follow;
but if, in your attempts to live by it, you do not
immediately become happy, don't be discouraged; maybe
in the process, you will discover something more important
and rewarding than your own personal happiness: you
might come to a vision of life such as you never knew
before in your narrow concern for yourself alone.
And I would like to use some of Christmas Humphries'
words, taken from his book, THUS HAVE I HEARD, as
appropriate to what I am trying to say here, and because
they say it better than I could:
"It is because life is filled with
suffering that happiness, to one whose eyes are opened
by frank, courageous thought, is an Illusion. For
even if all the circumstances for the moment unite
in a state of 'happiness,' what of one's neighbor
lying ill, of one's friend's affairs, of the vast
unconquered forces of illusion in one's own mind?
Happiness can only exist while the rest of life is,
for the moment, forgotten, and as such, is the poorest
of the many goals which men have set themselves on
the road of life. Happiness in this sense, itself
an infrequent product of the pursuit of pleasure,
is utterly different from peace of mind, an inner
serenity, an illumined joy begotten of the heart's
quietude. This comes from work, a determined treading
on the Middle Way to the heart's enlightenment, from
obedience to the Buddha's final exhortation: 'Work
out your own salvation with diligence.'"
We do not live alone, cut off and separated
from all other forms of life, so our progress towards
enlightenment is not just for ourselves; in fact,
whatever we are doing, at any and every time, is contributing
to the ocean of cause-and-effect which is our world;
it has been said that "nobody can sin, or suffer
the effects of sin, alone;" and it is so with
every kind of action we do. So, to increase our level
of enlightenment (realizing that enlightenment comes
in many degrees, like the gradations on a thermometer;
it is therefore only right to suppose that everyone
is partially enlightened, even if only to a very tiny
degree), means adding that much of positive karma
to the ocean of collective force.
So much suffering results from our insistence
on seeing ourselves as individuals, separate from
the rest of existence, whereas if we saw ourselves
as part of it, involved with it, and subject to the
common conditions ('we are all in the same boat',
kind of thing), we would ask far less for ourselves,
and, at the same time, try to participate more. The
world does not exist for us, but because of us; if
we would like to see the world in a better condition,
we must do something to make it so, instead of complaining
and blaming others for it; there is so much that we
could all do, alone, and in cooperation with others.
Yes, we must come back to ourselves, and
begin with, and learn from, ourselves; it is the only
place we can begin, and if it means starting all over
again, so be it; it is never too late to begin. And
we begin with ourselves by understanding our feelings,
just as they are: What do we like? What do we want?
Everybody likes things, and wants to have things,
and I think it can be safely said that we all want
to be happy ? who would disagree with this? We want
others to treat us well, to be kind to us, to help
us, and not to hurt or disturb us in any way. Right
or not? If this is what we want, it is entirely legitimate
and understandable, but we should not stop there.
Take a look around you at other people. Having identified
what you want, it is then easy to see what they want:
exactly the same as you! It's amazing in its simplicity!
Who doesn't know this?, you might say. Yes, everyone
knows it, but not everyone knows what it means; many
people think that anything so obvious cannot be very
important; they think that anything important has
to be mysterious and difficult to understand; but
this is not so.
There was once a truth seeker who went to
visit a renowned teacher, and asked for instructions
about following the Way. The teacher looked at him,
and said: "Cheat and steal from others whenever
you have the opportunity without getting caught; lie,
deceive, and enjoy yourself without considering others,
and you'll be alright." The seeker was shocked
to hear this, and went away in dismay. Some months
later, the teacher asked his disciples if they had
heard anything about this man, and was told that he
was living an exemplary life in a nearby town, but
that he was telling people that the teacher was a
devil in disguise, who had tried to mislead him. The
teacher laughed in delight at this, and said: "If
I had told him what he expected to hear, he would
have paid no attention to it as he had known it all
his life; instead, I chose to help him realize, by
himself, what he should do, instead of depending upon
my answer."
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