Has it occured to you that both of us are an elite minority on this
planet. I mean how many of us really pondered over the meaning of existence.?
You seem to believe in an infinite series of re-incarnations. That
dosen't sound logical to me. all things ultimately end.
--- On Sat, 1/2/10, TurquoiseB <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Self is just self capitalized
Date: Saturday, January 2, 2010, 5:08 AM
Actually, the teaching of every realized being in
history is that life *is* cool for them. Coolness
dependeth not on one's external circumstances. It
dependeth only on how one perceives those external
circumstances. As my man Bruce Cockburn once said:
Little round planet
In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed
Depends on what you look at obviously
But even more it depends on the way that you see
I do not delude myself that I am 'way fortunate. I
am the luckiest fuckin' human being I've ever met.
I should have died dozens of times. Or wound up
behind bars somewhere. I have systematically
ignored the rules and "popular wisdom" presented
to me *as* wisdome most of my life. And I have
gotten away with it.
I honestly do not know which is the chicken and
which the egg in this scenario. Did I manage to
ignore or break all the rules and have a smokin'
life anyway because I dreamed it into existence
by never imagining that there was any other way
to live my life, or did the good fortune of my
life just tempt me into thinking that the "rules"
didn't apply to me? Beats the fuck outa me. All
I know is that I have been phenomenally lucky.
Others have not been so fortunate. One could go
so far as to say that *most* have not been so
fortunate. I feel for them. So did all of the
spiritual teachers in history. That is probably
why they taught using the *metaphors* and the
*desires* of the less-than-fortunate .
Find yourself preaching to an audience who believe
that life is suffering -- because that is what they
perceive their lives to have been -- and which
metaphors are you going to pick to convey a way
*past* suffering? Duh. I do not *fault* the Buddha
for starting with "Life is suffering." Look at his
demographic.
It's just that lately I am more drawn to teachings
that don't speak to that demographic. There are a
few of us "out here" in the spiritual smorgasbord
whose lives have *not* been perceived as suffering.
They've been perceived as one fuckin' glorious
E-ticket ride, in fact.
For whatever reason, our lives rocked. They rock
still. Every morning presents a new opportunity for
additional rock-on-age.
So the "life is suffering" metaphors don't *work* as
well for me as they might for those who are suffering.
I do not deny their suffering or the desire for a
cessation of that suffering. It's just that -- for
whatever reason -- I find it difficult to *feel* that
desire for a cessation of suffering or a cessation
of relative life itself. Relative life has just
fuckin' *rocked* for me. In this incarnation and in
several more that I have memories of.
In some of them I was persecuted and literally tortured
to death. Slowly. By people who were *getting off* on
torturing me. These memories -- whatever they are and
wherever they came from -- are part of my personal
"memory bank," my recollection of my personal past. To
me they feel just as "real" as memories of last week.
But those incarnations rocked, too. I would not change
one moment of any of them. If I did, I wouldn't be here
the way I am now, and I kinda like here and the way I
am now.
