The past few weeks the reality of the world’s ugliness has been at the forefront of my mind. The hatred, intolerance, and fear of mankind for itself is in terrible display. Most of us live in conditions that, if they don’t outright kill us by disease, starvation, or violence, wear away at our souls to such a degree that we become bitter and hopeless or angry enough to kill ourselves and lash out at the unfair world at the same time. The idea of killing babies in their mother’s arms comes to seem the only way to adequately express our hatred and despair, our own endless pain.
I guess.
So, hell is here on earth. That seems, on the face of it, to be a reasonable conclusion. Now, the Buddhists will say that this hell is of our own creating, that all these suffering souls suffer because of:
1. The Karmic retribution for their own past bad acts and lack of understanding and compassion, and
2. Their mistaken ideas of reality that prevent true understanding, and thus the growth of compassion and the breaking of the grip of samsaric reality.
The nice thing about this belief system for someone like myself, who is relatively pain free and lives an incredibly bountiful existence, is that I can look at the dead, blown up babies and mommies and say, “Well, really, it’s some working out of Karma….it seems horrible, but it’s a mistake to take any of that too seriously. It all works out in the end.”
It feels awfully pat.
I can’t make out an answer that works for me, although I am inclined to just ‘make room’ for my own lack of understanding, and to view the suffering of others around me as a goad to my own weak and pitiful sense of compassion. As a way to break the ego’s grip on my world-viewing contraption, to shake it loose so that I might be able to see with new eyes.
And, of course, it is also true that Heaven is here on earth as well. Or Nirvana. Call it what you will, every joy, every happiness, is available to us here and nowhere else. It is all dependent upon the individual, I suppose. A combination of careful looking, of trying to see without judging exactly what is, from moment to moment, as well as flooding the world inside and out, with all of the love and compassion you are capable of producing. Not to change the world, but to love it as it is. With the ugliness. With the terror and pain.
How beautiful we are in our distress.
How beautiful you are in your pain.
How beautiful indeed.
The Dishwasher's Tears 
that karma stuff always bothered me.it we can’t remember past livesthen how can we hope to learn from them?and if you’re born in dire conditionshow can your present day actions be responsible for that? you’ve just come into the world.it’s too mystical for me. or too retributive…yeah i know the ideaof oneness as an infant. the lack of differentiationbetween outside and inside at birth, unit we learnto cognate.i think the whole idea of past life karmais just a way of saying–no one said life was gonna be fair.remember the protest of teens ? “i didn’t ask to be born!”well sweetums, for that matternone of us did. yet i like the idea that wattsexpounds, “you were the gleam in your father’s eye”~desire–nothing happens in its absence. soooothere is that. i believe that we need to understandthat if there is hell on earthwe’ve created itand that goes for heaven toomy problem is an idealismthat wishes to change this.but i can’t. and i know thisbut that doesn’t keep me fromchanging it in my own li’l backyard.or at least, that’s how i try to live.doesn’t always work. my visionis often not clear. i cling to what i knowthe patterns of the past. i like what you’ve said in earlier posts aboutdeliberately reinforcing the positive aspectsinstead of dwelling on the negative.it’s a way to live within the world with somethingapproaching hope. there are those who can dissociatefrom the pain of others around themthere are those who can dissociatefrom their own pain. y can’t the human animal learn from the pain, use its lessonto transform the painful thing thru love?i dunno. just questions i contemplate.i like this translation of karma`you’re doing this` that rings true for me.i;m always gratefulto spend time with your thoughts.l,lynze
i dunnoi think i asked to be born.
You need a huckleberry pie in your lifeI got a couple you can slice into on my site —hahaas always your blog intrigues me
<>How beautiful we are in our distress.<> I try to write about this, to be brave and dive in. It isn’t as easy as you’d think. Well, it’s <>easy<> alright, but the backlash is tremendous, it seems, the balance seeking part. It’s why art, for me, is not so healing and wonderful. For me, art is something that reaches up from the floor boards, and pinches, hard.http://photos23.flickr.com/29114018_9084bee585.jpgAnd so, music balances me. Mozart and Robert Schumann and the Bee. This is where I find joy.Mm. There is something here, something in <>your<> art that makes me want to give up my secrets. And that disturbs me, the way seeing a really beautiful insect disturbs me.
lovely way to live scott, the all-acceptance. never been able to manage it.-k
Lynze-I’m grateful for your thoughts on this musing about good and evil. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to change what’s bad or stupid or evil in the world, but not being able to can beat you down just as much as the evil itself.I think that one way to work on it is to look around at your own external situation and ask how that reflects your internal state, and then try to change the aspect of the internal state that might ‘correspond’ to the ugly one on the outside.Anyway, so glad you stopped in. I think of you often. I hope you are well and happy.Yrs-Scott
Jim-They say we choose to be born, and we choose our parents and our place as well. It makes sense to me.Maybe the most advanced souls are the ones who are willing to suffer the most. Or maybe the other way ’round.yrs-Scott
Rebecca-Love that image link. Yes, art should be painful, discomforting, and achingly beautiful and real. “Mm. There is something here, something in your art that makes me want to give up my secrets. And that disturbs me, the way seeing a really beautiful insect disturbs me.”That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said about my work.Thank you.I’m all shy now.yrs-ScottKaren-I don’t know how close I come to that goal, but I try to make room for it.all the best.
We think way too much alike. And dare I say? We think too much. But we can't help it.
And my verification word is “paines.”