I read some of the Buddha’s Atthakavagga teachings after breakfast this morning, a nice way to prepare for the work of the day.
I’m now at my writing desk, Diogi is sleeping alongside on his quilted-comforter bed. Coming through the window is that luminous shine – a glow, actually – of winter sun’s reflection on the frozen pastures.
***
Sometimes Siddhartha’s messages are so clear, so inspiring, so touching . . . but this morning that just isn’t happening for me.
As much as I would like, today I’m not metaphorically there in the India of 2,500 years ago with him, he in his simple robes and flimsy sandals after having collected alms, waiting patiently for his students to assemble.
Instead, I’m here in western America, well into the 21st Century, sitting at a computer attempting to interpret and share the practical applications of Dharma teachings in a world Siddhartha himself could not have imagined.
But I think maybe the notion our world is one that ‘Siddhartha himself could not have imagined’ is not so true.
Perhaps the idea that things are so different now is modern-thinkingly narrow-minded . . . arrogant, in fact.
Certainly, in Siddhartha’s time there was ongoing human drama, deeply flawed self-centered interests, money-based arguments and deceptions, and mindless grasping for influence, advantage and shiny material things.
It might not be the popularly held view, but we here today could be similarly wet behind the ears . . . just as insightfully ignorant as we consider the ancients to be.
No less adolescent . . . no more humane or refined, civilized or cultivated.
Perhaps, just as today, people then lived with the daunting self-belief that they weren’t good enough, needed outside “things” to be happy, and persistently judged their own self-worth in relation to how they measured others.
Cyclic rebirth includes not just incarnations, but fundamental ignorance, too. Stubbornly repetitive, ongoing ignorance.
***
Consider:
The Dharma teachings originated many centuries ago, but they hold truths that are as profound and meaningful now as they were then.
Perhaps now even more so, because so many dismiss them as being from olden days, exotic, religiously unscientific, out-of-touch, kumbaya-nice but irrelevant.
***
Approach the teachings as being those of wise contemporaries, current in their applications, sophisticated in their content. Mind-nuclear in their ability to bring about joyful and beneficial awakening . . . today.
Do so, because they are.
Do so because you are inclined to do so.
~Neither grief or a broken heart, or fear, precludes you from doing this.