New Ideas about Ancient Principles part two

We need to connect to a more natural and organic process of inner development by using good common sense in our spiritual seeking. A very good method is to think about the commonalities of human existence, aside from the specifics of what the Dutch or Indians were doing 300 years ago or what Egyptians were doing 3,000 years ago or what was happening fifty years ago or 10,000 years ago. There are certain hallmarks of common needs over long stretches of human existence and human activities.

The ancient principles are not apparent to us, guiding us to deeper knowledge as soon as we get the wake up alarm clock inside that something needs to happen. There seems to be a roller coaster of culture interfering with that by inviting us to ride, directing our attention to certain important activities concerning our individual participation in current culture. In general, however, we all have made the usual choices acceptable to culture in how we dress, hairstyles, probably in the car that we drive, or our choices of colors following which colors are more fashionable this year. In so many ways we have accepted the burden of culture without much questioning, isn't that so?

For example, if this was 1950, the ladies among you would probably be wearing a hat, and what kind? If you went out for a lecture in the evening, you probably had a cocktail at home before you left. Would you be wearing a hat? Just imagine. If we could take you back to 1950, you would be the same normal person that you are, but you would not look anything like you do now. Even so, your sense of participation in culture by doing what is acceptable and understanding how to fit in with your culture would cause you to make decisions about how you dress, how you act, and what kinds of friends you accept or reject. These decisions are part of the roller coaster of culture careening through the centuries with a fresh load of people on each trip.

Sadly, the roller coaster of war and hatred is something that we are forced to get on. We have become indoctrinated or influenced in hatred toward others; then switching to now we love them, and again, we hate them. We are first told that a particular society is dangerous, and then later told that now they are the most peaceful society. We must ride the roller coaster unthinkingly. For example, Americans were told that anyone of Japanese origin is an enemy, even though they were born in the United States. They put these people into concentration camps, and nearly everyone supported that decision. The automatic acceptance prevents us from using our own general common sense about our place in society, how we judge others, as well as being a spiritual seeker, someone who wishes to attain perfection, beyond the reaches of ordinary society pressures. How do you fit in?

There is also a roller coaster of pride of technology. We have the nuclear bomb and they do not therefore, we are superior. We have the computers, and the latest cameras. We have all of the objects of technology, whereas other societies do not. Now, it does not matter whether those societies have careful behaviors and processes, which were valuable in the past. You know, we Tibetans felt very funny after producing and experiencing more than 1,000 years of high technology in the mental sciences, to be looked at as though we were practically like monkey-people! We were barbarians because others had pride of technology, and we had nothing.

Like that, even in the earlier times we were trying to explain the nature of reality and other important dynamics about the real reasons why people were alive. However, due to the superior position that other societies held toward us, we could not be heard, and so we turned up the alarm clocks through prayer for all spiritual people to wake up!

There is also the roller coaster of the pride of education. Although everyone reading this probably has a very good education, you are probably also infected with a certain kind of closure of your mental capacities. I am not saying everyone, but society and your peers encourage a certain pride of education, which allows you to feel superior, and that makes others inferior to your knowledge by comparison. This produces a sense of superiority in the individuals that causes them to misunderstand when the personal alarm clock rings.

You know, Lord Buddha Shakyamuni was a well-educated and alert person with a great deal of potential. He also had an alarm clock inside, and what did he want? He wanted enlightenment. He could have had pride of status, but he did not. The very thing that harms ordinary, educated people is a false sense of superiority that makes them incapable of hearing the very same call that Lord Buddha Shakyamuni heard and responded to when he sought enlightenment.

The roller coaster pushes on our worldview and changes us causing us to become sectarian. Not in the religious sense, but sectarian in the education, technology or cultural sense and various other ways that I have not even mentioned. This further causes us to believe that we have all the answers, and become separated from the potential benefits of the human condition. To be continued…