Dharma

"To look for total satisfaction in oneself is a futile endeavor. Neither satisfaction nor self really exist. Since everything changes from moment to moment, where can self and where can satisfaction be found? Yet these are two things that the whole world is looking for and it sounds quite reasonable, doesn't it? But since these are impossible to find, everybody is unhappy. Not necessarily because of tragedies, poverty, sickness, or death: simply because of unfulfilled desire. Everybody is looking for something that isn't available...But satisfaction and self are both delusions, so how can they ever be found? Searching here and there keeps everyone busy on this little globe of ours. If we were to stop looking for satisfaction for the self, we would have an immediate lessening of dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), since dukkha arises from wanting something." Ayya Khema

I thought I would just share the above with you; it's something I read that resonated with me. Yet another tragedy of massive proportions unfolds in Sechuan province in China and in Myanmar. Life is suffering and who can explain or comprehend why such horrible things happen? This is one of the imponderables of life in this human form. We don't have the vantage point to see how every event in the universe is part of the perfectly-tuned whole. Any attempt, by way of religion or New Age theorizing is, in my opinion, self-delusion. We desire to convince ourselves that we inhabit an orderly universe. We attempt, doggedly and futilely, to impose our own limited ideas of what that order should be. We just don't know, nor do we need to. It is ultimately a waste of time and distracts from the matter at hand, living in the now and discovering our true nature.

While we don’t wish suffering on anyone, I don’t mind one bit if the Chinese government, that band of thugs, is embarrassed. Some say that the Tibetans have been appealing to the mountain deities to show their displeasure. Who knows about that, but it is curious that this earthquake happened on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and at a time most inconvenient for the government which is trying to put a happy face on its repressive regime. I read that they pressed ahead with the torch relay at first and many Chinese were outraged at this inhumane insensitivity and expressed their displeasure by inundating the officials with e-mails. Good for them. Another thing to be thankful for in this life: we don’t live in Burma.