“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 26” by Lao Tzu

Image Source – Huffington Post

Heaviness is the root of lightness.
Serenity is the master of restlessness.

Therefore, the Sage, travelling all day,
Does not part with the baggage-wagon;
Though there may be gorgeous sights to see,
He stays at ease in his own home.

Why should a lord of ten thousand chariots
Display his lightness to the world?
To be light is to be separated from one’s root;
To be restless is to lose one’s self-mastery.

This was the perfect passage for me to read at this point in my life. I recently committed to meditating every day for all of 2017 (365 consecutive days of meditation), and lately I have been focusing my meditation of being grounded, centered, and more serene.

For me, the lightness that Lao Tzu describes is obsession or “flights of fancy.” I am guilty of this. I can drive myself crazy playing tapes over and over in my head, all the different scenarios and “what ifs.” This is a restlessness of the mind, and it is the cause of stress and anxiety for many of us. So staying grounded in the present is something that I need to practice.

As far as serenity goes, I have a keychain from years ago which I saved because it has sentimental value. It is very faded, but it says: “Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.” Problems will always arise and life is never short of challenges, but how we face the challenges can make all the difference in our spiritual and emotional well-being.

As you finish reading this, I encourage you to take a deep breath, relax, and get centered. These are strange times and it is important to stay serene as the storms gather.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a peaceful day.

“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 20” by Lao Tzu

Image Source: Wikipedia

Have done with learning,
And you will have no more vexation.

How great is the difference between “eh” and “o”?
What is the distinction between “good” and “evil”?
Must I fear what others fear?
What abysmal nonsense this is!

All men are joyous and beaming,
As though feasting upon a sacrificial ox,
As though mounting the Spring Terrace;
I alone am placid and give no sign,
Like a babe which has not yet smiled.
I alone am forlorn as one who has no home to return to.

All men have enough and to spare:
I alone appear to possess nothing.
What a fool I am!
What a muddled mind I have!
All men are bright, bright:
I alone am dim, dim.
All men are sharp, sharp:
I alone am mum, mum!
Bland like the ocean,
Aimless like the wafting gale.

All men settle down in their grooves:
I alone am stubborn and remain outside.
But wherein I am most different from others is
In knowing to take sustenance from my Mother!

This was the perfect passage for me to read today. I was talking with someone today about the democratization of information. While a veritable universe of information is only a Google search away, so is a universe of misinformation and lies. This plethora of misinformation and opinion results in fear for many individuals. People read a Facebook post or an op-ed article and it stokes the flames of fear and anxiety. But how true is what I read, and do I really need to be afraid because someone else tells me I should be concerned? As Lao Tzu puts it: “Must I fear what others fear?”

I have chosen not to go down this path of fear. Fear is only a perspective, a mental construct of possibilities that may not even come to pass. All I know for certain is what is happening in my life right now. This is what I choose to focus on.

Like Lao Tzu, I also “take sustenance from my Mother.” When I step out into my garden, or walk around my neighborhood, or commune with Nature, or meditate, I am drawing energy from the divine source. This puts my mind in a state of happiness and tranquility. The stress and noise of everyday life tends to melt away. I am much more content when I am in this space as opposed to worrying about some news story or what another person is thinking.

As things get crazier in our society, it would do you good to take a step back, breathe, and shift your perspective. I suspect that when you do so, you will find some much-needed serenity.

Doctor Who – Eleventh Doctor: Issue 8 (Hope, Fear, and God)

This is one of the better issues in this series. It ties up a lot of loose ends that have been bothering me for the last several installments, and it deals with three topics that fascinate me: hope, fear, and God.

In issue 7, Alice’s mother reappears, seemingly to have returned from the dead. The Doctor expresses his views on the impossibility of this occurring, which angers Alice. She confronts the Doctor, questioning how in a universe of infinite possibility that one can claim there is no hope of something deemed impossible happening.

Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me there’s no way? Not in all of time and space? We see miracles every single day, but not today? Is that what you’re saying? This time there is no hope?

While Alice is arguing the validity of her mother’s return, Jones and ARC are suffering from a fit of paralyzing fear. The Doctor makes an astute observation on the frequent human response to fear.

Fear, is it? That what came over you before? Does tend to make people violent.

Finally, what I found most intriguing about this issue is the debate about God’s existence and the definition of God. It is discovered that the two warring alien races began their war over a dispute about God. They each sent an explorer through a wormhole and they radioed back that they saw “the face of the creator,” and then never returned. Each race developed their own theory about the creator, and their disparate views resulted in the prolonged war.

As I read this, I could not help thinking how it is an accurate portrayal of our world. Fear causes us to act violently towards other. Ethnocentric views of what defines God have fueled wars for generations. In spite of this, hope for peaceful coexistence and enlightenment still continues. I must admit, I was impressed on how the creative team was able to express all this in a small comic.

Cheers!

Magneto: Issue #12 – Is Peaceful Coexistence Possible?

This issue details the battle between the super-villains and the Red Onslaught. It basically moves the general story along, and as with all the installments in the series, it is richly illustrated and the writing is good. There is one panel that stands out for me, though. Magneto is remembering a discussion he had with Charles Xavier regarding mankind’s prospect of peaceful coexistence.

Charles: Don’t you think… can’t you imagine… that mankind has learned from past mistakes? Peaceful coexistence is more than just a dream.

Magneto: It’s madness, Charles. And it saddens me to think of the day such a realization will crush you.

This is something that has been on my mind lately. As I watch the news footage of the unrest in Ferguson, MO and the continued fighting and hatred in the Middle East, I cannot help but wonder if humans will ever learn to exist together peacefully. Are we capable as a species to learn and evolve, or is there some instinct that is hard-coded in our DNA that triggers the tendency toward anger, fear, envy, and resentment, the core issues at the heart of humanity’s intolerance toward others?

While my views on humanity are stained with cynicism, I am still a romantic and an idealist at my core. So yes, I feel that someday, although not likely in my lifetime, humans will evolve to an enlightened state where peaceful coexistence will become a reality. Unfortunately, I see a lot of death and destruction before that Phoenix can rise and become a reality.

“Some Reflections on War and Peace” by Umberto Eco

While in Paris this past spring, I visited the famous Shakespeare and Co. bookstore. While I was there I purchased a copy of Umberto Eco’s Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism. I began reading it the other day, fully expecting that I would read through the book and then write a review of it. I discovered that the book is actually a collection of essays written by Eco and after reading the first one realized that my original plan would not do this book justice. Hence, I decided to write individual blog posts specific to essays in the book.

“Some Reflections on War and Peace” is the first essay and it explores what Eco sees as the two types of warfare: paleowar, which is traditional war fought on a defined front against a clear enemy; and neowar, which is war where the identity of the enemy is uncertain and there is no front.

Eco asserts that the first Gulf War marked the advent of neowar and a shift in the general psychology and public view of warfare. It was no longer acceptable to simply wipe out an enemy, regardless of collateral damage. Global media has increased public sensitivity to war and the casualties associated with it.

The Gulf War established two principles: (1) none of our men should die and (2) as few enemies as possible should be killed. Regarding the death of our adversaries we saw some hypocrisy, because a great number of Iraqis died in the desert, but the very fact that no one emphasized this detail is an interesting sign. In any case neowarfare typically tries to avoid killing civilians, because if you kill too many of them, you run the risk of condemnation by the international media.

Hence the employment and celebration of smart bombs. After fifty years of peace due to the cold war, such sensitivity might strike many young people as normal, but can you imagine this attitude in the years when V1s were destroying London and Allied bombs were razing Dresden?

(Turning Back the Clock: pp. 14 – 15)

Eco seems very critical regarding media’s role regarding neowar. He uses 9/11 as a prime example. In this case, the media actually aided bin Laden in achieving his goals, which is to spread fear and uncertainty.

Bin Laden’s aim was to impress world public opinion with that image, and accordingly mass media talked about it, showed the dramatic rescue operations, the evacuations, and the mutilated skyline of Manhattan. Did they have to repeat this news item every day, for at least a month, with photographs, film clips, and the endless eyewitness reports, broadcasting over and over the images of that wound before the eyes of all? It is hard to give an answer. Sales of newspapers with those photos went up, television channels that offered continuous repeats of those film clips enjoyed improved ratings, the public wanted to see those terrible scenes replayed, perhaps to feed its indignation, perhaps sometimes to indulge an unconscious sadism. Maybe it was impossible to do otherwise, but the fact remains that in this way the media gave bin Laden billions of dollars’ worth of free publicity, showing every day the images he had created, sowing bewilderment among Westerners, and giving fundamentalist supporters a reason for pride.

(ibid: p. 18)

Eco makes another astute observation regarding how media influences the public’s opinion regarding war. People in the West often side with a group not because they believe in a cause, but because they oppose war as it is being presented via international media. A perfect example of this is the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. One could argue that many Palestinian supporters side with them not because they agree with their ideology, but because they feel a sense of outrage at the images which they are exposed to.

Within the ranks of the West, pro-Islamic groups would be formed not out of faith but out of opposition to the war, and new sects would arise that reject the West, Ghandians who would put down their tools and refuse to collaborate with their governments, fanatics like the Davidians in Waco who (without being Muslims) would unleash terror campaigns to purify the corrupt Western world. In the streets of Europe, processions would form of desperate, passive supplicants waiting for the Apocalypse.

(ibid: p. 25)

The later part of the essay deals with the possibility of peace on a global scale. Eco is not optimistic. He asserts that conflict is part of human nature, and while we would like to envision a return to a peaceful state, mirroring that of the Edenic state, the sad fact is that humans have never enjoyed a prolonged state of peace.

I don’t believe that on this earth men, who are wolves preying on their fellow men, will attain global peace. Basically, Fukuyama was thinking about this peace with his idea of the end of history, but recent events have shown that history repeats itself, and always in the form of conflict.

(ibid: p. 29)

While this view of war and peace seems dismal, Eco ends the essay on a note of optimism. While global peace may never be possible, peace on a local level is certainly within our grasp. And I would augment this by asserting that if enough people worked towards local harmony, this could have a rippling effect across a wider plane.

Our only hope is to work on local peace.

(ibid: p. 30)

“The Writings on the Wall: Peace at the Berlin Wall” by Terry Tillman

Yesterday morning I went for a run and passed a wall freshly covered with graffiti. I was initially annoyed, but then the graffiti stirred a memory of a book I had purchased years ago that I had not thought about for a while. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, I purchased The Writings on the Wall, which came with an actual piece of the wall as part of the boxed book set. I confess buying the book for the chunk of cement with a little paint on it, wanting that piece of history, but I ended up being really moved by the book itself. I decided to peruse it again.

The book is a collection of photographs depicting graffiti art painted on the wall. It also includes photographs of the wall being demolished. These stunning pictures are interspersed with quotes from writers, activists, thinkers, and politicians, all promoting concepts of peace and unity. It’s impossible to look through this book without feeling inspired and hopeful.

Unfortunately, history has a nasty way of repeating itself. I can’t help thinking about the walls we are constructing today, whether it is to keep out immigrants, or to give us a false sense of security in our walled and gated communities, or whether they are the social barriers erected to keep us separated from those who are different. The types of walls may vary, but the resulting division is always the same.

The idealist in me hopes that someday we will abolish the walls we’ve created. It could happen, if we are able to let go of the “us and them” mentality that seems so prevalent nowadays. On that note, let me quote the opening paragraphs from Tillman’s book. Hopefully the words will help inspire us to “love our diversity.”

Before it began to be dismantled, the Berlin Wall was approximately one hundred and five miles long encircling the city. About forty five miles of the Wall was built of concrete. During several visits I walked or rode a bicycle along thirty of those miles and I was never out of site of graffiti. The graffiti were only on the West Berlin side of the Wall. In many places the graffiti is many layers deep. And most of it is only visible for a short time (often just a few days) because it is painted over by the next artist. The writing on the Wall seems to appear mysteriously. During the more than two hundred hours I spent near the Wall over fifteen days, I did not once see anyone painting on the Wall.

The message and experience of the writing on the Berlin Wall is strangely uplifting. It is a touching chronicle of human creativity, determination, hope, and unity. It seemed inevitable that the Wall would eventually come down. The graffiti prophesied that—literally the writing was on the wall. And the opening of the Wall is more than just the removal of a physical barrier and division. It is a joining, coming together of human consciousness. A new unity that is only possible when we love our diversity.