A circle game?

We are moving in space - spinning around the sun and the sun is spinning too, as the galaxy is - everything is moving and maybe without direction?

It seems that we are spinning without direction too...

When I'm going to sleep I can feel the desires rumbling around in my head - like small and sudden flashes; Longing for some food, for tenderness, for a warm body near mine, for security....

It's too late to let the come true and I can name them as desires. And  I can watch them with curiosity... They are probably under the surface in the daytime too.
Maybe I know them better after these years of meditating...

Joni Mitchell sings; too much people and too much desires on this earth.

She is probably right...

But can it be that those desires is driving us to places and situations that we cannot foresee

A man on the subway beside me - an umbrella costume and an I pad in a basket. He is fingering on his tie, stretching it. His fingers on the other hand are also moving in nervous circles. He is for sure in the rat race. He wants status and money because he then can marry and get children and perhaps a house. But he is not there yet, so he's nervous; he can  still be a "looser".
Maybe he has an inner father, a dad that worked too much and didn't see his son so often.

Many men wants too give their father proof for their success, even if their father is dead since many years.

In many ways we men are like the peacocks or like the mandarin duck that I saw outside of Stockholm the other day... We just put on another costume.



The duck is a stranger here and i probably a runner from a park. He seemed to be lonely despite of the colors in his costume.

He cant choose his costume but we can....

We have the opportunity to step out of the rat race and perhaps even out of clock time...

The mandarin duck comes from east Asia
even so did Buddha, and he was a stranger here too, at least for a while.
 But now he is known in the whole world - The Dharma has changed and been commercialized -  but also deepened and modernized in the tradition of for instance Plum Village.
The nun, Sister Thieu, who led a retreat i joined recently explained that Buddhism must not be seen as a religion. She quoted Thich Nhat Hanh  the grounder of Plum village. Well, if you practice mindfulness you will anyway change - and you will probably be more altruistic and be more compassionate.

An that means; not be totally led by evolution or our desires...
As evolution doesn't seem want us to be satisfied, just glad for small moments. As the nervous man fingering on his tie on the tube.


Even if it be nice to wear the costume of the mandarin.

Here is the costume that Sister Thieh used at the retreat...

Is not also her costume a result of evolution and desires?

Probably - but lets say - skilful desires....

So  if we can use the desires skilfully the evolution may be heading somewhere. Or or we just going round and round in a circle game?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cora Diamond on eating animals - with the help of Wittgenstein´s ideas

Image
Cora Diamond is a new name for me, even if she has worked as a professor in Philosophy in the states for a long time and is still  teaching at the university of Virginia, even she is over 80 years old. She has written a lot about Wittgenstein and that has helped her to express her view of the topic. Although she, like Wittgenstein,  has lived in a hut in Norway - and actually brought Tractatus with hes - she seems to be different and for sure more glad than W. Anyways, its W: s writings that interests her and especially his critics of metaphysics and ethics in philosophy. As it is said in Tractacus  : " Whereof one  cannot speak , thereof one must be silent." And of ethics philosophy should not speak - why? Is it like in Buddhism - its better to sit in silence and let know yourself, than to speculate about what will happen when we die? But for sure there ethical guidelines in Buddhism,  but the behaviors is often named skilful, not good (or bad). Another
Read more

I think, therefore I am NOT

Image
So Descartes was wrong. He said that he could doubt everything about himself except that he was thinking. That proved that he existed. The word "I" is the central point here. What does it mean? Perhaps we are sure that we know the answer. Is it the thoughts? In that case - where are you when you aren't thinking? Is it your job, your title? In that case - what happens if you loose your job or change job? Is it your house, your nation? Under my course to be a mindfulness instructor, the teacher, Ola Schenström, made us ask to each other; "Who are you?" After each answer the question was repeated by the questioner.We soon discovered that there were no end to the answers - or maybe an adequate end could be; "I don't know."Or maybe; "It seems I have no essence." Other thinkers have come to the same conclusions; Buddha, Sartre and more recently Damasio and Parfit. Sartre, for instance, has said that we are the sum of our actions. We ha
Read more

Wittgenstein and Buddha -buddies?

Image
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous philosopher, reflected in the posthumously published  book "Philosophical Investigations" about the picture above; Is it a hare or duck?  He meant that we make, or must make, a statement what it is. And I suppose he meant that we often or always has to interpret the world around us. But two different interpretations can both be right! Language and thoughts controls what we see.....   You can compare with the picture of a glass. Half empty or half empty?  Who decides? Yes, it's you... And whatever you say is right.  But you can be aware of what you think. That can say more of yourself than of the glass....  You can be aware of that you always do interpretations of things that happens.  If you have a pessimistic or a naive point of view, you can be aware of the view and your statements.  Buddha and Wittgenstein were both aware of that different persons uses different perspectives.  But Buddha spoke about the "right 
Read more