Meditation

Meditation is not about having big experiences. Meditation is a continuous flow of positive mental states and when we sit to meditate what is important is the effort we make not the experience we have. We may have a very pleasant experience but if we are not making an effort to take things further then it is not a good meditation. A good meditation is one in which we make an effort to change our habitual negative mental states or make an effort to maintain our positive mental states and use them as a basis for penetrating deeper into the nature of reality. Effort has to be appropriate and balanced of course. We need to know and acknowledge where we are starting from and be patient and persistent in our efforts to change.

Consumerism 2

I want to say something positive about consumerism. One of the reasons I want to say something positive about consumerism is that barring catastrophe, it is going to be with us for a long time and those who have not had the opportunity to consume the so-called good things of life are going to want to. In the foreseeable future we are likely to have more consumerism rather than less, with India, China, South America and eventually Africa stepping on to the train to go shopping with everybody else. Given that that is what we have and are likely to have, what positive possibilities does consumerism hold for us?

It has been said we are consumers rather than citizens. I was thinking about this and I came to the conclusion that it may not be such a bad thing if people were less identified with being citizens. Being a citizen implies belonging to a particular nation with all the characteristics of group mentality that that implies. It can lead to a sort of defensiveness and isolationism that is both oppressive and dangerous. Consumerism on the other hand crosses boundaries and cultures and at the level of international business it creates a world of connections and relationships that have the potential to defuse dangerous situations. On the personal level it gives a certain amount of power to the consumer. When you vote in an election you exercise some power, but also when you spend money you exercise power. You exercise power because, just as with your vote, you can make a choice. Your vote gives you a choice every four years or so to say who you want to govern or what policies you favour. The money in your pocket gives you a choice every day to say which products and companies you want to support and which you would prefer not to. Businesses, even the biggest of them, are quite sensitive to what the consumer wants and doesn’t want. It has even been noted that sometimes business is ahead of government in its thinking on issues of an ethical or ecological nature. Being consumers means we are connected to a vast international web of trade which has a positive side to it and we can exercise some power in this network of trading by making informed choices about where to spend our money. Another point worth noting is that businesses are sensitive to criticism and if you see a business doing something you think is unethical, it is worth writing a letter to point it out. Business people and politicians know that for every two people that complain there are probably another twenty who have the same complaint but stay silent.

Consumerism

In the story of the great Tibetan yogi, Padmasambhava, he encounters a monstrous character who is known as Black Salvation and also as Matarangara, which means 'the one who devours his mother'. The depiction of Black Salvation is a description of everything that is repulsive and revolting and monstrous and it is a symbolic way of saying that Samsara is repulsive and monstrous. It is a way of saying that what we have to overcome on the way to spiritual awakening is something that has tremendous power and energy and fills our world, a huge monstrous presence.

For our society I think the great monster is what is known as consumerism, or the idea of progress through consumer led growth. Why is consumerism monstrous, a Matarangara, one who devours his mother, a Black Salvation? The view, put very simply, is that happiness and fulfilment are a product of economic well-being. Your security, your contentment, is dependent on the possession of a sufficient amount of money and goods. And as our irrational minds engage with this view, our natural craving assumes that greater happiness and fulfilment is achieved by a steady accumulation of money and possessions. Also an offshoot of this view, is the view that choice is a supreme good and having choice is the equivalent of freedom. The more choice we have, the more freedom we have.

Another head of this many headed monster says everything is something to be purchased and appropriated whether it's a smart phone, an overcoat, a car or meditation, yoga and Buddhism. Individualism is also part of the logic of consumerism. Individualism leads us to consider ourselves as somehow separate from and unconnected to others. Consumerism also encourages narcissism; the tendency to see everything in terms of how it affects me and the self-centredness and vanity that goes with that.

In a culture of consumerism we are consumers before we are anything else. Before we are citizens or family members or adherents of a religious doctrine. Above all of that we are consumers, that is our identity and if we refuse that identity we will find ourselves pitted against the many headed hydra of consumerism. In Greek mythology when one of the heads of the monster Hydra is cut off, two more grow in its place. That would suggest that in encountering the many headed demon of consumerism we need a more subtle and intelligent approach. Cutting off heads that regrow doubly is no solution. In the work of overcoming the demons of the mind and the demons of the marketplace, we need intelligence and awareness, alertness and love.

Imagination

           What words obscure, imagination can clarify.

What words clarify, imagination often insists on obscuring.

Only the literal-minded need wings in order to fly.

It is essential to plumb the depths, but only if we want to scale the heights.

You cannot ascend into heaven unless your feet are firmly on the ground.

Because your feet are firmly on the ground, it doesn't necessarily mean you've arrived anywhere.

A deep understanding requires great flights of imagination.

Flights of imagination often go nowhere.

Imagination is the gateway to reality.

Metaphor is the language of imagination.

Every language has the potential for both truth and misunderstanding.

Anything that limits the imagination is a misunderstanding.

Intuition is to imagination what the spring is to the river.

Imagination is to vision what the thread is to the cloth.

The highest vision is the greatest wisdom.

The greatest wisdom is compassion.

Words divide: imagination makes whole.

Reality is undivided.

The imagination can never be chained.

Brotherhood is limited only by the imagination.

The artist sees; the great artist goes beyond seeing.

Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist there will be sunny days and cloudy days.

Rain or shine the optimist lives in sunny world.

Rain and shine the pessimist lives in a cloudy world.

You can be optimistic about the past.

Innovations are nothing new.