There is no passion, there is serenity. As we go through our lives we tend to become heavily invested in the various things we do, and because of that, we often are blinded to what our efforts, and what achieving our goals, would really mean, what it would all actually accomplish. Having feelings about what you are doing is not the problem, but when your feelings make you lose any sense of context, then anything you do runs the risk not of contributing to genuine well being, but actually impeding it. Hurting your general desire for a healthy meaningful life.
When you are in the ‘zone’ you are not emotional. You are calm and focused. Exactly.
There was a study that showed novice archers could be taught to reach the ‘zone’ in an afternoon and their skill raised to that of an Olympian. So the use of the Force is perhaps not entirely far fetched.
So yes, to apply the cornerstone of meditation to the third precept… In meditation, we can see that in the big picture of things (all the things we have done and experienced in our lives), there is a general path of our inner being, a genuine sense of our inner well being, and we can also discover that many of the things we invest in, as being supposed sources of our well being, are very often no such thing. They can even be toxic like being able to see that your crack addiction really is hurting you, or that expectation you hold of others really is unfair.
Well, I know my wine keeps me healthy, because just today I had a stomach ache and the wine made it go away. We can experience an illusory well being. I have come to the point where I can trigger and shut off many of my physical symptoms. It came about accidentally from my brain hacking experiments. Like right now, my focus is giving me a mild stomach ache, but I can with directed attention make that stop. It was directed attention that let me make the changes to my brain in the first place.
So fourth precept?
There is no chaos, there is harmony. The prevailing world view, currently, is to see the world as a big chaotic cloud of atoms, and to see much of anything else as being a pretty, and well meaning, illusion.
All these precepts sound like synonyms of the same things. How so? Emotion, passion, chaos. Yes. Illustrating an alternative by negative definition because of our tendency to gravitate toward the other, but as seemingly without personal meaning as the world can seem, as much as it can seem like it cares not at all for a persons well being, mental, emotional or physical, there is a principle working in the world that allows for our well being in the first place. If it were all just a meaningless accident, then we would have no ability, let alone understanding, to heal and grow, to prosper let alone foster understanding and well being of anything beyond us. Empathy would be impossible. Sensitivity would be impossible. Wisdom would be impossible.
True, when we got sick we couldn’t get healthy again. Yes. There would be nothing coherent enough to restore us to health. Healing itself denies the accidental model of the universe. Anything other than entropy denies that model.
The fact that our bodies heal themselves is a frickin’ miracle that people take for granted. They take it for granted because they believe in the empty chaotic view of the universe, of the world around them. They even apply it to people.
Yes, they shrug it off as chance. It allows them to deny accountability.
This is why so many people proudly proclaim to disdain drama. Drama can be easily and quickly addressed with even the most shallow degree of insight, but not at all through dismissal. Not if it’s the basis for dismissal. Most drama is ego based petulance. All drama stems from emotion, need. There is a genuine disturbance in the dramatic person. Even if it isn’t the item they are displaying for everyone around them at that time, they have a need.
I don’t really recognize anyone’s need to control other people. It seems petty and unnecessary. To misidentify it as control is to blind everyone. Know the genuine need, know more than the apparent issue. It’s the displayed issue that is superficial, not the emotion behind it.
On the other hand, some people are just jerks and the more you give them attention, the more you validate their behaviour. That’s more basis for invalidation. It works against the code and also constrains ones depth of reflection and meditation. I myself prefer no such straight-jacket. It makes me as an individual uncomfortable.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~