Why Should I Change?

Democracy, capitalism, the nuclear family, Christianity — these are examples of conventions; they hold a society together, and as Americans we love them.

Monarchies, communism, the communal family, other religions — these are examples of conventions that hold societies together as well, and as Americans we scorn them.

Conflict results when we consider our particular conventional realities to be undeniable truths, then, the obvious consequence of this conflict is disdain toward those who believe in conventions other than ours. This is an illusion, because no conventional reality is truth; no conventional reality is perfect for all people at all times – all things are in flux. This is the true nature of existence. Only Ultimate Reality is unchanging. Conventions are perceived as unchanging truth, yet they are no more than theories, and when we attempt to blindly hold on to our theories, we cause battles, and theories are always losing battles because change is inevitable. These unyielding positions create excessive nationalism, and war naturally follows any excess. This blindness has been humanities Achilles Heel for eons.

Happiness across the globe depends not so much on convention, but on the vision and enlightenment of its leaders. Even in the strictest of democracies, leaders sway the masses no differently than a dictatorship — a good example being the psychology of war. Wealth, power, and personal freedom do not necessarily equate to happiness — we needn't look further than our immediate families to confirm this.

And we ask ourselves, “Why can't I find contentment?” As if contentment can be found outside of our rigid attitudes. It doesn’t occur to us that the rigid attitudes themselves grow from fear, and that you can’t be both happy and afraid. Perhaps it's time to begin looking at things a little more openly. We don't have to give up our most cherished values; we only have to open up to the possibility that we are not perfect, nor are our ideals. Self-righteousness is merely a misunderstanding of our miniscule status in this universe of existence, and, unfortunately, an engine for hatred.

When are you happy? Isn't happiness a completion? On the other hand, hatred is incomplete; it festers and becomes spoonfuls of poison for the one who hates. It becomes so horrible and burdensome that the person who hates has no choice but to satisfy the hatred, even if this includes violent acts. Acceptance and forgiveness is never considered, even though this would resolve the hatred as well.

And why is this; why is violence preferred over forgiveness? It is because of ego — that concrete image of ourselves as an unchanging entity. This is part of what meditation is about; realigning our ego so that it becomes fluid and responsive, and not simply a clinging, knee-jerk, reactionary machine. When meditation touches truth, or God, or Reality, or however we wish to describe it, we no longer find ourselves trapped in our conventions, and we become free of them. We still may use them to organize our conventional existence, but when we touch that ineffable Reality, a spaciousness develops where we can view conventions as simply conventions because we have touched the authentic truth, the unchanging, the unborn, the undying, the inexplicable truth we truly are. Then conventions lose their power, they become merely a means to and end within existence, and nothing more.

Truth is not caught within existence or within time as we are; it is beyond all of that. The true being that we are is beyond existence as well. Only our misunderstanding of Reality, along with our misunderstanding of existence, keeps us from realizing this and therefore keeps us imprisoned. This is a part of what meditation is about; understanding at a transcendental level . . . and then understanding that meditation itself is a convention, but a convention that eventually reaches beyond all convention — a shift in consciousness that opens us to worlds unimagined, far beyond the confines of a dreary existence caught in time.

Copyright © E. Raymond Rock 2006. All rights reserved.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center. His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated