You're awesome. I am happy you wrote. I have not heard that particular monk story before, but I will carry it forwards. I frequently suggest that avoidance of any and all negativity results in an inability to handle normal problems. If you don't use your muscles and sit on the couch for six months and order your groceries, you might gain weight and find muscles atrophied. If you you sit on the couch for six months and order groceries, you may find the simple task of going to the store anxiety provoking. Like we all did during covid? Maybe why anxiety is up for everyone?
Carl Jung offers, you don't become enlightened by stting around thinking about beings of light. You run towards the shadows, because the lights on the other side. There is this book, an older one now, call "Bright Sided" discussing how the cult of positivity has so weakened people, that it accelerated isolation and depression in our culture, as people cut out all people who they perceive as negative. One person I remembered in that was someone who had cancer, and was removed from the 'talk' group because they mentioned they were feeling depressed.
No metaphor is perfect. I have avoided news to best that I can since 9/11. Thanks to the deviousness of social media, it's found it's way back into my life. It may be necessary to impose some restrictions on consumption, the same way you might regulate your nutrition. Awareness is the key in that, right? Can I eat this slice of pizza in terms of calories? Will I compensate by walking some of it off? Am I being lazy? Am I really hungry? Am I lonely and this is comfort?... There are some awful things in the news, fuck just in the immediate world around us... Am I aware? How do I feel? How do they feel? Is the message one sided? Does someone want me to feel something... Like those animal rescue commercial and sad music- they worked! There is evidence people became rich off that, and we still have dying, caged, frightened animals. We still have wars. Since the end of the great war, has there been an end to war?
If life is a meditation, being aware of our feelings, with as little judgment as we can muster- is the trick, but that doesn't mean not helping or being involved. Do you know the story of the two monks and the elderly woman needing to cross a stream?
these two monks were walking by a stream emboldened by a rain storm. The monks intended to cross at a narrow, and the elderly woman asked them to help her. THe one monk said, "you are female and it's against the rules to touch you." The second monk picked her up and carried her across and set her down. THe two monks continued on, and the first one complained- 'i can't believe you helped her.' the second monk said, 'i can't believe you're still carrying her.'
john
