March 29, 2010

• Punctiliousness

  Punctiliousness

  
  It's not the words so much as the hidden meanings they hold in which I take a sublime pleasure. Some of my associates consider that I live the life of a monk. Passersby may look at the temporary vehicle used for physical conveyance and remark on its beauty. These two extremes are in the eyes of the beholders, though I do recognize that I drive a nice car. The truth is I made the purchase a long time ago and probably wouldn't do it again. It's easier for me to be a renunciant if I don't put things in my name. That way the title to the car doesn't enslave me in entitlement.

  Can there be any anchor more effective in stopping internal progress than our right to ourselves? It's the compost in which our negative emotions grow, thrive and bear abundant fruit--the fruit of violence. Perhaps I've written before that Buddha in his discourse on lovingkindness said, Live lightly with few duties. The reason I say it so often is because it's a foundational ingredient to a life of peace. He starts off his discourse by saying, To reach the state of peace . . .People talk about peace and usually mean the cessation of war or conflict of some kind. Peace isn't a place outside ourselves but an inner state that must be reached, attained and then inhabited with gratitude or it will be as fleeting as peace on earth. I'm not saying there is such a thing as peace on earth. I can't remember a time when the world was at peace. The best we do is contain the conflicts between nations. Now we put a rope around the ring and hope the violence and hatred will not spill outside of it. It's a step I suppose and a step is all an infant learning to walk can take in the beginning. The price of peace is generally too high for modern man. Monks have peace. Renunciants have peace but only if they have genuinely given up their right to themselves. It's a very difficult path if done from the outside-in rather than the inside-out. A woman sat in my office yesterday and told about the latest spiritual fad that has attracted her attention and admiration. Having known her for nearly twenty-five years and watched her toy with one discipline after another it was easy to contain my excitement. I didn't have any. This was just another thing. You see, she is punctilious (showing great attention to detail or correct behavior). Stupidly I said something about it. As any good punctilious person will do she smilingly demurred on the outside while she violently objected on the inside. It's like I said last time, sometimes we're not ready to grasp the truth.

  When I was a child there was a film titled, I Led Two Lives. It was about a transvestite who revealed his secret to his unsuspecting financee. The two lives that we all lead are the inner and outer life. We have the side with which we face the world and a darker, internal side that rarely sees the light of day or consciousness. Amazingly we often buy our own facade and defend it even internally to ourselves. It's because when you tell a lie long enough people start to believe it. We are people and we believe our own lies. If there is no light to see the difference between the truth and a lie there's no way to become aware of the difference. Even if we do get some light inside it's very difficult to face something that goes against years of crystalized belief, habit and the attitudes they manifest. There can be no lasting change on the outside until there is first a change that takes place on the inside. It's not enough to change because we so quickly change back to what is familiar because it is more comfortable, habitual, established and agreeable. An inner change requires outer adjustments as well as inner adjustments. Many otherwise sincere people turn back when they face resistance from their friends and family after making a substantial inner change. We must take into account what an inner change is going to cost us and assess if we are ready and willing to pay the price both inwardly and outwardly. When Gandhi gave up his lucrative law practice and wealth his wife, Kasturabai, did not object when he failed to set aside any part of it for the use of herself and their children. It seems to me the more diffiult part of his decision was what his ideals might have meant to his wife and children. It takes courage to change. It's much easier to be punctilious.

   

  • 11:34 am
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