Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Torture Chamber

I live in a torture chamber, and that torture chamber is my mind. How can I demand discipline from other people if I'm not able to apply discipline to myself? How can I tell people to be pure, when I can't be pure myself? How can I say to people that they have to change, if I can't initiate change in myself? There are already too many people whose credo is "Do what I tell you to do, don't do what I do" -- and I don't want to be one of them.

When I said "Accept chaos", I didn't mean that one should embrace it; I only meant that chaos is inevitable. Chaos is consequence of evil things people do, and sometimes people can do evil even with good intentions (enter the world of power politics). The domino blocks will fall and fall. In Shakespeare's plays everything will usually end in tears, blood and chaos, and I'm afraid to say I'm inclined to think like Shakespeare in my own worldview, which is very film noir: greedy, lustful and stupid people do evil things, causing suffering even to innocent bystanders, and nothing good can come out it. Death seems to be the only redemption there.

But the redemption or solution can also be a Buddhist one: to get out of the karmic wheel of greed, lust and ignorance.

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