The Problem ...
Dear Friends,
A meditation teacher I once had traveled to Burma in the 1970s to study meditation.
At one point, he was told he could have an audience with the foremost master in the tradition.
When he arrived for the meeting, he asked the one question he thought was most essential, "What is the essence of your teaching?"
The master responded, "To know your mind."
Wanting to know more, he asked, "But why? Why do I need to know my mind?"
The master replied, '“For the benefit of all sentient beings, know your mind."
TODAY’S WORLD
If you look at all the war and destruction in the world today, in almost every account, it is not because there is a lack of food or a lack of land … the reason for the bloodshed: The Mind.
There is enough food and land in the middle east, in the Ukraine, and almost every other place where there is conflict …
Imagine if the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on war each year could be used to build schools, child care centers, and support local businesses. You would have flourishing cities across the globe.
The issue is hatred, it’s greed, it's not understanding that we inter-are with others.
And once conflict starts, it is hard to see how it ends, with each group wanting revenge. “An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind,” Gandhi warned.
THE CHALLENGE
What we are challenged with today may be more of an inner or spiritual journey than anything else: Can we know our mind in such a way that true peace and freedom is accessed?
If we can, we have a chance …
And if we cannot, then no new technology, no new AI, no new bomb, no new wall we build will ever create a flourishing, safe, and prosperous world.
All the military might in the world will not save us.
It is easy to think, “I am not the problem. That other group over there is the problem.”
Maybe the problem is all of us. And the solution, then, is also all of us.
Blessings,
SOREN
For the month of May, we are happy to offer a donation-based series titled:
TOGETHER WE GROW: NAVIGATING CHALLENGES IN RELATIONSHIPS.
And we are excited to have likely the most esteemed researchers and authors in this area, John and Julie Gottman.
"There is just ONE Problem….resolve this ONE problem, and all our other problems fall like a house of cards!! Each of the myriad resolution proposals put forth these days is arguably fruitless without addressing this single root issue. History bears this out. The problem itself is no revelation, nor an original idea. Yet, the very notion that this problem can be directly addressed, let alone resolved, lies beyond what most of us believe is possible. Herein lies our greatest challenge.
What follows encourages us to expand the scope of our thoughts beyond the recycling of now common rhetoric and hollow platitudes, amidst cliched themes, articulated by the usual suspects, and always constrained by the limits of our ancient (and now rapidly expiring) consensus reality. Discourse on the rescue of humanity has saturated the aware waves for decades to no avail. Honest assessment sees our species circling the drain with no genuine abatement whatsoever. Now, more than ever, humanity must become something it has never been before to actualize our inherent Design – dormant within us for ages, aching to awaken."
https://bohobeau.net/2021/01/29/woke-world/