Had this Temple a Gate, and a Gatekeeper,
She might say:
People come running,
from the churches of their youths,
from the family lash and the broken heart.
They arrive by running away.
If they find us imperfect, there is disgust.
If they find us perfected, there is a new fanatic.
Until, of course, they find imperfection.
People come running,
to a new place, a shinier toy,
for something else to master and exhaust.
They arrive by running to.
If they do not find us novel, we are a stale amusement.
If they find us novel, we are the new favorite.
Until, of course, the novelty fades.
People come running.
There is no training them.
Walk in. Quietly, slowly.
Seek wisdom rather than attention;
Ready to serve is ready to learn.
You are ready to train when you master the slow step. ~ Cabur Senaar
Krishnamurti pointed out to us that Mankind has throughout all time been searching for something perfect, unchanging, incorruptible and salutary (in the soteriological sense). It is however a quest that is initiated and perpetuated, in many – if not most all – cases, unconsciously. It is not merely cultural, though culture influences the avenues chosen ; nor is it merely familial, political nor religious : these domains only provide an identifiable framework to the 'conditioning'. This 'conditioning', after J. K.'s observations, is a complex of psychological representations resulting from the schemas one has made of experiences accrues. These experiences, though not exclusively bound to any one of them, generally can be classed into one of those broad domains (family, religion, nationality &c), which becomes the grounds of this self-same mental schematisation.
So, we look – we find something that lets us feel 'understood' and 'valued' – we experience some satisfaction (or, at least entertainment) – we get used to it – we experience lassitude – we have disappointments … Somewhere between the lassitude and the disappointment, we realise that the “the thing” we've found is not 'perfect, unchanging, incorruptible, salutary' paradise. And then we go looking again. Yet, since that looking is most often unconscious, we're not even aware that we're looking. Looking thus feels more like “waiting” for that 'something' to come along to find us. We amuse ourselves whilst we 'wait' and take our amusements for what we're waiting for : a veritable factory for simulacra.*
Of course this sort of waiting is very active ; it is hardly 'patient'. It is busy (because that is “responsible” time management : “life is short, after all !”), hurrying and scurrying about in a desperate state of “being there” when “the thing” comes along. This way, all sorts of amusement park attractions can at least comfort us, showing us that our lives are “real” compared to that. We find the validation we crave in a lot of artificial diversions, determining by way of variously skilled value judgements whether this or that is a useful for “getting somewhere” (to where we can find “the thing”, or it us) or whatever the experience we can glean – integrating them then into the cognitive schemas of our conditioning. The spiral continues to expand …
Religions, families, nations and other community associations – many milieux and their multiple methods and manners – emphasise the indubitable need for the “the thing” they (need to) represent and how practising perfectly an impractical plan fosters the very need that they are failing to fill ; we, on the strikingly congruent contrary, keep running – and running ourselves ragged – pretending to practise the impractical toward an outward performance of perfection. Hypocrisy and shame seethe under the veneer of “discipline” and “respect” – aspiring to emulate those for whom we hold untold, unseen & envious contempt. But, eagerly (desperately) and contemptuously, we run from totem to totem insidiously seeking that one we're 'waiting for' that bears no grimace, that bears no reminder of death that is to be forgotten about our daily feasting (even cucumbers share about 75% of our DNA ; we cut up our 'cousins' for our salads). We're looking for that validation that comes once and for all and for good.
But why ? Even the Buddha had back-aches – and bitched about them ! How we aspire to be the best of human beings – the ones who aren't ourselves that we can have an imagination about ! Wouldn't the best human beings exhibit the entire spectrum of humanity, not merely the most pleasant or peaceful parts ? And isn't it in the concert of the wholeness that “the thing” resides ? As the lotus thrives in insalubrious muck, so also “the thing” occurs where we can confront (and surmount) our disgust. And our rage and our shame and our fear and our envy and ...
We are surrounded and influenced by the remnants of the world, hyper-actively running haphazardly throughout the hyper-real, between all the “one way” signs that point imperatively in contradictory directions. And one can certainly be trained to perform that ! Each year setting records for the sprint from cradle to crematorium – we gain about one month per year on the average human life expectancy ! (failing to actually live for even longer – what would one expect ?) It doesn't take so very much for us to be happy, which is why the most opulent bounty that Mankind has ever known makes us so miserable. And keeps us running.
“The thing”, budding in the muck of our ever re-made meaning is ephemeral, meaning that 'meaning' must be re-made for-evermore, for as soon as any 'meaning' becomes a 'meant', it will wither and we must mean to let it, letting its passing hold some meaning, then making meaning anew. Yet, quite ignoring the lotus bed, the terrible totem and the time of our lives, we run, waiting and seeking ; we run toward those (for whom we end up holding contempt) who seem to be apt meaning-makers, who hold up a portfolio of 'meants' – whether they mean to or not – which might mean to us a bouquet of seductively sterile simulacra … and off we go again on the treadmill of teachings & techniques. Sometimes we're even tempted to call that “training.”
By all means, come in and look around, but please, “no running in the halls” (except for the occasional cardio session), nor roller-coaster rides (after all, its a book trolley). Come in for fresh meaning and make it yourself. We can't make it for you, but we can supply some of the key ingredients (even the 'secret' ones). We fill all the bowls in the house with it, but it must be changed daily. Sometimes hourly … And then the bowls – as well as the pots and pans and crockery – have to be washed. That is always the new-comers' job, for a little while anyway. It's sticky stuff, so one has to take time in scraping away all the messy 'meant' in order to make the next, tomorrow's, batch of meaning. So take your time … you can throw the leftovers into the lotus bed.
