Unity 1
unityoneAre laws of nature human inventions? So important a question because the consequences are at the root of our problems. It draws in two distinction, the distinction of humanity and that of ideas. Ideas are just thoughts but because we are trained to focus our minds only on intellect, and ideas are the fruit of intellect then the ideas become the fruit of the person. But an idea are just thoughts, and they are only important because of the way we are trained to hold onto ideas. What about our miseducation – education for conformity stability and becoming cogs? So our minds get filled with ideas, ideas from books, ideas from teachers and even encourage creation of our own ideas (mostly a good thing). Then in exams we regurgitate ideas, and this ability to regurgitate, to imitate, is what singles us out for the appalling success/failure paradigm.
So we hold to ideas – attachment, and very often our whole lives are invested in holding to these ideas. How many people’s lifestyle is free? We inherit ideas from our parents, school and society, this is how we should live. These ideas become our “destiny”, and this is the path of life we follow – because we hold to ideas that are imposed on us. What is a breakdown? When something inside us sees these ideas as a hollow shell and we question why we are holding onto those ideas? For many that breakdown occurs too late, because the ideas of that lifestyle has been compounded by the involvement of people. Those ideas include the idea that marriage is happy – is an aim (it might well be happy), those ideas now include a partner and probably children. That breakdown cannot be allowed by the lifestyle, and discipline forces the broken-down back into the mould – the idea set that forms our society. And remember our society exists for the whims of the rich and famous, so that conformity that the breakdown was trying to free itself from is ultimately only for the benefit of the few.
And what is causing that breakdown – the zen. Zen breaks through ideas because holding to ideas is just accepting living with restrictions. And when we break through ideas there is freedom, but this freedom is not your freedom but freedom for all. When one person expresses freedom that expression is the freedom of all. As people we see separation. We see our physical bodies, this is my body, this is your body, so we think all is separate. Then when we are young we are told to attach to our ideas, these are the ideas of that book, these are her ideas, these are your ideas. So ideas help continue that separation, separate bodies, separate ideas, what else is there? And that answer is zen, and that zen is not separate. That is our zen, it is nature’s zen, it is Gaia.
And Gaia has its own laws that we are all subject to. Humans don’t make those laws, Gaia does – idapaccayata. Gravity is a simple “physical” law of Gaia, Gaia makes the law of gravity – it comes with Gaia, it is not separate from Gaia. When Gaia is, the law of gravity is. When humans became part of Gaia gravity became a law that humans knew, it was a human idea.
But the earth has physical laws like gravity, whereas Gaia has other laws. Gaia prescribes a path for us, this is a law, follow your path or get in trouble. For some there is an emergence of zen that brings us to our paths, for some there are breakdowns but for others the miseducation keeps that zen submerged. How do we know it is like that? Look around. Is our world at peace? How is our environment? Are we happy? These are expressions of Gaia’s laws.
