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Crime and Punishment
I have struggled with this: whether there really is true altruism. (Is that redundant?) I don't think you can help others without feeling good, so there is really no selfless action. Perhaps selflessness comes when you can be totally unattached to self while performing actions, but this isn't easy. Your survival instinct holds on to the concept of self for dear life! Literally! So, I came to the conclusion that since at some level, everything and everyone is connected, even a selfish act is altruistic. If I benefit me, I benefit all. But that's really an out.
I have come to the conclusion that the answer to every question is mindfulness and the way to mindfulness is meditation. Through mindfulness, it's ironic, you realize that you have no mind, that mind is nothing, has no substance. So from the place of no mind, I believe you can perform a self-less act.
Of course, if you are studying to be a doctor, and you lose your mind, where will you be?
Perhaps then you will have to study psychiatry.
I have come to the conclusion that the answer to every question is mindfulness and the way to mindfulness is meditation. Through mindfulness, it's ironic, you realize that you have no mind, that mind is nothing, has no substance. So from the place of no mind, I believe you can perform a self-less act.
Of course, if you are studying to be a doctor, and you lose your mind, where will you be?
Perhaps then you will have to study psychiatry.
Comments
First the dream:
There was a boy king who was living a frivolous self centered life. His irresponsibility caught up with him one day - a day of reckoning. He had to make one of two choices. (1) He could gaze into a 'box' of judgement, where he would either be spared to continue his frivolous princely life, or be fried to a crisp, or (2) he could abdicate and live a simple anonymous life. He chose the door and soon began to turn to ash.
First, I felt pity for the happy go luck chap, but then it seemed fitting. He had a choice. He chose the way of pleasure and power, and lost. But it was no loss really for he would have squandered life away and not fulfilled his calling, his kingly responsibility. Serves him right, so good riddance. At that point I woke up.
Now the observation:
The punishment aspect of this dream led me to consider punishment in general. We really seek to punish those who do 'wrong' or 'evil'. But why do we so readily feel this need for retribution. I suspect that it is because we only experience the situation from our 'side of the coin'. We fail to realize - feel actually - the living hell that the 'evil' person experiences, and so can't appreciate the fact that his actions simply reflect his inner sorrow, pain, isolation, disconnection, desperation, insanity, discontent and conflict. The hell within manifests itself in hellish actions. The 'evil' is a symptom of his inner torment, just as content people tend to act in kindly ways.
Failing to see the situation as a symptom of awful pain, we 'think' he is 'getting away with murder'. Thinking plays a big role in our thirst for revenge and our need to punish. The 'evil' situation appears to us socially unbalanced and so like monkeys, we demand fairness... balance... justice. The social instinct drives this emotion for fairness, but the ensuing thoughts of imbalance which extend over time arise out of ignorance born of self centered thought.
I suspect that part of humanity's 'problem' is its unwillingness to recognized that we are all animals driven by instinct. I suppose a 'self superiority' instinct (ego I guess) may cause this difficulty to see ourselves as we are.
1. I need to punish because I'm angry
2. I'm angry because I feel threatened
3. I feel threatened because I'm afraid this prince is getting more than his share and I'll have none.
4. I'm afraid because I don't want to die.
So it all comes back to survival instinct.
How's that?
I have long held the belief that the hell Christians speak of isn't so much a punishment that is delivered by god but what it is like to have a perfect knowledge of all things (gained once we leave this world) and compare it to what we chose to make of life.
Regardless of whether there is an after-life, the idea that hell is what it is like to live a life of "hellish actions" falls on my mind with a powerful lightness.