Bodhisattva

Today we had some cheesecake at work. I cut it up into pieces and told everyone in the office they'd better eat it quick or I'd scarf down the whole thing. One of my co-workers was annoyed at that and said other people had work to do and couldn't eat theirs pieces right away. "The world doesn't revolve around you," she said.

But she was wrong. In fact, the world does revolve around me. This is a major point of Buddhist philosophy. And the world revolves around you too. The idea that the world revolves around you might sound like an excuse for selfishness. But it's precisely because the world revolves around you that you must never be selfish. The true basis for selflessness is the view that "the world revolves around me."

Let's get metaphorical. You created this Universe. In doing so, you set up rules which you had to follow. If you don't follow those rules you have yourself to answer to. And you are brutal about it, completely unforgiving. People believe in God because God is so much nicer about them breaking their own rules than they could be themselves. You wanted to exist as a human being in the early 21st century. In order to do so, you needed gravity to hold you down to planet Earth, you needed other human beings -- beautiful ones and fat, stinky ones, you needed a history which includes the brightest of miracles like The Ramones first gig at CBGB's and the deepest of horrors like the A-bombing of Nagasaki. You can't fly through the air like Superman because what you wanted was to live a life in a place where people can only do stuff like that in the realm of fantasy. It wouldn't be fun to watch a movie about Superman if everyone could do stuff like that. You have to die someday because you desired to live a life where every single minute was important. If you lived forever life couldn't be as sweet. You need to obey the laws you invented.

Because the world revolves around you, you must take very good care of it. You can't litter because every place in the world is your living room. No one's gonna clean it up but you. You can't make someone cry because every single person is your reflection in the mirror. Why would you ever want to steal anything when everything is already yours? You can't eat all the cheesecake because you can't know how good cheesecake really is unless others can enjoy it too. Beside, you'll get fat (one of your own rules again).

The troubles of the world and your own ability to solve or cope with them (or your lack thereof) are your own creation as well. As the world revolves around you, some of it is near and some of it is very far away. Do what you can.

You begin deeper inside your mind than you could ever reach and end in the infinite reaches of outer space. You could travel forever in any direction and never reach the end of you. "I can't see the end of me," the Meat Puppets sang, "My own expanse I cannot see. I incorporate infinity." When you reach up and touch your forehead, the feeling of warmth beneath your fingers, the slight pressure of your fingernails on the edge of your scalp, and your fingers and forehead themselves are the same thing. You only imagine them as different things. The person staring you in the face, eyes red with anger, is made of nothing but you. His mind is just your own. His body an extension of yours. And yours of his. You are nothing more than his reflection.

There's no purpose in life. Reality itself is the aim.

Don't take my descriptions too literally, though. Religions are always full of metaphorical statements -- prodigal sons, camels going through the eyes of a needles, and suchlike. But at some point religions always expect you to accept certain things not as metaphors, but as concrete facts. Most Christians don't believe that Jesus was talking about real guys with real unruly kids or actual camels going through actual needle eyes. But question the concrete reality of the resurrection and you'll get run out of town on a rail in certain localities.

In contrast to religions, in Buddhism everything is a metaphor. Words can never describe reality adequately. Sometimes you can come pretty darn close, but you'll never quite get it. Every single one of Buddha's teachings is a kind of metaphor. The philosophy's there to help us create a mental picture of reality which is as close to the real thing as possible. But we're always careful not to take anything too literally.

We don't really understand any of the words we use. We just use them as stand-ins for real things in order to help us communicate with each other. I can't ask you to pass me the cheesecake unless we both agree upon what part of this Universe answers to the name "you" and what part to the name "cheesecake."

All of our troubles stem from the mistaken belief that we really understand the words we use. We manipulate words like "Bob took my cheesecake" in our minds and end up getting really angry and kicking Bob in the shins. But we don't really know who "Bob" is or what exactly his "taking" of the cheesecake entailed. Bob may be starving and he may have taken your cheesecake in order to cut it into seven pieces to feed his wife and hungry sextuplets. Maybe you should pity him instead of being angry. Or Bob may be a pervert who can only get off by smooshing cheesecake between his toes. Maybe you should be laughing instead of kicking the poor guy's shins.

None of our troubles are real. They're just the things we have to do to stay alive and happy in the Universe we made for ourselves.

-Brad Warner

P. S. Incase anyone who enjoys these articles hasn't figured it out yet Brad Warner has a book called Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality i highly recommend it.

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