Now, I want to write about something that is a guaranteed turn off, which is not a terribly bright way to encourage readership. I am one of those people, who thinks a lot and always have. I look around today at the state of human affairs and this planet of ours, understanding there is something about our nature that has dogged us for millennia.
Here we are, the most highly evolved species on earth and we have made a mess of things, since our time as knuckle dragging, hairy beings with bad teeth. What the hell is it we have not been able to see, even as we have traded the cave for the skyscraper, smoke signals for FaceBook? There is some flaw we have not been able to shake, in spite of our evolving brilliance, one that often makes us look as dumb as our Neanderthal predecessors.
OK, here comes the great turn off, but I will endeavor to make it as entertaining possible. I was a fairly happy kid, growing up in a middle class community in Queens, NY. I didn’t mind wearing some of my older brothers hand me down clothes either. We were definitely not the wealthiest family on the block. It was the Rubins, who ended up doing so well, they moved to a split-level, ranch house in Nassau County, heading to Long Island, where the successful, Jewish entrepreneurs herded back in the 50’s.
My life changed dramatically at age 9, when my father suddenly died of a heart attack, something medicine was still trying to figure out back then. His death branded my spirit and got me thinking about the idea of mortality early on. Loss is a bitch and it never left me, although there were times when it took a vacation from my consciousness. Things got particularly bumpy in my 30’s, as my marriage unraveled and the demise of my perfect future took me inside myself. Somewhere in there, I tried my hand at sitting and read some books about Zen and while feeling an attraction, it would wait until I left NYC for Santa Fe, NM in my early 40’s.
Time and experience began to dramatically alter my perspective. The loss of my Dad as a little guy came back to life out there in the high desert country. Through the urging of a very close friend, who felt i was already living the basic tenets of the Zen practice, I became a close friend of the Buddha. It was his unerring attention to our impermanence and the affliction of the falsehood of the enduring self that rifled me back to my loneliest night, hearing my mother scream at the news her husband had died in the hospital.
Intellectually, I began to grasp the truth that my time here had an ending, designated by forces beyond my comprehension. I also started to understand the nature of constant change in my life and whoever I thought I was one moment, was going to change in the next. Years and years later, I am still struggling to incorporate these undeniable truths into my every day life.
Now, I look around at how we are treating each other and how we have always treated each other and see it through this prism of the Buddha’s brilliance. He believed that recognizing our mortality was the ultimate liberation and not the fear laden prison of denial, dictating our mistreatment of each other and our home.
I am extremely fortunate to have been already gifted nearly 75 years of life and believe me, I am definitely struggling to make the inevitable my friend, trying to drown the fear with the breath of truth.
For ever, we have made death the enemy and it has caused us to devalue the lives of others. Much has been made of the uniqueness of each of us, like snowflakes in a blizzard, no two are ever alike. No matter our color or our bank account, every goddamn one of has this one thing in common, we are all here temporarily. We have punished each other, this earth of ours and all its myriad inhabitants, instead of nurturing the inevitable compassion that comes from truly accepting that we are all visitors here. The dictionary of our behavior is filled with words and actions that are a direct result of the most basic misunderstanding possible, the blatantly obvious.
To me, the real story of our time is climate change. The predictions are horrific and yet it is getting very little attention. We don’t seem to understand the idea of limitation, or else we wouldn’t be plundering the planet and denying the incredible damage we are inflicting on it and ourselves. This is what really got me going on this subject in the first place. There are a growing number of young kids, who believe in the beauty of tomorrow and they’re mobilizing to fight for their future. They are demanding we become far less selfish and think about others. It has taken thousands of years for us to get here and we have been stuck on the same path all this time and it is finally failing us big time.
I believe our individual inevitability is a liberating force and its denial is a destructive one. I will eventually leave this place, hoping for a future that learns from its past. I have learned to love this life more than ever before and time has been my teacher. Our differences pail in comparison to what we all share and perhaps it is up to younger eyes to see this. I believe in possibility.