Sorry for the hiatus in this blog, but I am now back with a vengeance to look at Verse 14 of the Tao Te Ching.

Verse 14 – Beyond Reason

That which we look at

but cannot see is the invisible.

That which we listen to

but cannot hear is the inaudible.

That which we reach for

but cannot grasp is the intangible.

Beyond reason,

these three merge,

contradicting experience.

Their rising side isn’t bright.

Their setting side isn’t dark.

Sense-less, unnameable,

they return to the realms of nothingness.

Form without form,

image without image,

indefinable, ineluctable, elusive.

Confronting them, you see no beginning.

Following them, you see no end.

Yet, riding the ploughless plough

can seed the timeless Tao,

harvesting the secret

transcendence of the Now. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

It is a sign of being in the flow of the Great Integrity or the Universe that I come to write about this verse precisely when these issues have been playing on my mind.

I have been struggling with my own impatience and anger that I cannot get people to ‘see’ what they are ‘looking at’. That people ‘listen’ but do not ‘hear’. They can only see and hear that which they have already decided exists. They have looked at an issue from their social and cultural viewpoint and made a decision without even beginning to realise that if they saw and heard from another perspective they may well see another story. We are so quick to decide that we know what is going on, but when questioned we are often unable to comment on the minutiae which we failed to grasp.

I, especially, need to move ‘beyond reason’ and understand that such people are precisely where they need to be on their journey at this time and no words of mine will change their ideas. This is an arrogance of mine that I need to conquer. I assume that everyone can be reasoned with – if not to see my point of view (which after all is only a point of view and is as restricted as theirs) but to see that it is all part of a far bigger picture. We cannot judge and condemn a person on such trivial matters as an entirely personal emotional hurt. I do appreciate that when our emotions or pride have been hurt that these things cease to feel trivial, although of course that does not change the fact that they are.

A friend and I had a long conversation a few days ago in which we tried to get inside this very point. The stanza which states: ‘Beyond reason/these 3 merge/contradicting experience’ is so true. When we are in the midst of pain or angst or suffering we feel it is the only problem worth considering in the world. Everything else is no longer seen/heard/felt and what we experience bears no relation to what is actually happening. We are unable to see the whole story. We cannot place our problems in perspective. We forget that all suffering is relative and that we can always endure more.

But our big question was: ‘how can we merge the two?’ Rationally we understand that this is the case – that anything we suffered in this lifetime was an infinitesimal drop in the universe; that it was our choice and to our benefit somehow. No suffering has ever been in vain yet. However, in the daily grind that is our existence we still have to cope and live, so what practical ways are they of translating this rationality into daily life to get us through the pain. I wish I could tell you that we had discovered the answer, but far greater philosophers than we have been struggling with that one for thousands of years. The only thing I can say is that by removing judgement from my life and trying (not always succeeding but trying my best every day) to live my life decently and honourably for the good of the whole, my life is not as hard as it once was. The suffering no longer feels so huge.

I try to see that the true key to life is that which lies behind the rising light and setting dark. That the nothingness contains considerably more than the constant overstimulation which is the bane of my life every day.

There is no beginning, no end. Where I end someone else starts and so on forever. We are all one, the molecules that form the ink with which I write; the keyboard on which I type; the table at which I sit also form the ocean; the trees and each and every one of us.

Until we can see Beyond Reason, beyond (to coin a phrase) the bleeding obvious and transcend Now to find ourselves in an holographic universe, we will continue to look without seeing and listen without hearing and by doing this continue to condemn and judge every person who we consider is not living by our own critical standard. How very dare we! If we judge then we should not flinch from the criticism and judgements of others – something at which I think the majority of us would cower. However, I am probably preaching to the converted. If you have the courage to read this then you are probably already more open than the majority of mankind. For as the amazing Ghandi said: ‘Never try to reason with a bigot. His beliefs weren’t reasoned into him and can’t be reasoned out of him.’ Sadly, I think Ghandi had far more patience and far less arrogance than me, so lots more for me to work on once again.

Happy Easter my friends,

Here is Verse 13 of the Tao Te Ching.

Verse 13 - Identity
Accolades can usher in
great trouble for your body.
Censure can herald misery.

Why can favour and disfavour
both be harmful?

Because both accolades and censure,
when filtered through self as ego,
always place us in jeopardy.

But when the universe becomes your self,
when you love the world as yourself,
all reality becomes your haven,
reinventing you as your own heaven.

Only then, will you transcend tense
to fully be here now.
Only then, no harm
will the universe proffer
nor you to her,
for you will be
not you but she
and both – the universal Great Integrity. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

This is the longest verse we have looked at so far, but is probably one of the most straightforward.

It tells us that as long as we focus on the ego then we will find the world a hard place to live in. When we spend our lives trying to win approval at all times we lose our sense of self and just become what we think everyone else wants us to be – thus becoming nobody.

We are all behaving (or have behaved at some point in our lives) in a way that fits in with society. We find praise and so seek for more. We find censure and fall into despair. Abraham Lincoln said: ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.’ This is very true and if we replace the word ‘fool’ with ‘please’ then we begin to have a formula for living our daily lives. It is not possible to please everyone all the time and we only make our own existence painful and futile by trying – especially if we please people rather than living by our own truths and principles.

In point of fact who do we decide who we want to please? Whose criticism of our lives, good and bad, do we want to take on board? About some people we say that we couldn’t care less what they think and others over whom we die thousands of tiny deaths every time they seem to be displeased by something we have done. We allow our relationships to have such a huge effect on our daily life, compromising them to ridiculous degrees. When we feel the relationships with those we are close to are going well then we respond well in the rest of our lives. If we feel that the relationships are falling apart and that we are being misjudged we allow our worlds to fall apart around us. Daisaku Ikeda says: ‘Happiness is not something that someone else, like a lover, can give to us. We have to achieve it for ourselves.’ That is not to say that we should not seek relationships, it is just that healthy relationships do not stem from relinquishing our own identities for the sake of pleasing another. We have to make ourselves happy first and only then do we have the independence and the security to make a relationship in which both parties can be happy without any self-sacrifice. So often we see relationships where one partner gives up everything just to make the other happy. This is not an equal relationship - this is slavery. Both parties deserve equal happiness and you can only achieve this by being two independent beings who are happily sharing your existence without depending solely on the other’s praise for your happiness.

The concept of Oneness, or Esho Funi (the oneness of self and environment) very much comes into play in the stanza: ‘when the universe becomes yourself ... all reality becomes your haven.’ We currently live in a world of such separation, only seeking approbation from those people who are in ‘our gang’, and only giving it to people who we feel are ‘our type of people’. When Rutherford discovered what atoms were made of he opened the way that would eventually lead to Quantum Physics as we know it today. It is now recorded fact that we are made of exactly – and I mean exactly – the same molecules as everything in the universe, from the most distant stars to the chair on which I sit as I write this. How then is separation possible? How can we not all be in this together? How can any one of us be worth more than another? And yet this is very much the case. A Western life is worth very much more than that of someone born in the Third World. In the atrocities of September 11th approximately 6000 people died. This is appalling. I am not trying to say that it is not, all violence is appalling. However, what is equally appalling is that 6000 children a day were dying at this time of malnutrition in developing countries, because their parents had to work to provide the west with luxury items, whilst not even being paid enough to provide their own children with the basics. Their lives were of no interest to anyone and so were worth far less that the lives of 6000 Americans for whom many more thousands of people were to die over the next decade as they were avenged. This is separation at its worst.

I am not suggesting that we lose our individuality. The concept of funi is that we are two but not two; as the concept of Oneness is that we are all blossoms on the World Tree. We need to be independent and totally ourselves, whilst contributing to the whole of mankind and the earth. We need to use our natural instinct for fairness, or for what we feel to be right, as a gauge against which to measure our behaviour. How many of us have sneered at teenagers who give into peer pressure and end up doing something silly. ‘If they told you to jump off a cliff’ we jibe ‘would you do it?’ And yet on a far bigger scale this is exactly what we do every day. This is how vigilantism starts and how wars begin. We go along with the majority view because we are scared. Conscientious Objectors often show far more bravery than those who go out to fight because it takes much more courage to stand up to your friends than it does to your enemies. The people who you have grown up with now throw back at you: ‘you are not one of us anymore’. You are ostracised. It takes a very strong person to withstand that, to stick with their principles and not join in the killing of people whose only crime is being born in a country where there is a cruel regime, or because their skin colour or religion is different. How are these reasons to kill anyone?

So, this is what we need to aim for – being true to ourselves at all times. As the fabulous peace activist Dick Sheppard used to say in the 1930s: ‘it is not peace at any price, but love at all costs’. This may seem a small difference, but think on it a while and you will see there is a vast chasm between the two. Only when we manage to be true to ourselves will we find ourselves merging with ‘the universal Great Integrity’.

Hello my wondrous ones.

The following verse is incredibly important and refers straight back to my discussion of verse one and the liberation that comes from accepting that all our decisions are our own. I expect that therefore I will repeat myself a bit, as the ideas are overlapping, so please bear with me.

Verse 12 - Choices
Colours can make us blind!
Music can make us deaf!
Flavours can destroy our taste!
Possessions can close our options!
Racing can drive us mad
and its rewards obstruct our peace!

Thus, the wise
fill the inner gut
rather than the eyes,
always sacrificing the superficial
for the essential. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

So, as I have said before, we have complete responsibility over the choices we make in our lives. There is always a choice even if the choice we make is to do nothing.

The world we live in in the first part of the 21st Century is a veritable melee of sights, sounds and smells. We are bombarded by sensations from every side and have become inured to them. There is little we are shocked by when violence, rape and murder is piped into our houses every day and we accept that this is normal behaviour when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

I took part in a discussion about a year ago with some teenagers about the film ‘Thelma and Louise’. We were discussing the infamous rape scene where Louise ends up shooting Thelma’s would-be rapist. Although I do not advocate shooting anybody I was shocked to hear some of the teenage girls saying ‘but it was only rape’! They had seen so many films/programmes in their short lives where rape occurred that they had become blind to the horror of it. I pray and wish with all my heart that they never have to find out otherwise.

We have access to so much stimuli now compared to even 50 years ago that we are becoming deaf and blind to the hideousness that some of it represents.

I think that the internet is a wonderful thing. It means that for the first time knowledge is available to everyone, not just the mobile and monied elite. However, as discussed before in this blog every good action has to be balanced by its reaction and therefore we are also given access to all that which desensitizes us. What once would have been considered outrageous behaviour we now see performed time and time again on the net, or at the cinema, or on Sky and so it doesn’t seem nearly so outrageous.

It is important therefore to trust our instinct - ‘to fill the inner gut rather than the eyes’. To trust ourselves when we feel over-stimulated and to choose to walk away from it, whatever pressure anyone may put on you. It is your choice not anyone else’s. You are the only person who has to look at yourself in the bathroom mirror in the morning; the only one who knows how an action truly makes you feel.

We have ultimate choice and consequently ultimate responsibility. We cannot wait for someone else to sort things out, it is up to us to make the choices that do just that. To decide what it is in our lives that is essential, rather than what will make us feel accepted and part of the gang. There is a passage by the Zen Master Osho that I would like to share with you: ‘Unless you drop your personality you will not be able to find your individuality. Individuality is given by existence; personality is imposed by the society. Personality is social convenience. Society cannot tolerate individuality, because individuality will not follow like a sheep. Individuality has the quality of the lion; the lion moves alone. The sheep are always in the crowd, hoping that being in the crowd will feel cosy. Being in the crowd one feels more protected, secure. If someone attacks, there is every possibility in a crowd to save yourself. But alone? – only the lions move alone. And every one of you is born a lion, but the society goes on conditioning you, programming your mind as a sheep. It gives you a personality, a cosy personality, nice, very convenient – very obedient. Society wants slaves, not people who are absolutely dedicated to freedom. Society wants slaves because all the vested interest want obedience.’ This is a quote that I keep on my wall and is one that I try to live by every day. I personally think that this is why we should all take ultimate responsibility in our lives. We all need to be lions and not sheep. The powers that be manipulate our lives constantly to ensure that we remain sheep, but we have the choice to be lions. Every single one of us can make a difference if we are so inclined, or we can just wait for someone to come along and tell us what to do. The latter is far easier, but it condemns not just us to a life of oppression, but also the generations which follow us.

Make the choice today to look past the brought colours and loud music, past the GM enhanced food and see, hear and taste life for yourself.

Hello amazing people, all of whom I know are on the path to finding your own innate Buddhahood – which is the wonderful potential that every single one of us has within, whether or not you follow any form of Buddhism.

I hope you are all feeling brighter as the Winter starts to fade into the distance and Spring wends her way back into our hearts. Here is Verse 11 of the Tao Te Ching:

Verse 11 – The Importance of What is Not
We join thirty spokes
to the hub of a wheel,
yet it’s the centre hole
that drives the chariot.

We shape clay
to make a vessel,
yet it’s the hollow within
that makes it useful.

We chisel doors and windows
to construct a room,
yet it’s the inner space
that makes it liveable.

Thus do we create what is
to use what is not. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

I love the conceit of this verse – the idea that we need to make an effort in order to construct something useful in our lives, but that it is the nothingness and the void that give it it’s true purpose. Without our input the void would still be a void, but by our giving it shape we give the void the structure it needs to do its work. This idea follows on quite neatly from the concepts held in Verse 9. We need to do what we need to do in life, but if we carry on ‘overfilling our bowls’ or carry on building then the useful space within gets filled in and we are unable to fulfil our original plan.

This verse celebrates the very yinness of life. Lao Tzu asks us to look not only at the void, or at that which we have actively created, but at the whole of a creation. Not just the bricks and mortar of an idea but that which is created by default. We often concentrate so much on the action in our lives that we forget the possibilities of the inaction.

I am scribbling away here, my mind working feverishly as I digest and translate the thoughts that are flowing thick and fast from the space I have created in my mind to look at these verses. It needs action and inaction. We cannot think clearly with a mind cluttered by triviality. It is the receptive openness of your mind as it reads this that will recycle these words of mine and make them into thoughts and ideas of your own. A mind that is not open – that does not contain the space within – will not receive new thoughts and new ideas and so will never grow. However, the opposite is also true – a mind that has not got a structure, that has had no dedicated work (whether through study, meditation, or whatever mental exercise you routinely use to keep your mind fresh and alert), will have no clear boundaries in which the void can flex its muscle. Both what is and what is not are equally as important.

What use are the things we strive for in this world if we do not use the time and space to enjoy them – to fully utilize the uniqueness of their being? Conversely, if you have nothing to do or to enjoy what use are the space and the time?

Balance is what creates a fulfilled life. Taking time sitting in silence every day, if only for a couple of minutes, so that you are then able to appreciate the next time you are in the hustle and bustle of the crowd; revelling in the serene comfort of your armchair after a hard day at work, being held in the arms of a loved one after a heated argument. It is the hole in the pot that makes you appreciate the usefulness of the pot as well as the sides and the lid.

To fully experience our lives we do not have to push continually, we only have to appreciate what is not as well as what is. To see the beauty and usefulness in everyday objects as well as the usefulness and beauty of works of art.

So often we forget to appreciate ‘the importance of what is not’ in our lives. We focus on the lack of ‘stuff’ we think we want rather than appreciate the lack of terror and pain. We are so busy looking at the material facts of our existence that we forget to look at how wonderful it is that we are not living in poverty; that we are not starving; that we are not living in the midst of a conflict-ridden, war-torn city – although these things are happening to people all across the world. It is by understanding that these things are that we can appreciate that they are not in our own lives. If we appreciated the importance of what is not we would also appreciate the importance of what is – of the sheer amazing abundance and joy of our lives.

I am not saying that our lives are never exposed to the harsher aspects of life, but these in themselves lead us to enjoy the better moments. When you have been in pain for a long time, how much more enjoyable is the relief that comes when the pain has gone away, even if only briefly. When you have been in the pit of despair how much brighter is the laughter that follows?

The hollow in the pot / the nothingness of the void is as vital to our lives as the many constructs we build around ourselves every day. Please take time out of your life today to enjoy the silence, the void, the emptiness within, so that tomorrow you can wallow in the noise and the tumult of our amazing planet!

Once again my friends I am here to work my way through my thoughts on the Tao Te Ching. I can’t emphasise enough that I am learning constantly as I digest these verses and so I thank you for taking the journey with me as we tackle Verse 10.

Verse 10 - Limitations
When embracing the unity
of mind, body, emotions
and spiritual being,
can we transcend our fragmentations
without leaving a trace?

When Qi Gong sculpts sinew suppleness,
can our flesh become soft
as a new born babe?

Can we cleanse the inner vision,
leaving mind in spiritual purity?

Can our affairs of the heart,
and our affairs of state
be so unconditional
that we grant unqualified permissibility?

Can the gate to yin be opened
without inviting Yang?

Can our reasoning mind
be purged of coercion,
allowing our heart its unfettered joy?

Can we act like every other species,
seeking no reward,
taking no pride,
guiding without enslaving?

Such is our vision of the Great Integrity
on whose path we have at last
planted both feet,
ready to move, step by step,
until we arrive at the great unfettered gate. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

The answer to all of these questions is, unfortunately, no. This does not mean that we cannot begin to turn them into yeses. By recognising our limitations we begin to push past them. Limitations are what we place on ourselves when we start to fear. We go so far then feel we can go no further. If we start to push these boundaries one mm at a time we cannot help but progress. Mind, body and spirit are an immutable triangle. We cannot live without all of these elements, but all of us tend to be stronger in one area. It is important that we aim to bring all three into equal balance, thus balancing our emotions at the same time – but in everyday life it is an Herculean task to avoid fragmentation of some kind, unless we choose to live our lives in retreat away from all the issues which bring us fragmentation. However, we can start to be aware when the fragmentation begins and give ourselves time to bring ourselves back to our centre before embarking on the next issue. This way our separation remains controllable rather than leading to complete breakdown. We all know that if a fissure or crack is left untended it widens until it is irreparable.

Exercise and taking care of our bodies can slow the process of aging, but it is not irreversible. Our bodies naturally grow and change and reflect our inner selves – unless of course we are Dorian Gray. If we ignore our bodies then the deterioration will be all the swifter, but we cannot halt the process altogether. Not yet at least!

Cleansing the inner vision is hard work. It takes effort and consistent action. I wish I could say that I was spiritually pure but I have a vast distance to travel yet. Even the Dalai Lama prays to overcome his anger everyday and Mother Teresa asked her nuns to pray for her conversion on a daily basis. There have maybe been a handful of humans who have managed this spiritual purity over the millennia, but the rest of us still have a long way to go. Yet the journey has to start somewhere and each time we make the effort to pick up on our thoughts and challenge them we sidle ever closer to the purity for which we long.

The next stanza is one I have discussed in detail already – whether we can ever truly act disinterestedly. Certainly with affairs of state the policies may be for the particular nation state’s ‘good’ but very rarely for the good of all. So even the most philanthropic act can be pared back to being of some use to the person who initiated it. I will not dwell any further on this verse as I have covered this before.

As to the question of whether yin can be called on ‘without inviting yang’ – nothing exists without its counterbalance. We cannot even grasp the concept of one thing without instinctively understanding it’s opposite. We cannot know we are acting passively without knowing what it would mean to act aggressively. I cannot think of anything that exists in pure form without its antonym also being in existence somewhere in the universe, In the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin it is taught that every action triggers the opposite reaction and thus if we are doing something ‘good’ we have to expect to overcome the ‘bad’ that will arise with it. This way life remains in balance. This appears to be a natural law and therefore I am unsure how we push the limitations of this other than by accepting the ‘bad’ and using our inner strength to ride through it and turn ‘poison into medicine’ (another precept of Nichiren Buddhism).

Our reasoning mind, whilst being humankind’s biggest asset is (in accordance with the previous paragraph) also its biggest drawback. We find it so hard to accept without searching our minds for the reason behind everything. At the same time it is to be hoped that we think about our actions rather than just acting blindly in an animalistic fashion. We should not accept things because other people tell us it is so. If someone tells you that the universe consists of giant pink pandas and that we live on one of their left ears I would hope you would think about it before accepting it – although I can’t say for certain that this is not the case! What we need to do, and this is far easier said than done, is to find the balance between our reasoning mind and our gut instinct. When we are told by the media that such and such is happening and this is violating our ‘rights’ then we need to think for ourselves and not just believe these people with a hidden agenda; but we must also not get locked in our minds, unable to act without first thinking through every last detail until we can no longer leave the chair because each thought triggers another and so forth.

We have set ourselves above every other species on the planet and yet are we better than them? We destroy and kill in the name of progress. Anything that gets in our way we annihilate. We swat flies, who are simply being flies, because they irritate us. If we have the ‘right’ to kill anything that irritates us I will line up all the Daily Mail readership and get out an Uzi! I think, and I am prepared to be told that I am wrong, that this may be going too far. Other species kill and destroy too, but only to survive, not as we do because it is convenient and because we can. I do not necessarily advocate vegetarianism, I appreciate the Shamanic point of view that whatever we take for food we give thanks to and when we die we give ourselves back to the earth, but that the animals that we use for food are killed living their lives, not placed in cages and made to live in their own squalor just to feed us. We receive far less nutrition from a ‘battery’ animal than we do from a ‘free’ animal. I do, however, think that killing for vanity alone, or simply because something is irritating us is too much. Pride is certainly one of the things that makes us behave like this. Destroying to prove that we are superior – surely this very action loses us this argument? All the time we push for more not caring who or what gets in our way we are merely being an insecure race not a superior one.

The very fact that you have read this far shows that you have placed both feet on the path to the Great Integrity. We all have a long way to go, but now that we have acknowledged that there is a path to tread, together we can trample a wide path through the undergrowth so that the next generation can follow more easily, treading their own path when they pass the point we have reached.

Hello my lovelies,

Verse 9 - Overfulfillment
Keep filling your bowl
and it will spill over.

Keep sharpening your knife,
and it will blunt.

Keep hoarding gold in your house,
and you will be robbed.

Keep seeking approval,
and you will be chained.

The Great Integrity leads to actualization,
never overfulfillment. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

This is such a timely verse for the current so-called economic crisis. We have been taught that there is never enough. That no matter how much we have we should still want more. This has led to conflict and greed on an unprecedented scale.

We find it very hard to stop filling our bowls. How many of us have seen people at those ‘all you can eat’ buffets filling and re-filling their plates long after any hunger has been sated, but because the food is there they have to take it. Then there are the ‘collectors’. People who will buy up priceless artefacts only to lock them away where they will never be seen or loved or cherished, but holding on to the knowledge that they own it and so no-one else can. Where is the joy in that?

My favourite couplet is ‘keep seeking approval, / and you will be chained’. Politicians personify this phrase. They start out, hopefully, with good intentions but they need to be loved and admired by all the voters and so they become entangled in chains and stop achieving anything for the higher good. Mark Thomas, a comedian and activist whom I greatly admire for his courage in taking on anyone and everyone that he feels are unjust, including the Arms Trade and Coca Cola, has an email address listed in his book ‘As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela’ as ‘mark@likeineedyourfuckingapprobation.com’. I think this says it all. If seeking approbation was what was important that he would never be able to take on the causes for which he fights. This is true for all of us in everyday life.

Every time we take action looking only for a pat on the back, we betray ourselves. We need to be true to ourselves whatever the consequence. This can be terrifying, but it can also be very life-affirming. History is full of people who were vilified, tortured and even killed in their lifetimes, only for them to be revered shortly afterwards when the rest of the world caught up with them. We need to remain true to ourselves rather than believe what the media tell us, especially the tabloid press, whose very purpose is to keep the plebs in their place. Indeed Lord Northcliffe, the founder of the Daily Mail, admitted he provided his readers with their ‘daily hate’. It is well known that the fat cat proprietors of all the papers print what they know their readers want to hear and not what is fact, or what indeed they believe themselves. Independent research into any of the stories will show you that for yourself. Each time that you allow yourself to be manipulated by the press you are allowing them to fill the same role as that of the ruling classes to the serfs, namely keeping you down so that you do not see the truth for yourselves and thereby hold another ‘Peasant’s Revolt’. When we start having mutual respect for all people, no matter what their race, age, gender, or background in general then these vehicles of hate and prejudice will no longer need to vilify people who were not in line with their own beliefs. Everyone’s ideas would be valid and so you would not need to seek approval for yours at cost to someone else. Daisaku Ikeda says: ‘We are all human beings, whatever our positions. If we open our hearts and speak with sincerity, we can communicate and touch others on the deepest level. World peace starts with trust between one individual and another.’

Following on from the blog on the Highest Good I personally think it vital to have the courage to stand up for what we believe in; that we let dictators and despots know that their behaviour is unacceptable and intolerable and that we, on an individual basis, will not take part.

If we take Nazi Germany as a case in point we see that the majority of people did not overtly do anything ‘bad’, but they did comply with the government stance. They took in the propaganda which they were fed on a daily basis (as indeed are we) and the majority did nothing. As the Reverend Martin Niemoller said about the regime: “When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." This is how we live our lives every day. We know the damage that our affluent western lifestyle causes and we all do nothing. We stand by while thousands of under 5s die every day of malnutrition whilst their families work for a pittance to supply the ‘needs’ of the West. Yet very few people know or care. Next time you buy your Primark or Gap, or even John Lewis clothing ask yourself what the true cost is. Next time you bite into a MacDonald’s ask how much of the world’s eco-structure you have just complied in destroying. Next time you buy an Aero ask how many children picked cocoa until their hands bled.

All I am asking is that you are aware what our greed costs. Always ask; never just accept what you are told, even – or perhaps especially – what I am saying to you now. Check the facts for yourselves. Stop overfilling your bowl and pass the excess on to someone who really needs it.

Hello my friends,

This week’s verse is on a subject that permeates throughout all of the verses, and indeed throughout all of our lives.

Verse 8 – The Highest Good
The highest good is like water,
nourishing life effortlessly,
flowing without prejudice
to the lowliest places.

It springs from all
who nourish their community
with a benevolent heart
as deep as an abyss,
who are incapable of lies and injustices,
who are rooted in the earth,
and whose natural rhythms of action
play midwife to the highest good
of each joyful moment. (Translation Ralph Alan Dale)

The first thing that seems apparent from this verse is its implication that ‘good’ is actually more natural to us than the effort it takes to be ‘bad’. The right behaviour flows through us like water and we are naturally drawn to being a useful part of our community – in whatever way this feels comfortable to us. (Some people are very good at doing things in a very overt way, actively leading their community, but this is not necessarily of any more use than those who contribute in their own quiet way. Society needs all of us.) Being nasty to people often takes a great deal of effort. We have to go out of our way to cause hurt and upset, whereas a smile takes no effort at all.

The ‘highest good’ does not necessarily fall in with our idea of good and bad as it stands in our (or indeed any) culture or society currently. It transcends this, being for the good of all – bringing peace, contentment and the absence of conflict in its wake. It is only when we stop acting for our own good all the time and remember that we are part of a far larger entity that the ‘highest good’ will be achieved. This is something of a paradox as often if we do what feels best and right for ourselves – and I am talking about gut reaction here, not acting to get ‘stuff’ at the expense of others, but truly acting in a way that makes our souls feel happy – we contribute to the highest good naturally.

I have recently re-read ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ by Douglas Adams and as I was thinking about this verse a scene came back to me. Zaphod Beeblebrox is taken to face the ultimate punishment inflicted by the universe – he is to be placed in the ‘Total Perspective Vortex’. This machine shows the incumbent just how totally insignificant their life is in the scheme of things. How true this is. We are all so busy thinking that we are the centre of the universe, when really our lives are no more, or less, important than that of any other creature. The only way we can be of any significance is by contributing, in whatever way we can, to the highest good.

This may be as simple as just doing our best everyday to live our lives without bringing harm to others. Each one of us has the ability to contribute towards world peace. Daisaku Ikeda, who is a great teacher of Nichiren Buddhism, says that: ‘A great revolution of character in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, a change in the destiny of all humankind’. This Human Revolution is like a Mexican wave. When one person starts to behave differently, those around them begin to take notice and so on. Regardless of our beliefs is this not a wonderful way to start working towards the ‘highest good’?

Another amazing teacher – Gandhi – said that ‘you must be the change you want to see in the world’. We can all moan about the unfairness and inequality of life but nothing will change if we do not change ourselves.

Another very well known quote, which I do not know the origin of, says ‘if not you, then who: if not now, then when?’ I have been guilty in my life, as have so many of us, of burying my head in the sand and thinking – or at least hoping – that someone else will sort it out. I have now realised that this is not so. The Kahuna of Hawaii (among many other Shamanic Cultures) are very clear that our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. This is also reflected in the Gnostic tenet of ‘as above, so below’ and the Buddhist tenet of ‘Esho Funi’ (the oneness of self and environment). There is an offshoot from the Kahuna known as Self-Identity Ho’opono’pono. This states categorically that we create and are thus responsible for everything we have in our lives and we can only change the ‘evil’ things by taking responsibility for them. They have a mantra of ‘I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you’, which they use in daily life to alter that which is harmful to the ‘highest good’.

For this concept to have developed so widely across faiths and continents (I am sure it is reflected in other belief systems too, but I am sorry to say that I have not yet had time to study them all in depth, but hopefully that will be rectified in the future) there must be a grain of truth in it. I certainly believe that no one but myself is responsible for anything that happens in my life. I cannot blame anyone else for things which happen to me. As much as I would like to point the finger at others and say ‘they made me...’ or ‘if it hadn’t been for...’ I know that this does not help in any way. I also know that I am the only person who can do anything about it. Every choice I made in my life was made by me not anybody else.

This realisation also helps me to respect everyone I come into contact with – no matter how difficult I may find them and no doubt they find me. I know how amazing they are in their own rights. There is no one who does not contain an inner beauty – even the biggest despot loves his family or his pet – it is just a case of looking for it.

I know I still have an immense distance to travel on my journey to act only for the ‘highest good’, but then I am not sure if we ever reach the destination; and if we did I wonder what would happen. Do we just dissolve into nothingness; rejoin the collective consciousness and lose our ego entirely, or do we just start all over again. I think I may have a fair few lifetimes to go before I find that out!