IN A FEW DAYS, PREPARE FOR A THREE PART POSTING. . .

Stay tuned. Another long and personal memoir is soon coming, in which I reveal a big lie from my past, why Bush is such an effective liar, and how I moved from looking at reality through a pair of cloudy moral glasses and put on a more realistic pair of science glasses. Three parts and three postings. Two are already done, but I won't start until I know I have all three ready.


AGAIN, RELEASE IS IN SUFFERING WITH COMPASSION

One trouble I have with Joseph as he presents his myths. Sometimes, I think he's a little too much enamored of suffering, and I'm still not sure how much suffering is necessary for the human animal. Do other animals suffer except the necessity of suffering physical pain and death or moments of mortal terror when attacked by predators? Ain't that enough suffering for anybody? But, then, a recent post mentioned how immature it is for us to set our sights on "happiness" as a human goal. Now is it really immature to seek happiness? Why? Just as long as we're prepared to accept that the best laid plans of mice and men "aft gang awry" and accept the ups with downs and Epson Downs.

From MYTHS TO LIVE BY, Joseph Campbell, pp. 159-160:

[Open quote.]
The most widely revered Oriental personification of such a world-affirming attitude, transcending opposites, is that figure of boundless compassion already discussed at considerable length, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, known to China and Japan as Kuan Yin, Kwannon (supra, pp. 138—140). For, in contrast to the Buddha, who at the conclusion of his lifetime of teaching passed away, never to return, this infinitely compassionate one, V who renounced for himself eternal release to remain forever in this vortex of rebirths, represents through all time the mystery of a knowledge of eternal release while living. The liberation thus taught is, paradoxically, not of escape from the vortex, but of full participation voluntarily in its sorrows—moved by compassion; for indeed, through selflessness one is released from self, and with release from self there is release—from desire and fear. And as the Bodhisattva is thus released, so too are we, according to the measure of our experience of the perfection of compassion.

It is said that ambrosia pours from the Bodhisattva’s fingertips even to the deepest pits of Hell, giving comfort there to the souls still locked in the torture chambers of their passions. We are told, furthermore, that in all our dealings with each other we are his agents, whether knowingly or not. Nor is it the aim of the Bodhisattva to change—or, as we like to say, to “improve”—this temporal world. Conflict, tension, defeats, and victories are inherent in the nature of things, and what the Bodhisattva is doing is participating in the nature of things. He is benevolence without purpose. And since all life is sorrowful, and necessarily so, the answer cannot lie in turning—or “progressing”—from one form of life to another, but only in dissolving the organ of suffering itself, which—as we have seen—is the idea of an ego to be preserved, committed to its own compelling concepts of what is good and what is evil, true and false, right and wrong; which dichotomies—as we have likewise seen—are dissolved in the metaphysical impulse of compassion.
[Close quote.]

What am I to make of this? I grew tired of suffering, yet I can see that when I was blindly suffering, drinking and struggling, I was also feeling compassion for the plight of others from time to time. How often did I say between gritted teeth that, "As long as there is one poor person in the world, I don't want any money!" Man, that was painful!

Such a statement sounds silly to me, now, in my recovering days. Pompous, grandiose! Yet I did suffer my suffering till I could suffer no longer. I embraced my suffering with a stupefying willingness that I now find incomprehensible. But in all this suffering the Buddha speaks of, I don't see anywhere that the sufferer has to be mindful and fully aware of suffering's purpose in order that his suffering may be worthy of enlightenment. In the telling of it, which comes out of the enlightenment that some suffering can force on one, then suffering seems to have a purpose, but when one is in the arms of his sadistic lover, suffering seems eternal and pointless. Suffering can be just blind, stupid and still be worthy. Mixed in with all self-pitying suffering, there is usually concomitantly, a real sorrow for the suffering of others in the world about us. Maybe at certain times during the suffering process one's own suffering and his compassion for others are not extricable because no enlightenment has yet come to the sufferer. So how can he know the purpose of his suffering until the suffering is done?

Still, let me interject here, I've had all the suffering I need. I can no longer see anything holy or enlightening in it. Those who are wise enough not to suffer needlessly are the ones to seek out for wisdom. Second, those who had to suffer but who truly wished to escape and made some effort toward that end also have something to say. Those who still hate life and who still clutch their suffering to them like a robe of many colors should be shunned as one shuns the embrace of an open flame.
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[Speaking of which.]: "The happiest time in any man's life is just after the first divorce." —John Kenneth Galbraith [Well... that depends on if.... See below.]

"I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep a house." —Zsa Zsa Gabor