For those of us who grew up or are growing up in the United States of America: Our conditioning does not emphasize generosity or relinquishing. Wanting, getting, and hoarding are dominant emphases in our culture. A friend told me that starting from the point when she was just learning to talk and continuing all through her childhood, her favorite phrases were I need it! I want it! I have to have it! She said these over and over again to her poor parents in all kinds of different situations. When she told me I thought, this is exactly the way it is. This is how we are. We grasp, we cling, we mold things into being exactly as we want them, and then we struggle to keep them that way. This is our normal conditioning. In the Buddhist cosmology, one of the realms of being is that of the hungry ghosts. These are beings with immense bodies but pinhole mouths, so that they are continually driven by unsatisfied desire. When someone once asked the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh what life was like in the realm of hungry ghosts, he answered with one word: America. ~ Sharon Salzberg [my note: Thich Nhat Hanh meant North America or USA when he said America.] Mary Likins Larry Ely Colin Beavan
Posted on: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 12:29:05 +0000
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