Dissolving the Source of Stagnation
If the seeds of compassion are already latent in the mind, what can be done to facilitate their germination, particularly when the possibility for growth seems to have stagnated? With escalating tensions across the globe, the need for a scalable, sustainable means of dissolving the source of stagnation and loosening the ground of sedimented mindsets is more urgent now than ever before.
What approaches to political and environmental crisis deserve further probing? A rather simple but by no means easy practice is that of exchanging oneself with others, a form of compassion meditation that dissolves the supposed boundaries between beings. It is exactly this dissolving of the source of stagnation, melting away the assumption of hierarchical separation, that contemplative practices grounded in compassion evoke, upsetting the status quo of indifference.
In the very same section on the perfection of meditation (dhyāna-pāramitā) from the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by Śāntideva that we recently addressed, we find a directly implementable approach to the process of dissolving the source of stagnation, erasing the supposed boundary between self and others.
Equalizing Self and Other
A simple maxim which seems to not have clicked for far too many throughout history is "treat others as you wish to be treated" and related variations on the same theme. The Golden Rule springs to mind. Based on what has become of the world, it would seem that most people wish to be treated rather poorly given how they appear to have treated others, but this can't be the case upon deeper probing.
The issues we face as a global community stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between self and other, founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of the very meanings of self and other. These constructs aren't nearly as solid as they've been constructed to seem. Their supposed differentiation dissolves under the searing lens of scrutiny.
Selfish activity flares uncontrolled when one's own desires, many of which even hamper one's own wellness, are placed above the wellness of others. Extinguishing the fire of selfish activity requires conscious, ongoing efforts to cease fueling the process of hierarchical individuation at the expense of the collective. Śāntideva directly expounds a contemplative practice for dissolving this egocentricity through actively cultivating an awareness of the equality of oneself and others, complemented by the practice of equalizing self and other.
One should first earnestly meditate on the equality of oneself and others in this way: "All equally experience suffering and happiness, and I must protect them as I do myself."
Just as the body, which has many parts owing to its division into arms and so forth, should be protected as a whole, so should this entire world, which is differentiated and yet has the nature of the same suffering and happiness.
Although my suffering does not cause pain in other bodies, nevertheless that suffering is mine and is difficult to bear because of my attachment to myself.
Likewise, although I myself do not feel the suffering of another person, that suffering belongs to that person and is difficult to bear because of his attachment to himself.
I should eliminate the suffering of others because it is suffering, just like my own suffering. I should take care of others because they are sentient beings, just as I am a sentient being.
When happiness is equally dear to others and myself, then what is so special about me that I strive after happiness for myself alone?
When fear and suffering are equally abhorrent to others and myself, then what is so special about me that I protect myself but not others?
If I do not protect them because I am not afflicted by their suffering, why do I protect my body from the suffering of a future body, which is not my pain?
— Śāntideva, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
("The Perfection of Meditation," verses 90-97, trans. Wallace & Wallace)
Seeing others as oneself, how could we wish harm upon anyone? How could we fight? Their suffering is our own. Our happiness cannot come at their expense, as it seemingly does for the blissfully ignorant who live in a virtual reality filled with artificial pleasures, a simulated sense of "everything is fine" that never amounts to anything even remotely satisfactory in actuality, given that this feigned way of being necessitates severing the bond between beings to promote oneself and demote others. Snap out of it. All wish to be happy and avoid suffering. Why should we treat them any differently than we would treat the innocent, infant version of ourselves?
When bodhicitta takes root, one comprehends that one's own suffering and the suffering of others are equally suffering. When one wises up to the reality that the burning of various parts of the whole we call the ecosystem, both near and far, are equally damaging to the whole, then one no longer differentiates the parts in a hierarchical system of preference.
In the process of such cultivation of the equality of oneself and others, the notions of "self" and "other" no longer hold any substance. They're convenient terms and useful concepts, but only up to a point. When they are pitted against each other, as if my happiness had to come at the expense of yours so that you have to suffer, or that your happiness had to come at the expense of mine so that I have to suffer, then we have failed to understand things as they truly are.
Global Sustainability
We cannot solve the problems that plague us from within the same consciousness that created them. Such consciousness must be radically transformed, lest there be irrevocable disintegration into entropy. Equalizing self and other both through contemplative practice, regardless of religious tradition or lack thereof, and in everyday activities is one means of dissolving the hierarchy of separation.
Our quality of consciousness is intertwined with our actions in the world. Once priority is expanded from individual to the indivisible, from personal to transpersonal, from subjective to intersubjective, then we begin to see the reality of the suffering that equally threatens all. The next step is mass-scale ecosystem restoration, similar to how undertaking a medicinal regimen naturally follows upon realizing oneself to be profoundly sick.
Once the flames are doused and intention is re-oriented away from self-centered, egocentric activity and toward global sustainability, the restoration of an ecocentric system wherein all is equally "center" will be possible. Only then can scalable, sustainable solutions take effect.
To be continued...
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