Chapter 6 - Final Thoughts

No conscious self aware being wants to spend time being unhappy. The quest for happiness is so basic that all people unconsciously live by this philosophy. I"ve spent a great deal of time reading about philosophic schools of thought and it seems to me that this is the heart of all human and animal behavior.

My teacher laughingly assured me that this makes me an adherent of John Stuart Mill, a philosopher born in 1806. From my reading of the works of Mr. Mill it seems that Stephen is correct, although it struck me rather forcibly that John Stuart Mill did not write for the common man. He seemed to delight in long, obscure sentences that demanded continuous re reading and the friendly assistance of a good dictionary.

Stephen told me that his works were written more for fellow academics and were not intended for casual reading. This is most assuredly the case.

It had always seemed to me that if you have something to say you can always find a simple way to say it, assuming that you truly understand what it is you"re talking about in the first place.

There is enough confusion in the human mind and heart without people deliberately making things more complex then they need to be. It was Alvin Toffler who suggested that modern society is suffering from too many changes coming at us much too quickly. Our species is at a crossroads and whether we climb to the heights or disappear into historical oblivion and vanish from the face of the Earth depends upon the choices we make in the next few decades.

The first chapters of this book dealt with my life and some aspects of my Dharma practice while engaged in a battle against social injustice. I freely admit that I broke the law and should pay some sort of serious penalty for my actions. However, convicts are human and should not be treated like demented animals. If you"re going to support or endorse this kind of institutionalized brutality then it should not surprise you when these men and women actually turn into mad beasts that return to severely bite you as often as possible.

Right now our free society sends more people to prison than any other comparable social system by a huge margin and we are not helping or protecting these men and women at all. In fact, we"re building more prisons.

While it is true that some people need to be locked away from everyone else that is not true of the majority of prisoners. Prison should be a place where you are trained to be a good citizen and taught how to make an adequate living. When a person is freed, he should repay society for the time, effort, and money we"ve spent teaching them to behave in a human fashion. Society should not pay for prisons, convicts should.

Why are there television sets in prison? People need to learn to read and understand fundamental things, like basic arithmetic. It is downright simple to let people who already have behavior problems just sit and mentally vegetate.

The current prison system is only one of the many things in our society that does not make sense. Our food supplies are being heavily tainted, our good drinking water must be purchased in bottles because of pollution and global warming is no longer a theory. You can see for yourself how our climate is changing.

The quality of life for the average citizen in the United States is decreasing. Our industries have all emigrated. If World War Two happened today we would be reduced to sending inferior hamburgers and assorted junk food to aid our allies, because that is what our country now produces. Of course, if we could have induced the fascists to eat these things we would have ended the war in a bloodless fashion, probably on our own terms, simply by broadcasting something like, "Surrender now and we"ll provide you with all the antacids you need!"

Seriously, our society is drifting aimlessly into major trouble and nobody seems to actually be in charge. Half the population won"t take part in elections anymore, mostly because they don"t believe that their vote matters.

This kind of apathy is merely a symptom; it is a reflection of the life condition of the people who live in our society. There is an intimate connection between the individual and the environment. This is why my first two books talked about the concept of Ichinen Sanzen. If the hearts and minds of the people who live in North America were healthy, then our environment would reflect this.

The crisis we are experiencing is a direct result of our lack of moral behavior. It is crucial for each one of us to wake up and develop into proper human beings.

The actions that you take after reading this book will have a direct impact on the future of the entire human species. If you do nothing then your lack of effort will greatly contribute to the decline of human kind. Please don"t think that what you do is unimportant. Every single one of us must reform their lives if we are to have a viable future on this planet. Everything you do matters because every action has some kind of effect on all of us.

I"m not urging you to do something dramatic, like run for congress. People are overly critical of politicians, but these people are also a reflection of our society. As my teacher points out in his books, political leaders are a product of our society, they aren"t a different species, nor do they come from other planets. They are literally representative of what we have created in each district, city and state. They are "we the people." As Walk Kelly wrote, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

The change that you do need to make is to develop a loving heart. Bart Klick, (the doughnut king himself!) wrote a wonderful book that bears the title, "The Loving Heart," and all of us would do well to read it. If you develop a loving heart this will be reflected in the environment around us.

I remember a story my teacher told me about a young lady who listened to him preach the Dharma one evening, she approached him afterwards and said, "I believe in all the things you were saying tonight, but I have trouble with the concept of karma." Steve asked her why that was, and she said that most of the time cause and effect made perfect sense, but that she couldn"t stand the idea of blaming Jewish victims of the Holocaust for the suffering that they had endured. He asked her, "Is it somehow better that they were totally innocent? Why is that better?"

Of course, she was looking for someone to blame, someone she could be angry at, and if the Jews that died had made the causes that led to that particular effect, it changed everything.

Steve emphasized to me that this was why it is important to do more than merely believe in the Buddha"s teachings. We must go beyond mere belief to the state of direct realization. When we realize that victims don"t just happen then our mind is capable of being clear and we are open to loving everyone.

If we cling to past horrors we could all be angry all the time. Why limit your anger to the Holocaust of World War Two? Many groups were slaughtered before and certainly acts of genocide have been perpetrated in our own lifetime. I"ve met southern people who still despise "Yankees" for acts committed during the American Civil War. I"ve talked to black men who are still angry because their distant ancestors were sold into slavery right after the American Revolutionary War.

If we all look back far enough into history we can find some reason to hate somebody for something! We need to let go of hatred and anger if our species is ever to know peace. Has there ever been one day on this planet when no one was killed?

The day that this happens our species will have taken the next evolutionary step and will have become mature. You can make this happen by eliminating anger and violence from your own life. When enough of us have developed loving kindness as a way of life our entire environment will change. This is so simple and the process begins with you. If you close this book and walk away you are turning your back on all of us. You really are responsible for the future of the human species.