an excerpt from an article in smh(sydney herald); great food for thought on a lazy Wednesday afternoon.
Herein lies the problem. We know there is a deeper reality to our make-up as individuals but its complexity frightens us. We prefer the illusion of freedom rather than the complexity of self-awareness. As a community we know of the limitations of material wealth as a measure of true value but we seem incapable of breaking its grip on our imagination.
We prefer the simplicity of economic growth and personal consumption rather than the complexity of sustainability and community wellbeing. As the Buddhist scholar and teacher Stephen Batchelor has put it:
How much of our life
is spent in avoiding
what we really are?
Yet in a quiet corner
of ourselves, do we
not secretly recognise
the deceptive strategies of such avoidance?
How often do we find ourselves happily
indulging in some trivial pursuit, even
though a deeper awareness is whispering
to us of its futility?
the world knows it, whether or not they like it, whether or not they care to acknowledge it. there's got to be something more to this life, there's got to be something that offers true happiness.
Herein lies the problem. We know there is a deeper reality to our make-up as individuals but its complexity frightens us. We prefer the illusion of freedom rather than the complexity of self-awareness. As a community we know of the limitations of material wealth as a measure of true value but we seem incapable of breaking its grip on our imagination.
We prefer the simplicity of economic growth and personal consumption rather than the complexity of sustainability and community wellbeing. As the Buddhist scholar and teacher Stephen Batchelor has put it:
How much of our life
is spent in avoiding
what we really are?
Yet in a quiet corner
of ourselves, do we
not secretly recognise
the deceptive strategies of such avoidance?
How often do we find ourselves happily
indulging in some trivial pursuit, even
though a deeper awareness is whispering
to us of its futility?
the world knows it, whether or not they like it, whether or not they care to acknowledge it. there's got to be something more to this life, there's got to be something that offers true happiness.
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