The building of "I"

Three days a week I ride past this "empty" statue plinth. It was set up a summer ago and as a Buddhist it really has a lot to say. If you do not know German, "ich" means "I" and most the time when I pass by, people are taking their pictures standing on the plinth and as I look up at them I notice how separated they look from everything else around. So, this week I decided to climb up on the plinth and I found out it is a feeling of being separate from everything, above everything, really a strong "ich"! And, of course, when no one is up on the statue it is empty of "ich"! The first two lines in German on the sign read: "Each person is unique/ That is of course also true for all creatures"---and I think most of us would agree with that and that is why the Net of Indra is such a beautiful analogy. However, the last line reads: "Keep it always here"---and then they have a symbol of a camera to take a picture. In other words: "Try to make it permanent!" Just what we don't want to do!

Who won?

As I sat with my coffe this morning the news was reporting about the cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Then suddenly they turned to the topic of who had won the conflict. Switching to the Isrealis they told how they had accomplished "exactly" what they wanted and they had won not only for themselves but all of the other innocent victims of terrorism. Then they switched to the leaders of Syria and Iran and they, too, said that they had taken the victory and Hezbollah had accomplished what it had set out to do. Their people could be proud, having brought down the "evil" West. On both sides you could see crowds of people shouting and singing in this happiness of "victory" and "success". The only people were the thousands who were severly wounded and the almost on thousand who had died.

I reflected how I, too, jude my successes by "winning" by "victory", forgetting that by having this attitude I may and most probably will cause suffering for others as well as my self. So much a part of being human. I aksed my studnets who they thought had won and of course some said "No one won". True, but I think it has to go deeper than that...it's not that no one won, it's that there is not a need for anyone to win or think they did. This just adds more delusion to an already difficult situation!

What more to say...it is difficult, it is sad, there is suffering caused by unwise actions.

***

And while riding to work today along the river:

Swans gone;

scattered purity,

the only evidence:

lost white feathers

flowing

down stream.