What’s going on

I think it is an upside down world where extreme poverty is often treated like a mental illness and yet extreme wealth involves a pathological disregard for the suffering of others and is thought of as something to admire.

What if lack of compassion  was considered a mental illness more serious than schizophrenia and observable de-compassion would send out alarms throughout the society and there would be an immediate response? Of course the response would be the interesting part. A social/science fiction story?

Would they be lobotomized, drugged? Would they be given “treatments” or  spend years in inadequately funded institutions until (for cost reasons) they are ejected on to the street?

Naw, that wouldn’t happen in a compassionate society.

As for the sort of society we have now:

So long as we can keep pumping imaginary gains in to the arteries of those EXTREMELY WEALTHY PEOPLE  and offer them treats like tax havens and powers like presidencies, we (some of us) can enjoy the trickle down imaginary benefits of living in a fluffy void of delusion, slurping down entertainments that shrink our brains and make us think we know stuff.

Wait? Which was the idea for a horror story?

 

 

I am ashamed. But not paralyzed.

I owe a lot to many black people. In the last century, the one I grew up in, some of the greatest writers, activists and leaders, political, artistic and religious, came up against the odds and made us better as a species. Made me a better person.

It hurts to learn how black people have suffered and continue to suffer in ways I can barely comprehend.

Sure I had my troubles, I had to learn to swim hard but it wasn’t always against the current day after day. And I was so ignorant that at times I thought myself better, stronger and braver than I really was. I really was not aware how my white skin was the current carrying me.

So it hurts and some of that hurt is shame.

And that’s okay. Being ashamed of privilege is point of attention. As humans we should always be thankful for these reminders to pay attention.

It’s how we learn to live in a world worth living in.

Awareness is always an opportunity. When you see this you can see that it is continually arising As Your Life.

And all fabrications will wear out.
There is no separation between self and other that is not a fabrication. All separation is a lie, a covering, an obscuring of the essential truth.

So what are we humans to do?

Don’t hide in a comfy nest of made up stories of us and them. Answer all suffering with compassion and continue to practice. Do what ever you can when you see an opportunity to end suffering.

Easy huh?