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Tara Carreon
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 Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:07 pm Post subject: Draft -- A New Religion Called Oestia: The Western Path |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Draft: New Religion Called Oestia: The Western Path
First Precept: Always Preserve Life
We begin with three postulates of this Western Path: that life is a self-evident good, that each person wishes to retain his own life, and that each person is therefore bound to respect the right to life of others.
In the Tao Teh Ching, Lao Tzu wrote, "A brave and passionate person will kill or be killed. A brave and calm person will always preserve life." Bravery serves the prime evolutionary imperative to preserve one's own life, and that of one's kin. Calmness is necessary to bring that imperative into harmony with the life-impulse of all living beings. The calm person realizes, even in the moment when their life is threatened, that the lives of other beings are equal in value to their own.
For countless generations, humanity has engaged in warfare. War kills and injures people, wounds families, tribes, and nations, and destroys our planet and all of its living residents. Although political leaders decry the purported necessity of war with their talk, they keep on making war. Scientists claim to be leading us to progress, but thousands of them work in weapons design and manufacturing. Through biowarfare, life itself has been conscripted. It is up to us, individually, to end the cycle of violence.
Examples from all of known history up to the present day simply reiterate the point that since time immemorial old men have armed young men and sent them to fight each other. There are two reasons for war -- one true and secret, the other false and widely disseminated. The true reason for war is to acquire property, territory, and power. Warmaking serves these purposes so well that today every country, from America to Israel to Zaire, is ruled by its conquerors, and the conquered live in hereditary subjugation and second-class citizenship. The false reason for war is self-defense. Hydrogen bombs are said to be defensive weapons, even though they are actually merely devices for planetary suicide, vehicles of the ultimate terrorist threat, not even true armaments at all, since armaments by definition destroy only the enemy. Recalling Lao Tzu's saying that a brave and passionate man will kill or be killed, it is clear that the creators of nuclear bombs are not even brave, for in an effort to invoke absolute terror, they eliminate the possibility of anyone surviving a nuclear war. The creators of these weapons were cowardly and greedy. Greedy for power and greedy for money, because the creation of nuclear weapons has been one huge waste of materials and intelligence far exceeding the cost of constructing the "Great" Pyramids, the "Great" Wall of China, and all the other architectural follies of past dynasties. Brief reflection will show that the "enemies" that bullied their people into this huge, terrifying boondoggle were the Soviet Union and the U.S. and NATO powers, who are all now in alignment against a new threat, the alleged "Islamic terrorist threat." The viability of the lie that weapons are for defense survives its repeated disproof.
Of all the issues we face as humans, preserving life and the habitability of the planet are the greatest. These issues transcend our individual fate, and therefore give meaning to it. The threat of universal annihilation invoked by the nuclear terrorists has lead to a nihilistic, depressed mood among humans in developed nations, who are well aware that all life hangs by an electronic spider's thread, that the winds of chance have repeatedly threatened to sever while men with red phones debated the wisdom of first strikes with their advisors. To decisively reject killing as a self-defeating strategy for individual and group survival is thus fundamental to our Western Path. If killing continues to be accepted as a way to solve human problems, we will very likely end the process of human evolution. If we do that, all philosophical endeavors will be moot.
Rejecting killing as a survival strategy is not difficult once we reject the notion that humans can be divided into groups of enemies and allies. Each generation of old, greedy men invokes this lie to motivate young, inexperienced men to engage in mortal combat. The munitions makers and their public relations outfits make killing easier by demonizing the enemy and developing weapons that kill efficiently, remotely, and without messy, hands-on involvement. Drone warfare is the latest innovation in this progressive process of turning men into warbots. To inoculate oneself and others against this mental virus of dividing people into classes of allies and enemies it is only necessary to remember that historically, these roles have been reshuffled endlessly by the powerful, such that Nazi scientists became the backbone of the NASA engineering efforts, and Japanese combines like Mitsubishi created millions of automobiles for the American market, and today all three of the Axis powers from the Second World War -- Germany, Italy and Japan, are key members of the world order fashioned by the Allies. It is also notable that the Jews, who were persecuted by the Germans, Russians, Poles, Romanians, Lithuanians, and other European nations for literally hundreds of years, were granted a piece of territory by the United Nations, an act that ignited what has now become a war on Muslim and Arab nations conducted by the same European powers and the United States, utilizing the preservation of Israel as a justifying point.
This historical argument is offered in lieu of a traditional moralistic formulation such as many religions provide -- "All men are God's children and He has enjoined us not to kill each other." History is invoked as our teacher for two reasons. First, the moralistic approach has failed to prevent war, and has been routinely subordinated to the will of those greedy for property, territory and power. Second, in this Western Path, we rely upon knowledge and experience, not revelation and proclamation, to guide our actions. The ugly truth of history, if not covered over with popular trivia or concealed beneath dogmatic pieties, guides our understanding best.
Thus, it is a precept of this Western Path that its adherents shall not willingly submit to conscription, nor join in armed bands for purposes of aggression, and in all armed conflicts shall seek to be agents of peace and reconciliation. This does not mean that on an individual level, one relinquishes the right to self-defense or the defense of others against aggression, for such would contravene the evolutionary imperative of self-preservation. It does mean that one does not interpolate from the right of self-preservation an unwarranted right to engage in warmaking in support of political aims.
Perhaps most importantly, considering the sorry history of religions, this Western Path shall never be used as a banner of aggression, or its doctrines as justifications for violence and war. If the goals of Western Path cannot be advanced without violence, they are not the goals of our Western Path. The practitioner of the Western Path seeks always the means of preserving life -- his or her own, and that of all others. In aid of that goal, we apply all our intelligence, humanity, skill and dedication, which are themselves the higher powers that will enable us to succeed in the work of preserving life.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Second Precept: Derive Your Own Understanding
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself." -- Thomas Paine.
It is a postulate of this Western Path that all practitioners are capable of understanding and developing the path, and that no one is uniquely qualified or divinely appointed for that purpose. These words are not the product of revelation. They have not been passed down from guru to disciple. They are not secrets to be shared only among the few. To paraphrase Descartes, who saw farther because he stood on the shoulders of giants, these words have been written thanks to the efforts of generations of thinkers. These words will be best used by being debated, discussed, tested and applied by those personally convinced of their worth.
If these words do, in fact, add to human understanding, they will become the foundation for further insights, and will be used to develop future structures of understanding. This is the test of genuine thinking -- that it leads to new discoveries, which lead to further discoveries. For example, so long as astronomers believed the sun, moon, planets and stars, orbited the earth, all of their observations and calculations led only to limited refinements of a bad idea. Their ability to predict astronomical movements improved, but only at the cost of making an ever-more-complex model of the solar system that bore no resemblance to the real thing. Once the sun was put in its proper place at the center of our solar system, many other valid discoveries followed.
Opposition to the heliocentric model of the solar system was ferocious and not limited to the ignorant. The most erudite men of the day -- the Pope and his cadre of hyper-literate Church scholars -- persecuted those who proposed the heliocentric theory, forcing Galileo to recant his "heresies." By subordinating science to dogma, the Pope confined humanity to darkness, and restricted human understanding to what could be seen by the feeble light of a mistaken notion that seemed to be incontrovertible to the eyes of common sense. Any fool could see that the earth remained still while the heavens rotated around! Alas, the fools were wrong.
Thus, there is nothing written here that can be cited as authority simply by virtue of having been written here. To regard this work as authority would be to mistake its intent, and to invoke it as authority would be to misapply it. Rather, dear reader, think you independently, and regard it as you would a mirror. You know the look of your own face. If you see anything in a mirror that does not accord with your own knowledge of your features, you conclude there is a flaw in the mirror. In the case of this work, I have tried to write only things that are true, but I will not make the absurd claim of infallibility. I will be satisfied if I can elicit agreement from persons of good will, and sufficiently organize my thoughts that you will see things you already know in a clearer light, and gain the confidence to move from clear understanding to positive action.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Third Precept: Affirm Your Genuine Identity
The third precept is grounded in three postulates of this Western Path: the practitioner has a genuine identity; the world has a genuine existence; and, both the practitioner and the world share a single foundation.
By "genuine identity," we mean something that is undeniable and yet ultimately indefinable. We know we exist, and when we "look at the looker," we experience a peculiar sensation that is the core of the meditation experience. To understand the meaning of this postulate is to inquire into and engage this genuine identity. Volumes have been written about this direct path of knowing one's genuine identity, which has been called "the Unformulated Principle of All the Sages," yet the experience of looking directly at the seat of one's own existence remains the original fount of understanding. Earnest practitioners of the Western Path will find straightforward attention to their genuine identity the swiftest way to engage the Third Precept.
Because there are no special people, specially endowed or divinely selected, one may infer directly that all other persons possess genuine identity and that, when they experience it directly, it feels the same to them as it does to oneself. When asked whether it was preferable to practice meditation by seeking to see God in others, rather than affirming the existence of God in oneself, the sage Ramana Maharshi answered, "If one sees that God is in all others, is it a surprise to discover that you are also God?"
Possession of genuine identity appears to be the unique characteristic of life that joins us in fellowship. Exploring the continuity among living beings is a positive, enriching, pro-evolutionary force. Experiencing one's genuine identity is not a means for escaping life, or seeking a space of comfortable isolation. It is, rather, the source of energy for experience and development. We turn our vision inward to know the knower, and then reopen ourselves to the world and our fellow beings, confident in our genuine identity, and able to affirm it in others.
There may appear to be a vast gulf between our genuine identity and our human personality, but everything we are has grown from our genuine identity. This growth happens in the place we call the mind, a rich space animated by sense perceptions and cognition, supported by a vital field of energy that is generated by our physical body. The mind is the true light of our world, illuminating our perceptions, without which we would know as little about the world as a rock, and be equally unable to formulate ideas about it. Because the mind reflects the light, sound, and other stimuli arising outside and within our body, we create a mirror-image of our world in our mind. We call this reflective capacity of the mind its "tautological nature," a term derived from the language of logic, that defines a tautology as a statement that is always true, like "A=A."
Similarly, the mind, operating without any conceptual obstruction, simply reflects what is delivered to the senses and recomposes an image of the world inside our awareness. Our senses are portals into this inner theatre, and our experience of the world is a marvelous composition, an intricate reflection, of our surroundings.
This intricate reflection is present in the mind of a human infant just as in the mind of a child or adult. But in the mind of an infant under the age of eighteen months, something is missing -- the awareness of separate objects. If a toy is removed from the infant's view, they do not seek to discover its whereabouts -- they accept that it has ceased to exist. Once they conceive of the world as a gathering of separate objects, they can start to learn the names of things. Then they can begin to assemble concepts, infer causal relationships, and eventually, think in what we call a "reasonable" manner. And this verbal, conceptual processing is powered by the tautological action of the mind, like the operation of the mind at the pre-verbal level. Pre-verbal awareness is simple, direct, and maintains a one-to-one correspondence between the objects of perception and the experience of perception. When objects are given names, however, the tautological process becomes far more complex. We see a silvery disk high in the sky and learn it is called the moon, then we add concepts to that name as we learn why it changes from a crescent to a circle and back again, and then we learn about the solar system and so forth and so on, until gradually, a whole system of astronomical concepts comes to envelop us, and we can speak of galaxies, metagalaxies, black holes, and the Big Bang. Our knowledge expands exponentially, and yet it is a type of knowledge of which Chuang Tzu said, "Great knowledge makes all into one. Small knowledge breaks things into parts. When there are parts, they must have names. There are enough names. One must know when to stop."
It is not difficult to take a rest from the activity of naming, the endless pairing of perceptions with concepts, and the interactions of concepts with each other. There are many practices for loosening the net of conceptual thinking, and a practitioner can find lots of help and advice in developing this ability. What is most helpful, however, is to remember that the pre-verbal, pre-conceptual awareness is present at all times, a few moments of mental activity before the arising of names and notions. By remaining at the level of pre-verbal awareness, and watching as names and notions arise and dissolve, one will lose the sense of separation from genuine identity and taste "great knowledge."
We must, of course, allow ourselves to use names and notions to describe our world to ourselves and each other. A world of speechless beings is not our goal, but the experience of wordless awareness is necessary to self-knowledge and seeing the world and other people in true perspective. With an understanding of the distinction between objects and the names we associate with them, and the distinction between our genuine identity and the self-description we call our self-image, we are prepared to use the tautological nature of the conceptual mind creatively. We can understand that what we call things, and how we describe ourselves and other people, determines how we experience life and choose to act. The tautological nature of conceptual mind dictates that things become more like what we think and say they are.
Because things come to resemble what we say they are, we must be attentive to the names we give things, and be certain those names are accurate. We are all prophets of our own destiny in a very substantial degree. Thus, in order to keep a firm ground for wholesome growth under our own feet, we must affirm, first, last and always, that we possess genuine identity. The source of this affirmation is as near as your own existence. No one can deny his or her own existence, and the very expression of the idea, "I do not exist," negates its truth. If you do not exist, who is making the statement?
The tautological functioning of our minds makes us vulnerable to believing lies, accepting superstitions, and granting superior status to those who wear badges of authority. A considerable volume of speech and imagery is directed at us daily, directed at destroying our belief in our genuine identity. Appeals to nihilistic sentiment abound, in high-flown, scientific, philosophical and artistic forms, and in crude, depressing expressions common in popular culture. Thus, we must actively repel self-denying, nihilistic beliefs, and like removing poison darts that would leak toxins into our bloodstream, discard these bad ideas before they take root tautologically in our own thinking. We should clear the mirror of the mind so it reflects the genuine existence of the world and the genuine identity of our fellow living beings.
Affirming your own genuine identity and that of other living beings is not an exercise in wishful thinking or an effort to uphold a dogmatic principle. Keep it simple -- add nothing to direct awareness of your own existence.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Fourth Precept: Show One Face to Yourself and All the World
When we stand before the mirror and look ourselves in the eye, it should be no different than when we present ourselves to others. Concealments burden the soul, and confuse our relations with others. It is not necessary to have one face for friends and another for enemies. To be gentle with one and fierce with another is the sign of an unstable character. To present the same face to oneself and others is proof of maturity. Have one face for all occasions and you will never be in doubt about which face to wear. That face should always be, in the first instance, kind and accepting, and to the extent possible, should remain that way, even in the course of a difficult encounter. When ferocity is required, don't cling to the feeling, but let wrath do its work like lightning, and quickly be gone.
Deception, unfortunately, is an art in which we are exceedingly well-schooled. From early childhood it is made clear to us that only some of our desires and impulses are acceptable, and the remainder we must conceal or enjoy in secret to avoid punishment. We are also presented with goals for our achievement that are unrealistically high and beyond our capacity, and told that certain privileges and necessities will be denied to us if we fail to achieve them. We also observe that those who cheat and lie are more often rewarded for their deceptions than punished, and thus, adopt a calculus of risk that enables us to ration our deceptions, keeping them in step with our desires, avoiding disaster while enjoying the occasional taste of the forbidden. Thus adultery, illicit intoxication, business as theft, and politics as betrayal of office have become more the norm than the exception.
Yet deception, that seems to facilitate the accomplishment of our will, ends by betraying it. Since we can enjoy forbidden pleasures only by keeping them secret, a substantial portion of our time, thought, and concern must be devoted to sham events, impostures, and disseminating lies. This activity eats up a lot of time, and except for the truly pathological deceiver, who enjoys the act of deception even more than its purpose, it is burdensome and produces anxiety that tends to poison the entire atmosphere of life. The careful deceiver trusts no one, and fears disclosure above all, thus becoming ever more isolated in an obsessive embrace with the object of desire.
Small wonder that many people express relief when their secrets come out and they are able to rejoin the company of other people. Better to be seen for what one is and reviled than to always have to conceal the truth of one's identity.
Courage is the antidote for the poison of deception, and it acts in many ways. First, there are people who have the courage to embrace unpopular virtues, like Thomas Paine, Mahatma Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, the Berrigan Brothers, and many others who braved prison and even death to stand for what they believed was right. Second, there are those who reveal an aspect of themselves that society rejects, like Gays and Lesbians who insist on the right to have their relationships respected and solemnized through marriage, and accept the social ostracism that follows from their disclosure. Third, there are people who reveal actual wrongs that they have committed and disable themselves from committing them in the future. Fourth, there are people who reveal wrongs that others have committed, or are about to commit, and thus protect society from future harm. And beyond this enumeration, there are many other ways that courage dispels the curse of secrecy and concealment, and makes life better for everyone.
Courage also helps us in another way -- which is to discard habits that have held us captive, causing us to engage in deception. Many things that we do in secret are things we would be better off not doing at all. When forced to choose between being socially rejected or continuing our secret habits, we will choose to abandon the habit. At this point, it requires courage to say no to the ingrained impulses that have established a stronghold in our behavior by custom, and in the case of intoxicants, by physical, chemical addiction.
Our reward for honesty is immense. We can show one face to all the world, and when we look in the mirror, we will like the person we see. |
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Fifth Precept: Be Neither a Beggar Nor a Tyrant
Each person is born with their own will, which quickly becomes the target of other wills. Parents, siblings, playmates, and an endless parade of people soon appear to confront the will of the developing child with challenges, demands, directives, and most unfortunately, threats. Will, which by nature is straightforward, soon becomes bent, twisted, and convoluted as it attempts to cope with all of this counter-pressure. Some develop habits of servility, and others adopt bullying tactics. Most of us adopt a mix of the two strategies, exerting our authority whenever we can, and knuckling under whenever we must. The net result is we actually have no spine whatsoever, and are potentially petty dictators and bootlickers, depending which way the winds of fortune blow.
As it happens, circumstances in a single life will vary greatly, such that a man who eats crow from a nasty boss comes home and browbeats his wife and children. A cop whose father treated him cruelly abuses citizens and suspects he encounters on the job. Thus, if you meet a person whose manner is extremely subservient in one situation, it should not surprise you to see that, when the tables are turned and they get the opportunity to lord it over others, they take full advantage. Thus, cravenness and cruelty often coincide in one character.
You can cure the defects of both arrogance and slavishness by cultivating genuine self-respect and moral uprightness. Attend more to how you feel about yourself than about how others view you. Become aware of how you express your will, and abandon both the habit of making demands and the trait of obsequiousness. Ask yourself, before you seek to enlist others to do your will, if you can do it yourself. If your purposes require the aid of others, assume that they have their own uses for their time and energy, and plan on requesting their assistance in exchange for your own. Always avoid threatening harsh consequences, and never make a threat that you lack the means or will to accomplish. Refrain from forcing others into submission whenever possible, because the victory will be temporary and the resentment long-lasting. When an issue must be decided by force, always accept surrender graciously, never humiliate the defeated, and return relations to normalcy as quickly as possible. Do not relish the status of a dominator, for it is the most precarious of all. Do not accept a posture of submission, for that will be the death of your soul.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Sixth Precept: Act with Clear Intent
We act with our bodies and words in a world of form, peopled with persons like ourselves. What is done cannot be undone, and although errors can be corrected, it is usually best to accomplish one's goal the first time we make the attempt. Words, once spoken, are impossible to retract, and while an apology may be accepted, more than once an unwise expression or foolish remark has led to the loss of fortune, life, and honor.
We are blessed with minds that allow us to reflect upon what we intend, and to consider the likely consequences of our acts before we do them. Impulses arise without warning, and often our bodies are propelled into action without even the opportunity to exercise this power of reflection. Thus, to act with clear intent requires the ability to observe the movements of the mind before taking action. There are many ways to develop this ability, that helps us to draw a distinction between ourselves and our notions, impulses, fancies and predilections. Whatever way we choose to apply, we should do so steadfastly, and remember that there is absolutely no circumstance that will be handled better impulsively. Even when we are under great time pressure, a deliberate approach is necessary to make the best use of the small time available for action. Often, when in danger, doing nothing is the best of all possible choices, but it requires great clarity to see this option.
When considering an appropriate course of action, consider as many of the factors as are applicable -- the place, the time, the people and other living beings, the intended effects, and the incidental effects. The place refers to the physical setting, which may be vast, like the entire planet, a country, or a city, or a smaller place, like a home, school, or office. The time includes the time during which you will be able to take action, the time in which others will respond, and the time over which the consequences will be felt. The people and other living beings includes all of those acting and affected by the actions you intend to take. The intended effects are the purposes you wish to accomplish, like building a house in the woods, the incidental effects of which would be cutting down trees and building a road.
By taking the time to consider all of these factors, you will be able to make decisions about who to involve in your project, how to take their interests into account, how to avoid harm to people and living creatures, how to elicit cooperation of others, and many other factors essential to achieving your goals. You can make your actions more efficient and productive by thinking about the order in which things should be done, which acts must precede which others, which actions are appropriate for which season, etc.
Because we live in a world of finite resources, and because our own lifetime is relatively short, using our time on earth to accomplish beneficial actions should be one of our main concerns. Satisfaction in life is born of meaningful action, and we will best achieve our goals if we act with clear intent.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Seventh Precept: Improve Our World
Each of us enters this world in a helpless condition, and during infancy and childhood we fare only as well as our environment permits. During old age and sickness we are similarly compelled to seek the aid of others. Disabled people require assistance every day of their life. And even in our strongest years, we depend on other people to provide virtually ever one of life's necessaries -- food, water, shelter, clothing, and so forth. All of these necessaries are generated solely from the productive capacity of the earth, the sun, the wind and rain, in a phrase -- the planetary environment.
We can, if we choose, do nothing but take from this planetary environment. The rewards from this approach are dubious. While one individual can amass impressive wealth, he or she can only wear a few clothes, a few jewels, and can only occupy one house, airplane or automobile at a time. They can hear only one symphony or opera at a time. They can eat only one mouthful of food at a time, and howsoever many drugs they take, they have only one brain to drench in intoxicants. And as they intensify their efforts to encompass more pleasures, the frustration builds, because the power of desire far exceeds our capacity for fulfillment, and focusing on the single sensory network contained within one human body actually narrows and reduces the scope of perception and experience.
The avenue of fulfillment goes in the other direction -- along the vector of expanding benefit without preconceived limits. A creative, pro-life person is like a tree, that grows larger and larger, sheltering ever more creatures in its branches, casting shade and preserving water in the earth, purifying the air, and dropping fruit that is eaten by creatures that transport the seeds far and wide, growing more trees in other places.
We may wonder what such generosity will bring us in return, on a personal level. No one can answer that with predictive precision, but when good deeds are done, someone benefits, and when bad deeds are done, someone suffers. Nor can we predict who that someone will be. People build fire stations so their houses will be safe, and hospitals so they can have medical care. We share a common fate and labor in common to improve it. Not one of us can say why or how they came to be born of their parents, in their homeland, in the year and season when it all came to pass. And since none of us can say that their awareness, having once emerged in this world, might not emerge again, somewhere else, then even ordinary self-regard suggests that we should strive to improve this world during our present stay upon the planet.
True generosity is environmental, and a generous actor does not really care whether the benefit comes back to them or not. They are focused on making a better situation for whoever happens along. When we help sick people to recover from a contagious disease, we reduce the likelihood that we will get sick. When we educate a child, we increase the likelihood that some good ideas will be developed that will make life better for everyone. And in the meantime, we are surrounded by positive developments, people doing better, the planet getting cleaner, the future getting brighter. And if, as it happens, we turn up to inhabit that future, we will benefit very directly from our own past actions.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Eighth Precept: Feel Safe
The eighth precept is to feel safe. You may ask how we can feel safe in a world full of dangers to our person and loved ones. Feeling safe might seem to depend on faith in some mystical explanation of our existence, because it flies in the face of many bodily instincts, and is challenged by our fear of death. Accordingly, most religions urge us to affirm faith in our eternal, indestructible nature. However, except for the rare person who experiences a subjective perception of their own deathless nature, the belief in one’s eternal, indestructible nature remains a mere conceptual notion that we dogmatically resolve to affirm. Experience shows that affirming the eternity or indestructibility of the soul alternates with doubt, and leaves our ultimate position uncertain. The sense of safety thus eludes the dogmatic believer.
By contrast, the eighth precept invokes the feeling of confidence that allows us to walk across an abyss without fear, on a well-constructed bridge. We are simply urged to feel safe, to allow ourselves to rest. Feelings are distinct from ideas, and can be invoked even in the absence of justifying notions.
Some physiological knowledge may help us here. The feeling of safety actually has a physical root in our sense of balance, movement, stillness, and postural self-awareness. We have two subtle sensing organs in our inner ear, located behind the heavy mastoid bones you can feel aft of your ears on either side of your skull. These fluid-filled chambers are lined with touch-sensitive neurons that feel the position of the fluid inside the chamber and also perceive the settling activity of tiny crystals suspended in the slightly viscous fluid. As these crystals settle on the floor of these chambers, the neurons receive the message of stillness. Scientific research shows that this feeling of stillness, mediated through what is called the vestibular system, is essential to our sense of security. Those tiny, falling crystals make us feel safe. Stillness stimulates the feeling of security.
Thanks to our vestibular system, which has a unique characteristic among the neural receptors of the brain – it does not stop transmitting a signal when stimulation ceases, but rather transmits an “at rest” signal after all stimulative motion has ceased – we can feel safe. By actively embracing our capacity to feel safe, something that might be called a psycho-physical gift of nature, we can draw strength from our inner resources to pursue the peaceful western path. Feeling safe obliterates a thousand false fears and trivial anxieties in the first instance, and helps us relate creatively with justified fears.
Being still leads to feeling safe, calm and clear. Still water reflects like a mirror, and in the calm mind the tautological functioning of awareness is restored to its original purity. The mind, capable of endless movement, fluid and reflective, reveals its clarity and mirrorlike qualities to us when we allow stillness to suffuse our body and mind. In this clarity, understanding arises naturally, and all of the articulated precepts are known intuitively, directly.
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Tara Carreon
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| Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Rewrite of Seventh Principle:
| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | Show One Face to All the World
Your face communicates your thoughts, feelings and intentions. The way we’re using it here, you “face” includes your posture and gestures, your words and your tone of voice. It encompasses how you drive, how you act in a grocery line, and how you deal with everyone you meet. To reflect on the range of responses that might show in our face when dealing with others, consider these eight different categories of people: (1) people we like, (2) people we dislike, (3) people with whom we feel safe, (4) people we fear, (5) people to whom we feel superior, (6) people to whom we feel inferior, (7) people over whom we have power, and ( people who have power over us.
As long as we have such a wide variety of responses to people, it’s very difficult to show them all the same face. So when we say that the Oestian will “show one face to all the world,” it’s clearly going to be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. There are two ways to practice showing one face to all the world – through active imagination and in direct interactions. To practice the first way, imagine people to whom you have different reactions. See them appear before you, and experience the familiar reactions boiling up inside you. As those feelings become clear in your mind, think to yourself: “You and I are equal beings. I respect you and I deserve your respect. I will be honest with you to the fullest extent you will allow.” To practice in direct interactions, you simply eliminate the imaginative activity. When the person appears in front of you, take note of the feelings that arise, and remind yourself, in the same way as you did during your imaginative practice, that you are equal to the person before you, and will be as honest with them as they will allow.
What do we mean by being as honest as the other person will allow? Sometimes people will react with extreme behavior, even violence, if we speak the truth to them. In those cases, we may not be able to voice our thoughts to the fullest extent without risking injury to ourselves or others. Then again, there may be times when we must risk injury to ourselves by speaking the truth, and at times like that, showing one face means taking that risk. Usually, however, showing one face to all the world presents no risk, and assures us of receiving the respect of others.
Showing one face to all the world strengthens our sense of self-worth. If we treat someone who is our superior with fawning obsequiousness, then lord it over another person, it destroys our sense of integrity. It causes psychic fractures that undermine our sense of wholeness, because when we look up to one person and look down on another, our feelings about ourselves go up and down like a teeter-totter. We lose our sense of independent self-worth, and are constantly reduced to seeking approval. When we don’t get it, we get angry, depressed, frustrated, and all for nothing, because the approval of others doesn’t change our own nature. Being dependent on the approval of others is like begging in the street when you have a wallet full of cash.
People often are unable to show one face to all the world because they believe they have to tell someone a lie in order to obtain their cooperation. But inducing cooperation by lying is simply fraud. Cooperation induced by fraud evaporates as soon as the truth is revealed, and is replaced by outrage. Relationships based on lies are therefore inherently unstable, and have to be fortified with additional lies to prevent collapse. Relationships that start with lies often end up as nothing more than that – edifices of deception, like decrepit old buildings propped up by massive buttresses of rotten wood, in need of a cleansing blaze. It is far better not to even start building such pathetic structures.
By showing one face to all the world, we build relationships that are truly voluntary, based on equal knowledge of the truth. Relationships built on equal knowledge of the truth are strong, and worthy of trust. Inwardly, people who show one face to all the world feel open and transparent. They are also brave, and can speak the truth even to people who don’t want to hear it. Such candor repels all types of undesirable companions, attracts those who love truth, and wins the respect of worthy people. Thus, the inward and outward benefits of showing one face to all the world make this practice, that seems so difficult at the outset, extremely pleasant, once mastered. |
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
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Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Oestia, Office of the Preceptor wrote: | FINAL DRAFT
Oestia
Intention: To provide people with a path of spiritual practice that
1. Affirms that each individual is his or her own best teacher,
2. Affirms the duty to respect and preserve the lives of other humans,
3. Affirms the right of each person to refuse to be a soldier or other instrument of war,
4. Affirms the right of each person to commune with their own nature with aid of plant-helpers,
5. Provides a thoughtful spiritual basis for living in an ethical and fulfilling way,
6. Establishes a fellowship of like-minded persons to encourage each other in practicing the path of Oestia.
First Principle: You Are Your Own Teacher
Each person has primary control over their own awareness. Even if we decide to adopt beliefs based on what others have told us, we have to make that decision ourselves. Reject "revealed doctrines," however grand the inducements to belief. The best way to be at ease with your own understanding is to accept responsibility for formulating your own beliefs about reality.
To do this, put away feelings of insufficiency. Put away the idea that there are authorities whose views are superior to your own.
Resolve to understand directly all of the things that are important enough for you to have a belief or opinion about.
Accept uncertainty and admit ignorance about matters you do not directly comprehend.
Starting from a viewpoint of accepting your ignorance and uncertainty, inquire into the subjects that are most important to you, and work toward understanding.
You may, of course, study the knowledge, opinions, and speculations of others, but always keep it as your personal responsibility to make up your own mind.
Keep your conclusions tentative.
Discuss your ideas with others, and give ear to their questions.
Second Principle: Discover the Tautological Nature of Your Mind
By "the tautological nature of the mind," we mean that the mind works by a process similar to reflection. A mirror reflects the outer world and reproduces an image of what is put before it, and the mind reproduces an image of what appears before our eyes. Because human minds reproduce sense impressions in very similar ways, we develop similar impressions of what our world is like. Of course, depending on our point of view, we see different things. If I hold up a piece of paper that is blank on one side and has the word “Oestia” written on the other side, what you see depends on what side I show you. But if we look at the same side of the paper, we see something very similar.
Our mind does much more than reflect, however. In conjunction with all of the other senses, our mind assembles an ongoing experience of life that incorporates our position in relation to the earth and other beings. Perhaps most importantly for us as social beings, through language and culture, we create a shared sense of social reality. So, returning to the example introduced above, when I show you the paper on which “Oestia” is written, if you know how to read the English, Spanish, or French alphabet, you can pronounce the word. That is the first stage of using language – being able to reproduce sounds. The next stage is associating sounds with meanings. Once you have heard or read about “Oestia,” you can associate meaning with it, and share that meaning when speaking with other people.
The tautological nature of the mind thus allows us to see our world, share meanings, and coordinate our views of the world with the views of other individuals. Although our mental experience of life is unique, we all use the same faculties to experience life – our senses, thoughts, and feelings. So when someone clasps our hand, says “look,” and points at the moon, we can see a white disk in the sky and reply, “oh yes, the moon is beautiful.”
The tautological nature of the mind is so powerful that we generally do not notice it working. We see the moon, and do not pause to consider that what we are “seeing” is actually an image of the moon, formed in our mind by a complex chain reaction of events – the light entering our eye, the lens of our eye focusing the light on our retina, the retinal neurons firing, the visual cortex assembling the stimulus into an image of a silvery disk, and our language center attaching the word “moon” to the experience.
The mind’s tautological capacity to associate meanings with spoken sounds allows us to master language, through which we attach meanings to our perceptions. For example, depending on our culture, a full moon may mean different things. People who adhere to a lunar calendar often hold ceremonial meetings on full moon nights, and for such people, seeing a full moon might well mean that there will be a prayer meeting tonight, or some other ceremonial event. In such a society, pointing at the moon might mean something more than merely “look at the moon.” It might mean, “we must hurry to the lodge or we will be late for the ceremony!”
The tautological nature of the mind is therefore the process by which we experience the effects of our perception. Perceiving ugly things, such as hunger, sickness, sorrow and war, we experience trauma; perceiving beautiful things, such as abundance, health, well-being and peace, we experience happiness. The tautological nature of the mind dictates that things become more like what they already are, and more like what we believe them to be.
Like the force of gravity that pulls everything back to earth, everything we experience will be conditioned by our attitude toward life. This effect is not absolute in any given situation – for example, a sleepwalker who does not see a red light will still be run down by a truck passing through the intersection on the green. Certain facts are not mutable. However, people are, and because we are social beings, how we perceive others, and treat them, determines much of how we experience life.
Accordingly, if we see other people as enemies, we will find this belief confirmed at every turn – others will view us with suspicion and fear, and a cycle of negative feedback will be established virtually instantaneously. We will see an ugly world full of danger, and it will be real. Conversely, when we remember that all human minds operate tautologically, we realize that we can optimize our interactions with other people by viewing them positively and treating them with kindness and respect. When we take control of our perceptions and skillfully use the tautological nature of our mind, the world, especially the social world, becomes a flexible field with great positive potential.
Third Principle: Recognize Other People Are Just Like You
Having looked at the tautological nature of your own mind, take a closer look at other people. Ask yourself, "How do their minds work?" Watch them, and you will conclude that other people are operating using the same type of mind as you are -- they are experiencing a world in which you appear as a reflection in their mind. This will provide the foundation of a great many more observations and deductions, and true to the First Principle, we leave them to you to make. All except one, and that is the principle of equality. Since all people are just like you, then we are all equal.
When we say "we are all equal," we mean morally equal, ethically equal. We mean that we should apply the same rules of conduct, and grant the same rights, to every human being. We mean that the person who goes by the pronoun "I" does not have more rights than the person who goes by the pronoun "he" or "she." Nor does a group of people known as "us" have more rights than a group known as "them."
As a practical matter, this means that in Oestia, we all treat each other as equals, with respect. We do not set up higher seats for people who have been in the fellowship for more years, or who have more responsibilities in the fellowship. We all sit on the same level. We do not use honorifics or present laudatory speeches to extol the virtues of some members of the fellowship as distinct from others. No one gets special food or drink or sleeping place, except as they need it because of youth, or age or sickness.
In summary, privileges based on rank are forbidden. There is no rank.
Fourth Principle: Protect Life, And Do Not Participate in Warfare
Having looked at our own mind and seen that it is just like the minds of all other people; having decided that all people are equal and are entitled to the same rights; knowing that no one wants to be killed, or injured, or to have their homes and families destroyed; therefore, we must resolve to protect life and abstain from participating in warfare.
By including this principle among the principles of our fellowship, we specifically commit the resources of the fellowship to protecting the rights of members of Oestia to refuse conscription in a military force, and to refuse to participate in activities that are intended to cause injury to other human beings under the rubric of national security.
Fifth Principle: Embrace Human Responsibility For the Welfare of Planet Earth
The earth is our home, and the home of uncounted species of living beings. As one of the innumerable species of living beings that have arisen on the earth, human beings have no special rights to exploit the resources of the earth. As the most powerful and wide-ranging species, humans do have special responsibilities for the welfare of the earth.
Returning again to the Second Principle, the tautological nature of the mind, we see that when it comes to our world, and how we affect it, there is a feedback loop between humanity and the planet. Because the mind acts tautologically, how we see the world affects how we act in the world, which in turn shapes the world, and again affects how we see it. As a result, vast numbers of human beings have never seen a pure mountain stream, a beach without garbage or a sky without smog. Past generations saw the earth as a source of exploitable raw materials and conceived of society as a storehouse of artifacts, so now we have a devastated natural world and societies overflowing with junk and garbage. People have seen others as laborers, consumers, and competitors, so we have armies of wage slaves, and unemployed people manipulated by corporations and bureaucracies. The tautological nature of our minds has created a prison planet from what could have been an oasis of magnificent beauty, a unique treasure in the vastness of our universe. As a member of the fellowship, you commit to change your own mind, and to use your mind to change the minds of others, and thereby to alter the course of planetary history. By relying on ourselves, and taking responsibility for who we are and what we do, we will make our earth a beautiful, healthy home for humanity and our fellow living beings.
Sixth Principle: Use the Wisdom Plants Wisely
The fellowship recognizes that among the many plants filling the earth, there are some with particular affinity for enhancing the human capacity for self-knowledge. The operation of such plants on the human mind is a part of human culture and when used wisely, can aid us in practicing the First Principle, helping us to obtain teachings from the storehouse of our own minds. Whether and how often to use Wisdom Plants is an individual choice.
The fellowship rules for using the Wisdom Plants are known as the Three Pillars. The Three Pillars are supplemented by the writings of the Medicine Circle Handbook and oral instructions shared between practicioners. Practicioners of Oestia consume the Wisdom Plants as Medicine, in the Medicine Circle. The Medicine Circle can be convened only by a Circle Guide who has been initiated in the proper use of the Wisdom Plants.
The First Pillar involves the proper preparation of the Medicine from the Wisdom Plants. The Medicine must be prepared by a person who has received instruction from a member of the fellowship with acknowledged experience according to the oral traditions of the fellowship. The Medicine must be prepared in a ceremonial atmosphere of respect for the Wisdom Plants. Suitable music of a peaceful and relaxed character may be played, and those preparing the Medicine may sing, speak to the Wisdom Plants, or speak with each other, always focusing on the activity at hand. Those preparing the Medicine should maintain the awareness that the Wisdom Plants will reflect, due to the tautological nature of our minds, all of the intentions of those preparing the Medicine, and that this in turn, will affect the experiences that those who drink the Medicine will have.
The Second Pillar involves preparation of oneself, as the drinker of the Medicine. One should remember that the primary purposes of drinking the Medicine are to obtain understanding of our selves, other beings, and our natural world, and to gain strength and healing to live our lives meaningfully and so fulfill our highest calling as human beings. One should remember that, out of all our time on earth, we can spend only a small portion of our time using the Medicine, and so devote ourselves fully to the experience. One should look at all of the other members of the fellowship who are in the Medicine circle as equal beings between and among whom there exists mutual respect and goodwill. To help bring these thoughts to mind, those attending the Medicine Circle should recite, at minimum, an opening invocation selected from the Medicine Circle Guidebook.
The Third Pillar involves preparation of the Place where the Medicine circle will take place. The place must first be cleaned and made fresh on the physical level. Each participant must arrive before the first cup of Medicine is drawn. Before the Medicine Circle begins, all telephones and communication devices should be turned off and put away. The Medicine should be placed at a central place, next to where the Circle guide is to sit. Each person should have a comfortable place to sit and lie full length. The session shall begin with an invocation by the guide and other participants. Once the session is begun, all participants must remain until the session has concluded. |
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