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December 23, 2004
Living in a mosquito net
I know it’s hard to think of mosquitoes at a time like this! At (minus) -8 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about -22.2 degrees Celsius, this is the coldest day of the year so far. With the wind-chill it drops to –27 degrees Fahrenheit! But I was reminded of something today, when my wife said, “In weather like this a person aught to just stay at home.” And a little later she said, “You can’t ride your bike in this cold!”
In a mosquito net
A man may for a little time
The cares of life forget.
- Riukio
From the book, Haiku, Seasons of Japanese Poetry
I know many people are against Religion. For many people this has become a nasty word. They get some kind of angry revulsion going on in their minds whenever they hear it mentioned. Because many people have tried Religion and have not found the relief they are seeking from their suffering. We think, shouldn’t Religion make life easier or better? We go to church or the temple, hear about God’s grace or meditate on Love, peace and compassion, and we might feel that for a little time. It’s a retreat from life but does little to help us live like that outside of the Religion’s building. In church we often sing the song, Amazing Grace but then we walk out the door and feel everything assailing us and don’t feel saved or transformed. The mosquitoes are biting constantly and sometimes ferociously. In the Religions we dislike we often have not found the answers or the relief in our daily lives that we look for.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that one of the most important parts of Buddhism is the training of the mind. When Buddhists meditate, they are training their minds. They are clearing their minds of negative emotions and learning to fill them with positive ones. In the Christian Religions, we are allowing Jesus Christ to transform our hearts so when we walk out of the doors of the church, we practice what we have learned and put it into action. To live in a better way, we have to take the peace and grace of God with us in our daily lives.
I used to read religious materials by priests, monks and religious teachers and think, “This is a bunch of crap.” It’s because I was not able to experience relief from my daily life-struggles from what they were teaching. In the past when I read a book by a Buddhist Monk talking about meditating and training the mind to achieve enlightenment, I used to think, “Yeah right, anyone can have peace of mind if they remove themselves from life and sit around meditating all day.” I wanted to be a monk in a temple because I thought that being in the mosquito net was better than being outside of it. Monks in any Religion seem to have the peace and the joy, but could they come out of their monasteries and do my two jobs and go to school and raise my family and still feel the same? Could we go to church and gain the peace and joy inside and just stay in the mosquito net forever?
It certainly makes sense that the simpler our lifestyles, the more at peace we are. In my experience the busier I get, the more complicated my life is. There is more turbulence and more things to take care of. Sometimes we need retreat and rest from our struggles, but we can’t live forever in it. So in our Spiritual practice, in order to carry our peace and joy out of the Churches and Temples and into our daily lives, it has to be a way of life.
I no longer have a dislike or fear for any Religion because I realized a long time ago that if our practice is not done on a personal level, continuously, then it’s not real. It’s not a solution. If it doesn’t change me and doesn’t dispel my miseries, then it is not real. Or a better way to put it, is it’s not ‘realized.’ The teachings then are just meaningless ink on paper. Also I realized that Religious Organizations cannot live my life for me, nor can they experience life for me, nor can they relieve me of my free will and the consequences of my choices. So it's not practical or necessary to separate myself from my family or my circumstances to find and keep happiness. We need something that is not separated from our daily life to achieve happiness and peace.
Living in a mosquito net does bring us respite for a little while. So does staying inside when it’s freezing cold outside. But having the tools and skills to go out and live life outside without suffering is even better. When we look at religions and their teachings in this light, we can take what is useful to apply in our lives and carry out the practices that work. If it’s not working, we can look deeper into why it works for others, and what it is that’s causing it to work.
A lot of our spiritual happiness is tied to our underlying motives and attitudes. This is a good place to start. Faith, hope, love, truth, peace, joy and compassion are all spiritual things that our religious teachings talk about, but they are also practical things in real life to practice. How we live our lives and how we deal with our problems are affected by these. A person does not have to be Religious to experience the effects of these. A positive attitude goes a long way toward dispelling our miseries.
Today I experienced a liberating attitude. I rode my bike to and from work. The temperature was -8F / -27F with wind-chill. When I left work someone asked me, “You’re riding your bike in this weather?” I said, “yeah, sure, it all depends on how well prepared we are.” And I was prepared. I was actually over dressed for the occasion. I did not suffer because I carried advice from friends, my peviously gained knowledge, wisdom, positive attitude and past experience outside the mosquito net.
Posted by carl1236 at December 23, 2004 10:52 PM | Attitude
Comments
Awesome. You are a hard-charger. To tell the truth, I opted to take the day off today (I just wasted time all day and it was great). I'll be out and about tomorrow though. With the proper attitude (and clothes), biking in subzero temps is easy. The hardest part is making yourself go outside. After that, you're committed, and it's just fun.
I liked the part in this essay about religion not absolving people of free choice and having to live with the consequences. One of my gripes with religion is that it seems to absolve people from free thought. On any issue of the day, it seems to me that many religious folks look to the church elders and other dubious figures for guidance. Of course, this is not necessarily exclusive to religion. Any ideological group from the NRA to the Sierra Club probably exhibits the same behavior.
Posted by: Jim at December 23, 2004 11:16 PM
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the comments. I tried typing a response twice last night, but my computer locked up both times so I gave up on it for the night.
There is a lot to say about religion and organizations, but one thing I'll add is that by this same logic, we are also are responsible for how we treat other people and what kind of person we are. Do we have a condemning, judgemental personality? Are we compassionate? Humble? Do we treat others with dignity and respect? Regardless of what religion we are, these all make a huge difference in life.
Keep up the biking! It's really a good thing. And thanks for the inspiration to go for it.
Posted by: John at December 24, 2004 01:14 PM