The weekend of god realm outreach work in Zürich, Tibetans at the end of their tether were being shot and beaten in Lhasa. I specially dedicated the empowerment to those who perished, with the feeling that they were actually present in the room. May I die for you, some time.
The Buddha chose to be born in the human realm because it offers the clearest opportunities for recognising non-duality. In the human realm one can experience pain and pleasure simultaneously; for example, by fighting for freedom.
Zwingli died on this battlefield, defending religious tolerance.
The most accomplished musician of the Reformation era, he trashed the grand organ in Zurich’s cathedral when he discovered that the music there was nothing more than “high-brow” entertainment devoid of gospel-significance. Superbly educated in Renaissance humanism (including the glories of fine art), he directed the demolition of priceless icons as soon as he saw that they were superstitiously venerated as magic. Sickened at the slaughter of Swiss youth in foreign wars, he helped mobilize military forces in defense of his native land and perished in battle himself. - Victor A. Shepherd, November 1995
Every wholeheartedness has its irony and poignancy, but irony can be both negative and positive. In a city which was a hotbed of the Reformation, today we are free to study Tibetan Buddhism. But adherence to every religion is falling. Zwingli’s city is today a refuge for exiled Tibetan Buddhists. But monasticism is newly venerated where Zwingli liberated the clergy from celibacy.
Everyone stands on the same earth, everyone arises and dissolves through the same space. Everywhere is connected with everywhere else through the metaphors of geography and history. In the human realm it seems that religious and democratic freedoms have to paid for in millions of deaths. Every people’s flag is deepest red. The toll includes our own deaths, whether in the past, the present or the future. Since we have to die anyway, may it be for others. Then we will know we gave our lives value.
After reading this post, I wondered if I could be able to appreciate the fight for freedom possibly unto death as poignant and ironic if I ever was to be, so to say, in the thick of it all myself?
Could I afford irony when being faced with the prospect of potentially having to die for freedom?
Or would I have to be utterly determined – and thus, dead-serious – about the whole thing just to be able to muster the courage do it?
In other words, would I have to suppress the poignancy and the irony to convince myself?
Then I thought about this a bit more and it actually turned into a question with a wider scope of application.
Could this be seen as a dividing line between fundamentalism and commitment that is not fundamentalism? The presence or absence of the sense of poignancy and irony?
If in the act of fighting a war, of defending a religion or a set of beliefs I could appreciate the poignancy of the endeavor, it would not be a fundamentalist stance.
And if that poignancy wasn’t there, if it was suppressed, it would be fundamentalist.
Does this make sense?
Let´s not be glib or ambitious about how we might or might not act if we found ourselves embroiled in any of the typically horrible hostile circumstances we know about in our times; tranquility in the face of death would be the accomplishment of at least a lifetime. Irony under fire does not necessarily imply humour, but a sense of ambivalence stemming from a breadth of vision, spaciousness, not utterly self-constricted due to circumstances. The demeanour of a hero acquires elegance, or you might say irony, from assuredness that we always have to die for freedom. We always have to die, and we may have a very short list of causes for which we would be prepared to die. As a tantrika there are violent circumstances when one might opt to die rather than foreswear one´s devotion. The irony in that is that, whilst this might be the end of one´s practice for that lifetime, a sacrifice of that order would empower the tradition by inspiring others thereafter. For the freedom of others we have to die to the primacy of our own selves, continually. For the freedom of realisation we have to die and take rebirth, continually, whilst all our circumstances appear and disappear in space. It is only conscious commitment to this fact – through practice – which makes it possible to identify not only a cause for which one might be willing to die, but, even more demanding, a cause for which one might be willing to take rebirth and live. In other words, without profound experience one cannot go beyond uneasiness about what it is which might this lifetime worthwhile. And that is what life is for; deciding what is worth doing, and doing it. One dare not rely, as a source of value, on the poignancy of one´s endeavour, campaign, project, cause; that would be a reference-point, and one´s legacy not go beyond propaganda. We should beware of the dark self-pity that a cause is doomed to failure and this somehow ennobles one´s self-destruction along with it. Not so much fundamentalist perhaps but more like the involution of an addict, holidaying from awareness.