When we perceive our world we generally sense something, we identify it, we form thoughts and even feelings about it. We may even form conclusions about it too. Within moments we build whole stories around our perceptions. And we do this without volition, without thinking about it or deciding to do it. We just do it out of habit and conditioning.

    All our senses work together including our mind as we experience the world. For example we look up and see a moving shape in the sky, a pattern of light and dark and color. We identify it as a bird, an eagle for instance. We may think,  “beautiful”. We may think it’s large and all sorts of other thoughts appear too. We don’t know where they come from. All the sudden they are there. We may think and worry this eagle might eat our cat! We think, “where is my cat anyway”? We see an image in our mind of our cat being carried away in the eagle’s talons. It’s horrifying. Our body releases a little adrenaline into our blood. We’re actually reacting to a thought. We hope the eagle will stay around so we can enjoy the sight of it longer because it’s a thing of beauty. And we hope it will leave so our cat will be safe because this eagle is also a dangerous thing. Perhaps we think all of these thoughts, feeling all these feelings about this moving shape in the sky, this eagle. And on and on we go in our minds. We spin off into all kinds of directions sometimes.

    The point is that there is a lot that goes on in the few moments that follow our perceptions, the seeing of this shape in the sky, the contact of that light with our eyes, with our mind. This is the habitual way in which we perceive and react to things for most of us most of the time. An endless ride of hitchhiking from one perception to the next with lots of reactive thoughts and feelings blended in between - which then in turn affect our perceptions and reactions which follow. Quite the wild ride isn’t it? Is this process always helpful to us, to others? What do you think?

    What we’re doing here is looking at this wild ride to see if this is the best way to function in our world. Is it healthful, helpful? Is this the only way we can function? Or, is there another way to function that is better, and, in ways we may not predict, perhaps even more wild in the most glorious and unexpected ways?

    When we look around, read a newspaper, watch the news, what do we see? We see a world made ugly by our very participation. All those things we do making the world “a little bit more hateful” when multiplied billions of times every moment, really add up! We bring a lot to the table all the way from nurturing to harmful. Unfortunately much of what we bring is harmful, unhealthy, and down right hateful. Without human influence the world might be a beautiful, wondrous place - almost magical. Look around though and it doesn’t look like a very desirable place full of magic does it? Not a happy place. Not a friendly place. It’s full of suffering, pain, and ugliness of all kinds. It’s a sad state of affairs. A sad state that has been developing for a very very long time. Thousands of years of human relations and development made up from countless trillions of moments is what is represented as we look around today. Technologically, we humans have been very impressive. In many other ways though we appear to be “challenged”, handicapped, handcuffed even. We haven’t a clue and we don’t even know we’re clueless! Seems hopeless sometimes. But is it? The answer is “no”. A challenge, certainly. Hopeless, no.

    We are where we are and from this place we must continue. There is no choice about that. We can continue down the same old road, sure. It’s familiar, offering a certain degree of comfort therefor but isn’t it killing our hearts? Look around. It’s certainly killing a lot of people and animals around the world! We’re the abused spouse desperately needing to leave but afraid to save ourselves. We’re also the abuser. That’s the challenge. That too is our way out, our salvation. The problem seems just too big, devoid of options. We don’t realize the solution is far simpler than our fearful mind constructs. It’s not complicated. And it’s also very complex isn’t it? We just get out, right? But how do we do that? What does that mean?

    Now, it’s not easy either. It takes a brave heart, the impeccable convictions of the warrior, the hero. It takes at least a fairly clear seeing of the problem, and a little help from others is wonderful too to get us started and keep us going.

    The thing is, we CAN change the world. We DO change the world as we live our lives. Buy acting “rightly” I’ll call it, that is, with care, compassion, wisdom, good intentions, we are happier. Each one of these acts makes the world a bit happier too. It just works that way. There’s nothing to do about it. We see this process and we understand that this is why we bother. It’s up to us. It’s all at once selfish and selfless, win/win, all of that. Become happy and make the world happy. What could be better? Looked at another way, don’t change, don’t make an effort, stay stressed, angry, and harmful to ourselves and others, and we take the world with us further down a darkened, desperate path of agony, suffering, pain and despair. It’s a pretty easy choice really when you think about it. Doom and Gloom or Happiness and Joy. So, yea, it’s worth some bother, a little effort I think.

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