From: farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Lorenzo Farris)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Our desires and our way of life
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:04:52 GMT
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NNTP-Posting-Host: gap.caltech.edu


In article <1iilffINNlvs@gap.caltech.edu>, wong@rkna50.riken.go.jp (Wong Weng Fai) writes:
:	A while back, a Christian friend once told me that "being natural"
:is what its about. "Being natural" is "being with God". I told her that if 
:I would "be natural", she wouldn't like a single moment of it(sounds that the 
:sound "hypocritic" (depends on your definition of the word), but aren't we 
:all "hypocrite" ? 
:
:	The central message of Buddhism seems to me to be that "yes, your
:deepest desire is very powerful and have a lot of say in your being BUT (and
:this is a very big BUT) you can change it gradually by practice. In practice,
:the rational mind slowly grinds at the unconscious part and by the Law of
:Karma, your deepest desires will also change albeit very slowly according to
:your molding." It is very important, of course, that there is genuine change 
:and not pure repression. 
:

I disagree. To go back to what Abhay was referring to a few posts back
what we think our deepest desire is is often learned from the world
around us, and what a great teacher that is.

I think being natural is one of those phrases that needs a little more
clarification when used in discussions like this. If one refers to the
way we automatically respond to events around us, then indeed one
would want to change that.

But in another way of thinking about this phrase, what is natural is
what is beneath this crust of civilization that we have picked up, the
desires repressed because society's teaching, which thus grow all out
of proportion and become toxic, the mechanized responses to everyday
situations, the blind acceptance of the way our society and our
parents have taught us we should be. 

In this way of thinking, our appearance in this world has been the
means by which we have developed an unnatural approach, and the goal
of some spiritual practices is to work past this crust to the natural
self. In this sense, then indeed, 'being natural is being with God'.

Through the experiences of my life, I have been fortunate in learning
how much of what I thought was 'me', was really the accretion of
'civilization'. In this light, when I find what my deepest desire
really is, whatever you want to call it, it is bigger than this world.

I think anyone who is sincerely involved in any spiritual practice,
when they ask themselves, why am I here?, will have to say it is
because of a similar longing in themselves. Otherwise, why go against
the grain of society, resisting the call to buy, sitting and praying
or meditating when they could be watching TV or cruising for a date,
experiencing things which the scientific materialists, the current
philosophical rulers of our society, say is just random synapse
firings and wishful thinking.

So, if by natural, you mean what I would call normal (being close to
average), then yes, I think in our various practices we work to let go
of that, but that is not what I think of when I speak of being
natural.

			cheers,
				Lorenzo
-- 
Happiness is just a                     ******************************
remembrance away.                       *  Lorenzo Farris            *
                                        *  farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu *
                                        ******************************