The existential force of our breathing comes and goes without any conscious effort on our part. Only when we are ill, when our breathing is obstructed, or when we are drowning or meditating, are we suddenly forced to give it more conscious attention. The gift that is our lives is fundamentally dependent upon the consistency of lungs forcing air in and out of our body. Yet we do nothing consciously to make this happen. Its what our body does unhindered by us. Until one day our breathing will shudder to a halt, despite our no doubt deepest desire and longing for it to continue.
In the midst of meditation we are practicing the skill to observe dispassionately, to be aware of breathing whilst resisting the temptation to interfere with it. Because attention can slip into controlling the cycle of our breathing. As if breathing were a technique to be mastered. Awareness also tends to take ownership of the things it sees, feels, touches, hears or thinks about. Turning an object into a subject. Unable to resist direct control of the senses and imagines being the master wielding them.
Times like the present day, are bedeviled with great economic uncertainty, political and climate instability. It is understandable that we should want it all to settle down, to be more predictable, stable and not on our minds all of the time. Imagine if our anxious, worrying, fretting minds became the thing that powered our economy. Well, we'd all be extremely rich. Our breathing and the state of our country are similar in that they are interdependent and interwoven into the events of a much wider world. The idea that we could fully take back control of our destiny is somewhat laughable. The world breathes and operates beyond any control or artificial border.
When circumstances make all this very plain to us, such as with the eruption of war in the Ukraine, there can be an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. Our inability to control or contain people or events, is laid bare for us to feel. To this we may respond with despair or become angry. If only there was a button to press that reset all circumstances to their default original state. That original default state is described in the quote at the top if this article as 'without desire and still'. And in a crisis we human beings are usually very far from being 'without desire'.
We are far from 'still' too. As we rush around taking action to sort out the problems of our own making. Because we cannot stop ourselves from wanting to interfere. To set about making the world a better place for all humanity to live in. Noble sentiments, quite frequently crushed by the reality of a world that is indifferent to them. Things should not be like this, we state defiantly. Looking for someone to blame for it, a person, an institution, a flaw in human society or our civilisation. Something that could stand corrected.
Indeed, a lot of what we see as wrong with the world is the consequence of human actions or failure to act. Our fidgety fiddling desires are somewhat responsible here. Sometimes the solutions we present to solve the problems we've created, are not that much better. And so they form a perpetual cycle of problems followed by solutions that create yet more problems. If we cannot permanently settle even our own problems, how could we settle the world? Imagine a crisis, then ask yourself.
Could I bear to leave myself out of the equation?
Could I bear to do nothing?
Could I bear to leave the world to settle itself?
PS. How compassionate activity or Bodhisattva Ideal could survive this, I'll have to further reflect on/
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