Twitter/X is no different
I scrolled Twitter/X after the latest human-led tragedy that selectively entered my perception. The virtual space sometimes feels more real than the real world. It’s a strange window into our collective soul.
Stabbing commentary and scathing righteous punditry enters and exits in all directions: justification of violence against women and children, support for all manner of strategies and no-cost-to-self outcomes, blaming victims, righteous indignation, ignorant dismissal, trembling excitement for retribution, dogmatic fervor and end-times confirmation, voyeurism, demonic war fever, and so on.
The scary realization is that this collective output of darkness and reactivity is the fruit of seeds sown inside each of us. Emotions overtake us while our intellectual mind conspires to misdirect us. If peace and love and respect should be our ultimate goals, they begin and end in our own heart and mind.
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.” — Solzhenitsyn
If we lack the humility to understand our nature and we lack the will to fight against that nature, through daily acts of discipline and listening to our thoughts, we may already be the monster we see in others. Impurity and treachery begin behind our eyes — maturing from our thoughts into our words — then sadly manifest in the physical world.
We lie to others and ourselves. We tease those who represent some good. We resent our family members, our partners, our children. We neg and tease those we love. We lament the burden others place on us. We violate the physical body or sanctity of people and beings in our mind. We curse the imperfection of others. We coerce others to become the enemy we long for. We lust for recognition. We lust for flesh. We lust for status. We lust for the possessions of others. We lust for numbers. We lose faith in those close to us. We wish weakness and incompetence upon others. We lose faith in ourselves. All of these things are a violation of perfection.
Much of the fuel we drink is some form of resentment or loss of faith. We cannot find a trusting partner if we do not trust our self. We cannot build a strong family if we resent our partner. We cannot build strong children if we conspire to keep them weak. We cannot heal the organs of the earth by resenting and cursing humanity. We cannot commune with our neighbor if we are disgusted by them, while they elude our perception as our own mirror image.
So then, what is the truth inside our own mind and heart? That truth is for each of us to explore. We are all fighting our nature.
The next time a thought travels in front of our mind and that thought should pass our lips, we may be at the beginning of a pure trouble. Perhaps we should ask, “Am I the monster?”
If we see the monster showing through us, we need to seek help from the elders whose houses may be in order — not those whose house is the biggest, or filled with the latest possessions or weapons. We need to ask for help from those whose hearts might know some peace, calm, discipline, and purity. We cannot travel alone; to reach that higher destination is not possible. We should be wary of those who keep all faith in their own intellectual mind or righteous scientific formulae, for they may already be lost inside a labyrinth of guile and illusory control.
If we are lucky to find the monster in us at rest calmly inside its crate, we need to pray for the good will of self and others — because when the monster is woken and fed, all progress can be lost.
The next time we find ourselves wishing to judge, or fix, or heal, or build — we cannot speak on behalf of the monster in us, against the monster in someone else. The seeds that we water will always grow — first in heart and mind, then from lips, then somewhere out in the world. The war that we lose is with self. The war that we continue to fight is with self — it is never won.
With harmony in the home, the 10,000 things are possible. — Korean proverb
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