Looking To The Horizon

G Sakamoto

"This one, a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away. To the future. To the horizon. Never his mind on were he was! Hmph! What he was doing! Hmph! Adventure, heh! Excitement, heh! A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless." Master Yoda, Star Wars, Episode V - 1980

Like young Skywalker, we are often looking to the next thing. Whether its the next new technology or better circumstances. While looking at possibilities our attention is drawn away from where we are. Often we are certain it is something we cannot avoid. We need to plan and take the steps that will assure our needs are met. We dream of better times when circumstances will improve. We look for that something that will resolve our dissatisfaction.

When we're ill and uncomfortable, we hope to be better. If we're unhappy, we think about when we were happy or when we will be happy again. These are normal experiences. In response we take action that will improve the future. The action, or inaction, we take will affect everything. The limitations of our abilities and skills prevent us from knowing completely the effect of our actions. We may resolve a current condition only to delay the eventual expression of some other difficulty. Corn based ethanol as a gas additive was a good idea until we realized producing the ethanol for gas reduced the supply of corn for food and feed which drove food costs up including livestock costs. One solution resulted in another problem. Now in other parts of the world, forests are being clear cut to grow crops for ethanol.

The Buddhadharma is also a response to the difficulties we encounter. But if we look to the Buddhadharma to provide solutions that are simply variations of what we already do then we will be disappointed. We will find ourselves constantly encountering new difficulties. We would only add more fuel to the fire and not fundamentally resolve anything. Unless we pay attention to the cause of the difficulties we experience our actions will result in more difficulties.

Shakyamuni Buddha, like Yoda, had a disciple who also looked to the horizon for answers. Malunkyaputta was a disciple who thought that there were important questions that the Buddha had not answered. Shakyamuni replied:

"Now did I ever say to you that if you led a religious life you would understand these things? It is as if a man had been wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends, companions relatives were to get a surgeon to heal him, and he were to say, 'I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know who wounded me, of what caste he is, what his name is, whether he is tall, short or of medium height, what colour his skin is, where he comes from, what kind of bow I was wounded with, what it was made of, whether the arrow was feathered with a vulture's wing or a heron's or a hawk'...' Surely the man would die before he knew all this."

"Whether the view is held that the world is eternal or not, Malunkyaputta, there is still re-birth, old age, death, grief, suffering, sorrow and despair - and these can be destroyed in this life! I have not explained these other things because they are not useful, they are not conducive to tranquillity and Nirvana. What I have explained is suffering, the cause of suffering, the destruction of suffering and the path that leads to the destruction of suffering. This is useful, leading to non-attachment, the absence of passion, perfect knowledge." Shakyamuni Buddha, Majjhima-nikaya, The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html - 2,500 years ago Where is our attention? Are we responding to difficulties in a way that simply repeats a cycle of solutions that result in more difficulties? Are we asking the right questions? The Buddhadharma is the resolution of difficulties through enlightenment.