SURVIVAL, EVOLUTION AND THE TERMITE IN THE UNCARVED WOOD

Now the question is how the genetic programs of the Life Force were able to develop such a program. The answer, of course, is evolution; but how precisely was that posible? Well, we know that the genes evolved in turn sensation, discrimintion and perception initially as the methods of interface. It was these sensing units together with an untainted cognition that allowed the generation over time of the Life Force’s survival components that we have mentioned.

It was the visceral sensations that first generated the conceptual observer and so the Visceral Id became the apparent focus of survival. Then, with the advent of Discrimination another element was added: it was the experience of  “other” as offspring or mate, for as long as that alliance was useful for human survival. Then evoved the elaborate perception that gave names to forms, yet maintained the unity of the elements. This was a natural addtion to the survival platform for the tribal oneness which became a new adaptive focus for the Life Force.

Finally and much later was evolved the possibilty of future prognosis of events which helped survival, so the environment supporting the tribe, temporary family unit and visceral identity was expanded.

Genes that evolved the present complex human brain and its basic programs of the left hemisphere and right hemisphere, its neurotransmitters and hormone systems are there for a genetic reason. It is to get the best genes into the next generation, modified if necessary after a number of genetic mutations that favor the new environment. There is no more “reason” for apparent human existence than this. The basic natural ways of behaviour and the experiences we feel every second of every day are directed with this end.

But there is a termite in the system, and the interface between those systems, cognition, and the sub-systems have been corrupted. The simple and beautiful process of approach and affect that is natural selection's tool has been transformed into Identity lust for example. True, it is tempered by the religious and social sytems for its own defense and survival, but it is Identity lust nonetheless.

Indeed something seems to have gone wrong. The “no, not me” of identity is generally applied, ignoring the genetic Life Force programs, the steady massacre of species, the elimination of forests and the pollution of the very air we all breathe. 

To see why, we must understand the subtle interaction between the components of the Life Force, for there are conditions in which one element must be sacrificed in order to obtain a greater good. When the Titanic went down, we all know that the order was “women and children to the lifeboats first.” Why? It seems pretty obvious that the women and children are the future. Poor men, there is no future for them! But though that edict to abandon ship in that form appeared to be a logical, humanitarian, and rational command on the basis of the current superiority of man over women, it really had its foundation in the natural Life Force. Human life must go on. Why? There is no reason. The Life Force is simply looking after itself at a level greater than the individual.

There is a clear and natural impulse present in most mothers to protect their children and in the male to protect the family. That is where the natural impulse in modern, apparently rational society appears to stop. To save one town, state, nation and honor from aggression has gone out of fashion. Heroes and courageous men are turned into foolish patriots by press and public and the heroes’ welcome of the past appears to have gone forever to be replaced by Oscars, Emmys and sports trophies. 

Where is the tribe? Even families are split up into individuals, and in their tribes of two man and woman have become protagonists in uncertain co-relations. There are no longer tribes, just individuals.

Occasionally, a tribe seems to jell out of nowhere when there is a serious threat which is evident to the mind. But when the obvious threat to all diminishes, the tribe rapidly dissolves into disunity and the feeding of individual identity surges once more. That is because people are not really responding to the menace to the tribe itself, but are responding with a rational solidarity that is mind-controlled.

Yet the Life Force is still there, crying out in the wilderness for a return to internal balance and harmony. The cry of the human creature is “survival”; yes, but only for me and my family first. Then we’ll see what is to our advantage and to hell with the environment. The most noble today would say “my family first, then me,” and the most ignoble, “me first and to hell with my family.” All are a far cry from the natural life impulse. The natural world and all creatures and plants living within it are far down on the human creature’s “survival totem.” Yet he knows that the survival of mankind rests upon the natural balance of nature and the natural expression of the various life forces.

In examining the natural Life Force, one cannot therefore separate and divide the four elements except to promote better understanding. They are all the expression of the one Life Force. The situation is even more complex than that, for the Life Force in an individual cannot then really be separated from the Life Force of all human creatures. Similarly, that of all human creatures cannot be divorced from the Life Force of all other living creatures. 

Who then controls that expression?

That is the essential question. The answer is that the expression of the Life Force is not controlled. It is an expression of the natural order. In Dao, it can be said that the Life Force is Dao and Dao is the natural expression. When we use the word Dharma, it is precisely the same. Dharma is the natural Life Force and Dharma is its natural expression.

When talking of individual human creatures, a man or woman is either a person of Dao or is not. A person of Dao or Dharma is completely in harmony and balance with that Dao or Dharma. If someone is in harmony and balance with the Life Force itself and is not divorced from it, then his expression of the Life Force is correct and the balance between the four factors will be maintained. In Chan Dharma psychology, we call that full expression of the Life Force –the essence moving for the benefit of the survival of that Life Force– the realized Bodhisattva state.

That probably will be interesting for those who are thinking about this for the first time, but for those who have been merrily dancing along on the black, brown, burgundy, saffron and yellow brick road to the Wizard of Oz, this will be a shocking idea. Why? Because they will have been chanting the pledge that declares that they will avoid becoming a Buddha until everyone has been liberated and that they vow to be a Bodhisattva. They will then proceed to help every individual human creature that they see in need and believe that they understand.

What did Buddha, the grand master of early Chan, tell everyone? This is going to raise some eyebrows…

“Subhuti, what do you think? Let no-one say that the Tathagata (Buddha himself) cherishes the idea that he has to liberate every sentient creature. Don’t permit any such thought, Subhuti. Why? Because in reality there are no sentient creatures that have to be liberated by the Tathagata. If (he thought that) there were sentient creatures which the Tathagata could liberate, he would be participating in the idea of an “I”, a personality, an entity, and a separate individual.”

The point is clearly made. When one makes a pledge to help all sentient creatures, one is really declaring that one will not cease until everyone returns to the “root” Life Force state. Helping individuals is never going to accomplish that. It may be noble socially and may indeed help alleviate individual suffering, but it has nothing to do with the bodhisattvahood of the regeneration of a natural Life Force for all human creatures.

If an individual is divorced from that harmony and balance, then a signal goes out and an internal non-verbal cry is perceived, “What the hell is wrong here?” That is a homeostatic signal which, in the natural human creature, leads to natural adjustments that bring him or her in line with the Life Force once more. It is a wonderful system in which the human mind does not have to make decisions at all. All then flows in accord with the Dharma, the greater good.

Unfortunately, all that is good for the Life Force and for those who depend upon it is not conceived by the current human mind, as it has evolved up to now, as being good for society, culture, education or individuals. True, some minds can see what is in store for the world and cry out for change. They have been crying for so long that they now despair and wait for the nearing of the catastrophe before someone declares, “All right, what do we do now?”

Let us examine the terrorist assault on the World Trade Centre. There were three different sets of victims who met death: the victims in the aircraft and the towers themselves, the victims of the rescue attempt and the victims who were terrorists. We will focus here upon those we may call heroes and those who are terrorists.

The Social Heroes

The heroes: fire fighters, police, occupants of the buildings, planes and unknown others.

On September 11, 2001, there was a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. If you picture yourself there for a moment, you can see that great calamity in which more than three thousand people were about to lose their lives as the towers collapsed. Now if you wind the clock back two or three hours before the attacks, you can ask yourself: what were the people doing back then, what was on their minds?

They were most likely thinking of their future, their jobs, their money, their cars, their jewelry, their houses, their perfumes, their gold wristwatch, their promotion, their manipulations at the workplace, their husbands or wives, their children… a thousand things attached to the senses of this world. And when the attack came, what happened to all these thoughts? They were not worth a thing. What good were their cars, their jobs, their future, at that moment? Instead their basic Life Force asserted itself.

When that happened, everyone thought of saving their life in any possible manner. Many tried to help others… touched by the greater Life Force beyond the “save yourself” paradigm. Some called their families with a message of love and farewell. At that moment, this world was not worth a thing, not for the Americans, or the Europeans, or the Asians. Life was precious and worth saving. But it was too late.

If a great benefactor could offer the people in those buildings their life back in exchange for the promise to leave all the things in this world and choose a healthier and more natural path with compassion, loving kindness, gladness, and equanimity, in keeping with all the points of the Life Force, there is no doubt that all of them would accept the offer, although they may well forget that truth later when the impediments of identity began their work again.

Let us return again to the towers on fire. Who were the ones to respond to this inferno? The fire fighters and the police, people like you, with their families, their jobs, their daily lives. They rushed into this inferno. Why? They did not go in to save the buildings, or to save the money, or to save the furniture or the documents. They knew by their natural and correct impulses and through a sense of human responsibility that they had to go in and save any person they could.

It did not matter if these persons were old or young.

It did not matter if these persons were rich or poor.

It did not matter if these persons were Arabs, Jews, or Asians.

It did not matter if these persons were white, yellow, or green.

They went in to do whatever they could, and saved any individual who was able to get out of the two buildings. None of these rescuers was going to earn fame and fortune for their work; with luck, if they survived, they could win a medal with a piece of cloth, something of little value. But hundreds rushed in to save other people, and hundreds died. They were heroic human beings because, at that moment, they forgot their greed, confusion, and hostility. Was that response greatly influenced by the Life Force? It definitely appears to have been.

We know the furniture, documents, records are worth little, we know the system is worth little, and that the only thing one can do is to go into the burning building and rescue any individual who is at hand with the courage to come out. If we were to use reason, we perhaps would stand back and wait. But the Life Force says “Go baby go”.

That Life Force is pretty well hidden and was hidden up until the moment when the identities in some were forgotten.

The question is, were the men and women in this example really showing a natural and compassionate human response or were they simply responding to conditioning and duty? Once we understand human Dharma Psychology fully, we can see that the basis of their response was a natural response of the Life Force, although it was not a compassionate response in the mundane sense of the word. That Life Force, in the absence of a selfish identity, promotes completely non-selfish behavior without the cognitive element which provides an experience of mundane compassion, although it is naturally guided by cognitive components.

In a normal day-to-day situation in this socially conditioned society, it is the selfish identity that is active and dominant, but in the presence of a consciously accepted duty factor and an emergency situation, the voice of the obligation of the social contract neutralizes the identity, silencing the selfish voice. It is then that the impulse to help others emerges. 

Because this society is a selfish society motivated by identity satiation, the religious elements have introduced a mentally induced response to counterbalance this selfishness. In almost every case when there is a mental response, one can see that it is hedonist at its base. In situations like those in the example chosen, that impulse is also augmented by the cultural tradition of the service professions.

However, in situations where the threat is direct and imminent to someone else, the system may enter the natural mode and an immediate self-sacrifice may be generated. The Life Force in normal situations never commands the destruction of one’s apparent self for another. However, the operating Life Force in a complete naturally functioning mode may enter a “risk self-destruction to save another” response without thinking when it is natural to do so. In those situations, it seldom definitively entails the sacrifice of one’s life, for the system has the additional benefit of the mind tool to assist in the process, giving maximum security and producing minimum risk. It is that training factor in some professions which increases the confidence in the system’s survival potential.

But there are other responses possible. We have heard of soldiers instinctively throwing themselves on grenades. That appears to be a clear case of “giving up my life to save another’s.” Though not expressed cognitively, the actual impulse may be better expressed with the command, “since I am going to die, I’ll save the other.” There is no actual thought of self destruction in that act. Only the mind is capable of generating such thoughts.

The Life Force genes simply impulse one to do all one can to save or assist another without thinking of oneself. That is the key.

There are no individuals marked as uniquely viable as separate entities in Mother Nature’s book. One simply does what one can to help anyone in one’s legitimate tribe without thinking of the personal consequences, up to certain well-defined biological limits.

Can you trust the Life Force not to make an error and throw life away for a folly filled attempt to help someone else? Yes, you actually can if you really leave it to the Life Force without interfering in any way. But the Life Force cannot know everything about the situation or all the perils, so sometimes apparent heroes die.

Sometimes prospective heroes appear to be turned into cowards which we, with kindness, may call being more intelligent. In this case, the “take a chance” of the Life Force is replaced with the “no, not me” of identity. 

The Terrorists

Were they also directed by the Life Force in its corrupted form? Indeed they were. The difference is that while the former were socially conditioned to “save” life for the benefit of the tribe, the latter were socially conditioned to “take” life for the benefit of the tribe.

Just as the task of police and firemen had been conditioned in such a way as to assume the risk without reward even in the face of the strong identity impulse not to take the risk, the terrorists were conditioned by the promise of an afterlife that they found attractive, together with the prize of martyrdom.

Perhaps you can see that there are three factors then involved:

1. The fourfold natural genetic impulse for survival

2. The identity force which opposes the fourfold nature and supports only self-survival.

3. The social force which moulds and uses identity for its own ends.

The suppression of the Life Force then depends upon the social, educational, cultural, religious and state values. The conditioning of the identity force also depends upon the social, educational, cultural, religious and state values. Occasionally, those conditioning values coincide with the actions which might have been generated by the Life Force in complete liberty, but that is no credit to the conditioning social force, which is simply, after all, a sort of collective identity.

It is clear that in modern society there is a certain level of concordance between the identity and the social conditioning force, but both act against the true nature of the human creature. Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that this natural Life Force is itself a conditioned response without a possibility of growth and development and that the identity is cognitive and therefore more “human.” The growth and development of the Life Force is mediated by the natural homeostatic regulatory system. Now all that this ungainly name means is that it is a system which allows the restoration of the natural balance and harmony of the system and generates growth and development, all in concordance with the four-fold parameter of survival.

Let us examine now where this natural drive may be placed within our model. In its natural state, we can place it within the right hemisphere in awareness. It is the global awareness of the task of survival and its human ramifications.

That constant awareness (we call it the Feminine Principle, FP)  is connected to memory, where it can be retrieved in volition as a reference for the compilation of all natural functions related to a particular stimulus, the cognitive expression of the Masculine Principle which is also in the left hemisphere, MP, which can be returned to memory and be modified according to the most recent information. We can present then its place in the model in the following way:

It is the Feminine Principle and the Masculine Principle that are the major impulses of the Life Force. There are others of course which support that survival but these are essential. It is only when these are melded together in unity that true survival for the human race is served. Any rupture of this union arificially by a stained cognition is detrimental to the genetic Life Force and can only lead to the self-destruction of the human race.

It is those principles that are the base of every natural male and female interaction from the moment of birth (and perhaps before) until death. The impulses for coquetry and conquest are completely natural but their expression has been corrupted. Now that is an interesting idea, is it not? The present female and male behaviour that is not in the interests of genetic survival are the corruption of the expression of the Life Force, which is the Masculine Principle.

Does that mean that the Feminine Principle (which lies in both men and women, being the understanding of life itself and of course birth and death) is basically uncorrupted by Identity? Yes, it really appears to be that way, for corrupted cognition has no direct contact with that process which is not expressive, nor is it used in reproductive processes. It remains there perhaps as a genetic uncontaminated reference point.

The Natural Genetic Programs of Survival

ST       Irritation (External Stimulus)

A         Attention

C         Consciousness

S          Sensation

D         Discrimination

P          Perception

V         Volition (Cognition), basically left-brain

Mem    Memory of the right-brain elements related to the Life Force

AW      Awareness 

In this way, the general survival paradigm is converted into a particular function relative to the irritation being evaluated in volition. It can then be stored for future reference and use. With the presence of identity, this function becomes redundant and the general function of the Life Force loses its valence in memory through disuse.

Instead, the selfish identity promotes its own benefit in terms of its craving and clinging.

NOTE: Extracted from Dharma Psychology by Shanjian Dashi.