PUTTING BREAD ON THE TABLE

Gloria

So they are more intelligent than you and certainly more appealing.

Forgetting that, taking them as a model, how do you shape up?

Does the work that you do just "well up" naturally within you? If it does that 

then you must also remember as a human creature your Life force demands 

you do no harm to the mind or body of any living creature and that you must

protect the environment that supports us all. That puts another restriction

on the type of work which is valid.

Would you do your work even though there was no remuneration?

Ay ay ay.

If not, then there is no way that that work will make you happy, for you also have other demands in your stained mind that must be filled. You can call them Social responsibilities ... obligations or anything else you will, but if there is any element in your work that does not resonate positively within you then you are bound to suffer.

If there is any element, no matter how remote, that alienates the natural Life Force then stress will eventually build up until the system decides to call it a day... No more work... tubes and gadgets in a hospital bed with doctors attending, who know medicines, and medical association rules but doctors that care nothing about the natural human creature and what ails him.

So what is the Blind Dharma solution?

          First, you can clearly declare that Buddha said that life was suffering.

                       Then you can ignore everything else that he said.

           Next you can quote the declaration of Independence which

     declares everyone has an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. 

So you suffer and have the right to pursue happiness. So what's the problem.

Something is wrong with the balance there... That happiness never seems to 

come and the suffering continues.

The first Blind Dharma new advice is to tell yourself that you are happy, well at

least relatively happy with respect to those that are less happy.

It matters not that that is a circular argument.

What matters is that you believe it is true. 

Since Dharma declares that suffering and happiness is all in the mind, then the

mind can invent what it will... When you suffer, tell yourself that the suffering 

will make you learn about life better.

The important thing however is to remember that Blind Dharma says that you

do not exist so NEVER - NEVER blame yourself... You must look for the thousands

of reasons that support your suffering that you can never be responsible for...

Now that is easy. You can even go back a long way for the Dharma agrees that there is "dependent origination" and no specific cause, and declare, 

          "if it wasn't for someone else I would not be in this position."

Another Blind Dharma solution however, is to load your life with so much happiness that you never notice the suffering.

If all seems to fail then there is THERAPY... You name any idea. It is out there for you to choose... there is Grave Therapy... where you get to sleep in a grave to attain some type of catharsis... There's even "sex therapy "... We know where that leads. Whatever it is that you try you are going to have to work more in the horrible job you have that brings no satisfaction to pay for it... and it is not going to work.

          Studies of Americans show them to be living in a rose-tinted bubble.

                                      They are unrealistically optimistic.

When asked to rate how sensitive they are to others, 90 per cent believe they 

are in the top 10 per cent of sensitivity - Well done - and the figures are similar for their

falsely bloated self-esteem. Yet they still suffer.

Psychology tells us that those who have accurate perceptions of themselves are deemed to suffer from 'depressive realism'.

That should make you feel better.

Well done, psychology. I am proud of my profession.

We have found another non-problem to convert into a problem. 

The money wheel grinds on.

Use Blind Dharma. So why go back to work with a false smile...? Just tell yourself

what the aunts of long ago learned from their religion...

"We weren't put on this Earth to be happy." 

But if we were put here (which genders really a more than reasonable doubt),

 "why the hell were we put here?"

        Governments think we were put here to be happy so they are doing

                         what they can to fake it... So just get in line...

Britain is about to pay 600 million pounds for happiness centers, which is less

expensive than the government losses by work stoppage. How wonderful,

you can go to a happiness centre and be brainwashed into believing that you

are happy and you will not carry the stigma of having entered a sect.

The solution generated since I was a child was to follow the path of

"Positive Thinking" (no matter where it leads). 

      So following positive thinking may be the best Blind Dharma answer. 

           But what are you supposed to think positively about?

Positive thinking is a mental attitude that introduces into memory thoughts,

words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and of course 

success (whatever that means). It is a mental attitude that demands that 

you derive expectations of good and favorable results.

A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome

of every situation and action. Whatever the mind expects, it finds.

Now, if we follow that to its logical conclusion, believing in a rabbit's foot, a 

four-leafed clover, or benevolent waves from benevolent extraterrestrials 

in outer space must also work.

But does it?

We know that placebos work, so maybe positive thought is a mental placebo...

if it does work, that means that you can make your boss admire your work, give 

you a raise and much more. You can make fellow workers admire you and 

every client you have will pour his riches upon you. Ever glamourous guy or 

chick, depending on your preference, will be running after you.

The only problem is your boss will also have to be thinking positively and be

happy with your work no matter how lousy it actually is... and so on and so on.

So perhaps the faster and better solution is to really think deeply about your

way of life and really see if being a human creature entails being happy or

whether a state of Dharma-induced continual well-being and a change of work

will accomplish the task of allowing you to live as a human creature and not a 

social robot.  

Of course your life objectives would have to change. Buddha said that the

Dharma was difficult and that most people who are attracted just run up and 

down the shore of the Dharma Stream without the courage to cross.

So although it is clear what the best solution is, perhaps you had better, since it really takes a special person to want to be truly human, just try all the Blind Dharma ideas. When none succeed and all the self-deceptions fail, you will probably be too old to work and ready to take a long eternal rest. 

So what is the solution?

You haven't the stamina to prepare yourself, cut down expenses, introspect and no matter how old you are and what benefits you now receive generate a new working style that really reflects your true state of being.

You also know even though you have not tried every Blind Dharma solution that nothing there is going to work.

Well, fortunately Buddha saw that people had the same problem so he took the middle way and then went down to the lower end to get a solution for those who wanted to be half pregnant.

The first thing he came up with, stated in modern terms, is:

                               "Cut away all cognitive dissonance."

                                In plain old street terms, that means:

"Take a good, long and serious look at yourself and see where your mind is 

covering up for you."

We all know that smokers who really know that they are doing great harm to themselves  give themselves what they think are rational reasons to continue...

"I know lots of people who smoke and live to a hundred."

"I've tried it all and I really can't stop."

"It keeps me from being nervous."

"All the crap they say really isn't true."

"I have the right to smoke if I want."

They believe what their mind tells them... Well, that is cognitive dissonance and it gets them out of a dilemma... stop or die.

So with regards to your work you have to examine your cognitive dissonance.

Buddha called it "Free critical inquiry".  

It is not easy to detect where the internal believable lies are that you invent about work that keep your chains in place.

                                              Next you have to "Reality Test". 

That means that you must introspect and see if you have your priorities right. If you have built your "work" so that it takes first place in your life then look at that and ask "why?" Somehow you have cast a blind eye to the important things in life and are chasing a delusion.

You know that you cannot naturally live "to work", you must naturally only work "to live". If you know that, then it is time to reconsider what you call living.

Your problem could well be that you have no idea what life really is all about and work is the only place where you seem important, at least a little, and for some reason now it's not working. The old happiness is seen as a passing "Tinker bell" and was all in your mind.

Everybody has learned in error that they have to be something. Why?

Isn't it better to be fully integrated into a natural and magical world than to be chasing "work that makes you somebody who has written his graffiti on the wall for all to see, but has never taken off the inner dark glasses  discovering what life really is all about."

                         So you then may ask me what life is all about?

It is about being alive without any expectations whatsoever.

It is about letting the natural and beautiful passion which you have well-hidden, 

that is covered up by desire, clinging, emotions, petty aversions, excuses 

emerge and accept what comes out with joy.

You don't have to put anything in there... it has always been there inside waiting to emerge in a way that that your passion, which may be like a torrent in the mountain or like an alighting butterfly, becomes your work.

It may not buy the wonderful things that others suffer to get, but you will live working with constant well-being while enjoying the true fruits of life, just as Apollo does who is the gentle master of all he surveys.