Barbarians at the Gate

Zeno

And they have always been there. The question is what, if anything, to do about it.

“The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to Two. Two gives birth to Three. Three gives birth to the ten thousand things.”

So the ten thousand things are the whole almighty infinity we see around us, the whole complex web of everything from the micro to the macroscopic. 

Taoist practice involves looking past the distractions and divisions of the Ten Thousand Things to return to a state of stillness and unity with the Tao. From which the ten thousand things arose.

It is within this context that we should view the swaggering pigmy in the ginger wig and his like. The petty sabre rattlers and swindlers, the power brokers and the power hungry, those who think they move and shake the earth, and make the rain.

Like goldfish in their bowls they are unable to see the greater reality around them and hence rattle around in their earthly cave, convinced that what they do and think have some importance.

And indeed such people hold the power of life and death over the “lesser” beings who are unable or disinclined to play such silly games.

Are you prepared to break out of the goldfish bowl. Are you prepared to dismantle the prison in which you have entombed yourself. Are you willing to remove the bars on the window of your psyche and let the sun shine in.

If you want to, you can. Break out. And once you have done so the world never looks the same again.

You don’t hate the swaggering pygmy or plot his downfall. You don’t plot anybody’s downfall, you simply retire, withdraw, refuse to be involved. See it all for the silly game it is and concentrate on the bigger picture – the unified whole not the ever confusing and unimportant detail.

So ignore the swaggering ginger pigmy and all the other swaggering pigmies.

It is easier said than done if you are pinned to the ground with the pigmy’s boot in your face. With the ICE Blackshirts hunting you down. Or the KGB. Or the petty officials leading you to the death camps.

It has all happened before, it is happening now and it will happen again. Endlessly, while our species lasts.

Your only defence is equanimity and acceptance. Not of brutality and death but of its existence.

Hide the Jew in your attic if you have the courage. Shelter the black man whose face will otherwise be shattered by the stormtroopers. But don’t believe you will ever stop it or your hopes will destroy you.

If you can escape do so.  Join the Ship of Fools if you must, but be prepared to face rejection at the gates of the promised land, like the Jews on the MS St. Louis.

Leave Russia and run to Israel. Leave Germany and cross the Chanel to England. Run, rabbit, run run run.

Perhaps you will be lucky and avoid the jackboot. Or perhaps you will end in Treblinka or the Gulag. Who knows, who can tell.

You have little say in the “great” events of history and must simply hope to be lucky enough not to get picked on. Caught in the terrible mangle of war, terror, famine or disease. Poverty or displacement, homelessness or worse.

And if you do get caught and cannot face it, then who would blame you for pulling the plug on existence. Taking the ultimate way out. Pulling the trigger, arranging your own “final solution”.

Not I, for sure.

So help where you can. Help yourself by all means, and others too. But ultimately, you must resign from the world one way or another. Hopefully equanimity will be all that is necessary, hopefully equanimity will enable you to ride the storm. Roll with the punches.

In any event it’s your best option.

If everyone broke out of the goldfish bowl and saw the futility of human ambition we might rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the ruins we have created.

But even a single seeker of the truth is better than nothing. Even a single escape from the madness all around us is to be celebrated.

9 Comments

  1. Withdrawal from the machine is in my opinion the only way.

    Withdrawal from politics.
    Withdrawal from capitalism.
    Withdrawal from cooperations.
    Withdrawal from organised religion.
    Withdrawal from macro-society.

    What is left? The individual, the family, the local community. That’s where the good is, anything beyond that is rotten, beyond our control to influence.

    On politics, I got sucked back in over the last week (after an calming absence of nine months media blackout) due to the actions of a certain “Hitler In A Toupee” and already it’s polluting my thoughts and wellbeing. I stop again today.

    On capitalism, I am squirreling away all available funds to bolster my pension pot, withdrawing from needless purchasing of things that become obsolete in record time.

    On corporations, I am (boldly?) declaring my hand today and will tell my employers that I’m done and will leave the company early next year and that they need to put an exit strategy in place.

    On religion, I’ve long since understood that they are all just institutions that are governed by rules, regulations and control – no better than constitutions.

    On society, I no longer socialise with the masses, and tak great pleasure in watching the world go by through the window of my local independent coffee shop, armed with a seriously good gourmet brew and tomes by M. R. James and Algernon Blackwood.

    On family, we are one, united, unified.

    On local community – work to do, that will come next year when the corporation no longer exists.

    You are of course right, it is hope that kills us, hope that things will be different someday and somehow, but withdrawing from the machine is available to us all right here, right now. It’s just a choice, and it’s free….

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    1. I disagree that equanimity and withdrawal are the only rational response. Too passive and self centred. The alternative is to live the way of love, learning to open one’s heart to the wholeness of Tao we all share and to let it shine as light through us. Becoming a light presence is the assertive path beyond religious or political dogma. It is not aggressive, but it penetrates the darkness of shadows that goldfish bowls cast in the whole. To learn the way of love through grief and let the light shine, learn from elcentre.org

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      1. Fair! For one so entrenched in the chaos an cortisol like I am, heading to the light without withdrawing from the machine and the things that make up the machine is a difficult almost impossible task. I have tried that over the last 10 years and it hasn’t worked, as the machine (as it is programmed to do) fights back and invariably wins.

        That said, once the purge has taken place, then absolutely embrace and share the light and love with the self and others.

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      2. I have neither the energy nor the mental strength to do as you suggest but I applaud your efforts to act in that way. Any way of life which is peaceful and kind and which acts as a beacon is to be applauded.

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      1. I have to tell you this!

        Travelling in on the tube this morning and after reading and commenting on your post, for some reason I randomly got to thinking that there was a old homeless chap outside Waterloo station who had a beautiful dog, so I took a fiver out of my wallet to give to him in case he was there.

        I got off the train and made my way to the office and he and the dog were there in their usual spot.

        I’ve passed him on many occasions but decided today I’d stop and have a chat with him, so I gave him the cash and asked how he was, and stroked his dog.

        I asked him what his dog was called. And he said… Zeno

        I experience synchronicities from time to time, this one on this day was an absolute whopper and for me – suggests that reality is not what it seems and there is something beyond the veil, I have no doubt about it.

        PS – My boss took my future resignation letter really well and wished me luck once that day arrives. The light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter tonight 🙂

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      2. What an odd tale! Do you know, when I was still in the City that is something that affected me greatly. A homeless guy continually sitting on the steps near our office on the river near St Paul’s. I wonder if he was called Zeno too. I always knew that there but for the grace of god (so to speak) sat I. As to synchronicities and the veil, I certainly hope so. Well done you👍

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