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| It is both blessing and affliction to know the truth
about Man's headlong rush to destruction. It is a blessing to know the
truth. It is an affliction because there is absolutely nothing we can do
to stop it.
I could go into a long list of reasons why Man's current
condition is a catastrophe both to himself and the earth, but the people
I am speaking to know these things already. It is not to the sleeping that
I speak now, but to the awake.
I have a reproduction of a Tibetan thanka hanging in my
room which has an image of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Below it, in
small print, it reads: "May this thanka provide protection from danger
in this present Age of Darkness". I agree entirely. This
is an Age of Darkness. This may be the last age for Man, at least Man as
we knew him.
Where does our duty lie? Should we go all out to try to
reform things, knowing full well ahead of time that the problem is much
larger than we are, and that our chances of making progress are slim to
none? Or should we each as individuals do our utmost to help the one part
of the world that is within our power: ourselves?
This is what the wisdom of the I Ching is telling us in
Hexagram 48. You can only clean the well and hope that it will be used.
You cannot make anyone else drink. If someone appears asleep, try to awaken
him: if you fail, he is either too deeply asleep to be awakened now or
he is dead. You have done all you can: move on.
Remember this, you few who know: that even in the depths
of our concern about this state of things, the celebration of Being by
Itself continues. The eucharist of Oneness has never ceased to be given
out, no matter the number who are aware of it. If you cease to partake
of it, Man's fate shall be academic. Clean the well, and let Men come or
not as they choose.
The Emptiness in me bows to Itself in the Emptiness in
you.
-Robert Dodd |