What Can We Do?

So what are we going to do? I see people all the time on Facebook and other social networks, posting about this political thing, or that political thing. It seems like everyone is putting out a call to arms for one thing or another. But what are we really doing?

We need to get off our asses (my ass included). We need to get off the computer if we are ever going to enact any real change in the here and now. Sitting around and posting pictures of kittens, or angry political rants  scrawled over a picture of a flag, a country, or a horrid picture of dead soldiers in a poignant angry looking font is not enacting change in any way. Most people (myself included) just scroll past that shit nowadays anyway. As a society, we are assaulted daily with so much visual and audio stimulus. It’s almost impossible to wade through the sea of useless crap that we are consuming in the form of media to actually get a point through.

So what are we going to do? I often wonder if there is anything we can do. Maybe if we start at a small local level, because the system we have in place is much too large to take head on. We need to start with ourselves. You know, like Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see.” Maybe we need to pull our heads out of our narcissistic asses and “do” something – actually go out and do something in the real world. Like volunteer at a hospice, take Dharma into the prisons, or a meeting, or work with at-risk youth so they have a decent example in their life.

Growing up the way I did left a lack of good examples in my life. If it had not been for the handful of people that tried to help, I would not be here today. The funny thing about that is at the time, I did not respond in any positive fashion to their attempts to help me, or to their lead and example. I remained that shit-ass-know-it-all kid with no hope of a decent life.  What they did do was plant a seed; a seed that, when the causes and conditions where right, grew to be the firmly rooted tree I held on to as my soul weathered the storm of my own creation.

As a direct result of these people who tried to show me a better way, when the time came I was able to use the tools they had given me so many years before. The soil of my heart was finally tilled enough for these seeds to take root. Now it has become my lifelong practice to continue to nurture and fertilize this soil. The seeds will only grow if I continue to give them what they need – good and bad seeds alike. So it is also my practice to only nurture the good seeds, and not the bad.

It is a process that cannot be rushed. It’s a lifelong daily practice. Day in and day out, I have to continue to do what is needed to nurture my heart, to train the mind in the great way. Even when I do not see the results I “think” I should be seeing, I must still work, and I must still practice. I do not have control over how fast the seeds will grow, nor do I have control over what fruit they will bear. I only have control over what I do to help that seed bear fruit.

From this example, I can see how I might change things slowly. I can do whatever I can to help all sentient beings; it is through this action that I myself may plant some seeds that will bear the fruit of change.

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