I made this while packing for my month in India (Boy, that is a country with some tough social issues and wild politics!)
Many of us are unhappy and frustrated at events today. Some of us are happy at the outcome. It is the same now as in the time of Old Zen Masters of China or Japan, and as in the time of the Buddha living amid the political changes, regimes and wars of ancient India! Frankly, it is much better. Nobody in America is getting tossed in a dungeon tonight, or having their home or temple burned to the ground, or picked up by the secret police. (I am confident that will stay true).
This world is a world of Dukkha. Politics is Dukkha.
What is "Dukkha" in a Buddhist sense? I describe it this way:
If your candidate loses, this is one type of Dukkha ... pain and frustration arising from how you wish things to be ideally versus how they are.No one English word captures the full depth and range of the Pali term, Dukkha. It is sometimes rendered as “suffering,” as in “life is suffering.” But perhaps it’s better expressed as “dissatisfaction,” “anxiety,” “disappointment,” “unease at perfection,” or “frustration” — terms that wonderfully convey a subtlety of meaning.
In a nutshell, your “self” wishes this world to be X, yet this world is not X. The mental state that may result to the “self” from this disparity is Dukkha.
If your candidate wins, this is also one type of Dukkha ... pain and frustration arising from how you wish things to be and how they are if you cling to the victory, expect everything to be perfectly as you wish as a result (e.g., I won, so now I will be content and happy forever). Sorry, but no candidate is going to fix all the problems of Samsara.
The Buddha knew that this world of Samsara would always be disappointing in one way or another. Yes, things could go in ways that are very hurtful to some the next few years, and some folks will be very frustrated and disappointed at what happens. That is why we sit Shikantaza, to experience the Buddha's Insight into a certain 'Big W' Win that transcends small worldly wins and loses, a 'Big P' Peace the sweeps in all life's broken pieces.
Then, sitting tomorrow on the day after the polls close, right at the quiet center of the spinning wheel of success and failure, let us all get up again and begin from here ... doing as we can to make this world a little bit better.
Well, off to India ... See you on the flipflop.
Gassho, J
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