Opinions

I've been slowly reading this wonderful book by Pema Chodron. It contains several powerful essays which I've been looking forward to blogging. Here's an excerpt of one I read this morning. It's called "Opinions."

"Let's use the example of the ozone layer. We can rightly say that the thinning of the ozone layer is a scientific fact; it's not simply an opinion. But if the way we work with trying not to further harm the ozone layer is to solidify our opinion against those we feel are at fault, then nothing ever changes; negativity begets negativity. In other words, no matter how well documented or noble our cause is, it won't be helped by our feeling aggression toward the oppressors or those who are promoting the danger. Nothing will ever change through aggression.

You could say that not much changes through nonaggression either. However, nonaggression benefits the earth profoundly. The root cause of famine, starvation, and cruelty at the personal level is aggression. When we hold on to your opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace. The way to stop the war is to stop hating the enemy. It starts with seeing our opinions of ourselves and of others as simply our take on reality and not making them a reason to increase the negativity on the planet.

The key is to realize the difference between opinions and clear-seeing intelligence. Intelligence is like seeing thoughts as thinking, not having opinions about whether those thoughts are right or wrong. In the context of social action, we can see that what a government or corporation or individual is doing is clearly causing rivers to be polluted or people and animals to be harmed. We can take photographs of it; we can document it. We can see that suffering is real. That is because of our intelligence and because we don't let ourselves be swept away by opinions of good and evil or hope or fear.

It's up to us to sort out what is opinion and what is fact; then we can see intelligently. The more clearly we can see, the more powerful our speech and our actions wiil be. The less our speech and actions are clouded by opinion, the more they will communicate, not only to the people who are polluting the rivers, but also to those who are going to put pressure on the people who are polluting the rivers.

Just as the Buddha taught, it's important to see suffering as suffering. We are not talking about ignoring and keeping quiet. When we don't buy into our opinions and solidify the enemy, we will accomplish something. If we don't get swept away by our outrage, then we will see the cause of suffering more clearly. That is how the cessation of suffering evolves.

This process requires enoromous patience. It's important to remember, when we're out there nonaggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition. One piece of advice that Don Juan gave to Carlos Castaneda was to do everything as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, while all the time knowing that it doesn't matter at all. That attitude leads to more appreciation and less burnout, because we do the job wholeheartedly and we care. On the other hand, each day is a new day; we're not too future oriented. Although we are going in a direction, and the direction is to help diminish suffering, we have to realize that part of the helping is keeping our clarity of mind, keeping our hearts and our minds open. When circumstances make us feel like closing our eyes and shutting our ears and making other people into the enemy, social action can be the most advanced practce. How to continue to speak and act without aggression is an enormous challenge. The way to start is to begin to notice our opinions."