Shoshin-Zazen

I admit that i am a big dreamer.

In sofar as, I dream of a better and happier world, where peace reign supreme. I dream of a world with no borders or countries, just a place where everyone is a big loving community whose values are based on wisdom and knowledge. I dream that no one will be judged on their physical or mental state. I dream of a truly intelligent species who have already surpassed their infant tendency of self-destructing violence to one that is mature and wise species who devote their time and energy to a greater cause. I dream of intergalactic colonies exploring the outer reaches of the galaxy Of course, i dream of the impossible.

I enter back into the world of reality where the bona fide truth really hurts. It would take either an eternal optimist or a extremely apathetic person to read a newspaper and then feel good enough to give a big wide toothy grin smacked with insouciance. We live in a world of great dichotomy. The rich and the poor, the wise and the poor fool. It would not take a person of perspicacity to point out that much suffering is due to this great chasm. Look at the riots in France, the bomber in Iraq, the hungry in Africa and the suppressed in North Korea. The world has a saturnine outlook - and i am not a pessimist.

Delve deeper and one can discern a wider net of issues that are beyond physical boundaries. Take for example the issues of the environment and poverty. They are often seen as disparate issues but in fact they are wholly coherent. Just by looking at the recent natural disasters around the world, they give a statistic that can prove without a doubt that climate change affects the poor disproportionately from the rich. This is because their affluent residents are most insulated from the wrath of mother nature, rich nations can afford to demand their take in climate change. However, in a newspaper review article, Kendra Okonski director of the sustainable development programme at the International Policy Netword in London, states a worrying trend,

The priorities of Western envionmentalists are often at odds with the interests of poor people. To the millions of people who live by nature’s whims, the debate on climate change is remote, if not downright surreal.

Exactly. How can one talk about climate change in technologically backward states in Africa when there is neither food on the table nor water in the well? Here lies a conumdrum that runs on simple cause and effect. Poverty needs to be eradicated first before worrying about climate change. It is like putting the cart in front of the horse. Economic development is the best medicine right now for countries wading in the pool of debt and obviously imposing greenhouse emission standards will not serve any good. The eradication of proverty is at present man’s greatest adversity and we can’t talk about rebuilding unless we have already overcome it.

These are just some of the problems in a dirty pool of muddy water. It is ironic that though globalisation is a phenomenon that is based on unifying global markets but still, there is so much dissonance between people, of the rich and poor or even between people with different ideas. Unfortunately, there is hardly any dissolution to all these problems in the near future.

Of course i am just a picayune speck of dust; an individual who is only speaking out his own mind. And i do have my dreams for the future. They do not die as easily as a ephemeral flame in the wind. They convey a poetic sense and give a somewhat philosophical direction to all the troubles in the world and this gives me the comfort i need for a peaceful night sleep.

Apollo astronaut Russel Schweickart encapsulated my thoughts when he viewed Earth from space in 1974.

He said,

When you go around it in an hour and a half, you begin to recognise that your identity is with that whole thing. And that makes a change. You look down there and you can’t imagine how many borders and boundaries you crossed again and again and again….You know there are hundreds of people killing each other over some imaginary line that you can’t see. From where you see it, the thing is a whole, and it’s so beautiful. And you wish you could take one from each side in hand and say, “Look at it from this perspective. Look at that. What’s important?”

Of the Earth viewed from the Moon, he said:

It becomes so small and fragile, and such a precious little spot in that universe, that you can block it out with your thumb, and you realize that on that spot, that little blue-and-white thing, is everything that means anthing to you. All of history and music and poetry and art and war and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it is on that little spot out there and you can cover w?th your thumb.

You ask yourself, he said:

Have you earned this is some way?… You know the answer to that is no… You know very well, at that moment, and it comes through to you so powerfully, that you’re the sensing element for man… I’ve used the word you because it’s not me, it’s you, it’s us, it’s we, it’s life. We’ve had that experience. And it’s not just my problem to integrate, not my challange to integrate, my joy to intergrate - it’s yours, it’s everybody’s.

It is everybody’s dream to live a dream and my dream is one for you, for humanity.

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