My father is a kind, generous, and helpful man. He has a good sense of humor and seems always to be happy. He’s also very conservative.
I’d always known from the way he lived he that he was religiously conservative. “Devout Catholic” is an apt description. But I was well into my adult life before I got a sense of where he was politically. He usually kept his political opinions to himself while I lived within his household – at least he didn’t discuss them much with his children. It surprised me to learn that his political views were so different from my own.
Perhaps my mother had something to do with this. Even though she also was steadfastly Catholic, there was never any doubt about her open-minded slant – however quietly she presented it. Maybe it was she who – in order to keep the peace – was responsible for the dearth of political discussion in the home.
Anyway, I’ve recently had a few conversations with my father about the political state of things. He’s as conservative in his political views as he is in his religious views. From our last talk I came away shaking my head in wonder: How can it be that he cannot see how wrong he is?
But wouldn’t he have similar thoughts of me? How is it, he must surely wonder, that my first-born son can be so wrong? How can he not see the danger in this liberal nonsense?
And then there are our divergent religious views. After he read my book, Mapping the Dharma, he said to me, “That Buddha was a pretty good psychologist.” Then he added, “I don’t agree with him, though.” Now there’s an understatement.
But this isn’t about me or my father, nor is it about politics or religion. It’s about being attached to views – any views. “A thicket of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views,” is what the Buddha called this ocean of opinions we so enthusiastically – and often angrily – navigate every day.
It’s so easy to get caught up in what we believe to be right. And it’s easy to let everyone around us know, not just how right we are, but how wrong they are if they don’t agree with us. We want the world to be a certain way and it’s difficult to accept that others see things differently. It churns and churns in the mind. If we’re not careful, agitation and anger are the results. Even the most superficial disagreement is stressful.
The Internet with its World Wide Web is an unimaginably vast Thicket of Views. It can be a very good – and even reliable – source of news and information as well as a means of personal communication and honest discourse. It’s also the prevailing medium of disinformation, propaganda, and a channel for outright hatred. Through the Internet I can find people who will agree and sympathize with me. And I can find people who despise me and my views.
My father gets his news and information much the same way most of us who use the Internet do. He reads from websites that suit his tastes. So do I. Each of us has our ideas, our points of view, reinforced daily. That’s a problem. Not just for my father and me, but for anyone who has a view to cling to.
One of the websites I looked at daily (that is, several times every day) was TruthOut. It’s a compendium of liberal news stories grabbed from diverse but mainstream sources. Many of the articles would stimulate mental debates with a stereotypical conservative. With these debates I would sharpen my views, refine my logic, and undermine the views of my imaginary opponent. A the the same time I would tighten the grip on my own political or spiritual views and on the view that I am so smart and so clever.
But that cleverness is all in my imagination. And my views have no more substance than the bits and bytes that form the letters on this screen. A few taps on the delete key and they disappear into nothingness. After that discussion with my father, I deleted the link to TruthOut. Not because I’m not interested or don’t want to be informed. But because I do not need that kind of mental agitation. The politicians will do what they do regardless of what I think about it, regardless of how irritated I get with one side or inspired by the other. This has helped me gradually loosen my grip on a particular political viewpoint.
There is no value in being enmeshed in a thicket of views. But there is lots of value in being free of its entanglements.
Good Shepherd, Bad Shepherd*
Isn’t that why we have the Christian metaphor of the Good Shepherd? Someone who will tell us right from wrong, who will keep us safe from harm, who will tuck us snugly in the warm blankets of heaven on that last and most frightening darkest night of the soul?
Not all people are like sheep, though. There are a few who prefer – or stumble into – the role of shepherd. They are smarter and more intelligent than the flock they aspire to lead. Some of them aspire to the role of shepherd out of love and compassion for the poor sheep, who, by their nature, are truly helpless. Others aspire to the role of shepherd out of the delusion they know what’s best – at least for themselves – and will take the flock by whatever means they can.
All shepherds and hopeful shepherds have a message for the flock. But the sheep have difficulty discerning among those who would help them from those who would harm them. After all, they are just sheep.
Many people, like sheep, don’t have – or don’t utilize – the capacity to discern the truth and make skillful decisions about what’s in thier own long-term best interests and the best interests of those who share the pasture. Because, like sheep, they can only know what their immediate instincts tell them. And the instincts of sheep aren’t very good. Can a sheep tell when the butcher walks into the pen with a loaded rifle?
But we’re really not’t sheep. And it is possible to separate the good shepherds from the bad shepherds – if we’d really care to take a close look at them and listen carefully to their messages.
Is the message filled with compassion, hope, love, tolerance, and concern for the welfare of everyone in the flock? Or is the message filled with hatred of “the other,” fear that “the other” will take what’s “yours,” and intolerance of anyone who doesn’t accept the message? What’s the overall demeanor of those who would aspire to lead you? How do they live their lives – not just when they are in the spotlight, but when no one is looking? Are they kind, gentle and honest; are they authoritarian, overbearing, and deceptive; are they generous, or greedy for money, fame, and power? Are they wise or deluded? Although it may take a long time and require some effort, it really isn’t so hard to discern the truth.
Providing truth is what you really want.
*This post was inspired by this story, sent to me by someone suggesting that Barack Obama is leading the United States down the same path as did Adolf Hilter lead Germany.