Buddha and the Enlightenment Seeker - Part 3

Buddha:
So, in our last session we talked about words and how they compress ideas. Like, “cholesterol”.

Seeker:
Yes. We also talked about how our “judgements” blind us. They prevent us from seeing the rich detail.

Buddha:
Yes. Great. Today I want to talk about “judgements” a little bit more. But, in the context of other people.

But first, do you know anything about farming?

Seeker:
No. Not much.

Buddha:
No issues. Lets say that I am trying to grow a lettuce plant. And for some reason, its not doing well.

Seeker:
Okay.

Buddha:
Tell me. What would you do to make it grow well?

Seeker:
I don’t know. Put it in the sun? Is it getting sunlight? Or give it some fertiliser.

Buddha:
Okay, what else?

Seeker:
See that the watering is not too much or too little.

Buddha:
Okay, what else?

Seeker:
I don’t know. Change the soil. It could be that the soil is bad.

Buddha:
Okay, what else?

Seeker:
I don’t know. As I said, I don’t know much about farming.

Buddha:
Let us say there was an issue with the sunlight. You did nothing about that, would the problem go away by giving it new soil?

Seeker:
I guess not.

Buddha:
Would the problem get solved by scolding the plant?

Seeker:
Ha ha ha. No.

Buddha:
Would the problem go away by saying, “your a bad lettuce plant, look at all the other plants, they are doing so well”

Seeker:
Ha ha. No.

Buddha:
Would the problem go away if you thew away this plant and got another one and put it in the same place with bad sunlight?

Seeker:
No. I guess not. The same issue would repeat.

Buddha:
Why is that? Why is scolding not a solution? Why is taunting not a solution?

Seeker:
Because it does not solve the core problem.

Buddha:
And whats that?

Seeker:
That the plant needs the correct environment to grow. Proper sunlight and soil and water and all that.

Buddha:
I see. So can I say that the plant is a seed? A seed that gobbles up more and more of its environment as it grows. So, in some ways, the plant is the result of whatever environment it got to gobble up.

Seeker:
Yes. I guess. If you put it that way, then the only way to help the plant is to get it to the right environment.

Buddha:
So, what we are are saying is that the plant was once a seed. Now, that seed was nothing but a “plan” of how to gobble up the environment and turn into a full grown plant right?

Seeker:
I guess.

Buddha:
If we threw that seed on to a tar road, it would stay a seed. It would be dead. Not even a plant. Is that right?

Seeker:
I guess.

Buddha:
And if it got good soil and air and water and sun, that seed would turn into a plant.

Seeker:
Yes. We have been over this a few times. What are you trying to say?

Buddha:
That we are all seeds. We all have turned into plants that have gobbled up our environment and taken our current form.

Seeker:
Okay. Hmm…. i guess.

Buddha:
Were you not a seed in your mothers womb? Were you nothing but a plan of how to turn into a human. You got the environment of your mothers womb from where you gobbled up nutrients.

Later on as you grew up you consumed food, air and grew. You took your current form.

Seeker:
Okay. I guess, I am like the plant.

Buddha:
But, wait, here is the most important point. You consumed ideas, judgements, thoughts, ways of expressing your self. Also from your environment.

These came together to make you what you are today.

Seeker:
Yes I guess.

Buddha:
And if that is so, let me ask you: Have you ever decided that somebody is “stupid”?

Seeker:
Ahhh…. I guess.

Buddha:
So, tell me, if that person is “stupid” then what exactly are you calling stupid? The person is a result of a seed and everything they have absorbed from the environment.

So, are you calling the seed stupid?

Or are you calling all the experiences that happened to then stupid?

Seeker:
Ahhh… I don’t know.

Buddha:
You cannot hold “stupidity” against the seed.

It had no choice in the matter. It is a combination of half the genes from its mother and half from its father.

It did not choose its parents or which half or any of that. It was what it was.

Seeker:
Yes. I see.

Buddha:
And you cannot call all the experiences that happened to that seed stupid. It had no choice in the matter.

Those experiences happened to that seed thing. That is all.

Seeker:
I guess.

Buddha:
And if none of that is “stupid” then who is “stupid”?

Seeker:
I don’t know. The thing that got formed as a result of that seed getting those experiences?

Buddha:
Yes. That thing. That thing is not even a person. Its a mountain of detail that we give a name. And then we judge that thing as “stupid”.

Seeker:
Wait, but if we stop judging people then the world will descend into chaos.

Should we let rapists roam free because we sympathise with them? With the fact that they are a result of their environment + seed?

Buddha:
No. Take them and separate them from the rest of society. Put them in “jail” or a “correction facility” or whatever. Give them a better environment and show them how they can live in harmony with other people. And if that works, then let them back out into the world.

We do this today already.

All I am asking you not to do is judge the rapist as “bad” or “evil”. They are what they are. They had little choice in the matter.

Seeker:
I guess.

Buddha:
But, the reason why I wanted to share this with you is that you need to be able to see this. It makes it easier not to “judge”.

This is not true only for people. Its true of plants and people and fish and the planets and the stars.

Everything is only a clump of the universe which has taken a particular shape. Nothing more.

Funny thing is some of these clumps are “conscious”. Enough to look at them selves and other clumps and wonder whats going on. But, nothing is going on. The universe is the universe. Nothing more. Some parts of it have a plan of how to clump. Nothing more.

Seeker:
Okay, some of that went over my head. But, I do understand the larger point.

Buddha:
Next time, I show you how to practice this.