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Today when I started down my path
The path said, "I don't have very much for you.
But when you come to the bridge we'll see."
The path spoke truth.
I was sad.
I had just watched a Ted Talk
That sank my spirits, which were already pretty low.
The speaker referred to a song of Leonard Cohen's,
"The Future". I clicked on a link and listened
To Cohen's husky voice telling us:
"I've seen the future, brother
It is murder.
Things are going to slide in all directions.
Won't be nothing,
Nothing you can measure anymore.
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold
And it's overturned
The order of the soul."
The speaker ended her talk
With good advice
Which I knew I could not follow
But would try.
In following this sullen path
I kept thinking about my failings
And how my failings were very human
And then I thought of the failings of the human race
Which have brought us to where we are now,
At Cohen's threshold.
As I walked I was hoping to see an animal.
I have always imagined that if I saw a bear
It would be in this section of the forest,
Ambling between the pines.
The sky was gray and cloudy.
The wind pushed and pulled the tops of trees around.
Sometimes when I lifted my eyes from the path
I caught sight of openings of sunlight
In little clearings far off.
The further I walked the heavier my steps became
Until I had to sit down on a log.
Here the trees spaced themselves
So there was room for my thoughts.
The path said,
"On the other side of the bridge there are berries".
I had been scanning for blackberries
But so far there were none.
The path was right.
On the other side of the bridge
There were some nice ripe berries.
The berry bush said,
"Here are 8 berries."
I started picking them.
The first one was sweet.
The second one was even sweeter.
The third berry was a wise elder.
That berry said, "You have been sad long enough."
The fourth berry was indignant:
"F-- k Leonard Cohen".
The fifth berry was the bush talking:
"Come back tomorrow and I will have more."
The sixth berry said, "Save berry seven and eight for the birds."
The seventh berry said,
"The birds have plenty, eat me.
Eat me for your soul."
So I did, and for the rest of my walk
I was a happy man.
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The Buddhist view of the world's troubles was not helpful in Catherine Ingram's Ted Talk. She spoke of her own suffering from a very young age, trying to make sense of living in a dying world. She found some solace by becoming a journalist which allowed her to pick the brains (and hearts) of her heroes, wise accomplished people who had managed to (forge / delineate / create) a path through the (chaos / collective brain-fog) of our side-slipping Age of dead-end greed , climate chaos and extinctions, eventually aligning herself with such people.
But, by my reading, she is using Buddhism as a refuge from the collective shadow. She looked soft to me like she needed to get out more. I know that it is wrong to judge people based on a single book or talk or a handful of impressions, but I do not have a whole lot of patience for doom-sayers. And I found myself cringing when she said, "We are exactly where we should be." Or was it "need to be". I disagree. I believe that attitude is smug and also dangerous. And I was also put off by her advice to "start checking off your bucket-list". The notion of a bucket list has always bothered me. If you want to see something or do something before you die, do it because you love your life (no matter what cards you've been dealt). Milk every moment of the gift of still being here, drawing breath, not because Disney World is about to close its doors, but because every moment of life is a miracle and ripe (like a wild black berry) with possibility. If we could all learn to live for the moment, which is what Zen Buddhism teaches us to do, I do believe that the collective brain fog would lift, even at this late hour.
(Article changed on Aug 12, 2024 at 8:06 AM EDT)