The truth of opposites Inside/Outside

Previous posts forming a common threat : that of opposites. A war is between opposites, each believing in itself. It is disaster if the enemy wins... for both sides. And celebration if we win... for both sides. There is always a loser and always a winner... altho in war all sides are losers for having dreamed together a nightmare. Never has any man died valiantly... except maybe Jesus. All have been murdered, and done so because they themselves were on a path of murder.

Yet we are fools who take sides so easily. We watch sports and side so easily, being absorbed into the highs and lows of victory and defeat of only one side - our hearts never able to see the mirrored agitation and celebrations of our opponents. How extra-ordinary this is when you look at it. We follow the story of our favourite team through the championship, fully aware that there are billions doing the same with other teams: but only our team matters.

And, it certainly does not digest well to think after we have lost, "well at least our opponents are celebrating". We can't bring it upon ourselves to give a victory, even when we would have relished its taste so much ourselves. Why are we so bought into a particular narrative, a particular story, hearing only one side of an argument, seeing only one side of a game's fortunes?

The world it seems is in halves, and needs to be. Where is the sport, the entertainment, the passion and energy in a game where we can give the victory away easily. It is precisely the desire to hold that victory which makes the game what it is. "My own muse" if the truth be told became a game of victory and defeat and of halves, which to this day I fail to comprehend entirely. How can love be of halves?

Halves can only exist as parts of a whole. While only one team wins and one loses, there can be no winning and losing if the teams do not play. If we do not risk losing, there can be no winning. We enter the arena as a pair and fight for only a half, yet that is what makes the whole.

It seems we must be willing accomplances in the making of the whole, but taking on the will of the halves and through that we become the agents of the whole. Thus the Gods who see both sides, who make both sides of every game in which mortals play, become our masters and for them we engage in the parts of the play.

Yet Buddha, Lao Tze, Marcus Aurelius and others would say that we need not be the play things of the Gods. Need not be at each other throats for eternity, fighting for the precious halves of existence and suffering their loathed complements. I came to an initial realisation on this path last week.

Being Inside or Outside forms a fundamental concern of our desires. To be inside a family, to be inside a job, the be inside the acceptance of a community and the law. The loathed opposite is being outside: being alone, unemployed, alienated and illegal. Feel the sinking feeling even contemplation of the other half has. I am educated; and fairly well versed in most branches of education. I do writing more or less, maths, science, knowledge in general. I've never specialised just simply always enjoyed the mind. My boss however takes a dim view of this. Since I am not qualified then my job description is poor even while I am eaily able to do most of the research and jobs in the company. In this sense i am outside academia because I never bothered to get qualified. Yet this only occurred to me last week. I am outside the academic world! it never occurred to me as such. What is more satisfying is that I am more capable than many on the inside of this house of excellence (or at least for argument sake "could be" for I have no need to boast) yet i am outside.

It began to dawn on me the nature of being inside and outside. It is like the narrative that I spoke about in the previous blog entries. The story is so arranged that I outside the narrative: I am not accepted because I did not complete the tests. I remember thinking how stupid and arbitrary these tests were. It makes sense now. If I refused to do these tests, whilst being perfectly able to do well in them, then it would reveal how easily the tests failed to measure peoples actual skill and so having invalidated the tests I didn't need to do them. Well that was my under-graduate logic. I could have had a 2:2 after my exams but they couldn't award it because I did not hand in any course work... some feature of the arbitrary rules. It was also a private gesture to the power of the university "establishment" that seemed to control all academic validation. So I came to be outside the academic world. My boss on the other hand fought to be inside and now views me as outside.

Yet it is obvious that we are not really different. We each have out strengths and weaknesses regardless of the official stamp of being inside or outside. Such is the fickle nature of the official stamp. This is why I imagine a good boss sees people for what they are capable of rather than simply the words on that paper currency called CV.

But the purpose of this blog entry is done! The official stamp is not the nature of the underlying thing. The goal of vipissana meditation. Nama and Rupa are different. So I walk into a house and call myself inside: down the stamp comes and I am "inside". And then I walk outside and down the stamp comes again and i am "outside". But when did this state of affairs change? In the doorway, and where in the doorway? And am i any different for being inside compared with outside? Indeed the stamp fails to really stamp me, it is just a word and an arbitrary measure of the world, but one that does not reflect me at all. Like the air that mixes inside and outside the house: it knows not whether it is inside or outside, it is a single body that flows throughout the house, joins with the air in the sky and everywhere it knows nothing of this label. Is the air inside an house any different from that outside? Test it and find the difference called inside and outside.

Inside and outside are different, but neither reflects me in anyway. I am the same for being inside as for being outside.

But now we introduce the things which matter and the purity of that equanimity evaporates. I am ugly. Suddenly the stamp hurts. I am short. I am stupid. I am horrible. I am bad. I am worthless. I am useless. I am a loser. I am poor. I am weak. These stamps suddenly hurt. Yet we know that they do not reflect me at all, they are arbitrary. Find the "ugly" that exists in me, find the "handsome" that exists in another man. Show them to me? Are we actually different?

So no this realisation is not deep enough to break the bond I have to halves. But maybe it is no more than habit, that our desires cling to the halves and hurt us so.

Yet I'll add that I also know that without the halves there is no whole, so I don't get it yet. How can we abide in that eternal peace that comes from rising above the halves that everyone talks about, that heaven beyond the duality, while at the same time being in halves. I once thought that sexual union with "my muse" would bring me that enlightenment: that never arose and I have tried to seek it elsewhere: I mean how many girls exist who take sexual union as a means of enlightenment these days? Anyway the quest continues: my birthday to day also: a moment to remember the remarkable chance of this existence at all. Extraordinary universe that nurtues beings like us isn't it :-)