The Zen of Hope

Deb Huntley March 7, 2008

About Hope: The Buddhists teach that hope and fear come from the same place, from our "emotional mind." In everyday language that means that hope and fear arise in an imagination that has been stimulated by emotions. Direct experience with reality, on the other hand, does not include hope or fear. Simply put, reality is what is present without critique. That is the Zen of "seeing things as they are." (Seeing without any clouds of emotion to block the view.)

While no one wants to give up the ideals of making improvements on a bad situation, it is liberating to look at what is behind hope. If we carefully remove the curtain, what do we see? We see fear. Fear is inherent in hope. Hope has no meaning without its awful twin fear.

During the last 7 years, we have watched the ultra-Right try to engineer us from point A to point B with the powerful motivator fear. So it is no surprise now, that some of the Left are trying to remedy that with the ideal of hope. That makes sense, right? Well, sort of, but it is not enough. Fear and hope have always been used to motivate and manipulate people. The trouble is, neither fear nor hope brings home the bacon. (Or, veggies for the vegans.)

Hope won't help, not really. We can hope all we want, for anything, but that won't change a thing. The only thing that can stop the incremental fascist steps that our runaway country has put into play, is clear and strong determination to undo all of it, piece by tedious piece. Nothing is glamorous about all that work, nothing at all.

All hands on deck! We are in for the very worst seas, with global warming, recession or depression, disappearing wildlife, the return of Stalinism in Russia, and, we must never-ever overlook the consequences of the war we started. The captain and crew of this ship we call America (as if we own the whole continent,) needs to know already, exactly what to do. It's up to you.