While I do not write this in response to what is happening in the country I live, I recognize what I say pertains to the worldview now dominating our political scene in the 'United' States. I simply do not want to give attention here to that at present. We can live as Light amid the darkness, as Love amid hate, as Uplifters in the presence of down pushers. If we engage in loving war with darkness, we must beware of becoming it. That is its wish - to claim us, dominate us, and close our hearts to love, the glory of nature, and the beauty of diversity. To darken us. To smudge us with social elitism, thinking we are better and more deserving than others who appear unlike. Light seeks to enlighten; darkness aims to cast its gloomy gloss over all things, not out of love, but out of gluttony for power, money, and ethnic, racial, and religious purging. Christianity is not its source, it is its excuse.
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Please listen to these songs, as their worldview is integral to the posting -
What a Wonderful World
Everything is Beautiful
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In the Shambhala path, two concepts present contrasting mentalities: the Setting Sun and the Great Eastern Sun. Setting Sun is very popular - look at social media and the news. Observe the faces of many people in public; listen to their conversations.
Setting Sun is oppressive, fear-based, depressive, cynical, complaining, blaming, hating, escapist, manipulative, victimizing, regressive, and victim-playing. Often, this mentality is associated with a distaste for this world and a longing to escape, such as in groups that look toward a rapture, an escape route to an ideal place. Some seek to return to a past, so-called better time. It is the oh me, oh my, and oh me, oh we world.
Setting Sun is downward-pulling; Setting Sun is like someone closing the curtains and blocking the Sun, keeping it outside. Have you been around a Setting Sunner? A Setting Sun group? The light is or has gone out. You can feel the darkness. The more you turn your life toward the Light, the more you can feel this dark, heavy energy, yet the less you are influenced by it.
The Great Eastern Sun is less prevalent, especially if cultures as a whole have succumbed to the Setting Sun worldview. This mentality is progressive, uplifting, positive, generous, kind, loving, forgiving, joyful, relishing of this world - well, you get the idea. This attitude is depicted in the songs "What a Wonderful World" and "Everything is Beautiful." In the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." In the late Mr. Rogers. In the spirit and smiles of Barak and Michelle Obama, not the scowls and growls of so many in politics. In the person you just want to be around, knowing you will feel better in someway as a result, even if they do not intentionally try to get you to feel better, or feel any way in particular.
Great Eastern Sun people are not ashamed of themselves, regardless of their apparent flaws. They are rightfully proud of themselves, not because they are better than others, but because they share the same basic dignity and truth as everyone. This mentality is the world as good news, it is good to be here. Great Eastern Sunners do not deny the horrors in the world, but they see the way to respond is not with darkness, but with Light. They invite the Sun in for everyone, not just themselves. They do not see themselves as an exclusive Sun Club. They are not retaliative or mean, but compassionate, and not just toward humans.
To live the Great Eastern Sun way is a choice, more so than an inheritance. Spiritually-hearted persons make this choice, and likely over and over and over, for the pull of negativity is strong culturally and can be personally, based on one's history. This choice does not mean their lives will be easier; they may not be. Yet, they acknowledge the choice as the only sane one. They refuse to surrender their dignity for comfort or companionship. They would rather live and die alone than live and die among those who live by lies.
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Pico Iyer, in Aflame: Learning from Silence, shares the following, while he was staying among some monks at a Hermitage -
In the kitchen, a monk is pulling down one small bottle after another, scattering spices across the communal meal he's preparing. "I always get up early when it's my turn to cook," he says. "To think about color, think about texture." "I hadn't realized meals were so important." "It's a hard life." He looks straight at me. "The guys need something to brighten their day."
The Setting Sun life entails choosing to brighten up your life and often by brightening up someone else's life. One loses the Light, if trying to hide in a corner, hugging the Light, afraid of losing it. Giving it away means not losing it.
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I encountered the idea of cheering oneself up through reading the works of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. That idea has encouraged me over the last twenty-five years. His teaching cheered me up, a young man raised in a Setting Sun religion and home. There was much love and kindness in the religion and family, yet much Setting Sun, and that negativity, guilt, and fear-mongering is something I am still healing from.
An example of cheering up. Today, I have been suffering from a cold for four days. The usual: cough, running nose, stuffy head ... Miserable feeling. Yet, outside is a lovely, sunny fall day here in Midcoast Maine. I walk outside late morning. I slowly roam the backyard, stopping now and then to contemplate nature or soak up the Sun. I talk to a tree - yes. What I feel is what I am learning - all nature is alive. How do I feel afterward? Cheered up.
In the place I just moved from, in the far northeast of Maine, I was in a rural area, isolated from everyone. I lived in a small cabin on the border of New Brunswick. In the winter, for a whole week, I might not hear one vehicle or voice. I began driving to town first thing in the mornings for a coffee. That drive was sixteen miles. Yet, I returned cheered by the trip, partly because it was a means to connect with the people I had come to know at the bistro.
We do not have to do anything extraordinary or primarily viewed as spiritual or religious or holy ... to cheer up. And what we do may be abstaining from what detracts from our sense of liveliness. We may give up certain forms of entertainment, leave a religious group, change some of our beliefs, or move on from a job, a place we live, a group we associate with, or a relationship.
The Sun wants to touch all aspects of our lives, both inner and outer - this is why the Great Eastern Sun is called Eastern - this spirit is all-pervasive. To cheer up is to draw from the pervasive life already present. When we cheer up, we feel more alive. We feel hopeful, and our natural dignity shines.
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Living this way of the Great Eastern Sun does not mean we should, could, or will always feel cheerful. Not being cheered up has its rightful place. Sometimes, we cannot cheer ourselves up. What we need to acknowledge, however, is our power to cheer ourselves up - a power only we can claim for ourselves.
And, sometimes, a cheerful person may not appear cheerful, for they are not demonstrating it by appearance, but they may know it within the heart. Cheerful is not just about a smile and is so much more than being jolly-go-lucky. Cheerful can be more subtle than that. Still, being around them, you feel uplifted in some way, though you may not know how. You may feel better about yourself simply by being near them or just seeing them at a distance. Merely a single thought of them might brighten your day. This brightness is subtle, yet radiant.
