Keeping track of where we are, and what is actually important for us to do - reflections on basketball,  art, mortality and conscience, part 1

I think maybe it's human nature to keep making the same mistakes until we learn whatever it is we're suppose to learn.  Lately, for example, I've been working out, swimming, playing a lot of basketball, and also watching a lot of basketball on T.V.  Personally, it seems that anything I involve myself with I try to do as well as I can.  That's the positive side.  On the other hand, as my family knows, I can also over-do anything, and have it become excessive, or even obsessive.  I can lose perspective.

So again, as I have with other things, I find myself asking, 'Where does this fit in with the rest of life?' My involvement with sports has become a symbol of sorts for me, in that it represents more than what is immediately apparent.

I have the feeling that what I'm trying to do here is, as one teacher suggested, 'to integrate all areas of living into a meaningful whole'.  (Lama Thubten Yeshe)

Why is this necessary?  Why do I think this is something a person should aim for?  Well, to begin with, life is too confusing when it seems there are all these seperate aspects that don't make sense in relation to one another.  There is bound to be conflict whenever we feel we have to avoid some things because they don't fit with our view of the rest of the world.

I think that to integrate all areas of living into a meaningful whole is necessary for us to have health and balance.  It's something we need to keep our priorities straight.

Professor Huston Smith has a definition of intelligence that I like.  He said that 'intelligence is knowing what is important'.  I think this implies that we have some sense of the context of our living.  Without having this sense, anything at all can get out of balance.  And whether or not our life and priorities are in balance is something that effects everybody and everything around us.

There is a quote I came across from Swami Sivananda, that says, 'A man of broad views sees things in their entirety and in their right relations.  Broad view creates harmony and concord.'  When I saw this I thought this is the direction I want to go in- I want to let the context of our living, the sense of where we are and what people experience, tell me what is important to do here on earth, how much and in what proportion.  I can see that having a broad, inclusive view is the basis for right action.

A couple of years ago some things happened that made me want to cultivate this point of view.  After playing music for more than 16 years (more than half of my life), I deceided I had to take a break, step back and take a look at what I was doing.  At that time there were quite a few things I could see that had nothing to do with why I started to play music to begin with.  There were the feelings of competition and pressures to learn in school; there was the pride, the fears, and the whole economics involved  with wanting to be a musician.  These things all felt inhibiting to free expression.  What bothered me most of all though, was feeling the loss of perspective.

At the time I was studying music, I was also trying to be aware of what was going on in other peoples' lives and in the larger world around me.  What I noticed was that people seem to be able to get 'carried away' with just about anything (just like me).  That they would act as if they were 'in their own world'- whether they were football fanatics, or corporate executives, addicts, or preening teenagers.  I mean, it seemed like it was everywhere- almost everyone acting as if they were 'in their own world', and hardly giving one thought to anything outside a narrow range of vision.

The more I looked, the more I saw this everywhere.  The clearest example for me was, and still probably is, advertizing, which seems so often to be really out of touch, and out of proportion, out of place and out of time.  When I try to incorporate the message of advertizing into any larger picture of how people live, or struggle to get by in this world, it strikes me that something here is really out of balance.  

I think I deceided at that time that some people simply must not be aware in any kind of visceral way of what's going on around them, otherwise, how can they reconcile what they do with some of the other ways that people live?  (in poverty, homelessness, hunger...)  I also deceided that I wanted to try to develop the feeling of being in one world, and to keep that sense with me as much as I can.  I thought, 'Whatever can accomplish this I'm willing to do'.

I know that music can make a person feel connected to life, but when I noticed that the way I was with music was part of some loss of perspective for me, then I had to stop.  I felt in a way like I was just the same as all these other people, that I was doing the same thing I was criticizing.  At that time I thought of writing something for my mother, who didn't understand why I would stop doing something I enjoyed, that I had put so much energy into, and that brought some pleasure also to other people.  I was going to call it, 'When The World Stops Burning, Ma, I'd Love To Be A Musician'.

What it came down to for me at that time, and what I still try to keep track of is that some actions show that a person has things in perspective, while other kinds of action show that they feel isolated.  

From a broad, inclusive perspective comes really meaningful action for everyone, for the whole body.  A person's being far seeing leads to positive far reaching actions.

The opposite of this is what happens when a person feels cut off, isolated, estranged.  Their actions don't show any sign of their knowing that they are part of a larger whole.  And it is this unconscious action that is dangerous, whether we're talking about buying things and supporting slave labor, or producing waste, or whether we're just talking about the mis-allocation of our resources, or not knowing the effects of our ideas.

We are all always connected with something more than ourselves, so whether we recognize this or not, how we see ourselves, and the way we live, makes a difference.

Many things can help a person feel connected to the whole of life, (art, nature, conversation, deep listening, or just walking down the street...), and this results in health.  

On the other hand, it's astonishing to me how anything at all, any consuming, any endeavor, can be taken out of context and made into something that is out of proportion and not in accord with the rest of life.  

This includes the playing of games; it includes fashion, cinema, sports, food, and even what are called 'spiritual persuits', such as meditation.

Over the past few years I've been especially concerned that spiritual traditions and practices be known in relation to the rest of life.  I've seen that the study of philosophy and the practices of meditation can be engaged in a way that doesn't recognize that we are still a part of this world.  Some philosophies are 'world rejecting' or world denying.

In a way they too can be out of touch, and this is a great loss.  They have so much to offer, so much that can ease unnecessary suffering, and that can help a person find meaning.  

For the relatively few people who feel some affinity with a spiritual tradition, then, there remains the challenge of bringing whatever good they find in the teachings into the rest of their life.