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[sathor]

I happened across a wooly bear on my doorstep this morning - heartbreaking to say the least. The poor creature is most assuredly doomed - it's far too cold, and there's hardly any food I would imagine as spring is barely here. It brought to mind suffering, and what it means to suffer. I don't care for these subcategories of "being" determined by whether or not a creature can feel...based on it's brain, the configuration of it, the nervous system, or lack thereof...It seems horrifying to me, to be born into a world in such a form, knowing only your own limitations, and having no say in the matter whatsoever. We're all like that really, it just feels, to me, as though we as human beings have maybe convinced ourselves that it is somehow different for us. A Police song comes to mind, "King of Pain." I have a hard time describing the sensation that passed through me, but I think that song does an adequate job of doing it for me.

A feeling of powerlessness passed over me in that moment, too. Not only powerlessness in my own life, but in the lives of all mortal things. Suffering and desire seem to be the two primary forces in this plane, be they visible or not.

It seems self-evident to me, that if you or I were the wooly bear, a foot from the doorstep of a warm house and pointed towards it, that we were probably trying to escape the cold in futility. It's so utterly heart wrenching.

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[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Do you know this poem by Robert Frost?

To A Moth Seen In Winter

There’s first a gloveless hand warm from my pocket,
A perch and resting place ‘twixt wood and wood,
Bright-black-eyed silvery creature, brushed with brown,
The wings not folded in repose, but spread.
(Who would you be, I wonder, by those marks
If I had moths to friend as I have flowers?)
And now pray tell what lured you with false hope
To make the venture of eternity
And seek the love of kind in winter time?
But stay and hear me out. I surely think
You make a labor of flight for one so airy,
Spending yourself too much in self-support.
Nor will you find love either nor love you.
And what I pity in you is something human,
The old incurable untimeliness,
Only begetter of all ills that are.
But go. You are right. My pity cannot help.
Go till you wet your pinions and are quenched.
You must be made more simply wise than I
To know the hand I stretch impulsively
Across the gulf of well nigh everything
May reach to you, but cannot touch your fate.
I cannot touch your life, much less can save,
Who am tasked to save my own a little while.

by Robert Frost


... your post here also reminded me of Loren Eiseley's essay The Judgement of the Birds: "In the days of the frost seek a minor sun."

It's true that that wooly bear probably won't become a moth. The baby ants need to be fed too, y'know, and there will be enough moths to carry on.

Reality is horrifying when compared to fantasy. The truth is that we're not born into the world, but rather out of it, temporary manifestations of the enduring life-force of Earth. Planets don't last forever either, of course; this whole biosphere is assuredly doomed (though hopefully not on our watch.) Is this any reason to spend our brief lives lamenting having been born mortal? There isn't any other way to be born.

Sure, humans convince themselves of all kinds of lovely fantasies, and then are horrified to discover they're not true. We didn't get a say about being born because we didn't exist before our physical bodies grew. The Universe does not care about us; there's no Great Spirit making plans, keeping score or handing out rewards or punishments. We'll never be anything but human, and most of our questions will never be answered, because there's no one to answer them. When we die, we don't go anywhere else; our brains stop functioning and our bodies decay; we don't get a second chance to live.

Buddha said the cause of suffering is attachment. I think you might be interested in this essay, The Path of Non-Attachment: note that he points out that "Karma and rebirth are both concepts Buddhism has taken from Hinduism." (in other words, they weren't part of Buddha's teaching.)

Now, note that I am not a Buddhist, but rather a Pantheist Wiccan, and I don't hold with non-attachment:

"Inescapably, this is how life is: nothing is permanent, everything changes and will disappear. Knowing this changes our perception of the world and the priorities we find in being here. One reaction, therefore, is to view the world somewhat sceptically, in a nonchalant and detached manner. Knowing that someone you love is going to die, changes your love for them somewhat.

Yes, it does change one's love, but it certainly doesn't make it 'nonchalant and detached' - rather, it makes it more intense, more precious and poignant, more worth the pain. Suffering is inevitable; joy is optional; embrace as much of it as you can while you have the chance.

There's my counsel to you in a nutshell, young Jedi: live in such a way that your life is worth the pain. You are not powerless just because your power has limits; all power has limits.