The Ties of Life
Breaking News: Peaceful Couple Have a Baby
Well, when do we ever see stories like this in our little drama filled lives these days? Can you imagine the Daily Mail running this on the front page?
A good news story, yes. But one with deeper meaning than the event itself. OK there’s a bit of spin as you’d expect. This guy Siddhattha sounds too good to be true. I bet he swatted a few mosquitoes in his time, got a bit pissed off when the gardeners disturbed his meditation, had a pollen allergy?
If someone else is telling the story, you can bet it’s been spun somewhat to fit their own agenda. What can that agenda be here? It’s possible to just knuckle down and be happy Peasants, you don’t have to cause trouble for your overlords. Just accept your simple life and don’t be too ambitious or covetous of what we have!
Maybe I’m being too cynical, it isn’t after all a story to make us aware of the need to worship the new baby as in Christianity. Maybe the Ties of Life is just to show us that even the Buddha has to do normal everyday stuff and that he does it without question.
Even though he’s stronger in will, mind and body than everyone else, he’s just a geezer like you and me. His peace, however, comes from a special place…inside.
In life, every day, we can choose our locus of control. Is it going to be external…the drama and repeats of television and the media where we say “I was robbed, lied to, abused, under privileged, therefore I failed at my task and I’m unhappy” ?
or
“You sit and wonder just who’s gonna stop the rain
Who’ll ease the sadness, who’s gonna quiet the pain
It’s a long dark highway and a thin white line
Connecting baby, your heart to mine
We’re runnin’ now but darlin’ we will stand in time
To face the ties that bind
The ties that bind
Now you can’t break the ties that bind
You can’t forsake the ties that bind” Bruce Springsteen; The Ties That Bind
Can we choose to have an Internal locus of control:
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong choice of clothes”…Billy Connolly
And of course there’s the metaphor of the child as the earth with the Buddha as the loving father.
It won’t catch on of course, tomorrow someone will have eaten someone’s hamster and we’ll be back to our normal little melodramatic “selves”, if we choose to.
And Importance?…what of Importance, Priorities? The Buddha seems to know that the importance of our attention should be on those Ties that Bind…family, peace, the environment that nourishes us and of course the inner peace that comes with the ability to direct one’s attention to one thing at a time.
Bringing me back to the very essence of why Restless Peasant even exists…we can choose to be free and happy…
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The Ties Of Life
From the so called Gospel of Buddha
“WHEN Siddhattha had grown to youth, his father desired to see him married, and he sent to all his kinsfolk, commanding them to bring their princesses that the prince might select one of them as his wife.
But the kinsfolk replied and said: “The prince is young and delicate; nor has he learned any of the sciences. He would not be able to maintain our daughter, and should there be war he would be unable to cope with the enemy.”
The prince was not boisterous, but pensive in his nature. He loved to stay under the great jambu-tree in the garden of his father, and, observing the ways of the world, gave himself up to meditation. And the prince said to his father: “Invite our kinsfolk that they may see me and put my strength to the test.” And his father did as his son bade him.
When the kinsfolk came, and the people of the city Kapilavatthu had assembled to test the prowess and scholarship of the prince, he proved himself manly in all the exercises both of the body and of the mind, and there was no rival among the youths and men of India who could surpass him in any test, bodily or mental. He replied to all the questions of the sages; but when he questioned them, even the wisest among them were silenced.
Then Siddhattha chose himself a wife. He selected his cousin Yasodhara, the gentle daughter of the king of Koli. In their wedlock was born a son whom they named Rahula which means “fetter” or “tie,” and King Suddhodana, glad that an heir was born to his son, said: “The prince having begotten a son, will love him as I love the prince. This will be a strong tie to bind Siddhattha’s heart to the interests of the world, and the kingdom of the Sakyas will remain under the scepter of my descendants.”
With no selfish aim, but regarding his child and the people at large, Siddhattha, the prince, attended to his religious duties, bathing his body in the holy Ganges and cleansing his heart in the waters of the law. Even as men desire to give happiness to their children, so did he long to give peace to the world.”
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