The Most Astounding Fact by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Joanna Macy

Don't be Afraid of the Dark
This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don't be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, for these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. To suffer with is the literal meaning of compassion.

Charlie Chaplin, "The Dictator" Speech

I never knew much about Charlie Chaplin growing up, but in the last few years I have come to appreciate his work. He played the joker to authority and in this particular film, The Dictator in 1940, co-opted Hitler and wrote this speech.

It's Possible

So I should confront it.

"I am not eternal

The suchness that is me, derived from my upbringing, my parents, my collection of experiences, confined to this time and place, this ego longing for forever…will be destroyed.
My overwhelming sense of primate-self will expire.
Parts of my essence, my chemistry, will carry on,
But I am not eternal.
I am a temporary, brief expression of the moment exploding.
I am an emotional moment longing for forever, in a beautiful world of the temporary.
I may leave behind a whisper of a memory; I may leave behind a collection for the living,
But they too shall explode into the great unknown darkness.
And it is in this beautiful moment that I live…brief, amazing…"

-Darrin F. McMahon

There’s no rush. Go on being right just as long as you can. You’ll see that being right is actually a tight little box that is very constraining and not much fun to live in. Righteousness cuts you off from the flow of things. When I’m locked in a situation in a relationship with someone, it isn’t that they have done something to me. They’re just doing what they’re doing. If I get caught up in judging, the responsibility lies with me, not with them. It becomes my work on myself. I often say, “I really apologize for whatever suffering I’ve caused you in this situation.” We start to work from there. And after a while they will come forward and will examine themselves and say, “Well, maybe I was . . .” Our predicament is that our ego wants to be right in a world of people who don’t understand how right we are.

There is a way of representing what is right, the dharma of the moment. But if you get emotionally attached to a model of how the world ought to be that excludes how human beings are, there’s something wrong with where you’re standing. You should be standing somewhere else. Getting lost in your emotional reactivity isn’t where you want to be. Just allowing your humanity and that of others to be as it is, is the beginning of compassion. We are in a human incarnation. We can’t walk away. To walk in the dharma is also to hear other human beings.

- Excerpt from Ram Dass’ book Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from your Spiritual Heart.

The Sagan Series (part 3)