Accidents

All of life is accidental. This is not a statement of equivocation. This is an alarm. Wake up.

If you are pretty, healthy, well built, a racial majority where you live, born to a wealthy family by world standards, all of this has come to you by accident. You have not earned any of it. Therefore, you are not any more special than someone who wins the lottery. Society will reward you for these favorable accidents, as long as you conform to what society wants from you. And, because these favorable accidents may have spoiled you in many ways, you may well do everything you can to remain privileged and to feel superior.

Turning the mind away from the conformist view of favorable accidents is very hard for those blessed by them. This is at the very root of a celebrity culture, pumped up by capitalist advertising. It is also at the root of social stagnation. The pretty and rich often call the shots. They are elected to public office. They determine the fashions. They portray the heroes in cinema.

Compassion requires turning away from one's reliance on one's own happy accidents of birth. This, after all, is the story of the historic Buddha. When a person truly abandons the trappings of his accidents of birth in favor of becoming a person of change and intent for the benefit of all beings, it is indeed inspirational. Part of my practice is acknowledging the accidental nature of life and death for all beings.

Birth

I recently saw a female celebrity on television speaking about giving birth. Her perspective was centered on HER experience of giving birth to HER babies. Birthing these eventually independent human lives held more significance for her than considering her responsibility for bringing two separate human beings onto a planet which is rapidly deteriorating from the overpopulation of our species. This is primitive and childish. Yet it is an epidemic among our species. Senseless procreation, procreation for its own sake or the sake of ego gratification, will someday be seen as a mental illness on this planet. That time will come sooner than later. If it does not, then our species itself will fail with its destroyed ecology.

Accidents

When you relinquish illusions about the nature of life, death and creation, you can accept the reality that we are all the products of and the subjects of accidents. The greatest accident which befalls our lives is the accident of birth. One sperm hits one egg and you are it. Which particular sperm hits which particular egg basically determines what kind of body you will have, what kind of upbringing you will have, and what your social position will be ultimately. Beauty queens and wealthy trust funders will be aghast at the concept that they haven't "made it on their own with hard work". Yet the reality is that most of what we are is an accident of genetics. If you can learn to accept this view of life, you will be blessed with a whole new view of the world and your place in it. There is no need, for example, to fear accidents. Accidents can actually change your life for the better as easily as change it for the worse. You can be released from the fear of death, because you will have to accept that your death will be an accident, unless you end it yourself. Fear of failure diminishes when you realize that whatever you may do could be destroyed or enhanced by an accident. While planning and living with hope for an accident-free future are human qualities which can be used to make our lives more bearable, it is just as helpful to maintain a basic awareness that life is rooted in the great accident of evolution. One large meteor could end this accident of life on earth in an instant.

Autumn

delight in the death
the browning smell
the blue metal skies
winter's mild warning

delight in the death
see your own in it
accept it and inhale
release your breath

delight in the death