Moving to the big picture

It seems that the big picture is always missing in modern culture.  E.g., while academic economists are hard at work on data to present the big economic picture, what the average person in the street receives as ‘economic news’ is more than often the small picture (microeconomics).  It is like driving a car in thick fog in the morning with no lights on (you know, the kind in California’s great central valley).  If there are dangers ahead or behind, well, you can’t see them until it is too late.

Our lives, too, consist of the small picture—lots of small pictures, in fact.  We lack the big picture, this is to say, we lack an overarching perspective by which we are able to avoid future problems and come to some measure of contentment.  Using the simile again, we are driving this life of ours down a foggy road.  We can barely see over the hood of our car.  A few examples of what I mean, at this point, might help.

• Eating non-nutritious food on a daily basis.
• Neglect of daily exercise such as walking.
• Driving in a hurry and too fast.
• Putting the car keys anyplace when we arrive home.
• Buying too many items we can’t really afford.
• Drinking too much before we have to go to work the next day.
• Waiting until the last minute to do something important.
• Having unprotected sex.

If we decide to give up our life of small pictures, to delve somewhat into Buddhism (maybe read a book or two), which is all about the big picture, we hesitate to look too long at the big picture which Buddhism presents which is about suffering, especially the suffering that comes with old age and our death, not to mention the possibility of rebirth.  It is a scary sight, to be sure.  But it is reality.  It is a picture we have to get used to if we are going to begin to live a better, fuller life. 

If we accept the big picture of Buddhism that all phenomena are impermanent, including our bodies, almost paradoxically we discover that we have to pay a great deal of attention to running, so to speak, a tight ship; paying attention to the little details.  We have to discipline ourselves, for example, to lay off the pizza and beer tonight.  Maybe we should try a salad.  In other words, we have to lead a more focused life always asking ourselves, “Where is this action going to lead me?”  On the same note, we have to avoid as much as possible what the comedian Dana Carvey dubbed the “fuckits” which usually comes when nothing in our day is going right for us (yes, those days will come).  What we don’t see is that the fuckits are the result of having lived with the small picture always in front of us.  The fuckit is like a demon enticing us back to the small picture.

Reorienting and adjusting this precious life of ours for the big picture of Buddhism demands of us that we first accept our life with this body to be possibly a short one and not without anguish.  But Buddhism, at the same time, also demands of us that we profoundly acknowledge a higher part of ourselves which transcends this limited body and its death.  This means we have to study and practice the Buddha’s teaching so the transcendent becomes completely real for us—not just a fancy.  Living this way, at least, is more like driving with fog lights on and not having so many fuckit days!

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[Lama Guru Shining Path Holy Light]

"much of Albert Einstein's relativity theory was stolen, and had already been proposed by Ruđer Bošković,...the relativity theory, by the way, is much older than its present proponents. It was advanced over 200 years ago by my illustrious countryman Ruđer Bošković, the great philosopher, who, not withstanding other and multifold obligations, wrote a thousand volumes of excellent literature on a vast variety of subjects. Bošković dealt with relativity, including the so-called time-space continuum ...- Nikola Tesla

[Lama Guru Shining Path Holy Light]

"... Supposing that the bodies act upon the surrounding space causing curving of the same, it appears to my simple mind that the curved spaces must react on the bodies, and producing the opposite effects, straightening out the curves. Since action and reaction are coexistent, it follows that the supposed curvature of space is entirely impossible - But even if it existed it would not explain the motions of the bodies as observed. Only the existence of a field of force can account for the motions of the bodies as observed, and its assumption dispenses with space curvature. All literature on this subject is futile and destined to oblivion. So are all attempts to explain the workings of the universe without recognizing the existence of the ether and the indispensable function it plays in the phenomena."
"My second discovery was of a physical truth of the greatest importance. As I have searched the entire scientific records in more than a half dozen languages for a long time without finding the least anticipation, I consider myself the original discoverer of this truth, which can be expressed by the statement: There is no energy in matter other than that received from the environment." — Nikola Tesla