Discourse 24: Monsters

[Trollax]

We are akin to being on steamrollers in motion. The question is not that anyone of us have the ability to flatten (ie. hurt) anyone else. The question is how much responsibility for taking the wheel of the steamroller and learning to navigate so that we don't flatten anyone else nor destroy ourselves in the process. And we don't get instruction manuals. We have to learn to control the damned thing oursleves.

Serial killers, people with political/religious agendas, and world leaders claim to have no choice, and therefore take no responsibility for their actions.

But the truth of the matter is we do have a responsibility for taking the wheel of our lives in hand and trying to manage a good steering job. We fuck up, but we learn from it. Those who take no responsibility never learn.

Yes. And do we tear others from their driver's seat and run them over? Does that really allow someone to take responsibility for what they do? does it even throw what they have done into some kind of ugly relief? Only if they know what responsibility they abused or failed in the first place. Like I said. There are some people who may be beyond our ability to recover, but there are some who do. There was a guy who was in prison for 30 to life. He was a biker, a hit man and a standover guy. But he did end up turning his life around. He discovered religion. I remember another man who used to teach scripture to my class in year 6. He used to be a prize fighter, a street fighter. One night he was going out to fight a man who had a reputation for putting people into comas. The guy who had been fighting him beforehand came back, sat down, started screaming in pain then fell over, dead. He'd been given a stroke from all the bare-fisted blows to the head he'd taken. That was the night he walked out and decided to change.
My karate sensei, even though he was a fundie. He was the kid in town that the cops were always watching, harassing. He used to steal cars and deal drugs, he even swam across the manning river one night to escape the cops. these days he has a wife and two kids. and he's a well-respected member of an international martial arts school. Not all of them monsters, no. And yes, perhaps across lifetimes the burden fades. but perhaps it is food for thought.

[Bella]

As a matter of fact, yes. We rip them from the driver's seat and run them over before they can hurt anyone else. Preventing further damage has to be given priority over understanding and/or rehabilitation of the offending party. If some perpetrators of evil are able to recover and make something better of themselves, good for them. But it's on their heads, and must not come at the expense of others.

As for the reasons why, horab already nailed it.
We're all monsters - and we each have a responsibility to tame the monster within us.
If not, we have to accept the consequences of our actions.

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

The wheel of samsara ('wandering') can only be broken after enough people have become so thoroughly disgusted with the suffering they inflict upon themselves and others. A western Buddhist monk by the name of Sangharakshita (the Western Buddhist Order) said that when wisdom is your operating principle then you are on a spiral path. It is spiral because you are starting to rise from samsara, but the energy of the spinning still influences you. How long that path takes depends obviously on circumstances, skill, and awareness.

Using wisdom we can see directly that all things are impermanent. This helps us to loosen our clinginess and greed...and also our preferential treatment towards those who we allow in our lives simply because they make us happy. Too often we use others as means to our ends or as backdrop characters to our dramas.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The wheel of samsara ('wandering') can only be broken after enough people have become so thoroughly disgusted with the suffering they inflict upon themselves and others.

Yeeeeah.  THAT'LL happen.

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

The wheel of samsara ('wandering') can only be broken after enough people have become so thoroughly disgusted with the suffering they inflict upon themselves and others.

Yeeeeah.  THAT'LL happen.

Let's not hold our breath waiting. But let's still have some ideals...they go good with ravioli.

[Trollax]

The wheel of samsara ('wandering') can only be broken after enough people have become so thoroughly disgusted with the suffering they inflict upon themselves and others.

Yeeeeah.  THAT'LL happen.

Let's not hold our breath waiting. But let's still have some ideals...they go good with ravioli.

Hope keeps the door open.

[fullmooner]

If we are to tame the monsters within us, what happens if the monster within us tames the self? Then are we truly responsible, and who color coded my sock drawer?

[Trollax]

If we are to tame the monsters within us, what happens if the monster within us tames the self? Then are we truly responsible, and who color coded my sock drawer?

That is (of course) assuming that the monster within us is a separate entity. Every choice we make, we are responsible for, we must live with every consequence. There is of course a certain amount of leeway offereed to people who are brainwashed, manipulated, multipe personalities etc. but in the end we even made the choices that got us to that place. Certainly it dimishes our capacity to respond, but not our responsibility to own up to the actions of whatever self crosses that line.

[fullmooner]

In other words, it IS my fault and my socks are forever run amock. Gotcha. Either way, if the monster within me is not seperate, then who does the living when I am dreaming at night? And what is it with the damned grey house in my dream that keeps changing in the inside? I view that as one of the monsters I have no control over, as it seems to see things I do not and act accordingly.. Thus I tend to do things that even I do not understand until something it prevented happening ccomes to pass. Not completely seperate, perhaps, but definitely not always something I can see coming......

[Trollax]

In other words, it IS my fault and my socks are forever run amock. Gotcha. Either way, if the monster within me is not seperate, then who does the living when I am dreaming at night? And what is it with the damned grey house in my dream that keeps changing in the inside? I view that as one of the monsters I have no control over, as it seems to see things I do not and act accordingly.. Thus I tend to do things that even I do not understand until something it prevented happening ccomes to pass. Not completely seperate, perhaps, but definitely not always something I can see coming......

of course... You're not exactly responsible for getting hit by the car while you're walking past the coffe shop... but you are responsible for deciding to take a different way home that day.

[Horab Fibslager]

we are the monster within. it is as much a part of us as our teeth or our compassion or whatever.

suer there are divsions to the human mind, but they are not so palpable as to simpy put  it down to funtions such as control or abstain. however regardless of how our parts manifest themselves, there is no denying that we are responsible for the whole of our own actions.

[fullmooner]

I have a running theory that with each cchoice there is a positive and a negative outcome. But sometimes the aftereffects of that negative outcome can be more positive than that original positive outcome, and the aftereffects of the positive outcome can be eventually more negative than the original negative outcome. Either way, if I get hit by a car on the way home, the cab driver who hit me would not have fallen in love with the lovely ambulance worker he met through my death.

[Trollax]

I have a running theory that with each cchoice there is a positive and a negative outcome. But sometimes the aftereffects of that negative outcome can be more positive than that original positive outcome, and the aftereffects of the positive outcome can be eventually more negative than the original negative outcome. Either way, if I get hit by a car on the way home, the cab driver who hit me would not have fallen in love with the lovely ambulance worker he met through my death.

Not saying that. I'm saying that we're responsible for where our choices take us... small or large, directly or indirectly.

[fullmooner]

I just mean that if we are responsible, then why can we not know beforehand what will happen next? if we do not know, how can we be held accountable?

[Trollax]

I just mean that if we are responsible, then why can we not know beforehand what will happen next? if we do not know, how can we be held accountable?

Well, we're not accountable as in guilty but we are accountable in that we made the choice. If you bump someone in the street in your haste to pick up a $2 coin someone has dropped and that bump causes them to miss their bus and try to walk and they end up being struck by lightning... No you're not guilty, but it is the reason why.