Zen master in Communicating through hollywood

I once incidentally saw a movie on HBO. (ohhh.... I love watching movies)-Charlie Wilson's war. Following is a dialogue in the last scene  of the movie


Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful." 
Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see." 


Reference: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/quotes?qt0436729

Probably it may not sound so powerful while just reading it, however in the movie (based on US' covert support for Afghan rebels during Russian occupation) it is masterfully placed and conveys a very serious and thought provoking message.

Summary of the message was thus : You may think yourself to be doing good while in the end the result is f**ked up beyond recognition. Similarly you may be messing up and suddenly there is a heap of rewards in front of you.

I wouldn't go too much further in this post because probably zen master explains it the best.
Just  simple questions for you whenever something positive happens to you: What just happened was good? really? should i rejoice? or maybe should i not?

Probably this positive may lead to something not really positive or something real bad.

Similarly for every negative outcome: Is it bad? really? Should i be sad? or maybe not. This negative may lead to something positive which you might have not thought of before or considered possible.

In short be a little skeptic when good happens and little content when something bad happens. It is a natural course of life and what happens is how it is meant to be.

Why we do what we do?

In my last post I detailed out how our reactions to circumstances create circumstances of the future.

This may give a reader hope that he/ she can determine his/her own future. This belief can be attributed as partly true. Though the fact is that we can only aim at a target future and the actual may be very different based upon external factors. It is like shooting an arrow on a desired target but the wind deviates it course.

Taking this target and arrow conjecture there are two questions that arise.

1. How do we determine our target?
2. How do we aim?

The questions seem simple to answer but they are not.

Take a moment and think. Determine two points in the future- One should be in the very near future- Today 5 PM perhaps and second is say 5-10 years later. Now think about what do you want your circumstance to be during both those points.

Suppose the answers are

1. I want to be back at home today at 5 PM
2. I want to be a multi millionaire in 10 years

These two being the desired circumstances the question I want to pose is why these two only? Why should it happen that everybody will have a different (atleast slightly different) answer to these questions.

This leads me to a conclusion: The sum total of all our experiences in the past have a major effect on our present thought process.

I would like to explain experience in my framework before carrying on. An experience is the impression made by a circumstance, reaction and event on the human thought. For every cicrcumstance we react in a particular manner, which results into something +ve or -ve. This whole cycle creates an impression on our mind. We call this impression an experience. All these experiences collect somewhere back in our minds and we subconsciously refer to most relevant experiences whenever a circumstance presents itself.

The above answers of mine are a distillation of what I have interpreted from my experiences. It all distills down to these. This is how I and you decide our targets. Now I will explain how we aim.

Close your eyes and imagine that you are on top of a very high building. What else flashes? I bet all the similar moments when you were standing somewhere high. What do you think? You will think based upon whatever your experience was during those moments. They will be either dread or joy based upon whatever your experiences were. Then there will be another round of experiences - you may think about your loved ones and experiences with them and so on.

You will feel a huge push behind you. This is a push created by all the experiences brought forward to you by your subconscious. This push drives you to one particular action. However there may be another set of experiences which may lead to another contradictory action. For example your experiences which may lead you to want to discard any fear of height. Its now you get a choice. The choice you take is the aim you take and determines what is your desired circumstance (the target).

Thus our experiences in the past suggests to us the options that we can take, makes us decide on what we think we want to be. Its Us who has to choose. How we choose also depends on our experience but still I believe that humans have enough will power to choose otherwise.

Please note that the targets (desired circumstance) we set for ourselves may not be perfect and our aim (choice) maybe completely wayward, but these are the end results of how we (and the world) have programmed ourselves.

This is how we evolve our so called destiny. It is just a programming of our past, choices in the present and the effect of external factors  (guided by the unity of the universe) in the future.

Please comment if you have any views on my posts. I am waiting




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