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The Three Lamps

  • Dec 5, 2024
  • 3 min read

Creative solutions depend on the existence of problems. Problems, therefore, are opportunities to evolve, to collaborate, and to investigate.


LAMP 1

We want to evolve.

All human action is effort made to either satisfy a drive or experience meaning. Those drives contain clear or distorted views of reality. Satiation and meaning are not necessarily related. As already discussed, meaning can only be “experienced” when effort is made to enhance the existence of something to which we acknowledge a connection and for which we accept responsibility. This “responsibility-connection” can be as limited as “myself” or as inconceivable as “all phenomena”. Therefore, the "amount of meaning" we consistently experience is either finite (when self-focused) or infinite (when considering others and the future wellbeing of others).

To “evolve” is to experience irreversible and ever-refining “health-insight” – physical, financial, emotional, mental, creative, and “spiritual”. The desire to evolve has no end. That is, no “amount of health” created in any dimension of life satiates the desire to evolve, itself. When evolving, an individual desires to continue evolving, to refine the ability to evolve, and to share that evolution with others.

LAMP 2

There's only one problem.

The inability to recognize the shared, common aim within individuals – the desire to evolve – is the singular source of conflict that all humans experience.

This conflict stems from “the surface” as the inability to empathize with individuals who are either thriving or not thriving (creating envy or condemnation of “other” within oneself). From “the depths”, this conflict stems from the inability to completely identify with individuals who are either thriving or not thriving (creating envy or condemnation of “other” within oneself).

Recognition of the commonality of motive is the fabric from which inner and outer harmony is created. Outer harmony is established when a collective of individuals agree to honor each other, as well as a common set of principles. Outer conflict is always the result of disagreements between individuals. Therefore, outer conflict must ultimately be resolved at the individual level. Individual, or inner, conflict is resolved first through study and practice, then through realization. Ultimately, harmony is established when evolution is understood to be a collective responsibility.


LAMP 3

Satiation is cyclical, but meaning isn't.

Satiation cycles “express themselves” rhythmically, in time frames ranging from the minuscule to the inconceivable, and are common to all individuals. For example, “my body” wants to breathe every moment, wants to eat every few hours, and wants to sleep everyday. Some part of “me” wants to continually satisfy the incessant arising of my desires for companionship, success, pleasure, sustenance, and so on. Do these "wants" belong to me alone? Or does my experience of these common “wants” indicate something deeper?

Most individuals experience satiation as a “self-centered” pursuit or performance of necessary activities. That is, in order to live, there are certain things "I" need to do. Knowing the meaning of life is not one of those things. But when a satiation cycle is challenged, the question of meaning often arises. That is, a crisis is often the catalyst in the search for meaning.

Without the experience of suffering, we are not afforded the opportunity to investigate its causes – or to relate to the suffering of others. Creative solutions depend on the existence of problems. Problems, therefore, are opportunities to evolve, to collaborate, and to investigate.

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Maitreya.png

Homage to Maitreya

Why do I mistake us myself,

When your entire summit’s inside me,

Engineering miracles all around?

Just like your identity belongs,

Inherent within the bliss,

The love of all time and light,

Once we hung out and you killed me,

Saying, “Rock this triangle and throne!”

With explosions of gold old as I Am,

While humbling me around eternity,

Throughout all awe with you, as you,

I was still at home together everywhere,

But being here and there already,

Who moves, has, or plays with friends,

Or helps them know this happy marriage?

As one, who for fun’s sake to kiss?

For one thing, finally takes its time,

So leave forever peace to all the rest,

There’s nothing more forgotten or found,

Cause invitations extend here and wide,

Tickets to ride the light that’s always on.

The Meaning of Maitreya

one

Foundations exist in order to house that which is alive. That is, we do not live in foundations but upon them. Similarly, we are not born into our fullness by leveling ground and setting concrete endlessly. The game must be played, and the conception of oneself as a mere practitioner does simply limit the beauty and magnificence indwelling in each. Champions are not made in practice but in contest, and the brave who will decide to act out and embody the transcendent will reap the benefits of doing so and attain. Vigor is the hallmark of heroes, but those averse to intensity remain underdeveloped on account of misidentifying who it is that actually suffers when looking out into the world. It is not others whom we aim to uplift or protect but parts of ourselves.

two

None can say and stand in truth, “This is mine alone.” Everything we are – everything we can aspire to or feel we possess – has as its basis and cause the preexistence or contribution of something or someone else. Our bodies are not our own, they belong to the earth and are fed and watered by the efforts of others. Our minds are not our own, they belong to the sky and are fed and watered by the thoughts of others. We eat and think only what is available to eat and think. And in choosing, we empower and proliferate all the lives whose values have been similar. In this way, companies and brands and messages and lifestyles gain in prominence, lose potency, or fade into obscurity. We become what we actively support or passively allow and fail to rectify.

three

Each decision we make has as its motive force the desire to be most alive. We want to do what feels best, and what feels best is to give what is true. Health, clarity, and inspiration are gifts from the wise. This statement is validated by our own experience of having been recipients of such, for everything is made brighter by their entrance into our lives. The byproducts of wisdom are neither arbitrary nor relative, but tangible and universally desirable. In other words, we want to be wise. But in prioritizing comfort, we forfeit our reasons to unfold and unleash our own heroic essence, for the most inspiring action is that most intimate with pain, and who neither wishes nor is able to perform the task cannot simultaneously be called by that name.

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy."

—RABINDRANATH TAGORE

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