1985-07_17 Impermanence_ The Universe As Teacher Q&A 1

Talk: 19850717-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-impermanence_the_universe_as_teacher-1527.json Start_time: 01:19:27 Display_question: Are Buddhism and capitalism incompatible? Keyword_search: Buddhism, capitalism, incompatible, communism, Russia, Scandinavia, practice, work, job, school, global, constructs, spiritual, Buddhadharma, kitchen, Cambridge, waitress, waiter, ballerina, cab, poet, money, fulfilling, samsara, integrity, quality, purity Question_content: Larry: Anyone have any questions about bringing it home? Questioner: Talking about livelihood just raises for me an interesting question. I can't say it's a compelling one partly because I'm not out there, as it were. But, it could sometime become a hot issue, I guess. It's the one about Buddhism and capitalism. I've heard a teacher, for instance, remark here that he sees the two as being basically incompatible. And I've also heard other teachers, for example, some of the visiting llamas teachers encouraging us, in the same similar way that you are, to be integrating the formal kind of practice with the work of the workday world, holding a job and going to school, which is in effect aligning oneself with, in this country, a so called capitalist capital enterprise system. Is it really basically… Larry: That level, yeah, it doesn't mean much to me, your question. I don't mean to be insulting. I'm not, I don't feel I'm being insulting. Capitalism, communism, it's all nuts. Go to another, tell me where you're going to go where it's not nuts. Russia? Scandinavia. That's great over there. They've got nice… They just commit suicide all the time. Questioner: I guess sometimes it's a way for one such as myself to feel like the right thing is to avoid the so-called establishment. And I'm questioning it, so I’m not insulted by what you said. Larry: Yeah. I think, perhaps, it's something like this. If we get rid of those global constructs and just see, I would be more comfortable if you had a particular job in mind for you and say, “Okay, what is this job?” And then if you can spiritualize it when you're there, so then instead of getting concerned in some abstract polemic… It boils down to something like this: In a way, each one of us is entrusted with a small piece of the universe, and are we caring for it? Are we caring for that? And none of it's trivial. Whatever your job is, wherever you are, you're entrusted with a small piece of the universe. And forgetting about these political concepts. Break_line: Let's say you're in a restaurant and it's a I don't know, capitalist. I suppose they all would be classified that way; it's not communal. Let's say you're working, you're a cook, you're working in the restaurant. Can you bring real quality to the food? Can you bring real harmony to the staff? In other words, to whatever degree you're going to be there, if you want to put it in Buddhist terminology, can you bring the Buddhadharma into the kitchen? Not getting caught up in all the big constructs about what it is that you're doing but concretely and factually improving the quality of life for you and the people that you work with. And, extend that to your own situation. Break_line: Is there anything in the situation–you're a waitress. You can see that as a drag, that you're doing that until you really become a ballerina or a poet. “It's not my real job. I'm not a waiter or waitress.” And maybe ten years of your life go by or–this is Cambridge, I guess everyone is a cab driver and a waitress, but they aren't. “We're just doing this until we get the Nobel Prize. It's just temporary work.” But sometimes it can be ten years or five years. Can you flip it around? Can you make, let's say, being a waiter or a waitress service? It's a sensitive, delicate situation. People come in, eating is very highly charged. People come in, they're lonely. They want to be refurbished from a hard day. The person bringing the food is not doing a trivial thing. Actually, there's nothing trivial. Look at the guy who blew the whistle in Carado's story. Look what he put into his job. He brought everyone up with blowing the whistle and getting all the trucks off the street, the cars off the street. Break_line: I feel more comfortable getting at it at that level. At some level, it becomes very difficult. For example, in terms of, let's say, the level of, in a sense, corruption is so vast. I spent a number of years at a university and you had strange things going on there. Like one building, which totally financed by Shenley people, and it was on research on alcoholism. Now, there's something a little weird there. In other words, they made a fortune manufacturing alcohol and then donated some of it–no doubt tax deductible–to create a biochemical research institute to study all of these forms of alcoholic addiction. Well, why not just stop making alcohol? But that would be asking for too much. I mean, that's too simple. Break_line: Or the students would get outraged once a year. And pick anything: blood money, this money. There's no clean money in the whole university. If they would start isolating what money qualifies to operate the university, they'd have to close the whole joint down. So you just pick one thing. This money came from that company, and they're in this country, and look what they're doing. How can you sort it out? I mean, we're in the middle of it. We're not clean. Questioner: That's where it starts to become something that I want, that I have wanted to just not be a part of and not want to pay taxes. And the way to avoid it or not being there and the way to avoid it is to do something where I'm immune from it. Like either not make money or not do something like terms of a draft, like teach school where you're not being drafted. But it isn't very fulfilling if it's like it's sort of an in between area. And so it's not really supporting what's going on out there, and it's not really doing necessarily spiritual work either. Larry: Maybe it's in the nature of samsara that it's always going to be impure. If you're looking for purity on this level, think maybe we're looking in the wrong place. But what we can do is do the best we can with what's at hand wherever we find ourselves. Bring real integrity and quality to it. All three in unison: one, two. Why don't we start and work our way back? Go ahead, take on. End_time: 01:26:40