It was a perfectly round world. It had lush trees and waterfalls, the sounds of exotic birds and frogs. It had what looked to be little people of different colours, with human voices. Little straw huts in which they lived. Then one by one, without warning, the little people were flung from their world, screaming.
“Why did you do that?” I demanded. The reply: “Oh, it’s OK. I can make more people. I like to fling them off the world.”
This last comment was from a 9-year-old boy, thoroughly absorbed in one of the milder computer games on his iPad.
This little child had no idea at all that he was programming his young brain, hard-wiring its neural circuitry to accept a dispensible regard for human life, to accept a power over the life and death and suffering of others, and worse, to achieve enjoyment from killing.
The limbic system of the brain has no sense of logic, rationale, or what the Buddha termed Relative Reality – the compounded world of the five senses in which we live. It is a mechanism of free-association. Everything we view, hear, feel, is recorded in the limbic system as being symbolic of something else familiar to us. We construct our own world in this way. In young children, the neural net is growing at a tremendous rate, busily hard-wiring all experiences into its infrastructure. The first seven years, especially (culminating in a Saturn transit that begins to link up the ego-centred prefrontal cortex in the brain), are the most crucial; and adolescence (particulartly at the Saturn opposition around age 14) is also a powerfully developmental time, psychologically.
The United States Military used to train their soldiers to shoot bulls-eye targets for accuracy, but then found that when these soldiers were in a war-zone, they could not kill human beings. Of course, it is against the basic instinct of our inherent Buddha-nature to do so! So the Military changed its tactics. They decided to train their soldiers with targets that looked like real people. This produced the results the Military was hoping for: more effective killing machines!
In a similar way, young children are especially vulnerable to negative imagery as they are creating their future life circumstances, via the limbic system of the brain, in the present. They are currently exposed to so much violence, so much destruction. What sort of world will they create for us when they mature as adults? We build our world from our subconscious expectations founded in past experiences. To the brain, memory and imagination use most of the same neural circuits. The brain cannot tell the difference. This is why Buddhist Tantra, the invoking of positive imagery to reprogram the psyche, and hence brain, can be so effective in developing compassion, wisdom, and perfect power to assist all beings. However, when imagery is used for violent power-mongering, the results are just as potent.
From Mail Online, Fiona McRae had interviewed Dr Jordan Grafman, of the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda, Maryland, who had made this statement:
‘given the right circumstances…, would an adolescent tend to be more aggressive and accept that aggression as normal behaviour given prior exposure to video games?
‘I think so. Particularly if they are a heavy user of games and, in our device-driven world, that will be more and more likely in the future.’
Who is behind the creation of the mindless and destructive computer games that are utilised so innocently by children for many hours at a time each day? Often they are created by clever young people who have grown up with the same imagery, including the idea, via social media websites, that relationships are cheap and dispensible. And so the cycle continues.
Only responsible parents can break this cycle. Democratic governments cannot ban the products in free countries. It is only by consumer outrage that these tender young brains can be saved. And also, perhaps, by talented people who can create computer games involving wit, mystery, and education, without bowing to violent impulses.
I fear the consequences of the "education" of the little ones today. When Pluto moves out of Capricorn and into the Aquarius influence in 2024, we may need to hang on to our proverbial hats! It could be a Golden Age of equanimity and innovative humanitarian endeavours, with huge advances in vibrational healing methods, and in the scientific study of consciousness; but only if we do something NOW to halt the violent imagery being planted into our children’s brains, worldwide. The Aquarius frequency, when not accessed mindfully and wisely, can also produce hatred, aversion, opposition, arrogance, and war.
Please consider this carefully. The survival of our planet, and indeed our species, may depend upon it.
Buddha Blessings!
Kerrie Redgate (Changchub Dolma)
Image of graffiti in Seattle, “Guerilla” courtesy bartleby78.
What moves the tides of people to think with one virtual mind, to create new destinies and surprise even themselves, collectively, with their own “oneness”?
Michio Kushi (the modern father of Macrobiotic Healing in the West, and founder of the East-West Centres in various parts of the world), had arrived in the United States from Japan with the dream of bringing World Peace through an engagement in politics. It took little time for him to realise that real change must occur at the level of the Individual, and that a balanced and healthy body and mind were at the heart of personal peace and healing. It was then that he became a healer extraordinaire! and spread his teachings globally through his books, lectures, and centres of learning.
You will begin to smell flowers again, to hear the birds singing at dawn and dusk, and to appreciate the innocently happy face of a small child on the street. “Life” will be much closer to home.
Miracle: Kuan Yin Survives Attack by Car!
I was moving rather quickly on foot across a busy town road, late afternoon, traffic speeding around the tight bend toward me. I heard a clunk, looked down, and there was my ornately-carved solid jade Kuan Yin pendant lying face down on the bitumen. No time to stop and pick Her up, the bus was almost upon me! What to do!!
The huge spinning wheels of the bus straddled Her without incident. I breathed out. But then immediately following was an equally paced car. I watched, without breath, as its front tyre quickly rolled over one side of the pendant which rocked with the force of the attack. Kuan Yin!!! I was mortified!
My history with Kuan Yin began during my early investigations of Buddhism, but I did not develop a relationship with Her until my 50th birthday which coincided with my first Kuan Yin miracle.
Friends had spontaneously offered me the cash to buy Her as a special “50th” gift. And it was not until I later meticulously washed the dirt from Her form that I discovered She was not a garden cement replica, as I had supposed, but ornately hand-carved marble! Obviously a devotional piece from a demolished temple in China, (which explains the living ch’i of the piece!). From Kuan Yin, that was only the first miracle! Many more were to follow!
I had found the jade Chinese Kuan Yin pendant in a beautiful shop in Sydney’s Chinatown. The pendant was obviously far too ornately sculpted and chunky for my small frame. But that night I couldn’t sleep. Kuan Yin was calling me. A dear friend generously gifted me with cash so I could buy the expensive piece (this in itself was a miracle!).
Kuan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion
Still smiling! Still blessing!
I tore across the road to retrieve Her, picked her up, almost in tears, and checked over every millimetre of her form, right there on the roadside. Not one scratch. And her Blessing hand was perfectly intact! She was smiling at me, as usual, as though nothing at all of any importance had just occurred.
The miracle is not only in the survival of this priceless piece, but in the message I was receiving at this crucial time. Kuan Yin’s Blessings are indestructible! No matter how many transgressions I may make in this life, no matter how many stupid decisions, no matter how many tears may fall, Her Blessings and Compassion are indestructible and will prevail!
The Chinese Taoist classic I Ching1 offers advice in the chapter entitled The Receptive. Receptivity and Humility are important virtues to cultivate for success in life and in all relationships. If we are not open to the unusual or unfamiliar, we avoid growth. This can be due to egoistic pride, or, at best, past-life experiences of persecution echoing in the psyche.
Arrogance and Pride block all receptivity and prevent forward movement. The ego-nature always seeks to maintain the status quo, as there is safety in the repetitiveness of the familiar.
Open your Mind, dear Reader, and sincerely ask for help the next time you are facing an impenetrable wall. They will not respond to our laziness, but will be inspired by our determination to follow our goals to completion, particularly when our goals have been designed to benefit other beings.
Whether we ask Kuan Yin or the Virgin Mary or Lakshmi or a local Deity, it makes no difference. They are beyond religion, and have blossomed instead into Perfectly Complete Compassion… And don’t forget to thank Them afterwards with a water offerng, incense or a flower. Taking anyone for granted will not produce either human or divine miracles.
Buddha Blessings!
Kerrie Redgate (Changchub Dolma)
Notes:
1 I recommend any of the several translations by the revered scholar and translator, Thomas Cleary, especially the Taoist I Ching (pron. Dowist Yee Jing; “dow” as in the British “cow”)
2 If Kuan Yin touches your Heart, I recommend a wonderful book by the now late John Blofeld, entitled The Bodhisattva of Compassion, on his fascinating adventures in Asia investigating the many encounters and stories of Kuan Yin.