THE LITTLE PRINCE LIVES MINDFULLY

My favourite book is Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [pictured left]. The book, written ostensibly for children, but also for adults (who, in the view, of the author, understand very little), is a classic of 20th century literature.

Have you ever watched a child play with a toy or a game? A child ordinarily lives attentively and mindfully ... instinctively, naturally, and spontaneously. Only after conditioning sets in does this mindfulness dissipate. Before then a child lives mindfully. At times their attention span is very brief, but whatever be the focus of their attention at any given moment, the child attends to that moment ... attentively.

In order to be free of a ‘mind of attachment’, we must observe but don’t stay, look but don’t stop, be aware but don’t analyse, judge or condemn. The mind must never be detained in one place. The mind must remain unfettered, free to move from moment-to-moment. Why? Because life is constant movement. Unless we move freely with the unceasing movement of life we stagnate. Truth dies on us.

Truth---that is, life---is never static. The little prince visits a number of planets on his way to earth. Each of those planets is a miniature ‘theatre of the absurd,’ inhabited by some solitary, self-obsessed figure who is condemned to endlessly repeat some meaningless act. The little prince moves from plant to planet in order to learn, know, understand, and grow. He knows when to move on. What about us? So often we get stuck in some place, in some relationship, and do not know how to move on. More often than not we simply refuse to move on. We think it’s safer to stay where we are. The result? Unnecessary pain and suffering. Read Le Petit Prince and you will learn how to move on.

I've said it so many times before. We simply need to see things-as-they-realy-are, in their totality, in their actuality, without opinion, judgment, interpretation, or analysis. This requires complete but bare attention and choiceless awarenes.

We always have a choice---at any given moment. We can live mindfully---or mindlessly. The choice is ours. However, know this---as truth is dynamic and never static, we are denied the comfort of fixed and absolute truth. Truth can only be known from one moment to the next.

So, if someone tells you that this person or that person is or embodies truth, or that this path or religion is the way, and perhaps the only way, to truth, shun them, ignore them, dismiss them.

Truth is something that only we can 'discover' for ourselves. Actually, truth is 'no-thing,' for it does not consist of things, but paradoxically truth can only be known and understood in the moment-to-moment experience of the content of the passing things, whether internal or external, of each moment.

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SLAVES OF THE ‘I’---EVEN UNTO DEATH

I have written much---perhaps too much---on the unreality on the ‘self,’ but I couldn’t resist sharing this saying, attributed to Shakyamuni Buddha, which I read only recently:

Ye are slaves of the I, that toil in the service of self from morn to night, that live in constant fear of birth, old age, sickness, death, receive the good tidings that your cruel master exists not.

‘Slaves of the I, that toil in the service of self.’ When I think of the legal profession---of which I have been an erstwhile member for almost 35 years---I see so many practitioners who ‘toil in the service of self’ while self-righteously affirming they are doing it for the sake and benefit of their clients. They write aggressive letters to the lawyers for the other party which basically say no more than, ‘My dick's bigger than yours.’

These lawyers suffer so greatly from being in slavery to themselves and their own sense of self-importance. No wonder lawyers are statistically more unhappy than any other people. So many lawyers I have encountered in my working life as a lawyer and legal academic are oblivious to the fact that their clients are generally aware of the childish 'dick' game of one-upmanship constantly being played out before their very eyes---and at such great expense to the clients themselves and the general public, I might add. It’s total ego stuff, through and through, and the same thing can be said for most other businesses, trades and professions---not to mention what goes on in the home and in all day-to-day personal relationships. We are all very good at being disingenuous.

It has been said that when we leave this world we can take with us only what is ours ‘by right of consciousness.’ I am not at all sure that we can take even that ‘with’ us when we go---but I do know that what is ours by right of consciousness will remain for quite a long time as a memory and in the memories of those who remain and who remember, for better or for worse, what we were really like in our lifetime.

Most people have given up conventional religion, and I can readily understand why that is the case. All too sadly, however, the new religion of most people---at least in Western societies---is consumerism, and there is a helluva lot of ‘dick stuff’ associated with that religion! It’s all dick stuff 'from morn to night' with ‘constant fear’ that the so-called good times will come to an abrupt end at any moment, what with the credit cards all maxed out and so forth. And I am not being self-righteous here, for I stand 'guilty as charged' as well.

I read somewhere once that Leonardo da Vinci scribbled in the corner of one of his drawings that he had agonized over for some considerable time, ‘Leonardo, Why toilest thou thus?’ He saw the ultimate futility of all our endeavours. I know. I get the same feeling as I churn out these blogs each week---and I am certainly no Leonardo da Vinci! Far from it.

We all need to slow down and ponder this truth---the ‘cruel master’ for whom we toil in vain does not exist.

‘Why toilest thou thus?’

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