With life’s ceaseless hurdles, I imagine my dear fellow being banging their pity head on pillows, supposedly hitting their skull hard, wracking their brain, wondering and almost wishing that it pop out, frantically to see what is there that makes one forget.
That is why the industrial agriculture and meat industry can exist. It is due to a basic experience of discernment and independence that violence in any form grows. That thinking does not allow us to see ourselves as part of a larger and interdependent whole, but creates a world where we feel separate from other people and everything else alive. It is a thought pattern that appeals to our fears and greed, which has defined the world in purely economic terms, builds on the idea of eternal growth and profit, and which constantly brings us to battle against others and nature.
I noticed two yogis were being held in high esteem. Since we were eating in the same tent, I had occasion to talk to them. I also noticed during the Drubchen that as everyone was chanting, doing mudras and so on, Drüpon Lama Karma and the other yogi just stared into space unmoving for hours on end. As I spoke to Drüpon Lama Karma, I realized he was a Dzogchen yogi who had done many years of retreat.
All life has intrinsic value, irrespective of it’s value to humans, Norwegian Philosopher Arne Næss said. He believed that the environmental crisis of the 20th century had arisen due to the lack of acknowledgement in our modern societies concerning the value of the natural world as a whole and through a process of falling in love with the world, the wish to protect the environment itself would come naturally.
To understand Bhutan, you must know Padmasambhava, affectionately known as Guru Rinpoche, who brought Buddhism here in the eighth century. He is the backbone of Bhutanese culture.