If one divides the world’s major religious traditions into Dharmic, a Taoic and an Abrahamic blocs, some patterns start to appear. If one defines the Dharmic religions as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and the Abrahamic religions as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, then differences from across the Mithraic Ladder become evident.
Some of the differences are entirely physical, such as the fact that the Dharmic religions originated in the Indian subcontinent, while the Abrahamic religions originated in the Middle East.
Another mundane difference exists when it comes to rituals. The Dharmic religions have many rituals, including bathing in holy rivers, prayer cycles, meditation, yoga, festivals, and pilgrimage. The Abrahamic religions also have specific practices like prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage, but not as many or complex as in Dharmic religions.
Major differences also exist when it comes to holy books. The Dharmic religions have multiple holy books like the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Tripitaka, Guru Granth Sahib, etc. The Abrahamic religions have one primary holy book, which is the Torah for Judaism, the Bible (Old and New Testaments) for Christianity, and the Quran for Islam.
The content of those holy books is also different. Abrahamic books tend to focus on hatred of outsiders, emphasising how non-believers need to be destroyed. They exalt their followers and emphasise the supremacy of Yahweh. Dharmic books tend to reveal spiritual and philosophical secrets.
Furthermore, the attitude towards those books is different. In the Dharmic religions, it’s acknowledged that wisdom can be found outside of any one particular book. In the Abrahamic religions, the one primary holy book is frequently declared to be the only valid source of wisdom. Wisdom from other books is usually dismissed as worthless.
Related to the above is the differing historical example. The Abrahamic religions spread by violence and trickery, and destroyed all other religious or spiritual traditions by murdering their priests and desecrating their holy sites. Dharmic religions were different – they tended to spread by word of mouth.
Yet another difference relates to prophets and messengers. The Dharmic religions do not necessarily believe in the concept of prophets and messengers like the Abrahamic religions. However, Buddhism acknowledges Buddha as an enlightened teacher, and the Jains have 24 Tirthankaras who are not prophets per se but rather role models.
The main reason for this difference is that the Dharmic religions believe that it’s possible for any person, being an expression of the divine, to reconnect with the divine. Therefore, no prophets or messengers are necessary. The Abrahamic religions, being political in nature, believe that people must go through an intermediary in order to make such a reconnection. Truth is outside of oneself and therefore one needs guidance from religious authorities.
As such, the Abrahamic religions have numerous prophets and messengers such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Their teachings are considered superior to anything any one person could come up with themselves. As with holy books, anyone who questions any of these prophets is considered evil and fit to be destroyed.
The theological differences between Dharmic religions and Abrahamic religions are numerous, but there are two major ones.
The first relates to the belief in God. The Dharmic religions do not necessarily require belief in one supreme God but acknowledge multiple gods and goddesses or non-theistic philosophies like Buddhism and Jainism. Some, like Hinduism, are henotheistic, meaning that the multiple gods are both considered real and considered expressions of God (this is also similar to the Elementalists beliefs described in Elemental Elementalism).
The Abrahamic religions, on the other hand, believe in one supreme God. Anyone believing in gods is a heretic and must be destroyed. This has the ultimate effect of reducing conceptions of God down to the crudest, lowest-resolution savagery. People become afraid to even speak of God lest they attract punishment.
The second major theological difference relates to the concept of an afterlife. The Dharmic religions believe in reincarnation and karma, where one’s actions in this life determine their future lives. The Abrahamic religions believe in a judgment day when God will judge humankind based on their deeds and grant Heaven or Hell accordingly.
The doctrine that a person might have only one incarnation on this Earth – after which one earns either eternal Heaven or eternal Hell – creates an enormous amount of fear in those who believe it. But that fear is precisely the purpose. Like other Abrahamic doctrines, the purpose is to induce submission, to reduce the population to spiritual slavery.
All of these differences reflect the single largest and profoundest difference between the two religious families: the Dharmic religions are natural, while the Abrahamic religions are unnatural.
The Dharmic religions are those spiritual practices that arise naturally, inspired by the connections that people inherently have with their own souls. Being natural, they involve the use of any and all spiritual sacraments found in the nearby physical environment. This is why cannabis has been used by the Vedic and Hindu traditions, and magic mushrooms by several mystery schools, of which the Eleusinian Mysteries are the foremost.
The Abrahamic religions, by contrast, are a form of spiritual terrorism that originated in ancient Babylon, or perhaps even before then, and which have sought to separate people from their own souls. They are unnatural creations, which is why Abrahamic cultists have to put so much effort into forcing them on other people and winning converts from the spiritually lost.
The New Conservative Party had one of the strongest Internet presences of any party leading up to the 2020 General Election. They regularly scored 5%+ in online polls of voting intent. In the actual election, however, they only got 42,613 votes, or 1.5% of the total. This was not enough to win any seats in Parliament.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Voting Labour in 2020
0.13
Voting National in 2020
0.68
Voting Greens in 2020
-0.35
Voting ACT in 2020
0.68
Voting New Zealand First in 2020
0.29
Voting TOP in 2020
-0.05
Voting Maori Party in 2020
-0.57
Voting Advance NZ in 2020
0.12
Voting ALCP in 2020
-0.31
Voting Sustainable NZ in 2020
0.37
Voting Social Credit in 2020
0.35
Voting NZ Outdoors Party in 2020
0.34
Unsurprisingly, New Conservative voters were similar to National and ACT voters. The correlations between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting National in 2020 or voting ACT in 2020 were both 0.68. This reflects that New Conservative is a right-wing party, competing for the same votes as National and ACT.
Although there was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting New Zealand First in 2020 (0.29), this was not as strong as any of the correlations between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting Sustainable NZ in 2020 (0.37), voting Social Credit in 2020 (0.35) or voting NZ Outdoors Party in 2020 (0.34).
These positive correlations seem unlikely, given that New Conservative is right-wing and New Zealand First, Sustainable NZ, Social Credit and NZ Outdoors Party are all centrist/leftist. But they can be explained by the fact that all these parties appeal to the relatively disenfranchised, and hence they share demographics on that basis.
The strongest negative correlations were between voting New Conservative in 2020 and voting Maori Party in 2020 (-0.57), voting Vision NZ Party in 2020 (-0.42), voting Greens in 2020 (-0.35) or voting Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in 2020 (-0.31).
These correlations are easy to explain: New Conservative voters tend to be old and white, whereas Maori Party, Vision NZ Party and ALCP voters tend to be young and brown, and Greens voters tend to be young.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
European
0.50
Maori
-0.44
Pacific Islander
-0.25
Asian
-0.21
The New Conservatives made a big deal about the racial diversity of their candidates, but their constituency was solidly white. As with the National and ACT parties, there was a significant positive correlation between being of European descent and voting New Conservative in 2020 (0.50).
The negative correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting New Conservative in 2020 (-0.25) was much weaker than the correlations between being a Pacific Islander and voting either National in 2020 (-0.46) or ACT in 2020 (-0.58). This was mostly down to two major factors: the fact that then-Deputy Leader Elliot Ikilei was conspicuously Polynesian, and the fact that the New Conservatives in general were conspicuously Christian.
The strongest negative correlation between voting New Conservative and belonging to a particular race was with Maoris, at -0.44. This can be explained by the fact that Maoris, who tend to be younger and poorer than the rest of New Zealand, have little incentive to vote for the status quo.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
No religion
0.04
Buddhism
-0.24
Christianity
0.24
Hinduism
-0.21
Islam
-0.22
Judaism
-0.36
Maori religions
-0.38
Spiritualism and New Age
0.01
Maoris and Jews share very few things in common, but one thing they do share is a significant dislike for voting New Conservative in 2020. The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and following one of the Maori religions was -0.38, and with being a Jew it was -0.36.
The only one religious group to have a positive correlation with voting for the New Conservative Party in 2020 was Christians, and even then the correlation was barely significant (0.24). The irony is that religious people, being conservative, tend to favour the status quo, and therefore they favour the status quo conservative party (National) and not the alternative conservative party (New Conservatives).
This means that the conspiciously Christian branding of the New Conservatives did little to win the votes of mainstream Christians. The Christian fringe, however, were significantly more likely to vote New Conservative in 2020 than vote for other parties.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
20-24 years old
-0.52
25-29 years old
-0.47
30-34 years old
-0.33
35-39 years old
-0.20
40-44 years old
0.01
45-49 years old
0.30
50-54 years old
0.46
55-59 years old
0.59
60-64 years old
0.63
65-69 years old
0.61
70-74 years old
0.64
75-79 years old
0.65
80-84 years old
0.65
85+ years old
0.54
Like most reactionary parties around the world, New Conservative voters were old. There was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and belonging to any age bracket above 45 years old. All of the age brackets between 60 and 84 years old had a positive correlation of at least 0.60 with voting New Conservative in 2020.
The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and belonging to a particular age bracket became more and more positive as age increases, from the 20-24 age bracket (where it is -0.52) all the way up to the 60-64 age bracket (where it is 0.63). Older age brackets were consistently strong supporters of New Conservative.
The obvious reason for this is that young people don’t like conservatism. They are much less likely to own homes or to earn a wage that they can one day buy a home with. As such, they are not incentivised to support the status quo. Moreover, young people are much less likely to be Christian.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Being male
0.09
The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being male was not significant, at 0.09. This was however the third highest proportion of male voters of all parties. Only voting Heartland NZ in 2020 (0.11) and voting Outdoors NZ in 2020 (0.22) had stronger positive correlations with being male.
This accords with data from other countries, where conservative parties regularly get a higher proportion of male voters. This is usually because male voters tend to have higher incomes, but this is not the case for New Conservative voters. This is further evidence that New Conservative voters were motivated by social conservatism more than economic conservatism.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Median income
-0.19
Mean income
-0.27
One major way in which New Conservative voters differ from National and ACT voters is income. There is a significant positive correlation between mean income and voting either National or ACT in 2020, but a significant negative correlation between mean income and voting New Conservative in 2020.
This suggests a paradox: New Conservative voters vote for the right-wing, which usually favours those with money, despite that New Conservative voters don’t have much money themselves. This paradox can be resolved by referencing the fact that New Conservative voters tend to be religious and so, like low-income Americans who vote for right-wing parties, they tend to be values voters.
Variable
Voting New Conservative 2020
Not studying
0.63
Wage or salary
-0.45
Interest, dividends, rent or other investments
0.29
NZ Super or Veteran’s pension
0.65
Student Allowance
-0.48
New Conservative voters might not have a high income (the correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and mean income was -0.27), but they are comfortable and secure by many measures. For example, there was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and receiving NZ Super or a Veteran’s pension (0.65) or receiving income through interest, dividends, rent or other investments (0.29).
By contrast, there was a strong negative correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and receiving a wage or salary (-0.45). This wasn’t because students vote for them either: there was a correlation of 0.63 between voting New Conservative in 2020 and not studying, and also a significant negative correlation of -0.48 between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being on the Student Allowance.
It seems that New Conservative is, to a large extent, a pensioner’s party. They seem to attract many of the conservative old people who are more Christian, rather than the more ethnonationalist, who tend to prefer New Zealand First.
Variable
Voting New Conservative 2020
Own or part own house
0.71
Neither own house nor family trust
-0.71
New Conservative voters were very likely to own their own homes – the correlation between voting for them in 2020 and owning or part-owning a house was 0.71. In this sense, New Conservative voters also suffer from the “too much time on the Internet” phenomenon that affected Advance NZ voters. This explains why both parties got so few votes in comparison to the size of their Internet presence.
The correlation between receiving NZ Super or a Veteran’s Pension and owning or part-owning a house was 0.79, one of the strongest correlations in the whole Understanding New Zealand dataset. This explains why New Conservative voters tend to own their own houses despite being low-income.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
No qualifications
0.24
Level 1 certificate
0.40
Level 2 certificate
0.25
Level 3 certificate
-0.55
Level 4 certificate
0.35
Level 5 diploma
0.37
Level 6 diploma
0.55
Bachelor’s degree
-0.31
Honours degree
-0.26
Master’s degree
-0.35
Doctorate
-0.25
As with Advance NZ, there was a significant negative correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and having any of the university degrees. These negative correlations were not as strong as they were for Advance NZ, however.
The most likely to vote New Conservative in 2020 were those with a level 6 diploma – the correlation here was 0.55. The reason for this is the strong support for the New Conservatives among tradesmen who have completed training at polytechnic – the correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being a technician or trades worker was 0.52.
That New Conservative voters might be poorly educated is not a surprise to those who have observed similar Christian fundamentalist movements in other countries. The New Conservative’s message was primarily based on fear, and fear-based messaging primarily appeals to the poorly educated. This explains the constant hysteria about homosexuality and cannabis use.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Working in agriculture, forestry or fishing
0.34
Working in mining
0.17
Working in manufacturing
0.24
Working in electricity, gas, water or wastewater
0.14
Working in construction
0.37
Working in wholesale trade
0.05
Working in retail trade
0.35
Working in accommodation or food services
-0.32
Working in transport, postal or warehousing
-0.25
Working in information media and telecommunications
-0.46
Working in financial and insurance services
-0.31
Working in rental, hiring and real estate services
0.06
Working in professional, scientific and technical services
-0.29
Working in administrative and support services
-0.46
Working in public administration and safety
-0.24
Working in education and training
-0.23
Working in healthcare and social assistance
0.11
Working in arts and recreation services
-0.35
Fittingly, then, the party was heavily represented among those working in masculine industries.
There was a significant positive correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working in construction (0.37) or working in agriculture, forestry and fishing (0.34). There was also a significant negative correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working in administrative and support services (-0.46), being a community and personal service worker (-0.31) or working in public administration and safety (-0.24).
These correlations don’t reflect the relatively poor educational levels of New Conservative voters so much as they reflect a particularly object-orientated social approach. New Conservative voters appear to be disinclined towards working with people, and prefer working with things. This is typical for masculine groups.
Variable
Voting New Conservative in 2020
Working as a manager
0.36
Working as a professional
-0.33
Working as a technician or trades worker
0.52
Working as a community or personal services worker
-0.31
Working as clerical or administrative worker
-0.01
Working as a sales worker
-0.09
Working as a machinery operator or driver
0.02
Working as a labourer
0.07
The occupation in which one is least likely to find a New Conservative voter is professional. The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and being a professional was significantly negative, at -0.33. This reflects multiple factors, but in particular the poor education of New Conservative voters.
The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working as a manager was significantly positive, at 0.36. This is primarily a function of two things. One, managers tend to be older than average, like New Conservative voters. Two, managers don’t need to be well-educated to perform in their roles, just committed.
Some might be suprised to read that the correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and working as a technician or trades worker (0.52) was so much stronger than the correlations between voting that was and working as as machinery operator or driver (0.02) or as a labourer (0.07) were much weaker.
This can be explained by age. New Conservative voters, as discussed above, tend to be old. Few old people can cut it as labourers, or even as machinery operators and drivers. But there are many old people working as technicians or trades workers. The trades are well-known for appealing to youngsters on account of that many of their workers will soon retire.
Variable
Voting New Conservative 2020
Has no children
-0.54
Has one child
-0.21
Has two children
0.65
Has three children
0.61
Has four children
0.26
Has five children
-0.07
Has six or more children
-0.24
The correlations between voting New Conservative in 2020 and having children are the strongest for having two children (0.65) or having three children (0.61). This is not surprising given the age of New Conservative voters. Those who have no children, or only one, tend to be much younger and less religious.
Being mostly white, New Conservative voters are significantly less likely to have six or more children. The correlation between voting New Conservative in 2020 and having six or more children was -0.24. The correlation between voting National in 2020 and having six or more children was, however, -0.59, so New Conservative voters are relatively fecund by that measure.
In summary, New Conservative voters represent a kind of old-school masculinity that perhaps hasn’t adjusted well to changing times. This is best shown by the strong negative correlation of -0.66 between voting New Conservative in 2020 and casting a special vote for Yes in the cannabis referendum.
New Conservative voters tend to be old, white, male, poorly educated and Christian. As such, they are very much the same demographic targeted by the American Republican Party in their “Southern Strategy”. Such voters are not as numerous in New Zealand as in America, but there might still be enough of them to get New Conservative over the 5% in 2023.
*
This article is an excerpt from the upcoming 3rd Edition of Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan and published by VJM Publishing. Understanding New Zealand is the comprehensive guide to the demographics and voting patterns of the New Zealand people.
Many New Zealanders were pleased by the recent news that Kiwis living in Australia will be able to apply for citizenship after four years. This marks a significant change from the status quo, under which a Kiwi could live in Australia for 20 years without being able to vote or access healthcare. Few realise, though, that the move is another step towards federalisation.
The last time I travelled overseas was some years ago. While in the Auckland Airport departure lounge, I saw some t-shirts for sale that said simply “Yeah nah”. This phrase – yeah nah – is seldom used in Britain or North America and is therefore an iconic expression of Kiwi culture. Or so I thought.
The next leg of the journey saw me in the Sydney Airport departure lounge, where they were also selling t-shirts that said “Yeah nah”. It turned out that this phrase is used so frequently in Australia that it’s considered by Australians to be an iconic expression of their culture.
New Zealand culture is Australasian culture. There are aspects of culture that are unique to New Zealand and not shared with Australia, but those are as minor as the aspects of culture unique to, say, California and not shared with Ohio. For the most part, idiosyncracies that Kiwis consider uniquely Kiwi are in fact shared across Australasia.
These idiosyncracies are set to become even more shared with the new citizenship protocols. Until now, Kiwis had endured a kind of second-class status with several restrictions. Now they will be first-class citizens after only four years – a privilege not afforded to most nationalities, who will have to slog through the permanent residency process.
Some have complained that the new Australian citizenship rules will lead to an intensification of the brain drain from New Zealand. This is probably true. Some claim that this will lead to the Third Worldification of New Zealand as our productive workforce all leaves for higher wages. This is possibly true – but it depends on the future of Trans-Tasman relations.
The new citizenship rules will reduce the legal distinctions between Australian and New Zealand citizens. Eventually people will ask themselves: if Kiwis can freely move to Aussie and can become citizens with a minimum of effort, and vice-versa for Aussies, why even bother having separate systems? Why not just become one Anzac Republic – Anzacistan?
It’s already the case that many young Kiwis studying in New Zealand intend to move to Australia as soon as they are qualified. This is fine from Australia’s point of view, as they get educated additions to their workforce. It’s very bad from New Zealand’s point of view, as their taxpayers pay for 13-18 years’ education only to not get any benefit from the greater productivity.
If New Zealand became a state of Australia, it would mean that Australian tax money also be used to pay for the education of Kiwis. No longer would Kiwi taxpayers fund the Australian workforce to their own detriment. If the Third Worldification of New Zealand can be prevented through federalisation, then both sides would be foolish not to agree to it, given the strategic considerations of New Zealand’s impoverishment.
Such a move is possibly inevitable anyway, given that we are only separate countries due to a historical fluke: The Mistake of 1901. The decision to even be separate countries in the first place was the result of erroneous thinking, in particular the belief that the 2,000km between New Zealand and Australia represented a vast gulf, akin to the distance between Italy and Tunisia.
In reality, the cultural difference between New Zealand and Australia is minuscule. A person can fly from Christchurch to Perth, a distance of over 5,000km, and will find most things in their new city familiar. Dress, mannerisms, architecture, popular brands and culture: all very similar. They can even find a thriving rugby union scene.
Few countries in the world have this degree of cultural homogeneity among regions at their opposite ends. Yet Australia and New Zealand have this, and are not one country. Why? Without referring to The Mistake of 1901, no logical explanation can be given. It seems to have been assumed that we would grow apart, like England and Ireland perhaps, but instead we grew together.
It’s time to accept that our forefathers, who predicted divergent evolution, were wrong. The cultures and peoples of New Zealand and Australia have, in fact, evolved convergently over the last 120 years. To understand this is to accept that federalisation is inevitable.
There are already some 670,000 Kiwis living in Australia. Now that this cohort can easily access Australian citizenship, and given that dual Kiwi-Aussie citizenship is already possible, the thin dividing lines between Kiwis and Aussies will get even thinner.
If federalisation is inevitable, it’s time to stop worrying about what rights Kiwis should have in Australia, and it’s time to start worrying about the terms under which New Zealand would accede to Australian statehood.
When we are suffering, usually the first thing we are programmed to do as an ego is to curl up and figure out how we can be ok, and how we can look after number one. This is a very deep conditioning, which at a genetic level, precedes every other primitive psychological drive. Self-preservation underpins all of our genetic responsibilities. How this plays out on an experiential level is fear. Fear of annihilation, fear of suffering, fear of not making it. This is the deepest conditioning of the genome, conceivably going back all the way to the origin of our DNA. What if our deeply-rooted assumptions are totally upside-down, from a spiritual perspective? There are many reasons for thinking this to, in fact, be so.
The Buddhist tradition embraces a concept of compassionate service. Imagine a universe written as code. From the bottom up, you have been programmed to act in one direction, so that everything in any other direction would serve only to compromise your genetic existence. What kind of education would that be? An exceptionally challenging one, in my experience. Everything would have to be reviewed, from the very foundations up.
How it is that we are genetically programmed to insulate our suffering by withdrawing into ourselves? Picture a hedgehog rolling up into a ball when it senses danger, and you will have a workable mental image of how our genetic conditioning has encouraged us to respond. This may be perfectly fine insofar as hedgehogs are concerned, but what about us?
Why do spiritual traditions such as Buddhism subvert what we might call genetic values? Why would any spiritual tradition teach us anything even remotely different from that hedgehog’s response of curling up into a ball when in danger? Is it some kind of strange coincidence that the teachings of those who came to bear such massive spiritual influence are at loggerheads with the moral principles encoded into our genome through natural selection?
Here are some of the common threads of these spiritual teachings: unconditional compassion and love for others, including all animals – compassion given even when no material or genetic return could possibly accrue. Unconditional forgiveness, acceptance and understanding: even though people may be our physical adversaries, ideological enemies, or simply those that intend to visit harm upon us.
Why does the moral calculus of material considerations, including genetic fitness and resource-hoarding, function to close the spiritual heart, causing us to contract into an existential foetal position, while spiritual practices of compassion open the heart? How could becoming more vulnerable be any kind of answer to the threat of pain and suffering? Why should these worlds be at such great odds, the material or biological world, and the spiritual world? What can these ancient traditions, mere thousands of years old, tell us that could be more materially valuable than genetic systems that may have been operating for billions of years from the first cells through to primitive burrow-dwelling mammals, and now us?
Are our spiritual insights an aberration, a kind of warped illusion of freedom from the forces of nature? Or could it be the material world is where falsehood always lay? Do these two facets work side by side as educational tools? These are weighty philosophical questions. I want to put these aside in favour of the here and now, and look at what immediate human involvements are relevant to the discoveries of traditional teachings such as Buddhism.
Whereas many traditional religious systems emphasise moral purity and categorical rejection of evil, Buddhism focuses upon wholeness, skilful living, compassion and wisdom. Seeing the bigger picture in a philosophical or theological sense is nowhere near as important in Buddhism as what we choose to do here and now. Buddhism teaches that our intentions, from our merest thoughts to our most fleeting actions in the world matter supremely. We are either making these decisions skilfully, from a space of what Buddhism calls ‘right view’, or we are perpetuating delusion that was born of the push-and-pull conflicts of the material world, the ‘maya’, which Buddhism views as rooted in illusion.
This Maya, this ingrained system of delusion, incidentally, is a precise reflection of the genetic morality, the unspoken code which promotes striving for power, resources, knowledge, experiences, reproductive leverage over others, warring with others, and outcompeting other groups. This Buddhism identifies this activity as an illusion rooted in fear, the origin of all psychic human suffering. Because all fear activity is based upon a premise of separation, being that you are distinctly separate from the world around you, it becomes a self-reinforcing hypothesis, as well as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This suffering is set to last at least as long as the power of the illusion holds sway over the mind.
How does this impact our life here and now? What are we to do with this insight, how are we to translate this insight when we are actually in the very midst of suffering? When we are in suffering, we are not experiencing the realm of the theoretical. None of our ideas, however advanced, lofty or comforting, may be applied. This is something I have seen from experience. As a long-time meditator, I have observed that when I am in a state of suffering or imbalance, the most pertinent lesson is not that I have failed to understand something intellectually, nor is it that I am being punished because I have done something wrong, but that there is an element of something present that is outside of my immediate control.
It just is. It is a brute, present fact. I have often learned the most in meditation when I have come face to face with what I do not have the power to move. Every meditator eventually meets this phenomenon. The reason we have an entire cultural history of saints, sages, gurus and mystics is testament to the presence and power of suffering. They demonstrate the hunger of humanity, the deep drive to transcend that which torments us at our human level. Without suffering, we would have none of these teachers, nor would a single one of their timeless lessons be relevant to us.
What I have discovered personally in my own lifetime is that following the directives of self-interest is often harmful in very immediate and direct ways. Self-centredness is a compassion-inhibitor. An attitude of selfishness has never produced anything for me other than misery, even when I managed to get exactly what I thought I wanted. Amazingly, the opposite has been true. When I looked after the well-being and interests of others, I never had to take thought for myself, and even when I didn’t get what I thought I wanted or needed, everything turned out just fine.
So why would it be the case that what should, at least on paper, get us more of what we want lead to even less well-being for us personally? Why doesn’t it feel wholesome, why doesn’t it feel like a good fit for our inner life? I have experienced many miseries that were the result of selfishness, but I cannot think of one single episode of caring and giving in which I experienced forlornness or regret. This may be symptomatic of the fact that in this state, others are visible to us and welcomed within our world, while we ourselves remain almost invisible actors, like God’s unseen hand. This may be why Nisargadatta said: “Wisdom tells me I am nothing; Love tells me I am everything – and between the two, my life flows.”
In the same way that we all share in an eternal divine nature, we also share in a universal, human brokenness. There are not the pure among us who have somehow got it perfectly right and have escaped all suffering, and there are not the evil among us who have got it wrong and eternally bound themselves to suffering. We all meet somewhere on the spectrum as humans, because to incarnate into a biological form means to court some degree of suffering. What systems such as Buddhism offer is medicine for this suffering.
Let’s go back to my original example of the way a hedgehog reacts to a dangerous situation. While this might be totally normal and practical for a hedgehog, it isn’t normal and practical for a human mind. Natural selection may even have developed minds to react this way, but natural selection has no stake in your mental and spiritual well-being. The only variable being considered is differential genetic success. Evolution applies these pressures to other people and groups as well, and it couldn’t care less which survives. Like a mother squid with thousands of offspring, it has no favourites. There is not a shred of evidence that your genetic success, or lack thereof, has anything to do with your soul – which is to say, your psyche, or your True Self.
We will come across suffering in this life, we will meet with challenge – this much is certain. What I have discovered, as a very slow learner who has historically been very prone to over-intellectualise, is that compassion is the single most vital emergency medicine of the soul. Buddhism cultivates practises of loving compassion for this very reason, for ourselves, even for our enemies. Why? Because it actually works. If you want to see how, try it out for yourself.
Moving from the hedgehog to ourselves, when we suffer, the worst thing I have discovered we could ever do is to close down. We revert to an almost reptilian state of self-obsession in which we are in a kind of genetic first-aid mode. We do anything we can to make sure number one is taken care of – ourselves. We obsess over how every tiny thing that could help us matters, or any way in which we could feel even slightly better. This is not only a magnification of suffering, this is the closest to hell I have been, experientially.
As I mentioned before, selfishness is a compassion-inhibitor. Armouring ourselves is the same movement as shutting down our connection to others. Buddhism shows us how this orientation of shutting down in self-protection and self-armouring actually harms us spiritually. Nothing will make you more miserable than focusing on yourself when you are deeply suffering, distressed or upset. All spiritual teachings have acknowledged this in some form. What is also understood is that this presents a double-bind – how can I look after myself and making sure I am going to be ok when self-consciousness is the one thing that will worsen my condition?
Again, the answer is the practice of compassion. Have you ever wondered why prominent Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hahn or the Dalai Lama go to such extraordinary lengths to ensure the comfort, happiness and well-being of others instead of focusing on themselves? Recall that these are both men who have lived through the devastating effects of loss, war, political adversity and being driven far from their homes. Why do they choose outgoing compassion, ceaselessly?
They understand. They have suffered enough to understand and witness the truth of the Buddha’s teachings. We cannot merely look after ourselves – there is service to others in a field of compassion that includes us. This is the very medicine by which Buddhism offers the means to transcend the dreaded double-bind of self-consciousness, and thereby, the knot of suffering.
Another way to say this is: try to focus on the well-being of others, then see what happens. Your own situation will change quite without effort on your part. Remember, Buddhism prescribes medicine, not miracles – though these have certainly been known to happen from time to time. We all have the means to direct compassion outward. We do this by opening our heart to whether others are really ok. This could be as simple as giving our full attention to someone who is expressing themselves, or brushing the fur of a pet.
There is infinite creative potential available in how we attend to others compassionately, even if it is only in thought. If you want to know whether it really works, I can tell you from experience that it does. I can also point to the testimony of many others, including Tibetans held captive as political prisoners who ceaselessly share love and compassion with their prisoners and torturers. They testify that this practice has served as the one thing that has kept them from being sucked into a vortex of despair.
The same conditions may be present to us as traumatic personal history, mental illness, grief or loss. Making sure that others are alright should not be seen primarily as a moral prescription put forward by Buddhism so much as it is an invitation to wisdom, an entry point to experiencing the relief of suffering in our ordinary, daily lives, right here and now. This compassion then becomes a living example for others, showing them how their helping others also relieves their own suffering. Where else could we apply such wisdom but here and now?
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Simon P Murphy is a Nelson-based esotericist and philosopher, and author of His Master’s Wretched Organ, a brilliant collection of weird fiction stories.
