Creed 101.-Lesson Two: the Second Stanza

This assignment has been a little bit difficult. Nobody asked my any question I didn't know the answer to, and I didn't like those which appear in the Workbook. But yesterday I met with an old friend of mine and the only person outside the IJRS who know about my belief in the Force. After some time of chattering, and as I have to chose this school year's subjects before Monday, she asked me what did I wanted to be when I was older. I answered that I didn't know exactly, but that I will study something related to Medicine or Biochemistry. She asked why, and I answered that because I think it is our duty as people to help other people, and that I thought that dedicating my life to help people preserve their health is a good way to do so.
And then she asked why, if I believe nothing happens by accident, should we try to save dying people? Why should we try to heal people? Maybe they are meant to die or be sick. If they are sick and are they are meant to recover, they will. If they are sick later, and they are meant to die, there would be nothing we could do about it. I didn't known what to answer.

Later, at home, I thought a lot about that. When I was meditating, I centred myself on that. After repeating to myself several times "there is no ignorance, there is knowledge", my inner self spoke to me: "the knowledge you seek is already inside of you".
So I started searching the answer inside of me. I tried to discover my true motives, why did I believe that being a doctor was a meaningful job. And then, the answer came to me.
Why do I want to help sick people? Because if they are meant to live, I can help them by making them recover quicker. And if they are meant to die, I can help them with they journey by making they die in the most peaceful and painless way it's possible. And I can prevent people from being sick, too, with investigation, and make more effective drugs to heal the sick ones. Maybe the Force writes our destiny, but as we are the Force, in the end it is us who write our destiny,

This may seem silly to you, but it has been very important for me. We need a purpose if we want to life a good life. Without purpose, we are nothing.

I also learned a lot of First Aid techniques today in an activity organized by my town. I learned, too, a lot of things about traditional Buddhist medicine thanks to a Buddhist friend, some new meditation techniques, and that a new planet which could be the home of life forms had been discovered. So I can say today has been a day full of knowledge

Creed 101.-Lesson One: the first stanza (there is no emotion, there is peace)

Sorry about the delay. That old machine I have as computer was believed dead for almost three days. Luckily, it has resurrected, so I can continue posting my exercises.

 

Lesson One: the first stanza (there is no emotion, there is peace)

I've always had problems with my emotions. Sometimes they are so strong and sudden that I just can't control them. Sometimes I was able to localize its origin, but there were other times were they seemed to come from nowhere. When I started the Jedi path, I discovered that my strong emotions are due to my Emotional Intuitive nature. I knew of the Jedi Code long before I arrived at the IJRS, and it has helped a lot during the last years. One of the most important stanzas for me is the first one.

During the last days, which have been filled with a lot of emotions, mostly negative, this first line has been quit helpful, especially with my sister and father. After the death of my mother, a lot of things have happened and I've found emotions a little oppressive. Maybe due to my Emotional Intuitive nature, I can kind of feel other people's emotions in the air, at most of times I make them my emotions, too. I can kind of project my emotions around me, too, so people around me are sometimes affected by what I feel. Emotions can be really exhausting, especially when they are strong feelings. For example, sadness, anxiety and fear have been the strongest ones during the last day. My sister, for example, has started realising that she had changed a lot since my mother's death. She's confused because she kind of has lost herself and doesn't know who she is. She's tired because she has a lot of nightmares and can't sleep well, and is afraid because of those nightmares, because she doesn't know who she is and because she is starting to lose the memories of my mother (she told me that the other day and it made me really, really sad). And all that makes her feel irritated, aggressive and angry, which makes her be mean and rude sometimes. She has a lot of feelings inside of her, and I think she isn't able to name them or express them, so she pays it with the rest of the world. So, when she starts to act annoyingly or mean and I start feeling myself anger, I take a lair of deep breaths and repeat the first stanza in my head a few times. I recognise the emotion (normally anger or exasperation), feel it, understand it and let it go. It works most of times.

I've also discovered that it is easier with "hot", brief emotions like anger, frustration, irritation, exasperation, hate... you know, those who seem to make tour blood boil and makes you want to punch or kick or kill something  :fight :) (you know what I mean) than with "cold", oppressive, long-lasting emotions like sadness, psychological pain, guilt or fear. I've found guilt and sadness difficult to deal with. In my mind, I visualize anger or hate as intense flash of light, for example. They start quickly and usually disappear quickly, too. But cold feelings are difficult to identify and difficult to let go. In my mind, they are like something big and oppressive that squeezes me and doesn't let me breathe. They are in every thought and they seem to tear you apart. I don't know if you know what I mean. Usually, meditation and music are enough to recover my balance, at least temporally.  I must work on this.

I also sometimes have problems with sad TV series/movies. I think I get too much involved with the characters and I make their emotions my own. Sometimes I've started crying watching a TV show and those have feelings have "opened" something in my heart and suddenly emotions have started to pour from it. Now, it doesn't happen often but I don't like the idea of having repressed emotions somewhere in my heart. That implies ignoring and trying to supress them and that definitely isn't the Jedi Path. Must work on that, too.

I also wanted to share with you some experience, and by the way record it so I can remember it in the future. On September 9 I'm going to go to Denmark on an exchange program with my high school. It is not going to by my first flight in plane, although I've never liked them. Seems I prefer to have my feet on the ground :) But one month ago more or less I dreamed that a plane crashed. It was a really vivid dream. I could almost fear the passengers' emotions just before the plane crashed. But I don't know if I was on it or I just was a spectator. But, anyway, I am scared. I know you will probably think that I'm making too much of it, but I've had other dreams like that and in the end they have come true. Don't laugh, it is really scaring. Okay, now you will probably be thinking that I am a liar and that I am crazy, but I swear it is true. Ever had déjà-vus? It is a similar sensation. Anyway. My problem is that the fear of living my father and sister alone if my dream is true is all the time in my mind. I've tried meditation, I've tried to repeat the first stanza, I've tried to let it go... but when it leaves, it returns later, stronger and more intense. So, what can I do? I don't want to live fearing something that may not happen to me, or not happen at all!

Creed 101.-Beginning exercise: new points of view

First, I'd like to thank Kol Drake about the email he sent me. I wish I could have sent you an answer, but my email isn't working very fine for some reason :S . He showed my other points of view of the Jedi Code and he related it to other cultures/religions' beliefs, which I found really interesting. He really helped my to find some answers to my questions, so, thanks Kol Drake.

Returning to my homework. After I posted my Beginning exercise, I was asked to ask myself about any misconceptions about the Code I might have. At first, I thought I hadn't any questions and that everything was clear for me. I understood the basics of the Code, but after a lot of thinking, I realised that I had doubts about more subtle parts of it.

There is no emotion, there is peace

As I said before, emotions are an important part of the human nature. We wouldn't be humans without our emotions, and they are necessary to understand and know ourselves. If we try to ignore and suppress them, one they we will explode and that will make us fall to the Dark Side. So emotions are a fundamental part of our life and ourselves, but they can destroy us, too, if we let them rule us or we ignore them. I think, too, that a Jedi must feel compassion and unconditional love for all the living beings, because that's where the desire to help springs of. And, obviously, compassion and love are very powerful emotions. The problem starts when we let emotions cloud our judgment. As I said, peace is achieved by balance. So my first questions was, what does exactly "balance" mean and how do we achieve it without destroying ourselves?

I liked very much Kol Drake's point of view of this first line, and after reading it several times, I found a first answer to my question. I quote him:

This sounds a lot like the Buddhist view of the mind. That the mind is naturally peaceful and our thoughts and emotions are the disturbance, like momentary ripples on the surface of a pond. [...] But another part of it is it is like saying the orange peel is not the important thing, it is the entire orange. So saying that there is no emotion would be more like saying emotion is the illusion. Emotion is the surface of peace. Understand your emotions; do not give importance to your emotions. And the natural path to that is peace.

So, peace isn't something "foreign" we have to achieve, it is already inside of us. Our natural state is peace, and emotions are just temporary disturbances in that peace. We are more than emotion, emotion is only the first layer of our mind, and there is much more after it. So we mustn’t let ourselves centre is something as temporary as our emotions, nor let us be controlled by them. We must understand them, find the cause of them, and let them go, because they are just temporal, just disturbances provoked by our interactions with the physical world, and they don't represent ourselves. And that is balance. Acknowledging our emotions, discovering the cause of that emotion, and then letting them vanish in our inner peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

I like too Kol Drake's observation of that ignorance is needed to achieve knowledge. That reminded my of something my mother used to said, "Sometimes it is necessary to unlearn what you have learned". Knowledge and pride and our tendency to believe that we know better that everybody else can make us to avoid or reject other points of views because they aren't similar to what we believe in. So, to be wise, we need knowledge, but we need too to be able to be ignorant as a child, so we can absorb new forms of knowledge without the barriers society has created on us and critical to be able to decide what new moral codes/creeds/actions/way to see life/religions are good to us and which ones are not.

I have a question, too. I don't remember exactly how did it come to my mind, but it just did, so I', going to post it here. Can be the thirst of knowledge (something I value a lot and that I personally have) be a thirst of power and, in the end, be a path to the Dark Side? I'm having problems with that "Jedi do not seek power" line that so often appears in Star Wars. Because Jedi do seek power. They train so they can be more powerful in the Force, they study so they can be wiser and etc. I suppose the difference between a Jedi and a Sith in this topic is that the Sith's desire of power is oriented towards themselves, and that Jedi's desire of power is oriented towards the rest of the world. But what about knowledge? Knowledge can be oriented towards a lot of things. Do the Jedi orient they thirst of knowledge towards themselves or/and towards the rest of the world? I'm confused.

There is no passion, there is serenity

I don't have any questions about this line, but I agree with Kol Drake's point of view of this line and it helped me to clarify some aspects of this line.

Kol Drake said:

This is similar to the first line as you noted but, “emotion” seems to be the “what”. “Passion” is more like the “how” or the “why”. [...] Instead of having the passion and drive and motive to do something, just let that go and do it. Passion will dissolve into the automatic groove or the action itself.

I find this absolutely true. It happens to me when I write of play my guitar. Instead of centering myself in playing a soft song with emotion and feeling, just play it as you feel it and let happen what must happen. The result may surprise you.

There is no chaos, there is harmony

And, to finish. I didn't write anything about this line because I wasn't supposed to, although I find it really important. It has always been the most "literally true" and important line to me and was especially helpful after the death of my mother. And I try to remember it every time I watch the news on the TV, so I'd like to post here my opinion.

I've always thought that harmony doesn't mean "light over darkness". It doesn't mean life, or happiness or joy. In the same way, harmony doesn't mean "darkness over light", or sadness, or death, or disaster. There is harmony when darkness and light are balanced, are equals. So between all the death, the wars, the epidemic diseases, all the daily problems that affect us, all the chaos that is around us, there is harmony. Because there are deaths, yes, but there are also births. And there is sadness and hate, but there is joy and love, too. Chaos and peace are the two sides of a same coin. There can't be the one without the other. So, for me, everything is as it should be. We can't expect a world of happiness because in that world there wouldn't be harmony. So, as Qui-Gon said "nothing happens by accident". I don't know if there is a bigger plan for the Earth, but, for now, I know that everything is as it should be.

Creed 101.-Beginning Exercise

It is difficult to put in words what the Jedi Code means to me. I think that for me, the Jedi Code represents the very essence of the Jedi Path. It describes my way to see the world, and life, and also explains how should live each moment of my life, how should I behave if I want to be a Jedi Realist, and what should I aspire to become. So, in the end, I think it describes what a Jedi is.

I've always thought that the Jedi Code mustn’t be taken literally, especially this version. That's why I prefer the shorter version (Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force), because I think this one can be misunderstood.

There is no emotion, there is peace

It is impossible to take this literally. Obviously, there is emotion, and we wouldn't be humans without our emotions. Emotions are a fundamental part of us. If we try to suppress them, the only thing we will do is to harm ourselves. But, if we want to act fairly and to make good decisions, we mustn’t let our feelings get in the way. The peace we need to do this is achieved by balance. This is what the first sentence in the Jedi Code means for me.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge

For me, most of evil actions are based in and supported by ignorance, and knowledge is the solution to them. Ignorance is the path to the dark side, so a Jedi must be wise, as a result of a live of study. Sometimes, because of ignorance, we misunderstood actions, or people, or opinions or are afraid about everything we don't know (xenophobia, for example). So, for me, this line sets a goal every Jedi should aspire to: knowledge, in every way we can find it.

There is no passion, there is serenity

I think this line is similar to the first one, but I think there are some differences between them. Passionate feelings like love, hatred, desire or anger are really powerful, and can cloud our judgment if we aren't careful and make us do things, make decisions or say things we will regret later. I think this line wants to tell us that we must let acknowledge passionate feeling, but we mustn’t let them destroy the best part of ourselves. We must feel like if we were in the eye of an hurricane, feeling the storm around us, but without letting it affect us, being in serenity.

There is no death, there is the Force

The universe is energy. Everything, from the planets and stars to life forms. In the end, we are just a bunch of atoms and other particles stuck together, a personification of a soul. As Master Yoda said, "Luminous beings we are, not just these crude matter." And energy can't be destroyed; it can just be transformed in another type of energy. And the Force is formed by all living beings.

So, in the end, we really never die. When our body stops working, it slowly becomes part of other living beings, that will die one day, and that will become part of different living beings as well.