A friend told me about these bears in China that are "harvested" for their bile from their gall bladders. The bile in used in aphrodisiacs.
The bears are kept in horizontal cages so small that they must remain in one position their whole lives. Because of this, they undergo terrible and intense suffering that is continuous and unrelenting.
My friend asks how the simple prescription of "love" can possibly be appropriate when such suffering and evil exist in the world. For that matter, of what use are various "spiritual" nostrums in such a world? Where is the divine in that? Where is God?
I would say this: My friend, in your very asking of that question is the infinite asking. When you feel the suffering of those bears, that is the vastness feeling their suffering. When you cry for them, that is the divine crying. If you do something about it, whatever that might be, that is the ungraspable doing something about it.
And the infinite is also those bears, lying there suffering. And the vastness is also the people who keep them there. There's nothing left out of the infinite. It's everything. And it's everywhere—where else could it be?
Because nothing is left out of the infinite, it contains both "good" and "bad." It contains both "right" and "wrong." It contains both "positive" and "negative."
And it's because of these dualities that the world can exist at all. When a "mountain" is created a "valley" is created at the same time; they come into existence together. When an electron comes into existence, so does a positron; they come into exiistence together. When the planet spins, both "day" and "night" are produced.
So also do "good" and "bad" come into existence together. So also do "right" and "wrong" come into existence together. So also do "beautiful" and "ugly" come into existence together.
The mind always wants to separate these things and have the positive without the negative, the beautiful without the ugly, the pleasure without the pain. But all of them come into existence together. It's all a package deal. Existence can only be the way it is.
The real question is, Can we accept that existence is the way it is? Can we accept that it must be the way it is right now? Can we accept that it is this way until it changes, perhaps by the very tears and action of "you."
At the deepest level, the whole world is bathed in, suffused in, made out of unconditional love. The mind cannot understand this, but the heart understands.
—jim sloman, 11/30/00 for Nov 30
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