Absolute truth

Truth exists only within a chosen context. Truth believed becomes a lie.

In Erleichda, we are great admirers of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and many of our major protocols are based on our ideas about his ideas. Someone once said to Ludwig that people who lived before Copernicus must have been stupid, because they believed that the sun rotates around the earth. Ludwig considered this for a moment, then made a very important reply: "I agree. But I wonder what it would look like if the sun had been circling the earth." He understood paradigms.

Wittgenstein was greatly concerned with the scope and limits of language, and particularly with the consequences of being bound by the limits of language. The world, he wrote, is the totality of facts. The theoretical limit of analysis is atomic facts, which cannot be analysed into simpler facts, and which are mutually independent, the existence of one never logically requiring or excluding the existence of any other.

We've taken it a step further in Erleichda. We search for atomic beliefs, the basic beliefs which form our paradigm, the context of our lives, the template through which we restrict our idea of the universe, our reality. We have discovered the possibility that, if your reality doesn't suit you, then it's usually because you've got conflicting ideas about what you want, or what you're entitled to. Identify the beliefs, and you identify the confusion. Then if you don't like the beliefs, change them.

Change your beliefs, change your reality.

The close examination of our beliefs and their origins is taken with some seriousness in Erleichda. We have abandoned our search for absolute truth. Absolute truth, we have decided, is, for the time being, the atomic beliefs we choose to create reality. We choose to believe that what we choose to believe is true.

Sh'am Buddhism and God

I’m a sham Buddhist, not a real Buddhist, because I choose to believe in God.

Not the god that fundamentalist monotheists believe in, and atheists don’t. This paranoid old man is nothing more than a projection of their fears, an anthropomorphised god they have created in their own image.

What God do I choose to believe in?

“I am o’erwhelmed by the only experientially discovered evidence of an a priori eternal, omnicomprehensive, infinitely and exquisitely concerned, intellectual integrity that we may call God, though knowing that in whatever way we humans refer to this integrity, it will always be an inadequate expression of its cosmic omniscience and omnipotence.”

That’s how Buckminster Fuller described his conviction that there is an ultimate order to the universe, and I am happy to adopt it as expressing my own chosen belief. It’s worth examining in a little detail.

Firstly, God is ‘experientially discovered’. Ch’an Buddhists renounce their desire to achieve Nirvana, which doesn’t mean that they reject the concept of Nirvana. Sh’am Buddhists renounce the idea of an anthropomorphic god who rewards believers and cruelly punishes non-believers. In letting go of the idea of this interventionist god, we are free to experience what is, which is God. Observation is revelation.

‘A priori’ means that this belief is based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation. I start with a hypothesis, I choose to believe, I have faith, and I experience the reality of God.

God is ‘omni-comprehensive’, which means all-knowing, and ‘intellectual’, which implies wisdom. Non-interventionist does not mean unaware or disinterested.

God is ‘infinitely and exquisitely concerned’, which seems a wonderful way to say that God is Love.

But no matter what I may say, what I may choose to believe, I will always fall far short of fully comprehending the truth about God. My description will always be an inadequate expression.

Which is another way of saying that belief in God is irrelevant. I choose to believe that my eudamonia is dependent on my living my life in accordance with an order which will reveal itself, rather than a belief in that order.

Sh’am Buddhism is the study of directions, acceptance of the feedback which will be forthcoming, and the development of methodologies (rituals?) which enhance my consciousness of what I am doing and how I control my own life.

Ultimately, and somewhat paradoxically, it implies that in total submission I achieve total control.

Fighting for peace

“They’ve asked me to go to a protest about logging.”

“So, are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why? Don’t you want to save the forest?”

“Yes I do. But I feel a bit uneasy.”

“Uneasy?”

“Well, I know some of the loggers, and surely they’re entitled to make a living. But I don’t want to see the forests disappear.”

“What do the loggers say?”

“They say they’re entitled to make a living. They say they want to preserve the forest even more than the greenies - it’s their living!”

“What do the greenies say?”

“They say the forest has been logged to death by loggers, and they don’t want any more.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah - but the loggers say that was then, this is now. They say that everyone is responsible for the damage that’s been done in the past, that’s what everyone believed, and now everyone knows better, and they don’t want it to happen again either.”

“So everyone wants the same thing?”

“Well, not quite. I mean, there are radicals on both sides - some want us to leave it all alone for ever, and some want to clear fell it, even now.”

“But most of them...?”

“Well, they all say they want to save the forest.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!”

“So what’s the best way to do that?”

“Well, we’re going to protest.”

“Chain yourself to trees, that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s the best way to save the forest?”

“Well, I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

“You know, someone asked Mother Teresa once to sign a petition against nuclear warfare, and after she prayed, she said she couldn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. I didn’t understand it either. I had to give it a lot of thought. I hate the thought of nuclear warfare, and I almost certainly would have signed the petition.”

“So, why didn’t she?”

“She said that in doing so she would be taking sides, and not loving everybody equally.”

“Well that’s a copout, isn’t it?”

“I thought so, but I don’t think so now.”

“Why?”

“Signing the petition is empowering the argument.”

“Empowering the argument?”

“Yes. I mean very few people in the world want nuclear war, you know. But if you just argue against it, you make them argue for it, if they’re scared, or whatever their reason is.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, look at what’s going to happen if you chain yourself to a tree.”

“What?”

“Well, lots of people will love you for it.”

“Yes.”

“What about other people, people who might want the forest saved just as much as you?”

“I suppose a lot of them will think I’m some sort of radical, and not love me for it.”

“So there’ll be people who are positive, and people who are negative?”

“Yes.”

“And a positive plus a negative equals zero.”

“I suppose it does.”

“So chances are you’ll be playing a zero sum game.”

“So what else can I do?”

“What’s already been done.”

“What’s that?”

“Tie yourself to a tree.”

“Or?”

“There are areas where local people, who understand the issues of their area, sat down and negotiated an agreement, and guess what they found.”

“What?”

“They found that generally speaking, everyone wanted the same thing. Except some wanted it now, and some wanted to work towards it. They had some disagreement about when and how, but not about the desirability of doing it.”

“So they worked it out?”

“They worked it out.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Well, I see that force creates force.”

 
“Yep. Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.”

Being an elder

We don’t have leaders in Erleichda. George had a lot to do with that. Being an Aboriginal, he understands the difference between being an elder and being a leader, and he doesn’t want anything to do with being a leader. I remember our conversation:

I ask him when a person becomes an elder. "Is it just a matter of age?"

"No," he replies, "People become elders when they are too old to chase kangaroos, but it's not automatic. You can be old and stupid."

"So is it because they know all the stories, and the law?"

"No. In my culture, everybody knows some of the stories, it is their duty; and everyone needs to know the law. This is a matter of survival, the stories are passed down from our mother or our father, and they are passed down to more than one person. Nobody has all the stories, or exclusive knowledge of any of them. Everybody knows the law, because if they didn't know it, how could they respect it? Everybody is important in preserving the culture, which is dependent on all the people, not on any individual, even an elder."

"So it's not a matter of knowing the stories, or being expert in the law?"

"Definitely not, although you couldn't be an elder if you didn't know your stories, and your people's law."

George is playing games with me - he won't tell me the answer, but he keeps encouraging me to look for my own answers. George is a teacher, but not in the normal sense of that word. I can't remember him ever actually telling me anything. What does he do, to make me think that he deserves my respect, to make me see him as a beloved teacher who empowers me to learn willingly, eagerly, without resentment?

I know that I feel safe with him, safe to be myself, safe to share who I am. He creates this safe space for me, I feel empowered to be who I am, to recognise my own wisdom, to speak out without fear.

George agrees with me that this is a quality of elders. "When my people meet, it is the elders who keep order, who ensure that everybody is heard, and treated with respect."

"You have to realise," he says, "that we have different ideas of the roles people play. There are children, there are adults, and there are old people, which includes the elders. In our society, it is the responsibility of the adults to look after the children, because they are our future; and the old people, whom we respect, and carry wisdom about who we are, and the way we should be. The adults are the least important people in our society, not like yours. You put your children in front of the TV, and your old people in nursing homes, so that you can get on with life; so you don't really have elders, and you don't understand their function."

Respect for other people, he tells me, is an important part of Aboriginal tradition. In Aboriginal society, the transition from child to adult is marked by a ceremony of initiation.

The ceremony is not initiation, it is a formal part of initiation. Initiation is an ongoing process of learning, punctuated by formal ceremonies.

George tells me that the first stage of his initiation started when he was fourteen, and lasted until he was twenty eight. "We are expected to go out and visit other tribes, to live with them, so that we understand their culture. This is the way we gain respect for other people. You cannot become an elder without giving this respect, and you cannot give this respect unless you understand other people. When you understand other people, and their law, only then can you understand and fully respect your own law."

This respect, I realise, empowers me. This, I see, is another quality of an elder.

"That's right," says George. "My people are taught to respect themselves. Everybody has a part to play, a responsibility for part of the whole, and we know that our welfare is dependent on the welfare of the whole. The elders encourage us to accept this responsibility, to speak up for our knowledge of our part of the whole."

"The whole what?" I ask.

"The whole tribe, for a start. The welfare of the people will be no greater than the welfare of any individual member. For the whole country, our land, because if the land isn't healthy, how can we be healthy? Each of us has a responsibility, and if any one of us is prevented from exercising this responsibility to the fullest, everybody suffers."

"So the elders gain respect by ensuring that everybody is treated with respect?"

"Right," says George.

George has experienced parts of life that I haven't, but he never belittles my experiences. Rather, he will share with me his experience of something similar or relevant. He shares, rather than arguing, and always his experience allows me to see things in another light, I learn from his experience. Learning comes from stories rather than lectures.

"So an elder creates a safe place, empowers people to speak their own mind, and teaches by sharing his experience. Is that what makes a man an elder?"

"No. Elders understand the law, which tells us where we are going, and what to do. They understand their responsibilities in relation to the law, and they help us to understand our responsibilities. They create a safe place for us to learn and discuss these responsibilities, where everybody can speak and participate. They encourage our participation by asking us questions that allow us to grasp this reality by speaking it. They act as guides and mentors by sharing their experiences and knowledge. All these things are true.

"Those are things that an elder does, but doing them does not make him an elder," says George. "Being an elder makes him do those things."

I recall an Aboriginal conference in Sydney, where I met an Aboriginal elder I’ll call Aunty Ella. "Aunty" is a term of respect with her people, an open acknowledgement that she is an elder.

As we walk towards the conference room where she is to present a paper, I ask her if she is nervous. She's not. I ask her if she has her notes ready. She doesn't have notes. I express surprise, and she tells me to look at the title of her paper. "The Knowledge is Within Us", I read.

I get the message - what makes Aunty Ella an elder is so deeply ingrained within her that she only has to speak and you recognise it. It's a part of her that has grown out of a lifetime of service to her people. Her audience is spellbound, not by anything she does, or the eloquence of her speech, but by something she is.

You become an elder when you develop this quality that is recognised, and when you have it, the acknowledgement of the people makes you an elder.

Part of this quality is vision. David Mowaljarlai was an elder of the Ngarinyin people of the Kimberley region. He said: "The elders must have a dream, for without this dream, how can the young people have a vision?"

"So the elders are keepers of the vision?"

"They are people who have spent their lives in service of the vision, of the law, and whose service has been recognised ceremonially and by the acknowledgement of their people. They have accepted their responsibility to the law, and demonstrated their respect."

"But you say they are not leaders?"

"Nope. We don't have leaders like you have leaders, and we don't want them. We know where we're headed, and we decide what to do by consensus, not because some leader tells us what to do. Elders certainly speak with authority, but their authority comes from the law. They guide us to understand what is right, your leaders argue about who is right. Elders create consensus and participation, leadership creates division and exclusion."

I'm beginning to understand what an elder is, what an elder does. An elder has vision, and having spent a lifetime in refining this vision, and in service to it, passes the vision on by empowering others to share and participate in it. Rather than acting as judge or jury, they hold up a mirror that allows others to judge for themselves.

Being an elder is not a matter of age, nor is it dependent on exclusive or even comprehensive knowledge of history or the means of physical survival. Being an elder is a quality of spirit that transcends the physical, that can be earned only through service to the universal good.

Initiation is an important part of Aboriginal culture, and initiation ceremonies mark important milestones on a journey which is essentially spiritual. Each ceremony marks the death of something old to allow the birth of something new. For an Aboriginal man to be an elder, traditional society demanded that he be fully initiated. Women could become elders when they passed the age of menopause.

In many Aboriginal societies, when a person was regarded as an elder, men could learn women's business, and women could learn men's business. Thus they achieved balance in their view of life.

To be fully initiated, a person was required to spend a lifetime learning and being of service to the people. Perhaps the final stage of initiation, which is necessary to become an elder, is the death of ego, and the recognition that your own welfare is intimately connected with the welfare of all people. Such a person has come to terms with themself, acknowledges both their masculinity and femininity, values consensus rather than the gratification of winning battles.

This is a man, or a woman, who is truly in touch and at one with the Universe, and surely such a person is entitled to be called an elder.

A good cup of tea

Leslie is our village teamaker. It is his job to make cups of tea, and this he does with excellence. He hangs around the communal area, the village centre, the heart of Erleichda, and he will come up to you and say "Would you like a cup of tea?"

If you say "Yes" Leslie will ask you "Would you prefer English Breakfast Tea, or Ceylon Tea, or Earl Grey, or Irish Breakfast, or ....." and so on, and whatever you want, Leslie will provide.

Then he'll ask "Weak or strong?", and whatever you want, he'll qualify it, like this: "Very weak?", or "Very strong?"

Then "Black or white?", and if white "How much milk?", and "Do you prefer it added before or after?"

Leslie seems to live in a world of endless, overwhelming data, as if some internal filter doesn't work properly, a filter that makes the world manageable for the rest of us. So he can't seem to make a decision, because there are just too many factors to consider before he can do anything, and so you have to provide every detail for Leslie, and then he will do it. And you'll get a wonderful cup of tea.

Outside Erleichda, people like Leslie can get into a lot of trouble. People think they're lazy, or stupid, or even sexually dangerous, because sometimes they get so lonely, or so involved in admiration, that they might touch you, or some other object of their affection. So they tend to be hidden away by relatives or friends, and they live inside, where they can cope, and life doesn't hold much hope for people like Leslie.

But in Erleichda, everyone knows him, everyone chooses him to be there, everyone is responsible. Leslie is part of the family, and he is loved. Just like idiots have been loved throughout history, before we decided that they were unacceptable, and had to be looked after either by their blood relatives or by the state, both of which proved incapable of the task, for one reason or another.

But in Erleichda, everyone is responsible, and everyone helps. They don't do it for charity, like the state, and there are enough people involved that no-one gets overwhelmed.

In Erleichda, every one shares, and it is not a burden. Leslie performs a useful function, and he feels good about that, and so do we.

As time goes by, Leslie is joining in more and more, and he is very intelligent, and, increasingly, very good company. Occasionally, he'll even take a risk and tell you what kind of tea you want, partly because he always remembers, and partly because, knowing you, and knowing you trust him, and love him, he feels confident to speak.

So if you come to Erleichda, and Leslie asks if you would like a cup of tea, be patient, and answer his questions with the respect which they deserve, and say thank you. You'll get a great cup of tea.

When people ask us how people like Leslie, who seem to see different realities than most of us, and are therefore of questionable competence when it comes to making important decisions for themselves, can take the oath of allegiance, we say that they have chosen to, and that their day to day living in Erleichda is consistent with their choice. That's all it takes. They are just as sane, just as competent, as any of the rest of us. We can only judge them by their actions, because you can't always rely on what they tell you, or fail to tell you.

In our chosen reality, people like Leslie are valuable, they give us insight into things we may not have seen, they are an extra dimension, and worthy of our support. They have taken the oath, they are willing to play the game. Just like the rest of us, they have their little eccentricities, they yearn to be loved and understood, they are willing to look at the past and the present and say "So what, now what?"

They choose not to be victims.

So what, now what... (1)

Elizabeth was the girl with everything: good looks, high and active intelligence, and a wealthy family. Beyond these advantages, she bubbled with life, she loved people and people loved her.

She was confident after the final school exams, relieved they were over. All those years of school finished now, the excitement of university, a career, a family, travel; these things were hers to choose. But tonight was a night for letting her hair down, so Elizabeth was happy to join her friends as they drove off to celebrate.

No-one accused them of drinking to excess, or speeding, although they did have too many passengers in the car. Put it down to youthful exuberance and lack of skill. Elizabeth, sitting on her girl friend's lap, unrestrained, was thrown forward by the impact, and snapped her neck at the fourth vertebrae. She would be lucky to live. Or perhaps unlucky in the eyes of some, because she would certainly never walk again, would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, would have minimal control over her body functions, would require constant attention and nursing.

She was a road victim.

“I didn’t need you to tell me that everything in my life, even this, was there because I chose it. Not that I believe that, of course, it just seemed to be the only productive belief to choose. It got me off my grief and anger and denial, and from that moment life got better, not worse.

“I prayed a lot, and everything changed when I changed my prayer from ‘Why me?’ to ‘Show me!’

“I mean, it doesn’t seem much of a life, does it, in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, my body has spasms that exhaust me, I am totally dependent on other people. So I could sit here and be bitter, and gather people around me who sympathise with my plight, and blame my friends for what happened; and I did that for a while. But that’s a pretty dark, narrow dead end, it leads nowhere. What happened, happened. And I really got pissed off with people treating me like this poor victim, and they were pissed off with it too, and embarrassed. They thought I was helpless.

“The only way forward is to take responsibility for it and for the future. So choosing to believe that I chose it gave me the power to choose the future. Choosing to believe that it was the best thing that could ever happen to me, because I chose it out of love and wisdom for myself, gave me the power to look at the future positively, to look for the value in my situation.

“So I concentrated on what I could do, not what I couldn’t, and now look at what I can do! I live in a world of can do, not can’t do. People talk to me about what I can do, not what I can’t do, and we all get excited about it. I live an exciting life.

“I’m insane, aren’t I, to think like that! But it works for me. And the more I choose to believe it, the more I believe it.”

Elizabeth has very little control, even movement of her body below the neck. She has learned to work her wheelchair by knocking the controls, by moving her hands a few centimetres, which is all the movement available to her. With the same movement she paints.

Her paintings are full of wonderful movement. She illustrates books and win exhibitions, and nowhere is it mentioned that she is a quadriplegic. Her paintings stand on their own merit, Elizabeth pours life into them.

Elizabeth chooses a life of beautiful expression that most of us believe to be beyond us. She is an artist.

Old habits...

Molly arrived back at Erleichda shaken and upset. She had run over a wombat.“I wasn’t driving fast,” she said, “and all of a sudden there it was. Just ran out and I couldn’t stop.”

 

It’s like that out here, driving, especially at dusk. Kangaroos, rabbits, wombats.Kangaroos and rabbits seem hypnotised by car lights; they freeze, then suddenly run, and their direction is never predictable, and is most often in front of you. Wombats just decide where they’re going and go, in as straight a line as possible, and if there’s a fence in the way, hard luck for the fence, because the wombat will try to go straight through it. They are not popular around here for what they do to fences.

“Don’t fret, Molly,” said George. “We know you didn’t do it deliberately, it happens to everyone sometime. It’s their instinct to run, so they run.”

“Well it’s not a very good instinct,” sobbed Molly. “They should change it. Why don’t they just stand still! I don’t want to hurt them.”

“They can’t change it,” said George. “Not so long ago their instinct served them well - if they stood still one of my ancestors would have speared them, they’d end up tucker. So running was right then, wrong now, but they just keep doing it.”

“Just like humans,” said Molly. “All the things we do that were appropriate then but aren’t any more. At least we can change.”

“Mind you,” said George, “it’s not quite that easy. I mean now they might get shot if they stand still. Dead if they do, dead if they don’t. Sometimes the old way of doing things isn’t all that bad. I guess cars have made all the difference. Now they have to make a choice - right ain’t right, and wrong ain’t wrong.”

Water divining

Water diviners and astrologers are welcome in Erleichda, together with mediums, sorcerers, magicians, tarot readers… but not sceptics. Sceptics are not welcome. 

We encourage scepticism, but if you're a sceptic, don't come knocking on our door. Sceptics have a kind of meaness of spirit that we choose to do without.

Graeme set me up for this one when we had a water shortage and he showed me how to divine water.

"Take this piece of wire," he said, handing me a length of rusty fencing wire which he had twisted into an "L" shape, with a rather long vertical. "Now grasp the short bit in your hand, and let the other end point wherever it wants to. Just hold it firmly."

So there I was, holding a piece of rusty fencing wire shaped like an "L", with the long bit pointing out straight in front of me.

"Now walk across there," said Graeme, so I did. I walked a hundred metres or so, the wire still pointing in front of me, when all of a sudden, it started to twist. Not gently - I was holding it quite firmly, and it twisted the flesh of my hand. To stop it twisting took real effort. "Just hold it firmly and let it point where it wants to point," said Graeme, "and follow where it wants to go."

So I followed the wire, and Graeme told me that if I sank a well or a bore anywhere along the track the wire and I traced, we would find water, so I did and we did. The trouble with sceptics is that they would probably still be telling me why drilling for water on the testimony of a rusty piece of wire is irrational. Or that I was deluded, or tricked. So let's have a nice cool glass of water while we discuss their limitations.

A few years ago, some sceptics got together and offered a hefty reward to anyone who could divine water in an experiment they designed. They buried plastic pipes under the ground, and some of them had water, and others didn't, and none of the silly diviners who took up their challenge collected the money. Only the sceptics were happy.

"Now what they proved," Graeme informed me, "is that a certain group of people couldn't divine water flowing through plastic pipes in an area where nature never intended water to flow."

"It's all very well for you to say that," I countered, "but what about all the times divining fails, and where's the scientific evidence?"

"How do you explain what happened to you?"

He was right, I had no explanation for the way that wire twisted in my hand. All that proved, of course, is that a wire twisted in my hand, and by the way, continued to do so every time I walked over that part of Erleichda. What is also true is that when I drilled for water in that location, I found water.

What it does not prove is that water divining is possible.

I started to realise that scepticism is valuable, but being a sceptic is not. That's when I developed another part of the Erleichda philosophy, which makes all sorts of wonderful magic possible in Erleichda, because we all choose to have this belief: It is not necessary for me to have a belief about that.

This is how they train fleas for a flea circus: they put them in a box. When the flea jumps too high, it hits its head, and gets a flea headache, and soon learns how high it can jump. When it tries to jump too far sideways, its bruises itself against the sides of its box, so it soon learns not to jump too far sideways. The flea very quickly learns the size of its world, and not to venture outside it, and soon you can take the box away, and the flea will not stray. The flea is a sceptic, and is now ready to perform in your circus. And it will not venture outside the centre ring of that circus until you prove that the outside exists.

Human sceptics are far smarter than fleas, and able to defend the limitations of life far more eloquently.

In Erleichda we prefer to say "It is not necessary for me to have a belief about that", and we step out of the circus and experience what is there to be experienced.

Many of our critics say that is childlike. They are right.

The first thing that we say about interesting phenomena is "What would happen if that were true?" and our universe and its possibilities keep expanding, and our world is full of magic. Childlike.

Killing day

Thursday is killing day in Erleichda.

Because it is a special day I always rise early, and spend some considerable time sharpening my knives, of which I have two - a straight one and a curved one. Sharp knives make both the killing and the dying easier.

Usually I will have an audience for the killing, for we encourage our children to be aware, and new residents are encouraged to attend. It is important, we believe, for everyone to acknowledge that for us to live, something must die.

The straight knife is for killing sheep and cattle, the curved knife is for pigs.

To kill a sheep, I hold it by the front legs, and sit it on its rump, with its back to me, as if I were about to shear it. With my right leg between its two back legs, I lie it down, and bend its head over my left ankle, stretching and exposing its throat. Then, as quickly and as powerfully as possible, I cut its throat, and snap the head backwards to break the neck, and death seems to be virtually instantaneous. Cutting the throat ensures that the animal bleeds properly, enhancing both the flavour and keeping qualities of the meat.

Cattle are too big for me to manhandle in such a fashion, so I use a .22 rifle to shoot them in a spot between and just above the eyes. This stuns the beast, which falls to the ground, and I then use my straight knife to cut its throat, ensuring proper bleeding, as with the sheep.

I use a special implement, something like an axe, but with a blunt point instead of a blade, to stun pigs before I kill them. As with cattle, I aim for a point between and just above the eyes, and if I am accurate, the animal is immediately stunned, and I can proceed with the killing. I must remain calm, and swing accurately, because if I miss the correct spot, I will only hurt the pig, which will then tend to panic, making my job much more difficult.

When the pig is stunned, I use the curved knife to cut deeply through the skin and fat in a longitudinal incision from its chest along its throat, and then I thrust the knife deeply into its chest, piercing the cluster of veins and arteries above its heart. Again, this ensures a speedy death and a thorough bleed.

I can then leave it to my assistants to hang and butcher the animal for our consumption. Everyone in Erleichda is rostered from time to time to be my assistant, because without this process, Erleichda could not survive.

In assisting, and ensuring that the killing proceeds as humanely and quickly as possible, we pay the same respect to the animals we kill as do many hunting societies. Like them, we kill to survive, and we feel a bond with the animals that die that we might live.

Nor do we delegate the killing to others, to slaughtermen we can denigrate, pretending that we are not responsible for the killing. We have this belief: How can you respect life if you pretend that death does not exist? How can you stop the killing, if you avoid your responsibility for the slaughter?

Sh'am Buddhism and atheism

Ch’an Buddhists renounce the desire to achieve Nirvana, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in it. To say that Ch’an is to Buddhism is what atheism is to Christianity is not accurate. Ch’ans don’t go around telling everybody that they don’t believe in Nirvana as atheists go around telling everybody they don’t believe in God.

Sh’am Buddhists have much the same attitude to God. We find that it is not necessary to have a belief about He/She/It. This is not atheism.

Sh’am Buddhists, in common with most world religions, believe that God is unknowable, so what’s the point of worrying. To say that you know that God doesn’t exist seems incredibly arrogant – just as arrogant as saying that you know that God exists, and know precisely what is on his mind.

It depends on your definition of God, of course. The God that atheists don’t believe in is the same God that believers do believe in – flip sides of the same coin.

Religions, it has been said, are invented to keep people from knowing God.

Having renounced the necessity of God, Sh’am Buddhists are open to experience God. We can choose to believe that there is an ultimate order to the universe, and that this order is what people call God, in accordance with what they experience.

Observation is revelation.

Searching for God

I leave my friends debating the existence (or otherwise) of God. I decide to go and find him.

I fly past Mars and Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and at last Pluto (was that a planet I just flew past?), more than 4 billion kilometers from home. Because I can fly at the speed of light, it’s only taken 7 hours to get here.

I’m not even out of the Solar System yet. Another two light years to go. Then another 4.3 light years to Proxima Centauri, our closest neighbour,  then 4.6 light years to Sirius and so on. The average distance between stars is something like 30 million million kilometers, and there are somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, which is our home galaxy, and there are probably another 140 billion galaxies.

I’ve been flying now for 13 billion years, and with distance I’m beginning to develop perspective, and I’ve certainly had enough time for contemplation. But I can’t begin to comprehend the enormity of these numbers and distances, and I doubt that you can either.

But if there is a God, he, she or it understands it all - by definition, being the creator. Perhaps he can’t, but the chances are she does a better job of comprehending me than I do of comprehending it. Arguing about the existence or otherwise of God seems arrogant and a waste of time.

Just choose – it doesn’t really matter. Your choice will not affect the being or non-being of God.

I fly on, and after approximately infinity kilometres, off in the distance I see a familiar sight. It’s my two friends, right where I left them, debating the existence of God. They haven’t aged a bit, nor have they reached a conclusion.

At the very edge of the universe, it’s just the three of us. Perhaps there’s a message in that.

After my trip, I realize that Einstein predicted the outcome years ago. It seems that there is an order to the universe. I choose to call that order God. It’s a comforting notion, and that’s why I choose it. To choose to believe in God is just as comforting as being aware of his presence.

My mission in life is to find that order, and in yielding to it, find eudamona.

Being a leader

Melinda has a passion for marching. She is President of the Birriboola Marching Association, and several girls and one of the boys from Erleichda are enthusiastic members.

“Used to be called marching girls,” Melinda told me, “but now it’s marching association, because now we have male members too. But it’s not a sport that appeals to many boys.”

“Do you know what I like most about marching as a sport?” she asked me. “We work as a team, everybody works for everybody else.”

“Like cricket or football,” I said, although marching didn’t strike me as being a sport.

“No, not like cricket or football or baseball or just about any sport. I’ll tell you why. Like most sports, most of us like to excel, and to represent at district or state or country level. Most teams at representative level comprise the best individuals from the various teams in the competition, so members of those teams are always competing with each other, and trying to stand out so they’ll be chosen.

“But in marching, it’s the team that’s chosen, and the team wins and goes on to higher levels of competition as a team or not at all. So all our team works as a team, they support each other, they work together. They don’t compete against each other, they compete as a team.”

That made me think. That’s how I like to think of Erleichda, as a team, working together with a vision we can share. What Melinda said next made me think even more.

“We used to have leaders, you know, who’d march out front, but we don’t any more. People used to compete to be leader, so they’d try to stand out from the other members of the team, and that meant that they detracted from the team’s performance. I mean, in competition, we’re judged on precision and coordination, how together we are as a team, and someone who tries to stand out... well, they spoil the whole thing. So, no leaders.

“We’re judged, in competition, not so much by how high we step, but on whether everyone steps at the same height, swings their arms to the same level; you know, it’s about looking good as a team, and working together.

“And anyone can do it!” Melinda was warming up. “We’ve got a girl... she’s... well, she’s a large girl. And she’d gone to dancing classes, and the teacher told her she was too fat to be a dancer. Can you imagine a teacher telling a young girl that! But here, she fits in, everyone helps her, and she loves it. Because what’s important is not her physical appearance, it’s her... her precision, her neatness, her ability to work with other people, her enjoyment! Not everyone wants to stand out, you know. Lots of people blossom in a group. In a team.”

I want Erleichda to be like a marching team.

Saving the world

It was one of those meetings that set out to change the world. All of us had the same altruistic objective: to make the world a better place, not only for ourselves, but for everybody. We didn't want anybody to be oppressed, or poor, or hungry, or unable to fulfill their highest potential. 

We were New Age people, and we met to discuss ways and means of achieving whatever it was we wanted to achieve. On this night somebody wanted the group to agree on an action plan to do something. That something was to be based on a book doing the rounds at the time, a series of speeches which set out the author’s ideas on how to achieve what she called "a civil society".

It was full of wonderful glittering generalities, like "social capital", a phrase with which everybody agreed but nobody could define. Everyone had their own definition, which they thought was obvious, and certainly beyond the need for discussion. This allowed everybody to seem to agree on something without rigorous investigation of what that something actually was, but everybody knew that it was good, whatever it was, and so nobody could argue against it without appearing to be very Old Age indeed.

Political correctness is at its best when practised by politicians, who know that if they can fill a speech with politically correct generalities, they can get everybody to agree with them, even although they bitterly disagree with each other. As long as nobody tries to get at the meaning behind the words.

It seemed that everybody had there own special glittering generalisation, which formed the sine qua non of their position and therefore the action they thought was needed to save the world.

A generalisation is a statement that may apply to a subset of a group, and is then extended to include all members of the group. It is taken to be so obvious by the generaliser that no discussion is necessary or indeed to be tolerated. One of our members made the generalisation that ever since white people had landed in Australia, farmers had raped the land for their own greed, and hence were pillaging the “social capital” of the country, and had to be controlled. So he was for government control of the farmers.

Another was of the opinion that the banks controlled the world by creating credit, and that the only answer was for the government to take over the banks, and how if they did, this action would increase the “social capital”.

This “social capital”, they advocated, should be measured in some sort of Social Capital Index, to be published and used as an indicator of the performance of government. Everybody seemed to be for this concept, although no-one offered any idea of what the index would actually measure.

Well, not everybody agreed, just the majority. But those of us who disagreed were fairly silent, seemingly stunned for the moment by this deluge of self-righteous generalisation, our thoughts self-censored by the political correctness of it all.

I was going through various emotions, which included rage, sorrow and wonder. How well, I thought, would Hitler have rated under this proposed index? Here were a group of well meaning friends and acquaintances of mine, intelligent and caring, and what they were proposing was the most outrageous intrusion of government into the lives of the community since the Russian revolution, arguing that it was necessary for our survival.

But for the time I felt that to argue against it would be like arguing against motherhood and apple pie, which is how I often feel when confronted by political correctness. So I said nothing for the whole meeting, until the very end.

Robyn said something. We had to vacate the premises, and it became necessary to form some conclusion, which, of course, was impossible. So Robyn, bless her, said that often she felt overwhelmed by the immensity of the size of the problem, and had decided that it was beyond her to fix it, so she worked locally, on smaller problems for which she could take responsibility. Lighting grass fires, she called it.

What she was saying was exactly what Robert Pirsig said in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value."

Robyn said: "Next time you are down at your local shopping centre, and you see a Rotarian, or a Lion, or an Apexian, selling raffle tickets for a good cause, I suggest you buy one." Most of the group looked to be puzzled by this remark, but there were one or two smiles.

Robyn would be welcome in Erleichda, but I really don't want people who want to save the world. They have caused enough problems over the centuries, and they totally overwhelm me.

The power of positive thinking

One day, as I sat on a rock by the river that runs through Erleichda, I heard someone singing. I had been listening to the birds, and the multitude of voices of the Australian bush on a hot summers day. Watching the birds in the trees, an old man goanna hoping for food, and a rare sight indeed, not one but three or four platypuses in the water below me.

The river runs straight for about a kilometre or so through Erleichda, from south to north; it swings in from west, and out to the east. Around the corner he appeared, a young man in a canoe, paddling slowly with the current, and singing.

As he drew nearer the life around me disappeared. No birds, no goanna, no platypuses; the songs of the bush died, leaving only the sound of his singing. He was happy, his song strong and in its way beautiful.

I realised as he passed, not seeing me, seeing only scenery, that he was surrounded by, enclosed in, a sphere of silence of his own creation. 

Soon he passed by, then out of sight where the river turned to the east, and as he passed, life in the bush resumed.

Positive thinking can be like this. You create a world that encloses you, at the expense of seeing and hearing what is really going on. Sometimes it is best just to float along with the current, and acknowledge another reality.

My 20,000 year plan

This morning I sat and watched the leaves marching across the ground. Well being marched, actually.

Yesterday I trimmed some growth from an ironbark tree, and I laid the trimmings on an ant nest. I didn’t want that nest where it was; a couple of metres in diameter, right in the middle of my lawn, and a scary thing for the children. Go anywhere near it and you will be covered with ants, and although their bite is not painful, it’s definitely uncomfortable.

Today the ants are carrying off those ironbark trimmings, leaf by leaf, and when you look at the ground around the nest it looks as if the leaves are moving themselves. Sometimes you can’t even see the ant that is carrying it, the leaf being so much bigger than the ant.

At first glance you don’t see any change in the pile of clippings. But look closer and you will see branches bare of leaves, and then you notice ants demolishing the network of branches. You have to look closely to see any activity, but when you do you can see that the tiny contribution of each of the workers assigned to this task of clearing the trimmings from the nest will result in the disappearance of the trimmings. Possibly, probably, this will take a week or so, but it’s a foregone conclusion, and the ants don’t mind how long it takes.

I have a 20,000 year plan for Erleichda. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll see the plan come to fruition. It just means that I don’t care how long it takes, which removes a lot of the stress involved in achieving it.

I got the idea from some Aboriginal people I know, who live outback a few kilometers downstream from a cotton farm. When that cotton farm pumps water from the river to fill the dams from which they irrigate, the river runs backwards, and the land is being sucked dry by the cotton.

But the people say “Those cotton farmers will leave in forty years at the most, because they will have worn out the land. This is our land, and we have been here 20,000 years. So we can wait forty years, and then fix it.” So they fence off the river, and do their best to feed water back into it. In times of drought, when the river runs low and the waterholes dry up, they shoot the odd huge Murray Cod trapped and dying in the sun, and wait for rain and for the cotton farmers to leave.

A 20,000 year plan can be changed quite readily. It does not consist of a series of five year plans, for example, rather a series of projects which may or may not be completed. You evolve these projects by sitting and listening to the land, and seeing what it wants you to do, and you never know where that’s going to take you. So I don’t know what lies at the end of this plan, only that it will evolve if I keep my eyes and ears open, and listen carefully to what I’m hearing and pay close attention to what I’m seeing.

Sometimes you can be blinded by a plan, and you can tend to forget what your real objective is.

Come to think about it, I’m not even certain where today’s project is headed, so I might just sit here and do a bit more looking and listening.

Being enlightened

Erleichda is a community of Sh’am Buddhists, whose beliefs came to Erleichda from India via China. Here’s how it came about:

As Buddhism spread eastwards from India, it was influenced by the religions of the regions in which it was practiced. In China, under the influence of Taoism and the like, a sect arose known as Ch’an. They asked themselves the question: If the way to Nirvana is by renouncing desire, what then is the last desire to renounce? If desire leads to suffering, and I have overcome my desire for wealth, status, sex, food, drink, air and life itself, what is left to renounce? Why, they realized, it’s the desire to enter Nirvana! So the Ch’ans decided that this would be the first desire they would renounce, which seems to have taken a load off their minds, because Ch’an Buddhas always appear to be very contented.

The opposite of Nirvana is Samsara – the endless cycle of life and death. If I give up the desire to reach Nirvana, then I’m choosing to believe that there is no real distinction between Nirvana and Samsara, and therefore I’m already in Nirvana. There is nothing to be realized, I’m already enlightened, I can just get on with life.

 The Ch’an Buddhist, having renounced the desire to enter Nirvana, chooses instead to re-enter Samsara. This is the Boddhisattva, who realizes that all there is, is the sum of our illusions, and that the enlightenment of one does not equal enlightenment, which belief maintains the illusion of the individual. True enlightenment is the enlightenment of the universal Buddha-mind, the cosmic sum of all consciousness.

The Boddhisattva returns as a teacher, there is no enlightenment until everything is enlightenment, and everything is everybody, so it’s all or nothing.

The character pronounced “Ch’an” in Chinese is pronounced “Zen” in Japanese. It comes from a Sanskrit term meaning meditation. Ch’an Buddhists don’t believe in meditation, but spend a lot of time meditating, pondering the thought that meditation does not lead to enlightenment. That comes from the Taoist belief that meditation, or total absorption, can be part of any activity. Life is a meditation. Maybe.

In effect, in renouncing the very concept of Nirvana, Ch’an is to Buddhism what atheism is to Christianity. Or is it? More about that later.

When Ch’an reached Erleichda, it came under the influence of Christianity, the Australian disapproval of leaders, and a few good ideas I picked up from George, an Aboriginal resident, and evolved into my version of Buddhism, Sh’am. This acknowledges that I’m not really a Buddhist, but agree with a lot of what the Buddha has to say.

Ch’an masters believed that they should never tell anything too plainly – each person should reach their own conclusion. Which Sh’am Buddhists also believe. Perhaps Sh’am isn’t sham Buddhism at all! 

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. You should not say 'I know what Zen is'. Or 'I have attained enlightenment'. This is the real secret: Always be a beginner.

What is a Contrarian?

The prevailing view of things can be assumed to be wrong, and… its opposite, being its image or shadow, can also be assumed to be wrong… There are other ways of thinking, for which better arguments can be made.

-          from “The Death of Adam” by Marilynne Robinson

 

The renewal of civilisation has nothing to do with movements which bear the character of experiences of the crowd; these are never anything but reactions to external happenings. But civilisation can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it, a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. It is only an ethical movement which can rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.

- Dr Albert Schweitzer.

The masses, the hosts of common men, do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines nothing can prevent disaster ... The [Classical] Liberals gave the world Capitalism, a higher standard of living for a steadily increasing number of people. But the pioneers and supporters of capitalism overlooked one essential point; a social system, however beneficial, cannot work if it is not supported by public opinion.

– Ludwig Von Mises

"Difficilis, querulus, laudatus temporis acti si puero, castigator censorque minorum." (Difficult, a grumbler, a eulogiser of past times.)

- Horace

About the groundrules

I created the community of Erleichda because I could.

I could because the universe gave me the money, and I made the right decision. When you have money, you can use it to make more money, or you can use it to live the life you always wanted to live if you had the money.

Because it was my community, I made up the rules.

This is the first rule: If you want to live in Erleichda, you have to agree to a single condition. You have to agree with this statement: I am 100% responsible for my own life. I choose to believe that everything in my life is there because I chose it, and I chose it out of love and wisdom for myself.

That way, I get to live with people who aren’t victims, which is important for me.

 

Judith was more than a little upset when I told her that if she wanted to come and live in Erleichda, she would have to accept and obey my rules.

"Your rules?" she hissed. "Your rules? Who on earth do you think would want to live their lives with you laying down the rules?"

"Well that's the way it is," I said. "If I say you're in, you're in, and if I say you're out, you're out."

"No-one will come, and no-one will stay." Her anger was tangible, intense, and expanding. "That's against everything I believe, and I've decided on a personal level that I won't accept that sort of shit from anybody, especially bloody men with self-inflated egos."

That’s Judith for you. She doesn’t like to be tied down. Judith is always late, and she always has an excuse. I’m not interested in her excuses, only that she is always late. I get sick of her excuses. I would get along a lot better with her if she would just take responsibility for her tardiness and stop wasting time with excuses. Instead she’s a victim of her own habits.

I don’t want victims in Erleichda, so I made up the rule. If Judith doesn’t like it, that’s her prerogative.

Naturally only a madman would agree to such a rule, so it helps me to qualify potential residents very simply and very quickly.

In most villages you don’t know the rules, and whether you’re in or out seems to be quite arbitrary, or a matter luck. In Erleichda, everybody knows the rules.