Questioning, Questioning

Questioning what I believe to be true, what I believe that underlies most of my actions, that liberates and conditions the arising ebb and flow of further thoughts and emotions on any given day, any given moment.

Beliefs themselves, powerful, that enable certain things to be seen, and others to remain invisible

Beliefs like:
Racism is Bad, which means I see microaggressions, I perceive with humble, but deepening sensitivity, the mourning which pervades this land through every rock and road, every creek and every tree, the air is full of unfinished business

Beliefs like:
Buddhism is Good/helpful, which means I see even pleasure as a form of suffering, alongside pain, neither to be avoided, nor to be attached to: Recognised as inherently empty, impermanent, fleeting, as if sensations in a dream

Beliefs like:
Too much wealth can be corrupting, particularly without generosity, without a recognition of wealth as relative wealth, without a recognition of amassed wealth as having been contingent on the built karmic debt of too many displaced lives, human and non-human

All these beliefs which orient me toward some version of "the good" and "the true" and "the beautiful"...

All these beliefs which exert power over my day to day lived experience...
Beliefs which have been systematised into my day-to-day actions, and I fear that they may, at times, become ossified...

and, ossified, become no longer freely chosen
and, unfreely chosen
or unchosen,
they become sources of myopic limitation, yes:
even nobility, or an orientation to it
may cloud my judgement,
orient me toward my own ethnocentrism,
left wing, spiritualist tirades
vanguard discourses which are elite and elitist
which exclude and deny even as they pretend liberation

and that this exclusion, I may sometimes think of as expediently necessary
(indeed, flying paradoxically in the face of my other belief, of the importance of radical inclusion of all difference, including offensive difference, oppressive difference, hateful difference, as the volcanic scars of our human potential and the abuse of our potential, all inseparable from the Real)

and in this exclusion (of those who may not be radically inclusive),
in this paradox, I must I must I must
see that Belief itself was, to a significant extent, a Choice

I chose/have chosen/still choose/am choosing
to believe
that Racism is Bad
that Buddhism is Good/helpful
that Wealth can be corrupting

and that underlying these is another belief:
that I am free at any point,
to disbelieve any of the above
for any purpose, noble or ignoble
and that this is most dangerous, yet most freeing, perhaps
most freeing because most dangerous...

I teeter on the edge of a precipice
and that all my life and work before me shimmers and melts away as illusory commitments
paving way for
this radical calm, sweet nectar of power
amorality

from here, I see I choose what I choose because I have radical freedom
free to Not Have a Choice in the matter, but to choose, anyway,
I choose to Choose that which orients Us toward freedom, full liberation
even as I derive perverse pleasure in that tension that precedes all release

to Choose, then, is also to be Bound.
I play with liberation, then, that is not contingent on any memory of chains
liberation that sees that there are no chains
no need, at all
for liberation.