About ModelEarth.
The concept
of collectively designing of future by all those who are to share
it is a result of a meeting of Mahayana philosophy and the way of
creating desired results as described in The Path of Least
Resistance by Robert Fritz (end note 1).
Since my teenage years I was interested in meditation--I was
convinced that by meditation I could improve my mind that I knew to
be the source of my many problems that I was experiencing. Later,
when I finally arrived in the USA, I got attracted to Mahayana
philosophy that holds that the happiness of oneself depends on the
happiness of all other beings. I embarked on studying of Mahayana
as presented by the Tibetan Buddhism as I thought that Tibetan
Buddhism, from all the forms of Mahayana, emphasized the well-being
of all beings most strongly.
After a while studying and meditating, though, I became
disillusioned with my progress--I was not making any! This lack of
any progress in improving my mind continues to this very day--the
only reason that I am persisting in meditating is that, in my
opinion, there is no better ideology than the Mahayana--every other
way that I see to be there and that doesn't emphasize the necessity
of regarding the happiness of every other being as important as
one's own is, in my eyes, imperfect, shortsighted. My meditations
these days serve only as a way of affirming this.
However!--some years ago I discovered The Path of Least
Resistance by Robert Fritz and got very interested in what it
had to say; it basically posits that in order to achieve any
desired goals, one has to know first what those goals are, in as
small detail, as possible, and then, and only then, it is
meaningful to strive for those goals. What it, basically, says is
that unless we know what it is that we want, we can never get
it.
I have been practicing, or, trying to practice, the principles
outlined in The Path of Least Resistance for many years now,
and if I haven't achieved many goals that I set out to achieve, the
undeniable benefit I am getting from practicing those principles is
that my thinking improved considerably--by now, I know much better
what I want to achieve in my life--I don't have to go through any
mind-contortions, I don't have to "psyche" myself about my
motivation.
Over the years it started dawning on me that the reason that
Mahayana practitioners cannot ever show any benefiting to "all
beings" (benefiting all beings without any exceptions is the
ultimate goal of Mahayana) is that it is very unclear, very
vague what those "benefits" actually should be. One Mahayana text
(affirmation?) states:
May all beings have happiness and the
cause of happiness.
May all beings be free of suffering, and the cause of
suffering.
May all beings be never parted from the real happiness that is
beyond misery.
May all beings dwell in equanimity--free from dualism, attachment,
and aversion, in all time and space.
The
"happiness" in the above is undefined, extremely vague, and, with
all likelihood, this "happiness" might mean very diverse and even
contradictory things to everybody trying to practice Mahayana. This
very basic unclarity causes that in actuality no beings ever,
demonstrably, benefit! One look around proves that no lasting,
significant benefits are being experienced by all beings,
especially now, in these times, where there, very clearly, the
whole planet is in a state of an emergency. This despite of all the
tremendous mental effort that is being exercised in all Mahayana
meditations!
There could be a significant improvement in the general state of
life on this planet possible, if all those who are striving to
improve the conditions for life on Earth would unify their ideas of
what the ideal conditions in this world should be.
There are many people, for instance, who pray for Peace, but it is
unclear what this "Peace" should look like, and, indeed, are they
all praying for the same thing? Because--if they are not, than it
might even be possible that some of them are praying for kinds of
"Peace" that are fundamentally different from "Peace" of others, it
is possible that the reason that, so far the Earth has not really
experienced any lasting Peace is exactly that: we all might be
wishing for a different thing, and never even know it.
Should all those who want the optimal living conditions for all
life have a unified idea of what those optimal conditions for all
life would actually look like--meaning that they would all wish and
did actions for the same results, humanity would have been fully
ecologically and socially sustainable and a state of truly lasting
peace on Earth would prevail, for if humanity were sustainable, a
lasting peace in the world would be a necessary fixture, because
hardly any violent solutions to any problems are sustainable.
However, no substantial progress towards sustainable humanity is
observable, precisely due to the lack of a commonly held ideal of
what those "optimal conditions" would consist of.
Clearly a consensus has to reached on what the optimal conditions
for life, what "sustainable humanity", should look like, otherwise
we might be all striving for a different goal.
instead of having the differences of what the ideal state of
affairs on Earth should consist of sorting themselves out in real
life, it might be quite time, resources, and energy saving to come
to an understanding of the term by modeling.
End Notes:
1) The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz, Salem, MA, DMA,
Inc., 1984, ISBN: 0-930641-00-0.
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