titmus and world view

Christopher Titmus

The concept of 'world view' (weltanschauung) is catching on. Buddhist scholar and activist Christopher Titmus extols the value of being able to treat your world view as contingent and thus to hold it lightly.

"What do we do with our fear and anger and frustration? We do absolutely nothing with it. To do something with it would run the risk of adding to the fear and rage that are already in the world.

Terror, fear, anxiety, worry, desire for retaliation—the "full catastrophe" of internal turmoil has to be treated as a completely false, distorted, and absolutely unhelpful mind state, an unhealthy and useless way of relating to life. We've got to reflect on that again and again so that the simple truth of it enters the place inside where all the reactivity is coming from...

In our conflict resolution groups, we stress that to meet each other clearly and openly, we have to hold our labels—our identities—lightly. When we go beyond labels and connect with each other as human beings, everything's possible.

In the Middle East, I don't refer to Buddhism per se. But the teachings on emptiness of ego, nonclinging, non-self, the power of metta and compassion, the wisdom of interconnectedness, being here now and not projecting into the future, inform every meeting we have.

The dharma teachings of liberation and freedom enable us to have a much bigger worldview because we learn what it is not to cling to a position or opinion or religion.

Finding skillful ways and means within different religious and political structures is something we as Buddhists can offer. The separations that arise from different beliefs are defense mechanisms, conditioned states of minds; we can point to something deeper that unifies us. In that respect, the dharma serves as a profound tool for change. We frequently forget the power of the dharma to engage in revolutionary acts."

Christopher Titmuss - http://www.tricycle.com/practice/rising-challenge-step-toward-peace