..续本文上一页nce, and with it all dukkha. That remains the ultimate atammayata. Which opens the heart wide to Nibbana.

　　In the great teachers of other traditions, we can find atammayata, also. The Jewish patriarch Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac at God”s command. Christ displayed one level of atammayata when he threw the moneychangers out of the temple and another level on the cross that represents the supreme crucifixion, the killing of the "I." In Islam, "jihad" represents atammayata towards injustice and social immorality, while the Mulla Nasrudin stories are the atammayata of humor. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna accepts his duty to go to war although kinsmen and many familiar faces were on the other side. With atammayata toward emotional attachments, he pursues his yoga.

　　Although atammayata is required at the spiritual heights, it is also found in children. For example, many of us once sucked our thumbs. Then one day we looked at the red, swollen, shriveled thing we had been sticking in our mouths and lost all desire to suck on it again. The feeling that took the thumb out of our mouths for good is atammayata. (However, if the feeling didn”t go deep enough, we eventually replaced the thumb with other things, like cigarettes.) All of us can remember times when we have seen something clearly for once and for all, thus ending a stupid involvement with that thing. Perhaps involvement continued — who cut off their thumbs

　　 — but without the old stupidity and attachment. All bad habits can be dropped with atammayata.

　　Now, I would like to share a few ways in which we can use atammayata to make a better world and better lives for ourselves and our friends. There are many things to which we must learn to say "No!" Everything stupid, degrading, destructive, and obsessive must be chased away with atammayata. In the end, we should be left with only the healthy, the worthy, the just, the necessary, the peaceful, and the truly human (as well as pine).

　　First, let”s look at a few external situations, like sexism. This is an all pervasive difficulty. Take a powerful instinct (sex), confuse it with political, economic, religious, cultural, and power issues, then you will have something which biases everything we do. With all the instances of sexism which touch our lives — whether perpetrated by or against us — we must look hard at that sexism and see the assumptions and habits on which it is based. See the desires and fears that support it. Note the murky feelings involved. Most of all, see how it belittles each of us, reducing everyone to a beastly least common denominator. Look hard at all of that until seeing the ugliness, the crudity, and the stupidity of it. Refuse to take part in it. Remove it from one”s sexuality. Refuse to be trapped and used by not only your own prejudices but also those of others. See the lust, fear, loneliness, and guilt that sexism pulls onto our heads and say "No!"

　　The world economic structure is kept going by consumerism. Few of us examine this morass, so few us are truly free of it. All of us have a few favorite consumer goods; we still like to make ourselves happy by buying a new toy. We all get excitement from buying, owning, and using things. Thus, we are suckers for TV hard sell. Thus, we buy into the entire net of consumer economics and politics. (It has become a global way of life, although eighty percent of humanity can”t afford to buy in.) Next time your eyes fall on an ad in your favorite magazine, are caught by a billboard or storefront display, are drawn in by a TV commercial, or are ready to type in your credit card number on some website — say "No!" Look at it until you realize how stupid the whole mess is making us. Say "No!" to stupidity. Say "No!" to entrapment. "I ain”t gonna mess with you no m…

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