def: An attempt to force a change on a world outside myself.
Whenever I resort to violence, it’s because I’m suffering from the innocent belief in an urgent need to change something in the world out there.
But this is confusion.
There is no world I can change out there.
What I call “the world” is made within and projected outward. Whatever I make within, I will see out there. What I see is my state of mind, experienced.
Violence - the attempt to force a change on what I’m seeing out there - is like slashing at a movie theater screen in order to stop the insanity projected onto it. It does no good. It just makes the movie look crazier, more chaotic, harder to understand.
The only reason I am ever violent is to stop my suffering (or to keep it from starting again). In the end, the only thing my violence is seeking is peace.
Unfortunately for my violently confused state of mind, violence will never bring me peace. Because it’s pointed in the wrong direction: it’s working “out there” when the problem is “in here.”
Slashing at a screen may succeed at shifting the image for a fleeting moment, but if nothing has changed within the projector, the movie keeps running. The screen will just keep showing me upsetting images, images made all the more upsetting from all my slashing.
And working at the projector does not mean slashing at it. Punishing the projector won’t clear up the image. That will only further distort the image (or destroy the projector altogether).
But I can clear up the image if I care for the projector, if I examine it carefully to see what’s going on, clean out all the dust and hairs, repair or replace worn out parts, keep it oiled and then, ultimately, choose my movies thoughtfully, movies that don’t confuse or distract me from my ability to care for this precious instrument.
The only way to improve my experience of the world is to work all the way in at the source - with my own mind and what I’m thinking and believing.
No other work will bring any lasting peace to my experience of the world.
“The only devils in the world are the ones running around in our own hearts. That is where the battle should be fought.”