Struggle between good and evil

[alexey]

Just in case somebody here finds this interesting... This is from a most excellent book by Chogyam Trungpa called "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism"

You might ask then, "What about the great religious traditions, the teachings? How do we reconcile these with the notion of a sense of humor? They speak of discipline, rules and regulations. How do we reconcile these with the notion of a sense of humor? Well, let's examine the question properly. Are the regulations, the discipline, the practice of morality really based on the purely judgemental attitude of "good" as opposed to "bad"? Are the great spiritual teachings really advocating that we fight evil because we are on the side of light, the side of peace? Are they telling us to fight against that other "undesirable" side, the bad and the black? That is a big question. If there is wisdom in the sacred teachings, there should not be any war. As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation. One would not expect the great teachings to be as simple-minded as that, trying to be good, fighting the bad. Such would be the approach of a Hollywood western movie - even before you have seen the conclusion, you already know precisely that the "goodies" will not be killed and the "baddies" are going to get smashed. This approach is obviously simple-minded; bit it is just this type o situation that we are creating in terms of "spiritual" struggle, "spiritual" achievement.

I am not saying that a sense of humour should be wildly unleashed. I am speaking of seeing something more than just warfare, struggle, duality.

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Sense of humour means seeing both poles of a situatuion as they are, from an aerial point of view. There is good and there is bad and you see both with a panoramic view as though from above. Then you begin to feel that these little people on the ground, killing each other or making love or just being little people, are very insignificant in the sense that, if they begin to make a big deal of their warfar or love making, then we begin to see the ironic aspect of their clamor. If we try really hard to build something tremendous, really meaningful, powerfuul - "I'm really searching for something, I'm really trying to fight my faults," or becomes a paper tiger; it is extremely ironic.