Tear It Down

Americans have a habit of wanting to tear down structures and replace them. It can be an obsessive habit, really. It’s a frenetic desire to seek happiness from external sources, and if a structure is intact for awhile a kind of restless anxiety builds up. Some change is good of course, but often we want change just for the sake of change—a constant bright, shiny object to distract us from dealing with our own minds.

But before tearing something down, you have to consider what you’re going to replace it with. Would you tear down a hospital to build a strip joint?

There are some on Twitter who spend their days pontificating about how they want to tear down the "structure" known as Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC), Palyul, all of Vajrayana in fact. They get very excited at the prospect of seeing this in their lifetimes, tweeting about it for days on end. They want destruction and they want it NOW. They need something to think about “out there,” because they lack the courage to think about their own mental poisons. So, they obsessively tweet about destroying the Dharma, Pure Lamas, Pure lineages, stupas, monks and nuns, temples, animal rescues, and anything else that exists in the world to benefit beings.

They want destruction but what do they propose as a replacement? They sure don’t like the idea of Bodhicitta. That word never falls from their lips. So far all they offer is hatred, gossip, slander, threats, divisiveness, harassment and unbelievably foul language,. They offer sticks of dynamite but nothing to fill the crater that would remain in the world if they had their way.

Completely absorbed in their obsession, they exist in an echo chamber of each others’ delusions of grandeur--as if they alone could destroy what Buddhas have created. As if anyone could destroy love and compassion.