LITERAL AND LIBERAL INTERPRETATIONS

By changing the “t” in “literal” to a “b”, you go from literal to liberal. What would be the difference between interpreting something literally as opposed to liberally?

I read the following "Daily Buddha Wisdom and like many things we read including the Bible, it would seem the interpretation is strictly up to the reader or listener. How literally or how liberally do we interpret what we read or hear?

DAILY BUDDHA WISDOM

Whoever, abandoning sensual passions here,
would go forth from home--
his sensual passions, becomings,
totally gone:
he's what I call
a brahmin.

Whoever, abandoning craving here,
would go forth from home--
his cravings, becomings,
totally gone:
he's what I call
a brahmin.

-Dhammapada, 26, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Taken literally, it would seem we are being asked to not have feelings or desires. Taken liberally we might see beyond the surface to find something entirely different.

Just try to not feel any passions whatsoever. Just try not to desire anything and see what happens. The more you try to get rid of something the more it increases. Stuffing is no better. Stuffing feelings - both the ones we consider to be good and the ones we consider to be bad - can cause chemical changes in the body that might lead to disease. Stuffing feelings can make a person an emotional wreck requiring therapy or medications. Stuffing feelings can also encourage the sufferer to use food, alcohol, or drugs in order to not feel or to try to feel differently. None of these responses or attempts of remedy yield the more productive outcome for anyone.

As for desires we could go through the whole paragraph of responses just listed and find the same outcome. On the positive side, desires are a set of energies that cause us to move forward, to find solutions, to evolve, to change, to invent, and to overcome.

So if not taken literally what could this excerpt tell us about our desires and feelings – our passions?

First of all we are going to have feelings and these are predicated upon our interpretation of all the events that we experience and this is predicated upon our thoughts and belief systems. So how we feel and respond to anything and how we interpret it is based upon what is stored in and embraced as "gospel" floating between our ears. If we truly know this, then we can see that we can a)perhaps change how we think about something or what we believe about something and therefore change our response or feelings or tone the feeling down; b)we can know that other people are also coming from their own personal mind set and therefore stop reacting so intensely to what is going on as though they must see it our way; c)or we can recognize by observing what we are passionate about or what we are feeling or desiring we can respond more clearly and objectively rather than subjectively creating a more productive and positive reaction or behavior response. By becoming the “Observer” we can defuse and redistribute passions to react more responsibly which in turn would cause more peace than war, more togetherness rather than separateness on a personal level, a community level, a national level and a planet level.

Denying what you are thinking or feeling or desiring is not the way to go in the long run.
Through becoming aware of your feelings or desires and becoming aware of what you are thinking that causes your response to these, you can better choose how and what you want to think, what you want to feel, what you want to desire, and how you want to react.
A more loving response comes easier when you detach and become aware of yourself and what you thinking and doing and why. A loving response does not mean you have to change what you think, how you think, how you feel, or what you desire but instead will allow more possibilities to flower and it will give you and others the freedom to be who they are at any given moment. It doesn’t mean yielding to others or their passions but rather to respond from a more objective rather than subjective platform that allows you in turn to choose love rather than hate or fear.

Keep and be aware of your passions, your desires, your thoughts, and your feelings but bring them to God (or a place of neutrality, a place void of hatred or fear) to be made subject to Love, to be brought into a place of diverse harmony and you will find that your passions, your desires, your thoughts, your deeds, your feelings will be made whole (holy). Your responses will be more divinely inspired. You will be more integrated within. What you see and what you experience in your world is based upon what you have inside. The world – your world - is a reflection of you.

You can interpret things literally or liberally. The choice is always yours but I tend to think that liberals have more fun and are healthier. They have more freedom. They live and let live. Easy does it for them. The let go and let God. In my opinion it doesn’t get better than that.