The steps of the wheel of life

The theory

An issue that was raised in the emails that I have received so far could be summarized in the following question: "How does one avoid the strange 'new age' beliefs that are found in many green groups?" I had to smile because this comes from a Buddhist that gave me a Tarot deck as a parting gift. In his defense I must say he didn't say exactly that, I'm paraphrasing, but I'm sure you recognize the feeling is common enough.

The truth is that most people are uncomfortable, to different degrees, with any religious / spiritual / philosophical beliefs that are too different from their own. And at the same time, many people see a religious / spiritual / philosophical dimension in their relationship with the environment. Put both together, and you often will see people drifting apart for reasons they don't dare to say. Nobody likes to tell anybody: "Listen, you are in awe about such ridiculous things!"

The problem, of course, isn't exclusive to green groups. It's a general issue in our society. We may have tolerance for other belief systems, but that's as far as it goes. I think the fundamental problem is that belief systems deal with a general area of life that our society still doesn't know very well how to deal with. And I won't say that this area is mysterious, mystical and trascendent stuff. I think this dark area is the two sections of the wheel of life that are most often missed: Feel and Choose. I can't think of a single spiritual belief (including atheist beliefs) that isn't directly related to one or both of those.

So it's the perfect moment to look in a bit more detail at each of the parts of the wheel of life:

• Watch: The meaning of "watch" here is using all your senses and all the available sources of information. To watch properly, you need to take your time before you start thinking, not jumping to conclusions. This is something that most people find very difficult to do, but once you learn the trick, you will avoid many mistakes.
• Think: Thinking means connecting everything you have watched now with everything you have watched in the past, and trying to find any patterns. Most of the time, the pattern will be so clear that it will need very little thinking. But if there is time, it's often worthwhile to give something a bit more thought and see if any other patterns emerge.
• Feel: We live in a society that often misunderstands completely what feelings are. They are not some archaic remnant from our past as monkeys that is meant to disappear when we evolve further, and they aren't either there to experience fully, wallow in and help you ignore your thoughts and justify any choice. Emotions are fundamentally evaluations, they tell us immediately if something is good or bad, and what kind of good or bad. And they are meant to work together with our thoughts, that's why there is an arrow going back from Feel to Think. Thoughts affect our feelings and feelings affect our thoughts.
• Choose: This is also often misunderstood. You may even have heard somebody saying that choice doesn't even exist, that people believe that we choose but our environment, genes and brain structure completely determine what we are going to do next. But clearly we choose, and clearly we often make wrong choices. The trick to making good choices is to do right all the steps that come before, and when you get to the point of choosing, pick the one that feels closest to right.
• Do: How often people go through all the steps, make a firm decision, and then don't do it? Once you decide to do something, it's best to take action immediately. Don't tell yourself that you can't do anything right now, a first step is usually very simple. It may be something like setting an appointment, finding some information or talking to somebody.
• Watch again: This is often forgotten: the wheel of life closes back on itself. If you do something, and then don't watch to see if you got the results you expected, you might as well not have bothered to do anything in the first place.

The practice

If you haven't done the experiments in the previous post, the wheel of life, what are you waiting for?