Why is man so beset with the ravages of insecurity and fear? This lack of a feeling of security and the endless competition of modern life has left man unable to experience any peace with himself. One may point to those with strong egos as being an exception, but in reality those who exhibit a strong ego have been found at their core to be very insecure. Man is typically fully functional, but he is not at peace.
Why does it matter? If man is fully functional, so what if he is insecure and not at peace? The reader may think that sounds like new-age hogwash.
If man is insecure and not at peace, he cannot have, despite his best efforts, healthy relationships with his spouse, children, parents, and colleagues; he cannot act rationally in his best interest; and the insecurity leads to the violence, cruelties both large and small, and inhumanity that we see evidenced everyday. And so there is no end to the dysfunction and the psychic suffering in this world.
Take a moment, or actually many, to think about your relationship with yourself and others. If you think deeply, allowing reality to replace illusion, you will know that what I have just said is true.
But back to my original question, why is this the almost universal state of man. A strong clue comes from the comparison of aboriginal people* with not just contemporary man, but really man since he left the aboriginal life style. Certainly man since the time of the Buddha, which was 3500 years ago, which predates the period when the Old Testament is thought to have been written.
From what we know of aboriginal man, primarily from first-hand experience of aboriginal groups which remained intact, that is to say isolated, as late as the first part of the 20th century, aboriginal man lived happy lives not consumed by fear and other neuroses and emotions normally associated with man. Close to home, we know this about American Indians before they were corrupted by contact with the White man. Hence the phrase, "noble" or "innocent" savage.
But while they were certainly innocent of the world of modern man, innocent in a similar sense to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were not innocent of the world they lived in. They were aware of the significant natural and physical challenges that they faced in life. But despite the hardships, or what we would certainly view as hardships, it did not impact their spirit and their sense of self. Why?
Although aboriginal man was able to speak a different, and we believe a more exact and nuanced, language than animals spoke, and they had a more developed brain, their lives were in important ways more similar to that of our immediate primate ancestors, the large apes, than to modern man. They lived off the land much as animals do and were deeply connected to it. Their communal life was similar to that of the larger apes.
Perhaps most importantly, for their psychic health, was their after-birth experience and the way they raised their young. Birth, being thrust out of the womb, has to be a scary experience. When an animal is born, it is typically licked all over by the mother and is always next to the mother’s warmth until weaned. Aboriginal mothers, sans the licking, cared for their babies in much the same way. But now when a baby is born, at least since Victorian times, it is slapped on the behind, washed by a stranger, rolled up in a blanket and given to its mother to be held and fed before being put in a basinet by itself. Not a nurturing environment.
When a child is born, he has four basic needs: food, freedom from pain, warmth/nurturing, and physical security. These are what I have called the four irreducible needs of all human beings, indeed probably of all sentient beings. In particular, a baby’s need for nurturing, for unconditional love, is almost without limit. So from the moment of its birth, a modern baby finds that its needs are not met, and the first seeds of insecurity are sown. An animal's needs, on the other hand, unless it is the runt of the litter, are met.
Aboriginal children are raised much as young animals are raised . . . communally. Thus they play together with other children from an early age, they are watched over by all adults, not just their mother, and they practice through their games basic, necessary, functions of life. From the very start, the "I" of the child is more an "i," and all thoughts are in the context of "we."
Man is an advanced animal. He is another species but not another life-form, class, or order. And so he is biologically and developmentally "wired" - –meaning all of his mental and other functions - for life as an animal. And there has been almost no evolutionary development, mutations, of man since he appeared on this earth tens of thousands of years ago. He has developed his brain and his skills, but these have not been evolutionary changes. He is wired as he was at the dawn of man.
So what happened when aboriginal man moved into a non-communal setting where he had to fend for himself? How did he function? Uprooted, he did what he had to do, he depended on his wits for survival and growth. And so the "we" and "i" of communal life became the "I" of modern life. Whether living on a farm, in a small village, or in a modern city, he has had to depend on himself. He had to compete with others for his livelihood, especially once he left the farm.
At some point also the way newborn babies were cared for and children raised changed because of the new lifestyle. Except for the rich, where children were given over to the care of wet-nurses and nannies, babies were cared for pretty much as was "natural" until the advent of modern medicine and the establishment of hospitals. As to being raised, for most children in the West, being inducted into adult life meant childhood labor, acting as an individual, not being part of a communal group that passed into adulthood together. For those with money, they were not sent to work, but they passed through their lessons and education as individuals, competing with their peers. In all cases, whether rich or poor, they were left totally adrift of the security of both parents and communal peers and instead needed to survive based on their own wits.
And this has affected man terribly. Some may be successful, powerful, rich, but they are at their core insecure, unhappy persons. And of course the mass of people are not successful, powerful, or rich, but they are still at their core insecure, unhappy people because they are a product of our society.
So if man is not wired for the world he has created, what do we do? We can't change the world. It is what it is. There is no chance of reverting to the past, to a "back to the past" future.
The only thing we can do is do what the Buddha and other prophets have taught: change the way we relate to ourselves and the world around us. Learn to accept things the way they are, know that you will be ok, safe, regardless what life throws your way because you have everything you need inside you to be at peace and happy, and thus be able to react to whatever you experience with dispassion, free of labels, free of the intervention of your mind.
Obviously your mind will have other ideas. It won't be agreeable to this way of looking at yourself and the world. And so you must free yourself from your mind; all the emotions, judgments, cravings, and attachments that cause you pain and suffering are a product of your mind. So say to them all, "Not me!"
And so you will rest undisturbed, and when you do, nothing offends, and when nothing offends there is nothing that interferes with you taking joy in each moment and having faith that you will be ok, safe. Yes, there is something circular here, but that is typical of Buddhist thought.
This perspective will allow you to be in this world, interact with it, but respond to it in a spiritual way, not the way you've been trained and raised to do, through the mind. This way of approaching life is not about separating yourself from the world; this is about changing how you interact with it.
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*I use the word aboriginal not as a synonym for indigenous, but in an anthropological sense, denoting a simple, often hunting-and-gathering, village-oriented communal society. Many such societies may make up a tribe or a people, but the societal unit is the village commune. This is in contrast to indigenous people such as the Inca and Astec who developed complex civilizations that were not communal.
