What's so wrong with that?

        Our discussion about the relationship between engagement and detachment in class on Friday kind of had me thinking about something Dr. Sexson brought up in mythologies a couple autumns ago. It was a small piece of the Mahabharata in which Arjuna was sort of communing with his god, and he was learning the nature of those very things: engagement and detachment. In this little excerpt Arjuna is about to go into battle against a band of his relations, and he doesn't want to have to kill them all. However, it simply has to happen. As Arjuna is talking to the god, it is made clear that all outcome is irrelevant, and everybody will just be reincarnated anyway, so there is no reason to fear action (engagement). The whole point is to act for the sake of action, and DETACH one's self from the outcome, since it is ultimately inconsequential. Sound familiar? Like maybe, if all the world was a stage, and all the men and women merely players? How inconsequential one's actions seem when one realizes that he or she has had their entrance, and will have their exit soon enough, and the only thing that is really worth doing is putting on a good show for the audience, and the other players. So Arjuna looks upon the face of his god, and he understands that he must go kill his cousins, not because of fate necessarily, but because it is action! It is the engaged course that is necessary, and if he does not engage, then he has not detached himself from the outcome, and if he is not detached, then he has not even achieved the second stage of enlightenment (there are four stages). In other words, just to break the cycle of reincarnation, one must necessarily learn this lesson in the buddhist tradition, despite how impossible it may seem to a western culture.
          This idea is actually a bit scary for many people. What are it's implications? There is another quote that I like that is tenuously related to the subject, by a man named Stephen Jenkins, from a band called Third Eye Blind (the song is called Good Man) in which he says "Life is pointless, but what's so wrong with that?" I find this to be quite insightful, despite the dismal feeling it may give many people, it just means that one must act for the sake of action; one must play his or her part on the stage to the best of their ability. That's all really. It might seem to conflict with the religious views of many, but I think it would just be a slippery slope to touch upon the subject, and unnecessarily insensitive at that, but what is important is that, despite what people believe, they may as well get to acting, and portray whichever type of character they want to be! Pointless or not, we will all have a legacy for at least a generation or two, most likely, and who really wants to go down as the antagonist?
          The point I'm trying to make is...there's simply no point.