Form and Substance: OR "How do we make sense of the world?"

 First of all I think: "Nothing is what it appears to be at first" might be a good start.

First you have Substance or genuine feelings like a baby first born who hasn't been taught to fit inside of a box yet by their culture.

Then you have "form" which is like armor that people wear which can be both good and bad.

Too much form and people die. 

Too much substance and people die.

So, life appears to be a balance between Form and Substance.

For example, If I want to meet God I hold a baby in my arms because when I hold God I feel the promise of God in my arms. A Baby is Substance in the essence.

However, Form is like an Army Tank where bullets cannot penetrate it.

However, if you don't have food to eat and a place to sleep inside of your tank you might die.

So, If I want to experience God I hold a Baby.

If I want to watch someone die without God I think of Armor or a Tank.

This is just me.

You might find another way to look at it.

For example, when I look at myself at 10 years old I see the ultimate of Substance manifest in me where I am still the Dreamer (God) and I haven't been entirely Raped by the real world yet but I have been given my .22 rifle to protect the family from critters or people who are bad.

And when I look at myself now at age 77 I see that same 10 year old boy wearing armor. The armor of Experience of having lived 77 years time in this world which is no easy feat to actually survive this long at all.

So, the point of all this is "Life is a precious Balance between Form and Substance".

Without enough Substance we die and without enough Form to protect us we die.

When I look at our two political parties I see the Republicans as Form.

And I see the Democrats about Substance.

Logically somewhere between these two parties is the answer. Why?

Because too much form kills and too much Substance kills and unless you find the balance between these two ways of being you are soon dead. 

The Greeks had a way of saying this: "Moderation in all Things".

Buddhism is also into this type of Moderation in all things with the Lam Rim path too.

The story of Lam Rim idea coming to Buddha was he was meditating one day alongside of a river and a boat or raft went by with the Music Teacher teaching his student and the teacher says: "IF the string is too tight it breaks but if it is too loose it doesn't sound right (on a stringed musical instrument). From this the story goes that Gautama Buddha realized the Lam Rim path of "Moderation in all things" and combined it  with  compassion for all life in the universe to make Buddhism a reality on earth. 

The Balance between Form and Substance is the primary thing we all face in life. And without the Middle Path between the two we all die pretty young.

By God's Grace we survive everything we face in life!