All the comments I have read connect this slogan with the Dharma, and quite possibly that is exactly what was intended in the beginning since the slogans are meant for Buddhists. I want to widen the scope. For me this is advice about anything that is potentially helpful and healthy but that then is turned on its head. I would put fundamentalism of all kinds into the category of demons. Gods turn into demons when it is their outer shape and form that is worshipped but not their real being, when the exact wording in the holy scriptures is more important than the underlying meaning. Everything is made concrete, a river becomes stone, and the worshippers of that particular demon fight tooth and nail to defend their idea of what a river should be like: very hard, unchangeable and unforgiving.
There are other demons: healthy food, fitness, happiness, you name it. Everything is turned into stone: it has to be a particular sort of cauliflower, it has to be mineralized water from Fiji, it has to be weight-lifting on a special mat, and so on. I think many people can't cope with uncertainty. They need clear answers. Everything in neat little boxes. That is why they follow tyrants who have easy explanations ("It's the fault of the [insert minority of choice]! Fight them and everything will be better"). But that is not the way life and nature works. Life is fluid and everything is a balance and all parts are needed, not just the ones you like.
One of the most important teachings of the Dharma, in my opinion, is that we should become comfortable with groundlessness. The less we are threatened by uncertainty, the easier life is.
All the comments I have read connect this slogan with the Dharma, and quite possibly that is exactly what was intended in the beginning since the slogans are meant for Buddhists. I want to widen the scope. For me this is advice about anything that is potentially helpful and healthy but that then is turned on its head. I would put fundamentalism of all kinds into the category of demons. Gods turn into demons when it is their outer shape and form that is worshipped but not their real being, when the exact wording in the holy scriptures is more important than the underlying meaning. Everything is made concrete, a river becomes stone, and the worshippers of that particular demon fight tooth and nail to defend their idea of what a river should be like: very hard, unchangeable and unforgiving.
There are other demons: healthy food, fitness, happiness, you name it. Everything is turned into stone: it has to be a particular sort of cauliflower, it has to be mineralized water from Fiji, it has to be weight-lifting on a special mat, and so on. I think many people can't cope with uncertainty. They need clear answers. Everything in neat little boxes. That is why they follow tyrants who have easy explanations ("It's the fault of the [insert minority of choice]! Fight them and everything will be better"). But that is not the way life and nature works. Life is fluid and everything is a balance and all parts are needed, not just the ones you like.
One of the most important teachings of the Dharma, in my opinion, is that we should become comfortable with groundlessness. The less we are threatened by uncertainty, the easier life is.