Life, taxes and death.

According to Ben Franklin, nothing is more certain than death and taxes. I would add to that list one more: Life. And while it may seem that life and death are not directly related, hopefully, by the time you finish reading this post, that opinion will fall flat.

Have you ever considered what would occur if we didn’t pass from mortality into immortality? All mortal things are conditional. As such they are born, grow, eventually die, and are conditioned by the very nature of being objective entities, whether humans, any sentient being or for that matter; anything (e,g., plants, insects, other animals, etc.) In psychological terms, two factors determine how a human life turns out: Nature (what everyone is born with) and nurture (e.g., circumstances or conditions to which we are all exposed). 

All mortal things go through the same process of birth, growth, and death. If this were not so (e.g., never die, mortally), not only would we humans be standing on each other’s head, with the ancient on the bottom and the babies on top, but there would be no regeneration of anything. 

Mortality is fleeting, and by design is conditional. In The Diamond Sutra, The Buddha taught: “All conditioned dharmas (e.g., phenomena) are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows; Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning; Thusly should they be contemplated.” Likewise, Bodhidharma (the father of Zen) taught: “As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.”

Mortal death is essential to continuing immortal life. Yet it is among the last things we want to talk about. Consequently, when the unavoidable inevitability occurs, the living are left with a mess to sort out. That’s the nature of mortality—in the end, a conditional mess (and often before the end). 

That part is beyond dispute. It is easy to understand and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with spirituality because mortality is something tangibly perceptible, and we are all mortals. But some question anything imperceptible; that can’t be measured because they regard themselves as logical and scientific.

The nature of immortality is another matter. It isn’t born, it never grows and never dies. Immortality is not perceptible, it isn’t measurable, is eternal and is the unconditional, authentic nature of you and me. This delineation between what passes away and what doesn’t is not limited to Buddhism. It is a spiritual principle in Christianity as well. Several passages in the Bible address this. But here is just one:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly, we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”—2 Corinthians 4:16

But there is a difference. A fundamental teaching of Buddhism (that doesn’t appear in Christianity) is dependent origination, and this principle is likewise easy to grasp. It, too, is beyond dispute. Consider an easy example: “up” and “down.” These are two ends of the same stick. They come into existence as opposite pairs, and they disappear together. Neither can exist separate and apart from the other. And this fundamental is true of all things. Everything has an opposite that enables existence and defines another thing. That’s an easy matter to understand. 

What seems hard to understand is the extension of the same principle, such as conditional/unconditional or mortal life/immortal life. These also enable mortal existence and mortal non-existence (otherwise known as immortality). So if this is so, (and it is), why do we concern ourselves with just the tangible/conditional (which we know passes away) but pay little attention, if any attention, to what does not pass away? It’s a logical contradiction, but one most people live with, along with taxes.

Living in a world of “alternate-facts.”

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”—Mark Twain

In prior times deception was the exception (or so it seemed). Now it appears to have become the norm, and more than ever we need to be able to discern truth from lies, but since liars lie it is not so easy. And when statistics get involved, there are many ways to spin the truth. It is the nature of a liar to lie. There are many reasons liars fabricate and distort the truth. But the most important reason of all is, liars think they are something they are not—an ego. 

According to the dictionary, an impostor is one who assumes a false identity, or title, for the purpose of deception. It is somewhat irrelevant if a liar knows they are an impostor. So long as liars lie, they are impostors. Until such time as we truly know, who and what we are, we are subject to deception, and I will be the first to admit, I have deceived and been deceived many times in my mortal lifetime, never realizing I too was an impostor. I thought I knew who I was, but I didn’t. Only when I knew I wasn’t what I thought—an ego, did I discover my true immortal self. Until then I suffered greatly, and like an impostor, inflicted suffering upon others. 

In the West, much of the wisdom of the world has been lost to us, as it was to me until I began to study and practice Eastern Wisdom from some of the world’s greatest sages. I have thus been exposed to many of, what must be considered from a Western perspective, outlier treasure conveyors from the East, a few of whom I wish to share in this post so that you too might begin to find your hidden, immortal selves, cease being a mortal impostor and begin to discern the truth.

Since I’ve been blessed with the study of wisdom from the East, I’ve become familiar with some Buddhist vocabulary, and corresponding, underlying meanings, which are also foreign to the West. Foremost among this Eastern Vocabulary is the word “Dharma” and Dharmakāya—Sanskrit, which means “truth body” or “reality body.” The Dharmakāya is the wellspring of all truth and discernment of what is real. It is neither eastern nor western.

Shantideva, an 8th-century Indian Buddhist scholar and an adherent of the Madhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna said, “All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others.” And the driving force that produces this suffering is the ego: the idea we hold of our selves.

In similar fashion, Zen Master Hakuin Ekakuin in his Song of Zazen wrote, “How near the truth, yet how far we seek. Like one in water crying, ‘I thirst!’ Like the son of a rich man wandering poor on this earth we endlessly circle the six worlds. The cause of our sorrow is ego delusion.” 

When mediated through the illusion of an ego, morality becomes simplistic, inflexible, abstract and unjust, in spite of mortal intentions. In that case, the criteria are “what’s in it for me?” And from that vantage point, there is only a single sense of justice: Mine. 

In the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Chán Master Sheng-yen illustrates the relationship between the fabrication of our egos and our true nature by saying, “We practice (meaning meditation—zazen) until the self (ego) is gone. When the self disappears, all obstructions will be gone too. There cannot be a self (ego) that is free from all obstructions. If there is a sense of self, then there are also obstructions. There cannot be obstructions without a self to create and experience them, because the self (ego) is an obstruction. This is nondiscrimination of the highest order.” 

Our egos are an illusion, it tells us the half-truth that we are incomplete, not whole and imperfect and this, in turn, initiates desire: a greed response. What may (or may not) be known is that slowly, but surely, Eastern Wisdom is becoming human wisdom, lacking boundaries of either east or west. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, captured the essential point when he said, “We are not human beings having spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having human experiences.” Some may say, I am not spiritually inclined but instead rely upon facts. 

Now facts are alternate, but the truth remains the truth, with no alternatives. Our mortal egos desire. Our immortal selves are already full and desire nothing. Truth has no boundaries. It is always whole, complete and perfect.“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”—The Buddha

Who am I? Who are you?

Have you ever wondered what it must be like for a person living with Alzheimer’s? Such a person is lost in a never-ending dream with no idea who they are. They look in a mirror and see a stranger looking back at them. Apparently, some have the ability for momentary memory recall and then return to the enduring dream.

The Buddha said this is the way our life is. We are asleep, lost in an enduring dream and the challenge is to wake up and discover who we are truly. For most all of my life, going all the way back into my youth I was haunted by a question, which refused to go away: “Who am I?” I felt like I was trapped in a body and couldn’t touch the nature of my real self.

The question became a thorn of continuous pricking and wouldn’t leave me alone. Over and over it kept repeating until I thought I would go mad. And then one day it stopped all by itself and I knew the answer for myself, and in that instant, I knew the answer for everyone. We are buddhas. We’ve always been buddhas and will never stop being buddhas. And when I say that I don’t mean Gautama Buddha. I mean what the title “buddha” means: awake.

At that moment I woke up and remembered who I was. The fog went away and the question stopped haunting me. At that moment “I” disappeared and my real self (which was no self at all: just pure awareness appeared), but it was very confusing because the true me had no defining characteristics. At that moment I was nothing yet everything because a buddha is all there is. I am buddha. You are buddha. Every sentient being is buddha, and the buddha is mind.

In Zen literature, the question is constantly asked: “Why did Bodhidharma come to China?” And of course, the answer, which he gave, is to show the world the answer to this question that nagged me. We are buddha and the buddha is our awakened mind. There is no buddha except mind; no mind but buddha. We are all united as one indivisible reality, which is mind. When we sleep we are trapped in the dream of samsara. When we wake up we are free and find ourselves in Nirvana. We are different yet the same: sleeping and awake, always and forever. 

Dreaming of reality.

Image via Wikipedia

Dreams can be strange. Such a dream allegedly happened with Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi)—an influential Chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century BCE. Much of his perspectives can be found in his book—“The Great Happiness.” 

One of his most famous is called “The butterfly dream,” following:

“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awoke, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly, there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.”

This dream echoes unenlightened life. We think we are real, but if we are not aware of the vast dimension that frames our existence we are like Chuang-tzu’s butterfly, wondering about the real and unreal. Are we asleep, dreaming that we are awake as ego people? Or have we awakened to the transforming nature of the butterfly?

“Have you ever had a dream Neo that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to awaken from that dream. How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?”—The Matrix (the movie)

A famous Zen Master once said, “Nobody wants to wake up from good dreams; only nightmares.” There are many nightmares in our world today and it is the time we wake up. To be a Buddha means to awaken to the reality of who you truly are.

That which we are.

Perhaps today you will meet someone for the first time and introductions will occur. You’ll inquire about them and they about you. “Tell me something about yourself,” you’ll ask, and that is how we begin. 

Who are you? Who are they? It is the natural way of understanding another as well as ourselves. And that matter is perhaps the most important question anyone will ever ask or answer. The reason? Because the manner in which we understand ourselves serves is the bridge to understanding another. 

Whatever we believe about ourselves, is how we assume others understand themselves. If we think of ourselves as an isolated, mutually discreet individual, then others must be that way also. And on the other hand, if we understand ourselves as united with all, that must be how others understand themselves. Two of the most profound examples of such understanding comes from the Bible and the story of The Buddha’s life.

The first comes from Exodus during the encounter between Moses and God: “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites,’ ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

And the second is this: Following The Buddha’s enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, he passed a stranger on the road who was so struck by The Buddha’s countenance that he asked him, “Are you a god?” The Buddha replied, “No. I am not. What are you then?” the man asked. And the Buddha said, “I am awake.”

These answers may seem dissimilar but maybe that is because we are trying to hard to keep these spiritual disciples apart and distinct. However, putting that desire aside, perhaps the answers are the same. How so? 

Our normal way of grasping these answers is by assuming the answers (e.g., “I am” and “I am awake” to be adjectives. Instead, consider the answers as pronouns: Not descriptions but rather statements of inexplicable nature. And just maybe, that is true for us all. We are awake (e.g., consciousness itself). We are who we are—inexplicably: the fundamental nature of awareness.

Who stands before me?

One of the most profound stories concerning Bodhidharma, the figure who is credited as the originator of Zen, occurred in China during the 6th century CE during a conversation with Emperor Wu. The Emperor had invested himself in many ways to promote Buddhism and thus felt deserving of special merit. He said to Bodhidharma, “I have built many temples, copied innumerable Sutras, and ordained many monks since becoming Emperor. Therefore, I ask you what is my merit?” 

At the level of vast emptiness, there is nothing special, or the opposite: Specialness. In response, Bodhidharma replied: “None whatsoever!” Emperor Wu then responded with, “What then is the most important principle of Buddhism?” Bodhidharma answered: “Vast emptiness. Nothing sacred.” Shocked by his answer, the Emperor then said, “Who is this that stands before me?” Bodhidharma: answered, “I don’t know.”

Without a doubt, to students new to the practice of Zen, this story must seem bizarre. How on earth could such apparent ignorance, expressed by the founder of Zen, be considered profound? To sweep away the cloud that covers over the significance, we must explore a common dimension of human nature: The desire to be somebody special, and the corresponding quest to be involved in doing something we all consider important that moves us toward that goal of specialness. 

So long as we are not doing whatever it may be we consider as important, the more guilt we feel. For many, we begin in childhood with feelings of inadequacy. Some people are so consumed with “doing” they become obsessive-compulsive, doing the same thing over and over to experience some relief. The rest of us, at the very least, feel uncomfortable thinking that we are wasting valuable time by not doing something.

Two points: Who is consumed with this desire? And what’s the difference between “being” and “doing?” Let me address the second point first: The issue of beingness which concerned Bodhidharma’s unknowing. He seemed to be saying he didn’t know himself, and if anything is central to Zen it is the unveiling of our true nature. You really can’t understand this issue without the other part of his answer: “Vast emptiness. Nothing sacred.”

Instead, there is nothing whatsoever, yet within emptiness, is completion. That state of mind is the base upon which everything we do is based. Without “beingness” it is impossible for “doing-ness” to exist, thus the catchphrase, “Be here now.” We have been so conditioned to think that just being without the expression of acting in some way toward our goal, is to be considered as a useless bum. 

There is special significance in being present—fully present in the moment, but the question is “who is being present?” The knee-jerk (and unexamined answer) is, “Me.” But this me can be expressed, both in many definable terms (e.g., The ego, which is mere clothing upon a mannequin, changing moment by moment, depending on changing circumstances), or the indefinable true person that we are, neither special nor not.

So then we come to the first point of the “Who,” to which Bodhidharma answered, “I don’t know.” Why does that make sense, whether we know it or not? It makes sense simply because emptiness—the realm of completion and the lack, is the same realm lacking definition. Nobody, not even a Buddha can define what is essentially indefinable except to note the obvious: doing and being are essential partners. 

If this is the case, how are we to know, not only ourselves but also other people? The Buddha himself pointed to the answer with his statement in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra when he said, “Seeing the actions of body and mouth, we say that we see the mind. The mind is not seen, but this is not false. This is seeing by outer signs.” In other words, we not only know who we are, but we also know who others are, not just by what is said but by how actions speak louder than words alone. Our words and actions together define the person that stands before us all.

Knowing not.

Our hidden roots

Knowing not? Why not say “not knowing?” The first suggests it is possible to fathom nothing, whereas the second implies we don’t have a clue.

If I were to conjure up a list of Buddhist giants, my list would certainly include The Buddha, Nagarjuna, and Bodhidharma. The Buddha started what we know today as Buddhism, which of course is as misleading as it is to say Jesus started Christianity, or Moses starting Judaism. In the ordinary, all-encompassing fashion, these people began movements that today are fractured into many different sects, none of which can possibly represent the entirety of the main body. It’s much like a tree with roots beneath the ground emanating into a trunk with many branches above ground. Rarely do we concern ourselves with the unseen roots—only one of the branches.

Often times we learn valuable lessons by way of myths about these Buddhist giants. We can’t even say for sure if, for instance, that Bodhidharma actually existed, but the tales of his life (true or not) are extremely valuable to our ordinary lives, sometimes in unexpected ways. To most people, such tales seem arcane or meaningless just as this “knowing not” may appear at first glance.

One of the tales about Bodhidharma concerns his meeting with Emperor Wu of the Chinese Liang Dynasty during the 5th century. The emperor had built many Buddhist monuments when he met Bodhidharma and expected to receive an equal number of accolades from Bodhidharma. Instead, Bodhidharma told the emperor none of his work deserved any merit at all. Why? Because Bodhidharma was expressing a fundamental truth: All of the mortal life is fleeting. It comes and it goes. Nothing temporal has lasting value.

The emperor was quite perturbed and in a huff asked two questions of Bodhidharma and got two more unexpected answers. First, he asked, “What is the first principle of the holy teachings?” “Bodhidharma replied, ‘Vast emptiness, nothing holy.’” Then the emperor asked, “Who is standing before me?” Bodhidharma said, “I don’t know.”

“Vast emptiness, nothing holy,” and “I don’t know.” Knowing not, or not knowing? In a curious way, the answers Bodhidharma gave are the same, even though they seem very different. How so? How about we make some word substitutes and instead of using the word “emptiness” we use the word “unconditional.” Would that clarify matters? It might except for this word “vast.” And this “nothing holy” might just as well be called “nothing unholy,” since without conditions neither holy nor unholy has any meaning—emptiness/unconditional can’t be articulated just as none of us can really define our inherent true nature. 

That too is “knowing not.” Only this “not,” while being incomprehensible, can only be experienced, never articulated. What we think we know of ourselves is a shadow: an unreal mirage which we call “ego,” and an ego appears to us as what we think of ourselves. It is a perceptible fabrication that is very convincing, and being perceptible gives us a clue. To observe or perceive anything requires one who perceives, yet is in itself imperceptible, without form or any dimension conceivable. Yet it must exist or nothing could be perceived, just like a blind man, without vision, can never see anything objectively delineated.

Unfortunately, our ego is the source of all suffering. This imaginary non-being is, as Zen Master  Hakuin Ekaku said, “The cause of our sorrow is ego delusion.” It is a mask that hides our true nature, which is pure, complete, joyous, and beyond suffering. In truth, all of us are in a state of knowing not and the only way to vanquish suffering is to penetrate through the mask that blinds us. How to? The answer is here.

The virtual and real side of you and me.

Our two sides.

We live in a wondrous time of the merger between science and the realm beyond matter. For the most part, we attribute this merger to science, and it is true that we most welcome science-based theories that lead to the edge of the beyond. Science has become our friendly rational doorway to the ineffable. Every day, whenever I post to my blog, Google Analytics provides a tool that allows me to observe the nature of topics that attract the most interest and spread the quickest and most far-reaching throughout virtual cyberspace. What I have learned through this capability is that the idea of relativity and virtual reality has the greatest appeal. So with that in mind, my post for today deals with this matter of virtual and non-virtual reality.

Ordinarily, people don’t think that virtual reality applies to our conditional world, but the most cutting-edge science confirms that our ordinary lives are in fact virtual, and conform to the principle of relativity. Of course in our everyday realm, it messes with our head to consider that ordinary and the extraordinary is one and the same thing different only in terms of descriptions.

To define anything we must do so by comparing one thing to something different. This point was made by many wise people among them being the Buddha, who lived, by most accounts, between 563 BCE and 483 BCE, Śāntideva—the founder of the Avaivartika Sangha in the 6th century CE, and Nagarjuna who lived during the period of 150–250 CE. Even Albert Einstein who was born 14 March 1879 and died on 18 April 1955 confirmed the principle.

Three of these were mystics and of course, one was a theoretical physicist. This idea of defining, by comparison, has come to be known as relativity within the physical realm and dependent origination in the mystical realm. But words aside, they mean the same thing, which brings me to the topic for today.

If you look up the notion of virtual reality you’ll learn that it is a form of reality considered to not be real. This of course begs the question of, what is real? You can’t define one thing except in relation to the opposite of the thing. Thus we only know what “up” is by comparing it to “down.” Motion is only relevant when considered against non-motion (kinetic vs. potential energy). And virtual reality is only meaningful once you define non-virtual reality (reality itself).

The ancient understanding of reality is, that which is never born, does not die, does not move, is the same everywhere found, and doesn’t change. Anything that doesn’t comply with that understanding is considered to be virtual (or unreal). An illustration of this understanding, which everyone can grasp, is watching a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, with or without accompanying sound. We, of course, know this as television where we observe images changing. None of us ever thinks that these changing images are anything other than virtual, but what we fail to consider is that our entire conditional world is no different from this medium: All of it is moving, changing with a beginning and an ending. Yet nobody thinks of our conditional world as virtual. Instead, we consider it real and think of our bodily selves as real, and this misunderstanding causes undue hardship and suffering.

Another, even more, relevant example, is what can happen when we communicate with someone through virtual cyberspace of the Internet. Discussions occur, and many times people become quite upset over ideas they find disagreeable (which are completely virtual) In such a case we have a virtual being (you and me) conducting a virtual conversation and becoming agitated over virtual ideas. That is what could be called a “virtual triple whammy.” In Buddha-speak (e.g., Sanskrit) that is what is known as duḥkha: translated as suffering, anxiety, stress, or a state of mind of unsatisfactoriness.

The relevant question is, shouldn’t we be more concerned with matters that are real instead of getting stressed over matters that are virtual? That rhetorical question brings to mind the words of Jesus, who said:  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27 

Upon thorough consideration, these two: The virtual and the real are glued irrevocably into One single entity. One of these (the virtual) appears clearly before us and we take it to be real, and the other (the real) is hidden within our virtual sand-being, buried under our feet and remains the unseen solid rock upon which we stand.

If it walks like a duck…

The common-coin understanding is that Buddhism is a Godless religion, and the reason for this view is that the Buddha didn’t focus on the concept of God but instead focused on understanding the mind and overcoming suffering. It’s worth the time and energy to thoroughly investigate this matter.

First is the notion that God can be understood conceptually. The Buddha’s perspective was that such a thing was not possible and, when thoughtfully considered, this is, of course, true. God is transcendent to all considerations and can’t be enclosed within any conceptual and rational framework. To even attach a name such as “God” is to be lost in a delusional pretense.

Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki used the name “Great Nature” and “Great Self.” There are many names to point to the nameless creator of heaven and earth but Sokei-an perhaps said it best. He said, “If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will be able to control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.” 

As a result, Gautama addressed only what can be controlled and didn’t participate in fostering further delusion. So the question is whether or not ‘IT’ can be defined, even marginally. What are the characteristics of ‘IT’ and how does ‘IT’ function? Whatever name is chosen, regardless of religious affiliation, the nature of God is understood to inhabit the entirety of creation. 

The creator can’t be severed from what is created, which is the point of the Buddhist understanding that all form is the same thing as emptiness. Rather than using the name “God” (in vain), the name “Buddha” is used, and “Buddha” means awakened to the true essence of oneself. We might use any name but the essence would not change. An awakened person is said to enjoy the mind of enlightenment. 

If you read Buddhist literature extensively, you’ll find a laundry list of sorts, which speaks to this mind of enlightenment. It includes the following qualities: complete, ubiquitous, full of bliss, independent, transcendent, full of wisdom, never changes, the ground of all being, the creative force of everything, devoid of distinctive nature (ineffable) yet all form endowed with this nature.

When we take all of this in and digest it, a duck begins to emerge that walks, talks, and looks like a duck. In the final analysis, a name is fleeting, but the substance remains forever. Here is what Jesus is recorded as having said about where God lives: 

“If your leaders say, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the Heavens,’ then the birds will be before you. If they say, ‘It is in the ocean,’ then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is inside of you, and the Kingdom is outside of you. When you know yourself, then you will know that you are of the flesh of the living Father. But if you know yourself not, then you live in poverty and that poverty is you.”—Gospel of Thomas 3.

We must acknowledge that languages are means of articulating something but the something is never the same as the words we choose. What possible difference does the name make? We have grown excessively protective of our own names of choice and sadly have lost touch with our very own souls.

Ideas vs. Reality

I have a dear friend who considers himself rationally intelligent and, by his own admission, “skeptical.” I’m sure some people hold this combination in high regard, while others don’t. 

Personally, I champion the combination, and so did The Buddha, who advised us not to blindly believe what others say, even those who appear as holy.

If we were discussing the Easter Bunny we would have a great laugh if some argued that there really was such a thing and most people would agree and laugh along with us. But some matters are not so laughable when the ideas we hold keep us from enjoying an incalculable treasure we already possess. It would be like starving people sitting on a vast treasure buried beneath their own house. Our ideas can be either our best friend or our worst enemy.

When most people think of The Buddha, they conjure up a man who lived a long time ago and can’t imagine what relevance that guy has to them. If this idea were an accurate reflection of The Buddha, their skepticism would have merit. Neither an Easter Bunny nor that old man would matter very much. But suppose I told you that you are a Buddha, only you don’t know it. Now that might get your attention but also cause you to begin thinking I’m the Easter Bunny.

Yes a man lived 2,500 years ago and we know that man as Siddhartha, who upon his enlightenment, became Gautama Buddha. But he wasn’t the only Buddha. There have been countless Buddhas beyond Gautama. The term “Buddha” simply means awakened and according to too many Zen masters to count, Buddha is just a name to designate your own mind. Bodhidharma said the Buddha is your mind; there is no other Buddha but your mind, and that understanding equates with what Gautama himself taught.

So if you are a Buddha, then I am too, and so is everyone else. We all possess the same incalculable treasure buried beneath our conscious awareness, and there it lays hidden and of no use. We are all starving and rushing around like hungry lions snapping at each other, trying desperately to obtain what we already possess. That’s a great tragedy: to be wealthy beyond measure, yet starving while we try to find what is ours. What fools we are.

Isolation or Unity

In the past few days, a man murdered three women, injured 10 more, and then turned his gun on himself. He left behind many tracks declaring his intention, one of which was his blog. Amongst his many comments, he said that he felt isolated and rejected. 

Sadly this is not an unusual reflection in today’s world. Rather it is very understandable given how we ordinarily consider ourselves and others. Phenomenally we are all very different and separate. If that is all that we are, everyone can only experience themselves within that tight definition—isolated and estranged. 

That is a fairly accurate understanding of what phenomenal life means: As things appear. When we consider ourselves and others as purely phenomenal, the only possible conclusion is that we and they are mere objects, lacking intimacy and life. In that case, shooting someone is not much different from a video game. In our contemporary world, too often, this one-sided view has become the standard—pure objectivity and nothing else. Buddhism holds a very different view. 

Not only are we (and all life) objects, but we are also subjects and whatever is subjective contains an eternal spirit that is unborn and never dies. The unity of these two sides (phenomena and noumena, or subject and object) is accepted as a fundamental aspect of existence. Given that unity, all of life is sacred and without discrimination. The lowest of life-form contains the same Buddha-Nature as the most enlightened person. This understanding can radically transform anyone’s experience from isolation to unity and from a lack of caring to compassion.

Amazing!

To live is to enjoy a truly great mysterious adventure! We have a body that moves, senses the universe, thinks and speculates, imagines realms which can never be touched, and it all happens with no volition, all by itself. The fascination is beyond understanding, yet we take it all for granted without giving it a second thought. What moves? Senses? Thinks? Imagines? And can never be touched? Whatever it is that functions in these ways has no name to ever adequately contain its meaning. IT is transcendent to a description.

Many enlightened beings have pondered this matter and come up short. The founder of Zen—Bodhidharma—saw it this way... “The Buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind is not outside the material body of four elements. Without this mind, we can’t move. The body (by itself) has no awareness. Like a plant or stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It’s the mind that moves.” 

Huineng (sixth patriarch of Zen) saw it the same way with his famous observation about a flag’s movement. One monk argued it was the wind that moved the flag. Another said no, it was the flag alone which moved. Huineng corrected them both and noted that it was neither. It was the mind that moved. Nāgārjuna sliced this matter in a variety of ways, but one of my favorites is his poem about walking, which ends this way:

“These moving feet reveal a walker but did not start him on his way. There was no walker prior to departure. Who was going where?”

The mind moves: That is an amazing observation! And of course, it makes sense even if we don’t give it a second thought. Thinking about it doesn’t alter the function. The mind moves independently of thought, yet thought is absolutely dependent upon the transcendent mind, which can never be found and never described. 

When we enter this world, our mind is with us, stays with us while we are here, and remains when we are gone. My mind is not “mine,” and your mind is not “yours.” The mind is beyond possession. The Buddha said that there is no person—neither you nor me—to possess anything. The person we imagine our self to be is just that: “Imagined.” 

We all fabricate this entity called ego to have a sense of self. We all have the same wish—To know who we are.

After spending 9 years doing zazen facing a blank wall, Bodhidharma met with Emperor Wu and was asked “Who stands before me?” Bodhidharma answered, “I don’t know.” Nine years and he didn’t know. The reason he answered as he did is that who we truly are can’t be known. Our perceptual faculties can’t go to our unconditional nature. What we can perceive is concrete and objective. I can see a rock. I can see my own skin and a picture I fabricate (which goes by the name of “self-image”), but it is not my skin nor the fabricated image, which is me. Who am I? I don’t know. But then I don’t need to. My knowing doesn’t alter my existence at all. Without knowing what, who or how I still move, sense, think, and imagine. And it all happens without my volition.

There are really only two things which must be known:

1. Who I am not—Not an imagined, independent self which exists in isolation without connectivity to life, and

2. That whoever I am, however inadequately defined, is no different from you or The Buddha. We are indiscriminately connected in the vast and boundless realm we call “life.”

Amazing!

The Third Step.

Right Speech begins by recognizing the interdependent union among sentient beings and an enlightened intention to ensure harmony, honesty, and integrity. The guiding force must ensure growth toward removing delusions that hinder genuine wisdom discernment. Ideally, what we say and how we say it will reflect selflessness or self-service. 

Our voice has the power to bring about transformation for either good or evil. That is a tall order given the fluid nature of conditional life, the goal of emancipation, the challenge of over-coming attachments, the Buddha’s model, and the use of expedient means.

If you research the matter of Right Speech, you’ll find a set of precepts such as abstaining from lying, not using divisive and abusive speech, or idle chatter. Being steadfast, reliable, not deceiving, having conviction in what you say, telling the truth about spiritual knowledge, using words that are friendly, benevolent, pleasant, gentle, meaningful, and useful. All of these guidelines are both right and wrong. They are right as standards and wrong depending on causal conditions in light of the overall mission to free sentient beings from the bondage of suffering. An example will illustrate the difference.

When I was younger, I served in the Marine Corp and underwent training in boot camp of Sergeant Fox. Like all Marine Corps drill instructors, he had a clear mission: to prepare a rag-tag bunch of wimps (one of which was me) for war, and he had a limited amount of time to accomplish his mission. Sergeant Fox redefined the meaning of Right Speech with words that would make anyone blush, regardless of moral persuasion. He did not employ any of the conventions prescribed above, but he did accomplish his mission. What he accomplished, through expedient means, was nothing short of a miracle, and there is not a shadow of a doubt that he saved not only my life but the lives of countless others by defying every single prescribed guideline. Sergeant Fox may have been a buddha. Who can say, but I know that he embodied the essential spirit of Right Speech. His mission dictated the measure of expedient means he employed, and he was not attached to inflexible standards.

He could have clung to the letter of the law and dished out a meal full of kind and gentle words, and I would not be here now sharing these thoughts if he had. My story’s point is that there is a difference between being attached to any fixed standard of perfection (which is not a standard of perfection) and staying focused on skillful means necessary to accomplish a mission.

In the seventeenth chapter of the Diamond Sutra, The Buddha said an amazing thing. He said, “Subhuti, in the dharma, realized or taught by the Tathagata, there is nothing true or false. Thus the Tathagata says, ‘all dharmas are buddha dharmas.’” This statement requires some serious reflection. What does it mean, true or false? And what does it mean all dharmas are buddha dharmas?

Something is either true or false when it either matches or doesn’t match a given standard. In conditional life, fixed standards don’t work very well since the conditions keep changing. It is like trying to chain the tides of the ocean. A standard may work most of the time but not all of the time. Does that mean that we should indiscriminately lie or employ a harsh tone of voice? Yes and No. If there are no inflexible standards to follow, how can we establish Right Speech? The answer is Wisdom—the soil upon which the Path lies, and if that is the standard, then all dharmas are buddha dharmas since wisdom is the ground of all buddhas. But this wisdom is unconditional, transcendental wisdom, not conditional wisdom.

But doesn’t this present the risk of self-serving delusions and spinning truth? Indeed it does, which necessitates the need to reflect on the first two steps—Right Views and Right Intentions. “... no one can be called a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a self or who creates the perception of a being, a life or a soul.” 

A self being served is not a self being served because there is no substantial self. An insubstantial self goes is the ego, and the ego is a delusion. To be truly selfless is the only way to honor the Right Speech mission. When we set aside our own attachments to standards and access genuine wisdom by piercing delusions, then we have the hope of administering the right speech. Short of that, we will always find ourselves struggling to chain the tides.