Lessons gleaned from a thermostat.

Spiritual homeostasis

Homeostasis defined: “Homeostasis is a characteristic of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, relatively constant, condition of properties.”

It occurred to me when contemplating my Nest thermostat (which regulates temperature within my living space) that there is a spiritual form of homeostasis. First: How my thermostat works in regulating my living space temperature:

There are three modes from which I can choose: Off, either heat or cool, or heat and cool. 

The Off setting requires little explanation. It means there is no sensing of ambient temperature in my space and, therefore, no regulation of my “HVAC” system (e.g., heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). 

The heat or cool setting regulates my HVAC system to either heat or cool my space, but it won’t do both at the same time. If I set my thermostat to heat only—but not cool—then if the ambient temperature falls in my space below the setting I select (e.g., 68º for example), my HVAC system will maintain my space to maintain above 68º (+or-) a given selected range. And the opposite is true. Selection of cool only means if my ambient space rises above 75º (+or-) a given selected range, my HVAC system keeps the temperature in my space at the desired range by cooling when the ambient temperature reaches 75º.

The third option, heat and cool, will switch as required. For example: When my thermostat detects that the temperature in my space falls below 68º, the thermostat sends a message to my HVAC to turn on the heat. And if the temperature in my space rises above 75º, the thermostat sends a message to my HVAC to turn on the cooling. I find this last mode to be the most desirable. Also, I can select a schedule for different parts of the day/night. I like to sleep when the temperature is around 68º, which, as it turns out, is the ideal sleep temperature, but I prefer 75º during the day. 

We, too, have an internal system that regulates many aspects of our biology to maintain homeostasis, ranging from temperature (just like my living space) to blood sugar levels, blood pressure, sleep, and more. 

Now the spiritual equivalent to homeostasis and my thermostat. The Off position favors neither hot nor cold. It could be called “potential spiritual energy.” The hot or cool position is an either/or position, such as what routinely occurs in ordinary life when we make judgments (e.g., It’s either right or wrong, but not both at the same time). That position is equivalent to ego-driven life. And lastly comes the both/and position of heat and cool, or in other words, circumstantially appropriate regulation such as set forth by “upaya”—expedient means, rather than hardened rights or wrongs rules. What is particularly curious is this: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one IN Christ Jesus.”—Galatians 3:28. 

Not to be diverted, but clarification is needed here. It may seem insignificant to some, but exegetical scholars have noted this passage originally lacked the name “Jesus,” but instead read “...you are all one IN Christ.” Christ (Χριστός), in Koine Greek—The language used to write the New Testament—meant the Messiah; a title (anointed one), believed to be the personhood of God on earth. The significance is meaningful. “Jesus” was the given name, whereas Christ was a designated title, in the same fashion that “Gautama” was the given name of The Buddha (the title, that meant “awakened.”) 

And this: 

“Body is nothing more than emptiness; emptiness is nothing more than body.  The body is exactly empty, and emptiness is exactly body. The other four aspects of human existence—feeling, thought, will, and consciousness— are likewise nothing more than emptiness, and emptiness nothing more than they. All things are empty: Nothing is born, nothing dies, nothing is pure, nothing is stained, nothing increases and nothing decreases. So, IN emptiness, there is no body, no feeling, no thought, no will, no consciousness. There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. There is no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no imagining. There is nothing seen, nor heard, nor smelled, nor tasted, nor touched, nor imagined. There is no ignorance and no end to ignorance.  There is no old age and death, and no end to old age and death. There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no end to suffering, no path to follow. There is no attainment of wisdom, and no wisdom to attain…”—The Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra.

If you don’t see the connection, allow me to help, and notice, in particular, the word IN; emphasized to mean “in the presence of, exclusively.”  In the Off spiritual position, there is no discrimination between one thing or another. There is just potential spiritual energy. Only when there is a choice between the either/or vs. the both/and is there kinetic spiritual energy (e.g., in action/movement). One of those settings (e.g., the both/and) is what we could call “open-minded,” or circumstantially driven motion, rooted IN the source of all things. Three modes: Off—The source of all; Either/or—The cause of all suffering (ego); and Both/and—The resolution of all suffering (e.g., elimination of ego). It is a homeostatic spiritual system, nearly identical to every other system of balanced homeostatic necessity.

When IN the Off position (where conceptual thinking ceases—How Bodhidharma defined Zen) that all potential resides, where indiscriminate essence exists. And that potential can go in one of two directions: Ego-driven either/or (e.g., win/lose) vs. Essence driven both/and (e.g., win/win). It all depends on The Mind of No-Mind.

Belief and Truth

It is said that faith is more powerful than reality. I believe that it is. If I were to believe that I must have air to breathe and thought there was none, in spite of its ubiquitous presence, I would die from the lack. If I were to believe that I must have water and thought there was none I would die of thirst from that lack as well. When our beliefs (any at all) over-ride reality we suffer the consequences, in spite of what is real and true. If we are free yet believe that were are not, we are in bondage; poverty itself.

Many subscribe to the belief that in order to be spiritual it is necessary to embrace certain traditions, make specific statements of faith, and join with certain like-minded people as rites of passage to spiritual realms. The presumption here is that there is a formula that determines whether or not we are spiritual and acceptable to God. Perhaps the question is not how to be spiritual but rather, is it possible to not be spiritual at all. Believing that you are not spiritual (when you are) over-rides the reality in the same fashion that believing you need air when in the midst of air.

In The Song of Zazen, Hakuin Zenji said... “How sad that people ignore the near and search for truth afar: Like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst; Like a child of a wealthy home wandering among the poor.” The story in the Bible about the Prodigal Son spoke the same truth.

Here is something to ponder—What is the spark which animates our being? Is it possible that we need to look no further than the end of our noses to discover what is ever-present? And isn’t it likely that we are crying out for God while in the midst of Spirit?

Probably the greatest Christian mystic to ever live was Meister Eckhart. He said this regarding the chasm between ideas and reality. 

“Man’s last and highest parting occurs when for God’s sake he takes leave of god. St. Paul took leave of god for God’s sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give—together with every idea of god. In parting with these he parted with god for God’s sake and God remained in him as God is in his own nature—not as he is conceived by anyone to be—nor yet as something yet to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is. Then he and God were a unit, that is pure unity. Thus one becomes that real person for whom there can be no suffering, any more than the divine essence can suffer.”

To experience the ubiquitous spiritual presence of God it is always necessary to get rid of the belief that God is absent and we must take action. God is transcendent but god is a distillation: Eckhart’s idea which must be cast aside. Such an idea is a distortion of reality and removes us from that which we seek to find.

What’s real?

Good and Evil.

To say what’s real, by necessity must consider the opposite—What’s not real. Nothing can be understood in isolation. It is only possible to understand one thing when compared to the opposite. Love means nothing in isolation from indifference. Likewise, evil is understood against the comparison of goodness. Not only do reality and unreality define each other, but they are also opposite to each other. Everything has these two dimensions. Up and down can only exist together. They define each other, and the same relationship applies to everything: Black/white, in/out, and seen/unseen. What can be seen has perceptible qualities. The unseen lacks perceptible qualities and thus can’t be seen.

The Buddhist understanding of the relationship between reality and unreality is not different from the Christian understanding. It uses different words but in essence, it is the same. Both the Buddhist view, together with the Christian perspective, provides a more thorough understanding. Consider the following:

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”—2 Corinthians 4:18

Here, The Apostle Paul articulates the two sides of reality and points to how they are different. The seen is temporary but the unseen is eternal. What is eternal has no beginning nor end. However, what is seen has a beginning and an ending and is thus temporary. Where Buddhism differs from Christianity on this matter concerns opposing reality from unreality, or to use the Christian terms the unseen from the seen.

The dogmatic Christian teaching says that these two can be divided but when explored more thoroughly it can be shown that this dogmatic teaching is incorrect. The essential nature of God is love, which imbues the entire creation. The problem is not the reality of God’s love. The problem is one of perception. The love of God can’t be seen. It can only be experienced.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Romans 8: 38-39

We are inclined to differentiate between the physical and the spiritual. The implication of this view is that the physical and the spiritual dimensions are different and can be isolated from each other. The question must be, “how is it possible to extricate what enlivens us from the vehicle that contains life?” Forget about labels. Set aside how precisely spirit and mind are distinctly different and just considers the indivisible nature of spirit and body.

A body with no spirit would be a zombie and a spirit without a body would be a ghost. The Bible teaches that God is the animating aspect of us. Buddhism teaches that it is the universal mind. Neither the mind nor God can be conceptually grasped. They may be the same thing with different labels. Whatever label we choose makes no difference but what does make a difference is the characteristics of what arises from both, which is unconditional love (agape in the case of Christian thought, and compassion in the case of Buddhist thought).

Removing even these labels leaves us with the identical character of both: the inseparable nature of God’s love. The Buddhist explanation is preferable because it deals more directly with the inseparable nature between the spiritual and the physical, the real, and the unreal. In essence, the Buddhist understanding is that what we ordinarily consider real is a mistaken conclusion based on the perceptible nature of form, which can be seen. All forms can be seen. Nothing spiritual can be seen. Form, as Paul says, is temporary, but God’s love is eternal, yet can’t be seen (only experienced).

The Buddhist language uses the dimensions of “form” and “emptiness” in place of “seen” and “unseen” but the meaning is nearly identical. Here is where the majesty and ultimate saving power takes place. The Buddhist perspective says that these two: “form” and “emptiness” are not two. They are one single, indivisible matter, just as up and down are inseparable, just as we are inseparable from God’s love. Nothing can… “separate us from the love of God.”

Emptiness is the mirror opposite from matter just as up is the mirror opposite from down. Emptiness is 100% spiritual yet it can’t be perceived or measured. It is whole and complete. It is like space: everywhere and unseen but contains everything perceptible. Emptiness is neither empty nor changing. Emptiness doesn’t move and has no perceptible characteristics. Emptiness is our spiritual core. It is what makes us conscious, sentient beings. Emptiness is also subject to dependent origination, which means that emptiness is also empty and binds it to form.

Emptiness, albeit unseen is whole, complete, and perfect already, and is the unseen part of you and me. The union can’t be broken just like the up/down union can’t be broken. If we tried to do away with one side, the other side would cease to exist. Sometimes this form/emptiness arrangement goes by the handles of conditional/unconditional. The conditional part is divided between polar opposites and subject to cause and effect. The unconditional part is unified and not subject to anything. Conditions change. Unconditional matters are fixed and these two require each other.

The solution for all of us is to understand three things:

1. When we attach our self-worth to what is seen (but temporary), we are setting ourselves up for eventual heartache because these things pass away.
2. When we identify ourselves with what is spiritually eternal (God’s love) we realize a lasting sense of peace and stability that can’t be shaken.
3. These two—the seen and the unseen, are two parts of the same thing but only one part is absolutely real (the love of God). The other part is relatively real. Reality is relative and absolute, conditional, and unconditional.

Nagarjuna explained this relationship in the following way:

“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha’s profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.”— The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way), Nagarjuna

We are both the indivisible union of matter and spirit and the task of life is to work to realize the integration of these two but never question the inseparable nature of God’s love. How do we integrate? By being the agent of God’s love, first by accepting ourselves as the channel of divinity and then through action. We are the body of Christ and if Christ remains an intellectual abstraction instead of an indwelling reality, then there is no means of spreading God’s love and we are all doomed to rely solely on what passes away. Either God is real or not and there is an easy way to find out: Let go of ideas and start living a life of giving.

The presence (albeit unseen) is made evident through how we live our lives. It is what we produce, not what we say, that proves our divine nature. “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles?” And how is that evidence understood? “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” We create our own realities by being the agent of spiritual expression, either for good or for evil.

Beacon on the Hill?

The shades that color our vision

Before the last U.S. presidential election, I wrote this post, which I think might be germane again, even though Covid-19 has changed the global landscape. I wrote, “In a few days, the American citizenry will go to the polls and vote to elect the next President of the United States. Most people have already decided how they will vote, and little between now and then is likely going to alter their perspectives. Thus this message will undoubtedly have little if any effect on their future choices. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to say something concerning a vision that could make a small difference.” 

Sometimes (rarely), a tiny message can have a huge impact. Little things are not always insignificant. For example, the Botulinum toxin is possibly the most acutely toxic substance known. Four kg of the toxin, if evenly distributed, would be more than enough to kill the entire human population of the world. Of course, Covid-19 is so tiny it is invisible, yet thus far, it has killed more in the United States than all U.S. troops in the Vietnam War.

Some years ago, my Zen teacher said, “A single drop of rain waters 10,000 pines.” His point was that something as tiny as one drop of rain has the potential to bring about significant, broadly-spread, growth. The words I offer here are like that drop of rain: tiny but intended to stimulate expanded spiritual insight that will bring about fragrance as pleasant as a pine. I am not so delusional to imagine that this message will come close to that potency, but I offer it anyway with the hope that goodness will result.

How many of us see the effects of the choices we make. Few people are even aware of the nature of their own biases and distortions that shape their vision, but we all have our own versions. We assume that our views are correct without realizing that we are looking through lenses colored by these biased perspectives. The great Zen Master Bassui Tokushō instructed his students to first awaken the mind that reads, and then they would understand what they were reading. Of course, that advice took root in a few then and even fewer today. We all assume that our visions are clear and think we see things as they truly are.

I make no claim to perfect vision. I know I have much of value to learn, so in a certain sense, my vision is no better or worse than anyone else. But I have lived a long time and been exposed to parts of the world I never imagined as a child. I have lived with many people, both rich and poor, from all walks of life and read the wisdom of great poets, prophets, and sages. All of that has entered my mind as a chef might throw together ingredients into a pot to create a tasty meal.

If I had to reduce the teachings of great sages down to a short sentence, it would be that we are all one, none better nor worse than anyone else, and how we understand ourselves determines everything. In the words of Jesus, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his own self? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?

Our self-understanding runs in one of two directions: either towards selfishness or selflessness. One way leads to increased fear, alienation, hostility, and greed—the other towards courage, equanimity, unity, and goodness toward all. I don’t have much use for dogmatic, stuck-in-the-mud religions even though I am an ordained Christian Minister, have studied and put into practice the words of great sages. I don’t regard myself as a socialist or a communist either, but I agree with Karl Marx who said that “Religion is the opium of the people.” 

And I agree because to most religious people I have ever known, their dogma has turned them into self-serving, self-righteous, unthinking robots more interested in cherry-picking their holy texts to serve their own predetermined agendas than shaping their lives around the teachings of their own pioneers. The current Pope offers some hope in restoring his followers to the proper place of paying heed to the teachings of Christ to love without discrimination. And the life of Nelson Mandela likewise serves as another beacon.

However, I fear for our country at this point in history because we have become increasingly polarized robots who have run contrary to the advice of Jesus: we have traded away our souls for dwindling wealth. Instead of becoming more and more the United States of America, we have become increasingly disunited, caring more for preserving and protecting selective hides than becoming magnanimous. The nobility of spirit that made us into a shining beacon is growing dim, and we routinely waste our dwindling resources in such endeavors as fighting more and seeking peace less.

Maybe this small message, so late in the game, will crack the thin facade of greed and open the hearts and minds of many to what we are losing by our lust for ever-increasing exclusivity. And just perhaps, Covid-19 will force us to become truly great again. I hope so, but my hope, like that shining beacon, is growing dim.

Addiction

As the Covid-19 pandemic rages out of control, addiction once again is rising to the top of the news feed. Whenever crises rise, addiction rises in tandem and those so inclined scrambles for relief.
 

This post is thus particularly relevant in light of the present day problems to a wide variety of a host of objective “stuff.” Our common-coin manner of understanding addiction is too limited. When we think of someone addicted we see images in our mind of drug addicts or derelicts who were unable to overcome excessive opioid consumption. Maybe we’ll even go so far as to include someone who can’t control his or her consumption of food or sex. Whatever object is chosen—another person, drugs, alcohol, food, the greed for money or sex, becomes the god we must have to fill a sensed emptiness. Rarely, however, do we consider the average person exhibiting expressions of addiction, and that’s a problem.

Addiction, properly understood at the base level is craving: an excessive desire. Everybody falls victim to that. Whenever our normal comforts are disrupted, such as now, anxiety goes wild and we crave their return. We either crave what we like or resist what we don’t. Both are forms of craving (excessive desire). To get to the bottom of this dilemma we need to ask, “which part of me is craving and why?” Someone who is complete, doesn’t crave anything, so it must be the incomplete part of us—the part of us that says, “I need that to experience myself as complete and satisfied, and without getting that I will suffer.”

Meister Eckhart (the 14th century Christian German theologian, philosopher and mystic) said, “To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God. Man’s last and highest parting occurs when for God’s sake he takes leave of god. St. Paul took leave of god for God’s sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give—together with every idea of god. In parting with these he parted with god for God’s sake and God remained in him as God is in his own nature—not as he is conceived by anyone to be—nor yet as something yet to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is. Then he and God were a unit, that is pure unity. Thus one becomes that real person for whom there can be no suffering, any more than the divine essence can suffer.”

A while ago I heard a man say, “I can understand how Christ can be in me, but how is it possible for me to be in Christ?” Clearly, this person had a rather limited view of both himself and of Christ and apparently didn’t believe what his own scripture told him about the nature of God. Christian scripture says that the nature of God is omnipresent. If this man truly believed this, the answer to his question would be clear: there is no place that God is not, so how is it possible for anyone to not be in Christ? The entire sea in which we swim is God. Fish are in the water and we are in God.

In our unknowing, we imagine that we are separate from the fullness of our creator, that we are not a unit and this, in turn, leads to a deep desire to become what we are already, thus we suffer. The Buddha also spoke in the Nipata Sutra about what happens due to ignorance:

“What is it that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it the most?’ ‘It is ignorance which smothers’ the Buddha replied, ‘and it heedlessness and greed which make the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.” 

All people fear the pain of suffering and this makes us blind to the suffering of others. While locked in the grip of our egos, we think we’re the only ones suffering, and in that state of mind, we become greedy and uncaring. At the center of suffering lays this idea that we are separate and incomplete and that leads to the craving for what we have already.

The ancient Daoist admonition applies here, “Resist nothing and embrace everything today. The perfect day and night are within you. Let it all unfold like a blossom.” Picking and trying to retain only the good, while resisting what we imagine will darken our day, is the true addiction and that leads inevitably to suffering.

Seeing you seeing me.

Nearly 400 years have passed since the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, offered the words, “O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.” 

Seeing ourselves, in that way, is a daunting challenge. What others see is limited to the perception of our objective nature, and the same is true in reverse: we see the outside evidence, and they see ours. None, however, can ever see another’s true subjective nature. We see the tip of the iceberg but not what lies beneath. 

The evidence of what lies beneath must be seen through word and action. In the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, The Buddha himself is quoted as having said there are two kinds of understanding: “One is seeing by outer signs, and the other by fathoming. Seeing by outer signs is like seeing fire from afar when one sees the smoke. Actually, one does not see the fire. Fathoming is like seeing the colour of the eye. A man’s eye is pure and does not get broken (damaged by looking). The same is the case where the Bodhisattva clearly sees the Way, Enlightenment, and Nirvana. Though he sees thus, there are no characteristics to be seen...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.” And Jesus, likewise said, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” 

Our inner truth is reflected through word and deed. We are all seeing through a glass either filtered by the darkness of how we think and imagine ourselves, through the bias of our own egos, or through a clear lens cleansed of defilement. What we believe ourselves to often stand against how others see us and that contrast is a thorny problem everyone must work through before the darkness vanishes. We can see clearly, life as it truly is: a magnificent creation—a heaven on earth!

The genuine truth is the same regardless of source. The same is true of wisdom. If honesty and knowledge are real, they will be the same for all people irrespective of origin or affiliation. Nevertheless, people often are misled between gold and fool’s gold. Genuine gold is always authentic, regardless of judgments and filtered bias. In the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, the Apostle Paul addresses this matter of the accouterments of religiosity compared to correct vision. 

He said, “…where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

This wisdom is not different from that offered by Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas to which I referred in a previous post Getting saved: “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.” 

Neither is it different from the words of The Buddha found in the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment: “Good sons, it is like smelting gold ore. The gold does not come into being because of smelting...Even though it passes through endless time, the nature of the gold is never corrupted. It is wrong to say that it is not originally perfect. The perfect enlightenment of the Tathagata (A Buddha: our right mind) is also like this.”

The central battleground is the impediment that blinds us all and turns righteousness into self-righteousness. What is right doesn’t depend upon our ideas about ourselves. Right is always right. Truth and wisdom are always what they are. To claim that our views alone are right, standing against the opinions of others, is nothing other than an egotistical reflection of the internal workings of not understanding who we indeed are: “…flesh of the living Father.” We can see the flesh. The question is, can we see “…the power of the gift within.” When completeness comes, what is in part disappears. Then only will we know fully, even as we are fully understood.

Mea culpa

Immortality awaits all.

I have a confession, admittedly late, but “better late than never.” My disclosure arises from the convergence of my current senior stage of a decaying body and reading a book by RamDass: Still Here—Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying, in which he emphasizes an essential point (which should be obvious) that all of us will naturally experience aging, changing, and dying. Therefore, the nearer we are to the end of our “mortal house,” the more we need to appropriately shift our focus onto “embracing the immortal soul.”

And the reason for that appropriate shift is because, at the point of leaving our mortal house, whatever unfinished business we have (e.g., unresolved, unforgiving, righting wrongs, etc.) becomes the starting point of our next human incarnation. Karma either works for our mortality or against it. The components of the “karmic seeds” (Vāsanā (Sanskrit; Devanagari: वासना)) with which we die in the previous life determines the starting point (our lessons to be learned) in the next mortal incarnation. Therefore, since no-mortal-body can predict the future, none can, with any accuracy, say when that portal moment will come when the soul leaves and returns to God.

Every thought, every word, every action carries its’ own power. Karmic seeds contain an imprint from all cumulative past, thoughts, words, and actions. They can be positive, negative, or neutral. As mortals, every moment, we are experiencing the karma of the past and are creating karma for the future. That is one of the most fundamental premises of a reincarnation perspective: It is the soul (carrying with it karmic seeds) that migrates, activates, and determines the challenges for our next mortality. 

It is, therefore, imperative that we “put our house in order” each fleeting moment because until we pay our karmic debt during mortal incarnations, we will continue in various Samsaric forms, replete with suffering. Samsara is considered to be mortal, unsatisfactory, and painful, perpetuated through attachment and ignorance. The great paradox is that it is solving the suffering dilemma that leads us all to reach beyond mortality to immortality. No suffering; no motivation to reach beyond. So long as we stay locked in a state of denial, refusing to acknowledge our mortal flaws, the more bad karma we create.

The goal of mortal life is thus “…to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” And yes, I intentionally inserted a passage from the Bible (Philippians 2:12-13) into this karmic pattern because the pattern is transcendent to all religious venues. The wording may change from one religion to another. Still, the karmic message is always there, one way or another—a traveling soul, moving away from greed, anger, and delusion (characteristics of the ego) and toward Heaven, Nirvana, or whatever term you choose to represent the great cosmic sea of spiritual unity.

Why fear and trembling? Because to dissolve ego attachments, we must first confess our errors (most importantly to ourselves), and working through those issues is cobbled together with fear and trembling. We only resolve problems we acknowledge. Addressing our most profound, darkest failings requires that we surface them, face-on, (which the ego detests, choosing instead to deny any weaknesses). A person who claims to have no flaws, for certainty, has many, albeit perhaps unconsciously. However, conscious or not, it is impossible to live a mortal life without error. This acknowledgment comes as the very first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths—Conditional life is suffering. 

As a human race, we have acknowledged this with the expression: “To err is human, to forgive divine.” That’s a long-winded prelude to my confession—putting my house in order. My disclosure is that in contributing to this blog I have (out of ignorance and karma) been excessively preoccupied with my ego by quoting the work of other sages and seers in the pursuit of establishing “myself” as a well-read and thus wise teacher (with no credentials at all—A True Man With no Rank). I have forgotten a primary lesson of dharma attachment. And in my forgetful, ignorant fashion have become attached to the need to persuade you, my readers, with how wise I am. 

I wanted you to know that I knew what I was talking about. I saw it necessary to impress you with the wealth of my experience, reading, knowledge, and assimilation, thus enhancing my ego and, in the process, creating more bad karma—I have been shooting myself in the foot. That’s my mea culpa moment of critical awareness—Thank you RamDass. So now I must continue for the rest of this present incarnation, by freeing myself of the need to impress you and thus become more soul-real, sans impressions.

What I intend to do, from this point on, is to become more acquainted with my soul and begin to let go of attachments to my ego. It is the migration of the soul that reaches forward to freedom from suffering and to the end of this continuing process of almost endless affliction. And to…work out my own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in me, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

The nature of God is unconditional, whereas the nature of mortality is conditional. As I age, the more I can see just how provisional and precarious my ego and body are. As my mortality fails, with increasing infirmities, I draw closer to immortality. As “I” become weaker, God manifests greatly. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 

“I” am moving closer to the ending than the beginning of this current mortal incarnation. The mortal aspect of us all is the part that ages, changes, suffers, and dies, and it is the house of the soul, which leaves our mortality on a metaphorical ship, sailing into the immortal sea of unity. It is the nature of immortality that lacks aging, changing, suffering, and dying. That is the goal of every soul, whether known or not. All souls are a piece of the fabric of unity (the ground of all being) that we call life, and all souls reach toward freedom. But once we attain freedom, we must let go of ego-attachments and begin relating to other mortal incarnations at the level of their soul instead of the level of our incomplete mutual natures (e.g., “egos”) which are always functioning out of karmic seeds and growing into plants of perceptible insecurity.

The Power of Deception.

A couple of days ago, The Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit was convened at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. The President of the Family Research Council (Tony Perkins) introduced the keynote speaker, Vice President Mike Pence, and said of him: He understands himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican,” in that order.

Yet Pence’s speech was as far away from the essential nature of genuine Christianity as one might be. His chosen venue has been designated as an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and what he said affirmed that assessment. 

If you wanted to sum up the speech into a nutshell it would be, look how great we are under Trump—chest-thumping and ideological superiority (e.g., us, the white-hats against them: the black-hats). 

Nothing about his speech promoted unity and caring for our fellow man but instead promoted the opposite. Following a panel titled “How Gender Ideology Harms Children,” which included Dr. Michelle Cretella from the American College of Pediatricians, (also designated an ultra-right-wing quasi-religious hate group), Pence echoed the panel’s perspective that those who define themselves as LGBT are just sick individuals who are determined to break God’s intentions. They are sinful and need to change their ways. 

According to the Family Research Council’s website, the Values Voter Summit was created in 2006 to “provide a forum to help inform and mobilize citizens across America to preserve the bedrock values of traditional marriage, religious liberty, the sanctity of life and limited government that make our nation strong.” 

Cretella has been excoriated by The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) with a response, titled: “I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse,” saying that Cretella pushes a perspective of “political and ideological agendas not based on science and facts.”  I would add further, the ideology is anything but Christian in nature, which if geared to the teachings of Christ, to treat your neighbor as yourself. 

SAHM destroyed Cretella’s position showing how she cherry-picked bad science to reach her conclusion. Nevertheless, Pence continues to endorse Cretella’s conclusion with his own bad theology and in so doing destroys his own view of himself as being “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican.” And why might I say such a thing? To answer that question we must first define some theological terms and say what it means to be a real Christian instead of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

To the second issue (e.g., a real Christian) one must abide by the essential teaching of Christ to “love one another as I have loved you.” It is specious to claim the title without abiding by the essential teaching of the founder. And to the first issue (e.g., Theological terms) when Jesus taught that sort of love he was referring to a term found only in the New Testament. The term, in Koine Greek, is ἀγαπάω (agapē ) and meant “unconditional love”, or if you prefer “love with no strings attached—be they gender, race, ideology or any other means of discrimination”. So the concluding question here is whether or not Pence, and his puppet master Trump, are in fact promoting genuine Christian unity and love amongst all people, or a faux Christian wanna-be agenda that promotes division and one-up-man-ship? 

Laying down one’s life.

Yesterday the world watched as friends and family eulogized the life of John McCain. It was a testament of sacrifice for fundamental principles that, for him, rose above partisan politics. 

His life and mine were forged in the blast furnace of Vietnam. Forever after, he faced the challenges of living without giving in to fear. In his own words, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.” He knew that in the marrow of his bones. Five and a half years in Hanoi’s main Hỏa Lò Prison (“Hanoi Hilton”), changed McCain from an irreverent, cocky renegade into a man who would dedicate the rest of his life fighting for those fundamental principles by not yielding to the fears of ordinary men and women.

John McCain was a warrior compatriot of mine. The war changed us both but our subsequent vectors were different. He went down one path, and I went down another. You know where his led, but mine led me on a spiritual journey trying to find solace from the demons that entered my mind and soul, causing a never-ending psychological and emotional maelstrom that has continued to plague my entire adult life.

My pilgrimage took me onto the path of Zen because it claimed to be a means for alleviating suffering. It did what it claimed, and then, I continued on to seminary where I learned how to read both ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek, the latter of which was the original language of The New Testament. As a result, I became aware of those concepts held by the ancient Greeks about life. They saw life in three aspects: two that comprised our human vessel and one that made us into sentient beings sparked by the breath of our creator. These three aspects have now become known as our biological being (βίος), our psychological being (ψυχὴν), and our spiritual being (ζωή). 

All three were represented in those words from Koine Greek, and yesterday during John McCain’s eulogy, the significance of those different principles came out in a reading by Senator Lindsey Graham.

John was a man who lived a life of high principles so I imagine neither he nor his family would be offended by my rectifying a misunderstanding—a meaningful and significant misunderstanding that is both needed now more than ever within our political sphere and should be embraced by all people throughout all times and all places. The misunderstanding of which I speak concerns those three different words for “life” rendered in Koine Greek

The passage read by Senator Graham was John 15:13 which has been translated into English and reads: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The common way of understanding this passage means to sacrifice one’s bodily being (to die biologically) as an act of supreme love. 

But that is not what the passage meant when written in Koine Greek. And to grasp the true understanding, we need to see it in the original language which reads as follows: “μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ,” and came to be understood as stated above. I don’t expect many, if any, to read Koine Greek so a bit of guidance is required. I have highlighted in red the keyword ψυχὴν.

The standard, universally accepted manual for translating from Koine Greek into English is Strong’s Concordance, and when we turn to Strong, we find the true meaning for “ψυχὴν.” It means, among various concepts, that which determines the personality of a person, in this case, the mind, and is the basis for our grasp of the psyche (e.g., psychology).

If that passage of John 15:13 meant what Senator Graham conveyed (e.g., to die biologically), then the passage would have been written this way: “μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν βίος αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ,” yet it was not.

Properly translated this passage means “ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s ideas for one’s friends.” In other words, to set aside one’s ideologies as the supreme act of love. And when you consider what divides us more than anything else, it is clinging to our ideas and rejecting those of others. Thus, the supreme act of love conveyed by The Christ had nothing to do with dying biologically. Instead, Jesus saw the source of hatred as ideas that divide us, and, therefore saw the solution to hatred as love—setting aside dividing ideas. It is hard to imagine a time in human history when that message is more germane than now.

And perhaps the most surprising realization of all is that this true understanding of love is almost identical to that expressed by the father of Zen—Bodhidharma, who defined Zen as “not thinking.” When you don’t think, what remains is a purity of mind. The Japanese form of Zen considers the mind and heart not as two different matters, but as one united entity (heart/mind). “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”