Divide or unite?

I love history. Knowing where we came from and how we got here is important. “Real” history—not the fairy-tale version we seem to prefer—teaches us valuable lessons. In particular, understanding the historical path leading to common-coin words and terms is paramount because words and terms are the building blocks of ideologies—the way we think and understanding what unites and divides us.

December 8 is an auspicious day few even know exists, and I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, I’d like to write about another day of which nearly everyone, throughout the world, is aware—December 25, the day Christians (and others) celebrate the birth of Jesus. We know that day as Christmas. But time has erased from our collective memory the origin of the term “Christmas,”—The Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus occurs on December 25. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of recent origin. The earlier term Yule (e.g., Yule-tide) may have derived from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, which referred to the feast of the winter solstice: A purely secular root to what has become a day of giving and receiving gifts on Christmas, supposedly as a celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Since the early 20th century, Christmas has mostly become a secular holiday. In this secular celebration, a mythical figure named Santa Claus plays a pivotal role. For the most part, Christmas is a family holiday, observed by Christians and non-Christians, devoid of Christian elements. And we are now in the midst of “Black Fridays” (plural, since the day, has become an entire series of days), designating the annual rush to purchase the most for the least, in anticipation of getting ready for Santa Claus. “Black Friday” also has a historical path, but I don’t want to overlay one divergence on top of another, or I’d never get to the point. And what is that point? The point is the preference for myth over fact—Fake News or disinformation, making it nearly impossible to know which end is up. We seem to love snake-oil and those who sell it because we are essentially lazy and don’t make an effort to dig beneath the surface and discover what lies within.

There is a method in my madness for this short Christmas diversion, apart from the significance of December 8. The madness part is that I would delay. And the method part explains my reason, which is to illustrate how we (as a human family) have lost our way. As the saying goes: “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This very moment we are on the verge of doing just that—repeating a miserable era that emerged during the decade following 1930. That repetition has much to do with both December 8 and December 25.

Birth—biological birth is different from spiritual birth. In the Christian tradition, spiritual birth happens (or it doesn’t) when aspirants confess their sinful nature and accept the Holy Spirit (supposedly the aspect of a triune God—trinity, promised by Jesus) into their spiritual hearts and souls. Then, those “born again” become a new person, armed with The Spirit of God. The matter of salvation (e.g., being set free from the scourge of “sin”) presupposes being sinful in the first place. Without that presumption, the entire proposition falls into a thousand pieces, and like Humpty-Dumpty, can’t be put back together again: another divergent tale worth pondering, but for another time.

While few know the historical facts of Christmas (December 25), fewer still know the historical facts of Bodhi Day (December 8)—the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha—Siddhartha Gautama (Shakyamuni), experienced enlightenment. According to tradition, Siddhartha had pursued and ultimately gave up years of extremely ascetic practice and resolved to sit under a “peepal tree” until he was free from suffering. Siddhartha sat beneath that tree, meditated until he found the root of suffering, and discovered how to liberate himself from it. That process of giving up asceticism was preceded by giving up what none of us would give up (great wealth) to travel the other path that lead to a dead-end. On the other side of that end lay the opening to ultimate freedom—a goal all humans desire; the mythical pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

When those living in the Western World think of enlightenment, they conjure up “THE Enlightenment,” an era when European politics, philosophy, science, and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the “long 18th century” (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply The Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, France, and Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. Ever since that era, the Western World has been on a path defined by rational thought and hardened ideologies. While Christians remained the largest religious group in the world in 2015, making up nearly a third (31%—2.3. billion) of Earth’s 7.3 billion people, they are fragmented into a myriad of schisms (e.g., denominations) too vast to count, each of which claims to be the sole keepers of the truth.

In the Eastern World, “enlightenment” is a very different matter. The idea of “moksha”—release from the cycle of continuing suffering by attaining a transcendent state of mind, is the gold standard. It is within this state of mind that one realizes unconditional truth. Opposing ideologies are anathema to this sort of enlightenment but is instead oriented toward realizing one’s true nature of unity (non-difference vs. ideological differences). And for that reason celebrating December 8 (Bodhi Day) is relevant to the current crisis of chaos around the world. We are in a meltdown mode because of the “I’m right/you’re wrong” vector of ideologies, which align with rational thinking, taking us further and further away from meltdown solutions. 

On Grief and grieving.

With no loss, there is no love.

Fewer things in mortal life hurt as much as the grief that comes from losing a loved one. To pontificate about the suffering of another is to ignore our own pain and disconnect ourselves from humanity.

During such times of loss is an inappropriate time to speak of the long-view. To move to “betterness” without going through bitterness is not only disingenuous, but it is also more than likely impossible. We are, after all, human and rarely, if at all, react to adversity gladly. Few indeed can get to a better place without having first experienced disappointment, anguish, and suffering. Nobody I have ever known (including myself) has ever leaped over these preliminary emotions of sadness as though moving from “A” to “Z” by jumping over “B” through “Y.”

Such pain can seem unbearable while in the midst of suffering the loss of someone we love. Moving beyond to something better takes the healing balm of time. And only then can we find the clarity of mind and emotions to see no genuine love without inevitable loss. Nothing conditional lasts forever, and only a denying fool believes in conditional eternity. The wise recognize the inherent risk of loving and willingly accept the inevitable pain of loss.

But once adequate healing has come, we can look back and savor the beauty of those we have lost. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross expressed the connection between the downside of suffering, the upside of going through anguish and pointed out a blessing not usually observed:

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, know struggle, know loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

An equally profound observation spoken by the father of Zen shows us that suffering itself leads to a transformation leading to bliss: “Every suffering is a seed, because suffering impels us to seek wisdom.”—Bodhidharma

Head-bones and Tail-bones; Life and Death

As often occurs, I discover relevance between previous posts and current affairs. This is such a case, and accordingly, I’m reposting it now.

Life is suffering: The first of The Buddha’s Four Nobel Truths. The question is, “which life?” We examined two different life kinds in yesterday’s post: ego/soul life and essential life. Meister Eckhart rightly stated divine essence can’t suffer. The Buddha lived long before Eckhart, on the other side of the world, but there appears to be no disagreement between them. They were both mystics, and mystics from all times have spoken the same truths. So back to the question: Which life does suffer and why? In the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, which The Buddha said was the most important teaching of all—this matter was addressed in a causal relationship way which is counter-intuitive to normal everyday thinking. We are not so good at examining causal links. Our approach is to leap across vast boundaries without looking at the links. We rush to war without understanding how we got to the brink in the first place. We leap from head-bones to tail-bones with no consideration of the bones in between linking causes with effects. We are band-aid people looking at effects without addressing causes.

Why do we suffer? What is the causal link between life and death? It is impossible to answer such questions without first defining “which” life and looking at the links joining different life kinds. What is the link between the cause and effect of drug addiction and crime? What is the link between the cause and effect of war? What is the causal link between life and death? What is life? What is death?

The Buddha would say that real life is intrinsically essential, never ends, and that ego life is fleeting and non-essential. These are connected. They arise together, and we experience both. The problem is that unless we awaken to the illusive nature of ego life, we never become aware of essential life. To hear an excellent, short podcast about life that never dies, click here. Ego life (who we imagine ourselves to be) commands our full attention. At that level of existence, we are so busy fighting off the alligators we forget that we’re here to drain the swamp. It’s a full-time job because ego life is responsive (100%) to mortal existence, which is fleeting. These two are mirror images of one another. Someone sends a missile your way, you first defend, and then you attack. The ego is absolutely convinced of independence and isolation. To the ego, interdependence is a myth. If we are attacked, we never consider what we did to provoke the attack. We just blame the attacker. The ego’s job description is (1) defend, (2) defend, (3) defend. And the best defense is a good offense. The only relevant question is, who attacks first?

The Virginia Tech student (Seung-Hui Cho) did not suddenly turn into a deranged murderer. He had a long history of issues, and his condition was the result of many contributing forces. We may never know what those forces were nor how they coalesced to produce the tragedy. But one thing is for sure: he was a walking-talking suffering machine. He had no clue who he really was, at the essential level. He was a damaged ego: walking death—which he then actualized, and so are all people who suffer. The effect may take the form of drug addiction, killing people on campuses, or in any war, but the cause is fear and a bone-deep sense of emptiness. 

Ego life is connected with essential life. These two are a partnership, with ego life being the outward sheath and consciousness being eternal. In the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, this link is spoken of as Self and non-Self, meaning that one is essential (e.g., never suffers) and the other is illusive (and always suffers). Genuine life is essential. Mortal life (constantly moving toward death) is non-essential, and they both exist in us. When people are in pain and are suffering, they are completely consumed with non-Self and are totally asleep to essential life. The non-Self is who we think we are, but the non-Self is a mirage, like all thinking. Thinkers think thoughts. Thoughts are about reality, but thoughts are not real. The non-Self is a thought, but you are essentially real. Your reality, all reality—is transcendent to thinking. If you have not experienced essential reality, you are asleep, dreaming about reality, and are walking with death only.

Transformation

Buddhism has been around so long that it is hard to recall the locus—the seed from which it grows. But by recalling the condensed teaching of the Buddha, the essence is the very first point: Life (e.g., mortal) is suffering. Everything else about Buddhism is centered around that locus. So whenever we become overwhelmed with the multiplicity of the branches springing from this ancient practice, all we have to do is remember the root: Life is Suffering. This is why Buddhism has such an enduring appeal—Everyone suffers, and nobody wants to. And no more thorough practice has ever been conceived to understand suffering and provide a means for overcoming it than Buddhism. Suffering springs from our mind and begins with how we perceive and understand ourselves and the world we live in. And this is why Buddhism is a full exposition of our minds.

Master Hsuan Hua writes about this matter in the opening section of The Shurangama Sutra. He points out two aspects of our mind: Superficial, but unreal, the other hidden, but real. He says that the hidden part is like an internal gold mine that must be excavated to be valuable. This gold mine is everywhere but not seen. The superficial part is also everywhere but seen, and it is this superficial part that lies at the root of suffering. He says,

“ The Buddha-nature is found within our afflictions. Everyone has afflictions, and everyone has a Buddha-nature. In an ordinary person, it is the afflictions, rather than the Buddha-nature, that are apparent...Genuine wisdom arises out of genuine stupidity. When ice [afflictions] turns to water, there is wisdom; when water (wisdom) freezes into ice, there is stupidity. Afflictions are nothing but stupidity.”

The word stupidity may sound harsh and uncaring, but sometimes stark truth is more effective than placation. The critical point of his statement (and a message of the Sutra) is that there is a crucial relationship between suffering and wisdom. Both of these rest on a fundamental principle of faith—That at the core of our being, there is the supreme good, which is ubiquitous. Unlike other religions where faith is in an external God, in Buddhism, faith concerns a serene commitment in the practice of the Buddha’s teaching and trust in enlightened or highly developed beings, such as Buddhas or bodhisattvas (those aiming to become a Buddha).

Many people get confused with words, especially the word “Buddha-nature.” When the uninformed hear that word, they start thinking about a ghost that they imagine looks like some ancient Indian person. What we believe makes a difference. But instead of the label Buddha-nature, we could call it “Mind-nature” because Buddha means awakened. When we awaken to our right primordial minds, our world is transformed. Buddha-nature is the unseen gold mine that inhabits all of life. Without accepting that core, we are incapable of accessing wisdom, and without understanding, we are all trapped in suffering. The flip side of suffering is bliss, just as the flip side of up is down, but when we are immersed in the down, it is most difficult to “pull ourselves up from the bootstraps” and rise above misery. During those downtimes, it seems that everything is down.

We have all had conversations about the essential nature of people. Some say that we are rotten to the core—that there is no vital good there. Such people have given up on their own human family. This voice is split between those who believe in God and those who don’t. On the one hand, if there is to be any essence of good, it is purely the result of that good coming from an external God. The “non-believers” hold no hope at all—Just rotten to the core. Neither of these voices acknowledges intrinsic worth. To one, the worth is infused; to the other, there is none.

The eternal presence of Buddha-nature (e.g., the pure/not polluted mind of consciousness) is a contrary voice of faith: The recognition of intrinsic, essential worth, present in life. This gold mine, which, when accepted in faith, manifests in wisdom amid affliction and turns ice into water.

Our upside down world.

If you can, grasp that everything we perceive and process—whether internal or external-results from elusive images projected in our brain. You can then begin to appreciate the incredible miracle represented by the Buddha’s enlightenment. His understanding occurred 2,500 years before tools were developed, which allow us to validate his teachings from a neurological perspective. While the language used that long ago may seem arcane to us today, by transcending these barriers of time and culture, we can understand the true nature of ourselves and the world in which we have always existed.

Buddhism, by any measure, from the normal western perspective, seems strange only because we have been conditioned to see life in a particular way, which, as it turns out, is upside down. What we regard as “real” is not, and what we regard as not even perceptibly present turns out to be real. And because of this error, our understanding causes us to identify with illusions, which are simple mental projections. Not realizing this, we end up clinging to vapor and then suffering as it slides away. What is the solution?

First, as the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says, we must become aware of what is happening. Without this first step, there is no hope of ever being set free from a never ending dream—a nightmare of suffering that keeps repeating endlessly. When the illusions of our lives begin to break down (which they inevitably do), we are faced with tragedy. We suffer, so we search for relief, which unfortunately may come in further addictions that bring temporary relief but never last. It is like suffering from thirst and drinking salt water, which just makes us thirstier.

If we are fortunate, we discover the Dharma (the truth as revealed by the Buddha) and begin to fathom the source of our dilemma. It may start by taking a class or reading a book. Slowly our eyes become open to what is genuinely real, and our hunger grows. What begins as an intellectual snack holds the potential of becoming a full-blown meal. What fills the belly of one who has savored true awakening won’t do someone else any good. Ideas don’t fill the emptiness in our guts. Only awakening to our true nature can satisfy that craving for substance.

This sutra hits the nail on the head. Of course, the prime motivator is anyone’s own state of mind. As Master Sheng-yen pointed out, “Generally, unless a sleeping person is having a nightmare, he or she will not want to wake up. The dreamer prefers to remain in the dream. In the same way, if your daily life is relatively pleasant, you probably won’t care to practice to realize that your life is illusory. No one likes to be awakened from nice dreams.”

This is a bit like the story of a salesman who came across a man sitting on his front porch smoking a pipe. The salesman noticed a large hole in his house's roof and asked the man why he didn’t fix it. The man responded, “If it ain’t raining, there’s no need, and when it is raining, it’s too late.” The time to awaken is before the rains of suffering arrive.

Despots and fiddles

Note: I first wrote this post in September of 2011—Nine years ago. While the specifics have changed, the essence has not.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”—Let them eat cake. While scholars no longer attribute this saying to Marie Antoinette, it has nevertheless remained as the prime example of disdain by the aristocracy for people in need. It exists in classic anthologies epitomizing indifference exhibited by those with means for those who suffer. In the same vane is the myth of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, which has come to mean to occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis.

Both of these are finding relevance in our world today. While people try to regain their footing following natural disasters or struggle to survive following extended unemployment, loss of homes, and virtually any means of support, politicians wax on endlessly concerning themselves more with how many points they can gain by confronting “the opposition” than how many mouths they can feed.

In exactly two months time the appointed Washington “super committee” must propose ways to reduce an out of control Federal deficit. Whatever means they propose must be voted on by Dec. 23. As the situation currently stands these people are no closer to reaching accord than when they were convened a month ago. During that month one of the most devastating hurricanes on record destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands and goes on record as one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation’s history.

FEMA is our first-responder agency for bringing aid to such people as those who were wiped out by Irene or by the devastating EF5 multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri. Every caring American expects our government to provide whatever support is necessary to assist those in need. Instead, FEMA is being held hostage by the radical fringe, lead by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who demands that offsetting budget cuts in other programs must be found before approving new funding for FEMA. Such additional funding in the wake of costly disasters has been the usual procedure in Congress in the past since natural disasters by their very nature cannot be predicted.

On one level Mr. Cantor’s reasoning appears responsible. To go further in debt at the same time that the super committee is trying to come to terms with the future of our nation seems unreasonable. The costs must be born somehow and the source of such funding is perfectly obvious. When infamous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, his answer was immediate and clear: It’s where the money is. So where’s our money? It isn’t in the hands of the disappearing middle class. It isn’t in the hands of the expanding poor and desperate. The money is where it always has been: In the banks. Yet it is precisely the financial institutions of our nation that are now doing everything possible to manipulate the law to ensure that we once again pay for their own mismanagement. 

They were not shy in asking us to bail them out when they teetered on the edge of disaster. We did so and they repaid our generosity by handing out astronomical bonuses to their “senior executives” and then refused to fuel our economic recovery. In the meantime, so we’re told, corporations are flush with fat profits. Why won’t they reinvest? Because there isn’t sufficient demand. And why isn’t there sufficient demand? Because people have no jobs. And why do people have no jobs? Because the people who have money won’t invest it. Does anyone but me see the Catch 22 here?

If Mr. Cantor wants to find the offsets to continue FEMA funding, then he should take a lesson from Willie, go get the money from where it exists and stop his fiddling. Rome is about to burn and we need a lot more than “cake.”

Kill the sucker!

From time to time, I’ve written about the related matters of dogma, close-mindedness, delusion, and bias. My observations ordinarily struck a general tone, but in light of the current presidential debates, I want to draw attention to how this psychology works specifically. I’ll use the hackneyed cliché of being dug in to illustrate the point. 

That expression (dug in) creates a visual image that is instructive. Imagine a person who is persuaded that something of value lies buried beneath the surface. They are so convinced they begin digging a hole to find it. As they explore, others come along who want the same treasure and become cheerleaders of their digging. The more they dig, the more energy they expend, and the deeper the hole becomes. While they are exploring, a non-cheerleader comes along who has discovered the treasure being sought in another location and goes to share their discovery with the digger and their supporters. By this time, the hole is quite deep, and the digger has so invested themself in the ideology that their spot alone contains the treasure that they are not open to the discovery, and the same is true of the cheerleaders. What do they do in response? Kill the messenger.

Why are they not able or willing to stop digging and accept the truth? Because they have a vested interest in being right. The truth is sacrificed on the altar of egotism driven by self-righteousness, and to them, this is far more valuable than the sought-for treasure. Such people are blinded by that desire and see only what reinforces their dug-in positions. And this same psychology infects the cheerleaders because they, too, have a surrogate vested interest.

Groupthink is the handle given to this form of delusion. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints. 

Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University, did the original research of this phenomenon. Still, long before Janis, the constructive elements were observed by The Buddha and recorded in the Sutta Nipāta. He was asked a question, 

“What is that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it the most”? And he answered, “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.” And what, you may ask, is being feared that brings about the pain of suffering? It is “the ego,” the artificial idea we humans have of ourselves that suffers greatly when being proven wrong.

Apparently, groupthink has a very long history but remains alive and well right into current-day politics. It is quite surprising to see (why should we be surprised?) entire audiences (cheerleaders) give standing ovations to digger Trump, who is proving himself as a practiced charlatan, able with jujitsu skill, to kill the messenger rather than address a message that threatens to reveal his empty hole.

The bucket rule of politics and economics

There's a hole in our bucket

I taught our daughter economics, at an early age. And my teaching device was an old bucket. I punched a few holes in the bottom of the bucket and then she started pouring in water, which of course ran out the holes. Then I punched in more holes and she again poured in water. This time she had to pour in more water at a faster rate. 

Eventually, I completely removed the bottom of the bucket and she discovered that no amount of water could be used to fill the bucket; it ran out as fast as she could pour it in. Then I said to her, “Water is like money. Unless you balance what you pour in with what comes out the bottom you’ll never succeed in having any money left over.” She understood. Our government never has.

Right now the spigot that regulates the flow is severely restricted, yet the out-flow is at a record high. What used to supply our needs—tax revenues from the middle class—is disappearing at an alarming rate leaving only one source: those with money, to pick up the tab. And this restriction is coinciding with a bucket with ever-growing holes. Republicans are crying foul and claiming class warfare. But I have a simple-minded question: Who pays? It requires lots of water to pour into a bucket with a disappearing bottom. The poor can’t pay. The middle-class is rapidly shrinking, so that leaves only those who can pay, but don’t.

There are presently lots of naysayers who say that the wealthy will just pull up anchor and flee to more favorable shores. Indeed they may and have. Nothing can stop them except only one thing: A sense of public responsibility. For far too long just about everyone, from the wealthy down to the chronically poor, have shed a sense of public responsibility and milked the system for every drop. Now we face a serious emergency and it remains to be seen if anyone, rich or poor, will change course and do the right thing. If not, then our prosperity will end rather quickly.

Presently Congress is in the process of making a bad situation worse by creating policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. They take pride in enhancing the wealth of the prosperous (knowing if they do so they will be rewarded, under the table) while ensuring the death of millions due to mismanagement of a pandemic, people losing their jobs, and getting tossed out on the streets. Does this have anything to do with Zen? I think it does and here’s how: The essence of Zen is to bypass delusion and see clearly—things as they are, not as we wish them to be. Wishful thinking got us all into this mess and now we have lots of holes, not enough water, and are on the verge of disaster. 

Another parallel is the understanding that we are all connected. The super-wealthy may desire exclusive independence, but such a thing is not possible. In a civilized society, we share lots of things: The air we breathe, the water we drink, a common infrastructure that either allows prosperity or sinks us all, a food and money supply, and many other points of intersection. 

The notion that anyone can milk the system and get off scot-free is delusional. Individually and collectively we create karma either for the good or for the bad. We have no choice except to live with what we collectively create. And to continue with an ideological logjam while people are starving is madness. The resources of our nation do not belong to politicians. We supply these resources through our blood, sweat, and tears, and for the people in Washington to withhold what we have contributed is outrageous! We elected these people to represent us, not kill us. It’s 11:59 and unless we collectively wake up, midnight and the nightmares that come along will soon be here.

To Have or To Be?

Is having the same as being?

It has now been sixty-three years since I sat in my high school algebra class. I remember very little of that room, except for one thing that has stayed with me and been a guiding light throughout my life. That one thing was a banner; my teacher hung above the blackboard that read, “He who perseveres attains the expansion.” 

I imagine she meant it as an encouragement to stay the course and learn algebra. I understood it in a much broader sense: as a way of living—to stay the course through adversity and never give up, particularly during times of extreme suffering. At the time, I knew nothing about psychology, religion, or spirituality but those words of encouragement took me into the realm of all three.

My childhood was a mixed bag of both suffering and fun. The fun part was an escape from the suffering, but I never really escaped until decades later, when, due to a crisis of major proportions, I entered the realm of self-understanding. And that led me to psychology, religion, and spirituality. I suffered, and I got to the point of readiness when I was desperate to fathom why.

I first became aware of Zen because rumor had it that the practice was all about understanding suffering and finding release. It did both. But I was unclear how and why, and that took me to psychology—Erich Fromm and Carl Jung, and ultimately The Buddha. 

Fromm’s ideas were very similar to those of The Buddha, and I came to realize something essential: people have a tendency to regard spirituality and psychology as two different matters, and I found that was not true. Both spirituality and psychology are concerned with a single matter: the human mind. 

Both Fromm and The Buddha recognized a dichotomy between “having” and “being,” but it was The Buddha who found the link that joined the two together, explained how and why they were linked, and found a solution that put being as the dominating force. I found myself agreeing with both that having (to excess) became a poisoning of the spirit, and there was a watershed moment in my life when what I thought was my spirit became broken, thus my quest to solve the dilemma.

To The Buddha, both “having” and “being” coexisted, but it was the illusion of a misunderstood sense of being (the ego) that overrode and blocked genuine “beingness.” Before dealing with the ego, there seemed to be no genuine “beingness” since this latter remained hidden beneath a perceptible ego, with its multiple dimensions of insatiable greed, simply because our awareness told us that “having” was “being,”—the more we had, the more real our sense of beingness. For me, the problem was, the more I had, the more corrupted I became, and the connection eventually imploded, leaving me with nothing but being, which was impossible to articulate since beingness was naked and without identification.

My life has been regulated by that basic principle of perseverance. I never understood the compelling force until I began my study of the mystics and enlightened psychologists. It is that force of self-determination that struggles to be free of bondage to things so dominating today. It is perseverance through thick and thin, good times and bad, never wavering from the desire to be free (as it did for me) that compels us all who don’t settle for things but demands for themselves self-actualization.

There’s a Youtube video of an interview with Erich Fromm. I encourage you to take the time and watch it, and as you do appreciate, this interview happened more than sixty years ago, yet the social and cultural conditions he described then are as real now than in 1958 (even more so).

Many people are off-put with mystical matters, thinking, “oh, that’s too unorthodox and not for me,” but everyone wants to understand themselves. Note that Fromm’s comments concerning people’s ideas concerning means becoming ends—A haunting premonition of today’s attitudes today. We have created a vacuous society that relies more and more on things and less and less on what matters—genuine beingness.

“As always, Erich Fromm speaks with wisdom, compassion, learning, and insight into the problems of individuals trapped in a social world that is needlessly cruel and hostile.”—Noam Chomsky.

Dreams of safety and a reality of folly.

Ignorance based fear.

A while ago I came across a greeting card, intended as encouragement, that said, “Don’t let reality get in the way of your dreams.” The implied message was that we should not be discouraged by events that can bring us down. 

There was something that troubled me about the message and started me thinking of ostriches with their heads buried in the sand having dreams that ignore what surrounds them.

In 2018 I reposted a title, The high price of choice: winning battles, losing wars (originally written four years earlier) and in that post, I spoke about our normal way of discerning reality, delusion, and how these relate to dreams. The conclusion of the post was—according to the Buddhist way of understanding reality—the vast majority of humanity imagines a reality in a distorted way that leads us to remain completely unaware of what is the ultimate reality. Consequently, we walk around in a dream state, all the while thinking our perceived world is reality.

Persuading anyone of this view is most difficult. Instead, we prefer fantasy to reality, and this dream state is very often based on fear with a consequence of adopting an attitude of denial, pretense, and unrealistic hopefulness. Our attitudes about COVID-19 is a perfect example. The viral pandemic has gone on far beyond our capacity for tolerance, and consequently many have adopted attitudes of wishful thinking, of the firm persuasion that the risk has passed and we can carry on without concern.

In the Nipata Sutra, there’s a conversation that occurred with the Buddha that said: 

“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? The Buddha replied: It is ignorance which smothers and it is 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.” 

Twenty-five hundred years later there remain clear examples of this dilemma.

• It is far easier to ignore advancing devastation of global warming and our contributions that exacerbate the growing threat. It is fear of suffering and losing one’s livelihood, or alienating those attached to vested interests with whom we align ourselves. It is likewise a hunger of desire that produces the willingness to toss caution to the wind and refuse to do our part to flatten the curve of viral spread. The desire for shortsighted greed in maintaining a destructive status quo traps us all in states of fear. 

• It is easier to ignore many aspects of family discord that corrupt one’s spirit and fills us with fear of suffering the loss of expected love that could come from a family, based on openness and acceptance. 

• It is easier to ignore our civic obligation to vote as an expression of our moral convictions than it is to risk having others discover our true values that conflict with theirs, and thus suffer the loss of facile relationships, which we reason are better than none at all. 

• It is easier to maintain a duplicitous relationship of pretense where we risk standing nakedly exposed than it is to risk being discovered and suffer loss from being ourselves.

Dreams built on the sands of ignorance are doomed and ensure our ultimate suffering in many ways, none of which we hope for. The very first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is that we all suffer—none can escape. And the second of these truths is the cause of suffering is attachment (e.g., craving) to the blowing sands of change. If there were only two noble truths then despair is the only possible result. However, The Buddha didn’t stop at two. The third is there’s a solution and the fourth directs us to the Eight Fold Path that leads to experiencing ultimate reality and the discovery of our always loved, and always loving true nature. When we arrive at that place of enlightenment we find that we were living, not just in a dream, but in a horrible nightmare that was, and is, based purely on an expected fear of suffering.

The cost of ignorance.

Some say we come into this world as a blank slate, upon which is

A high cost to pay.

 written the moment-by-moment experiences of mortal life. Nature vs. nature is the handle applied to this view. Accordingly, “nature” is the blank slate (with potential unrealized), and “nurture” is what is written, which leads to realizing (or not) that potential.

In Western philosophy, the concept of tabula rasa can be traced back to the works of Aristotle in his treatise De Anima (Περί Ψυχῆς, “On the Soul”). Consequently, given the Western roots, the philosophy continues to this day as an underpinning of Western psychology. This perspective presumes mortal life is a “one-and-done” proposition. One-shot (either for good or not) determines our destiny and where our soul goes following mortal death. 

On the other side of the world, however, an alternate perspective arose—karmic seeds—the essence of karma. When karma is dormant, it sleeps in this seed form. When it is latent, it exists as samskaras, embedded beliefs deep in the mind's unconscious zone, and as liminal fantasies encountered in dreams, hypnotic states, and meditation. When it is active, it is present in all seven levels, and we are aware of the force of craving or desire.

Whereas the Western view is a “one-and-done” proposition, the Eastern view is one of transmigration and reincarnation. In this sense, “life” isn’t purely mortal (which passes away—dust to dust) but is rather the “dust” plus immortality, with the soul being the vehicle within which the karmic seeds travel that predetermines unconscious vectors. Rather than “one and done,” this perspective is a “do-over” until we get it right. Thus, perfection is not an impossible, abstract, flawless mortal condition but is instead the end of attainment, stretching over eons.

These two perspectives produce very different senses of possibility. On the one hand, we believe that we are all flawed beings (and thus excessively tolerant of egregious behaviors) in need of divine salvation, or we’re in for a quick trip to a scorching place. The other perspective is one of infinite grace—recognizing that true life evolves as a learning experience that never ends until Nirvana is realized. The understanding of Nirvana is greatly distorted in the West. In simple to grasp terms, the word means the extinguishment of the three poisons—greed, anger, and ignorance associated with experiencing oneself as an ego. It is not some mythical place but rather a state of mind, achievable by realizing a person’s genuine nature hidden deep within the unconscious mind. 

By the time I arrived at the seminary and learned about tabula rasa, I had experienced a mind-blowing transformation that was not intellectual but rather intuitive. Then I had the advantage of a comparative frame of reference, and upon further exploration, I came to understand matters of my own mind I would never have come to given my own Western roots.

In seminary, I learned how to read the New Testament in the language originally used, that of Koine Greek: A Greek form no longer used but was used when the Greek Philosophers walked the earth. Obviously, Aristotle knew and used Koine Greek but must not have known the significance of the thorny crux of original sin—that everyone is flawed, in need of divine salvation, going back to the mythical sin of Adam and Eve. His lack of awareness concerning this dogma, of course, makes sense, but only when explored. Aristotle was born in 385 BCE and died 62 years later in 323 BCE. On the other hand, The Christian Bible canons (containing both the Old and New Testaments, wherein the creation myth existed) weren’t completed until the 5th century CE. Consequently, he knew nothing of the original sin's ideology, but he did understand the nature of a completed journey.

And how would I know that? Because of one single word (written in Koine Greek) that had to be one of transmigration instead of “one-and-done.” And the word in question is “perfection,” which, when written in Koine Greek, is teleos meaning “the end result.” Instead of using the word as a foundational principle of salvation, Aristotle saw perfection in a frame of nature, saying: “Nature does nothing in vain.” The philosophy itself suggests that acts are done with a foregone purpose in mind—people do things knowing the result they wish to achieve, and this in turn strongly suggest coming into this world, not as a blank slate but rather with seeds growing to a pre-determined (e.g., karmic seeds) conclusion.

The dogma of genetic flaw—going back to the creation story myth—has created countless tragedies over the vast expanse of time. The hope of ever achieving perfection (as a state of being without flaw in a “one-and-done” lifetime has caused untold billions to reach their end in a state of profound fear), all due to ignorance, the very thing The Buddha pointed out that was the heart of suffering:

“What is 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 that smothers,’ the Buddha replied, ‘and it heedlessness and greed, making the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.”

The fundamental “why” of suffering.

Everyone suffers, nobody wants to, and the vast majority of

The truth about suffering and change.

humanity wonders “why.” The short, answer is desire (or craving): We suffer because we crave something (or someone) and so long as we possess or achieve the object(s) of our desire, all is well, but nothing lasts forever, and when that object is no longer ours, we suffer. We attach our identities to many forms, and when those forms of dependency change for the worst, the experience of loss is nearly identical for us. In a very powerful way, we are yo-yo’s on the string of our dependencies, none of which we can control. And the principle reason we build dependent identities in the first place is that (1) we think there is such a thing as a lasting identity, and (2) we surely do not know who and what we are. If we did, then we would have no need to go searching for what we have already. Desire per se is not the problem. Attachment is.

But that’s only a surface answer. We desire many positive things, such as a desire to be free of suffering. We desire to love and to be loved. We desire joy, compassion, kindness, freedom, humility, and other desirable human qualities. Are we not supposed to desires such things? What would life be like without those positive qualities?

So the short answer is not enough since mortal life, albeit fleeting, would be grim without those qualities. To adequately explain the problem of suffering, it is necessary to not only understand the locus of suffering but to experience the opposite, which is joy. The easy part is the explanation. The hard part is the experience. Yet once we experience the two extremes, we must not attempt to trap and retain the experience. To do so would just be attaching ourselves all over again, with the same outcome. Trying to make permanent (and retain it) would then be like wiping excrements from our “arses” and then holding onto the soiled tissue.

One of the most preeminent Buddhist patriarchs (Nāgārjuna) summed up this challenge with what has now become known as The Two Truth Doctrine.

In Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the two truths doctrine explains an overarching transcendent truth (Dharma) of the two aspects that join all things together. The two aspects are dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and emptiness (śūnyatā). And here is the exposition by Nāgārjuna.

“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention (e.g., relative/conditional truth—my addition) and an ultimate (absolute/unconditional—my addition) 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.”

Delving into the essence of this doctrine can be daunting. However, when the dust is blown away, the answer appears in radiant splendor. Relative truth is based on the perception of what we can see, touch, feel, smell, hear, and think. That perception tells us we are all different, distinct and judgmentally, relatively worthy, or not. That seeming truth is the basis of our ordinary sense of self (e.g., ego). And so long as anyone understands themselves, and others, that way, there will be conflicts of dogmatic “rights” vs. tightly entrenched “wrongs.” War (of one form or another) will perpetuate, and suffering will be the outcome.

Critical to this perspective is the two-fold premises of śūnyatā/emptiness and (pratītyasamutpāda)/dependent origination—the combined principle saying that everything can exist only with an opposite dimension, and this truth transcends all changes. This way of understanding human nature, and conduct, is a given and applies to all changes. Consequently, conditional truth exists only because of unconditional truth. The core of this view is consciousness without conditions. While the shell—the container surrounding that core level, is capable of being perceived. The shell is conditionally objective in nature, and everything objective is always changing. Ultimately anything with an objective nature will die. All conditional, material things go through a life-cycle of birth, growth, decline, and death.

To arrive at the core we must break through the outer material shell. Yet it is this central core that destroys that shell of egotism, and thus enables us to experience transcendental existence. Anything that is unconditional is without differentiation, and therefore identical to things that seem different perceptibly. And neither the relative shell nor the unconditional core can exist apart from the other—they are a single, united, composite entity, just as a shell contains a nut-meat.

Consequently, the challenge appears to be illogical. It would seem that the awareness of the unconditional must emerge before we have the equipment required to perform the task. The central problem is, thus, how? The answer is that ultimate truth (that seems locked away and out of touch) must initiate the process of destroying the false object-based ego-fabrication from the inside/out as a baby turtle must peck away the outer encasement to be set free and live.

What appears above is an explanation but not the experience (which alone will set you free from suffering). Zen Master Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki 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.”

The experience alone will set you free from suffering, and arising simultaneously will be the realization that all of us are absolutely the same at the core. The core of unconditionally, transcendent truth and wisdom are eternally present all of the time, and we go throughout life unaware of our own capacity. As a result, we shape our lives—by unknowing design—to be yo-yo’s with waves of suffering and joy: a package deal that can’t be broken any more than magnets can be torn apart.

The core of pure, unadulterated consciousness just reflects like a mirror. It never dies; it doesn’t make judgments of good and bad; it eradicates the fear of dying since it is eternal, and at that deep level of being, we will know with certainty that there is serenity amid relative disaster. We—our eternal essence—can not die! It is only the outer shell that will die, and then we will be set free from a prison we didn’t know existed—the prison of the mind: The ultimate prison, within which all other forms of bondage exist. The greatest, the supreme task of life is to be set free from that prison. Then we will be transformed and our mind renewed.

But for sure, some may say, yes that may be so but what about the relative suffering of the world? Are we to simply “take the money and run” into seclusion with our new-found wisdom and security? And the answer to that question is the mission of a Bodhisattva—one who has experienced unconditional unity—the experience just depicted and chose to return into the fray to heighten awareness that suffering has a solution.

And what must never be ignored is the value of suffering itself: The motivation that compels us all to seek a solution. Bodhidharma pointed out that we must accept suffering with gratitude since when we experience it, only then are we compelled to reach beyond misery to find the way to bliss and eternal joy. He said, 

“Every suffering is a buddha-seed because suffering impels us to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can’t say that suffering is buddhahood.”

It is our natural, mortal tendency to resist what each of us considers the bad and savor only what we understand as the good. Still, the nature of relative life is constant change—here today, gone tomorrow and therein is the dilemma and the solution: We must recognize that nobody wants to awaken from a good dream. We all aspire to steer clear of bad ones.

In conclusion, I’ll share a poem of profound wisdom written by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (or simply Rūmī), the 13th-century poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. It is called The Guest House.

“Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

It is challenging to notice that a door closing, by definition, has another side that is known as a door opening. Closing and opening are the two haves of the same matter of growth. Life and death are to be seen like this. That is transcendent dharma.