In pursuit of happiness.

For some, yes. For others, maybe not.

“Just think happy thoughts,” is a prescription some attribute to longevity and a life fulfilled. It sounds appealing until you consider the disasters falling upon untold millions around the world who suffer 24/7 with no relief in sight. It is unimaginable such as these could, or would, find life fulfilling. But yet there is a certain allure to the notion of wearing blinders to the grief of a hurting world. That is more akin to the ostrich with a head buried in the sand than pursuing happiness while the world burns around us.

Yet we are surrounded with happy-thought-merchants and slogans by prophets of feel-good philosophies, from pulpits to pulp-fiction. Even The Buddha said, “You are what you think…” or so we’ve been led to believe. So how can this advice be justified in light of vast suffering? But did The Buddha really say that? When thoroughly examined with translations of the Dhammapada—from where the idea arose, and based on the original language, it comes out quite differently, with less navel-gazing and more in accordance with just action.

Then it reads like this:
“All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind,
And suffering follows
As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.
All experience is preceded by mind, 
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind, 
And happiness follows,
Like a never-departing shadow.”

There is, of course, a relationship between thoughts and actions, but these two don’t necessarily come about sequentially. On the contrary they often arise together like the proverbial chicken and egg. Acting badly, when influenced by a pure conscience, can and should lead to a mind of concern and just actions. And that, in turn, ought to further lead to a less corrupted mind. Jiminy Cricket can play a constructive role, unless we are Hell bent on following the other guy (the one sitting on the other shoulder).

Thinking happy thoughts surely plays a role in having a fulfilling life, but only when appropriate actions come first. Turning our backs on evil and injustice, while the world burns, ought not to end with happy thoughts.

Living in a world of “alternate-facts.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

The Impossible Dream

I admire intelligent people and try to profit from their words of wisdom. Shakespeare is one of my favorites, and one of his quotes is a “go-to” for me: “A rose by any other name smells as sweet.” 

Now for the topic of the day: The perfect is the enemy of the good. Many wise and famous people have said as much…

• Voltaire: “The best is the enemy of the good.”

• Confucius: “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

• Shakespeare: “Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.”

I know; I’m repeating myself and thus beating a dead horse, but I can’t escape my past (e.g., education and experience in the advertising business). While working within that industry, I learned an important and fundamental principle of persuasion: Frequency. 

The more a person hears the same message, the better the odds of breaking through barriers and making a difference. And this issue is important with significant barriers. And yes, I am aware of the psychology of the “Backfire Effect,”—The tendency for us all to dig in and defend an opinion that appears to be at odds with, and contradicts, opinion of our own. 

It is really tough to break through the barrier of tightly held dogmas for a simple reason: Egotism. It is an unfortunate aspect of human nature to resist admitting error since it seems to threaten our egos. That barrier is what keeps us all locked in, hunkered down, and ready to defend to the death (sometimes literally) our ideologies, preconceived notions, and biases. 

Those matters constitute adornments that define our egos: We become our ideas (or so it seems), and one of the most destructive, and instructive, ideas is this business of The perfect is the enemy of the good. That idea, without exception, leads to a lack of progress unless we can be persuaded that our pursuit is a Don Quixote quest of jousting with windmills and singing The Impossible Dream of perfection, or nothing at all.

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.

Toxicity and emotional septic systems.

When examined closely, there is a very curious correspondence between how a septic system works and different states of consciousness. More than likely city dwellers don’t know about septic systems since they’ve never lived in locals where city services aren’t provided. Neither did I until I moved to the country. 

So for these folks, a brief explanation is required. Let’s begin with what the word septic means. It is taken from the Greek that means “putrefaction” and has a couple of significant uses. Septic systems are located in the country where there are no city services to accommodate discharged waste from houses. This waste flows into a large tank that ideally contains adequate bacteria—microorganisms that break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. The “cleansed” water then spills over and runs into a leach field in the yard where the liquids evaporate. So long as there are adequate bacteria in the main tank, all goes well. But when the quantity and quality of the bacteria are depleted or weakened, the solids don’t break down which then spill over, enter the leach field, backs up into the main tank, and over time the tank fills up with too much solid waste and the system fails.

Our consciousness system is quite similar to a septic system. Think of repressed traumatic stress as emotional shit that is suppressed into our subconscious. The “bacteria” that is supposed to bleed off this build up are stress-reducing activities. Among the most valuable forms are breathing exercises, meditation (particularly Zen), guided imagery, exercise, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga and odd as it may seem: sex (which releases a hormone called oxytocin that acts primarily as a neuromodulator in the brain). 

Unless these activities become integrated into our every-day routines the emotional shit builds up, bleeds into our conscious state and gums up the works, just as occurs in a septic system where bacteria is compromised. The unfortunate result is a limited ability to handle minor, ordinary stress and this becomes a downward spiral that can end badly.

People who become gummed up with infection can, and do, die from septic shock. The death rate for those so infected is between 25-50% and results from a compromised immune system. Diseases such as peptic ulcers, cardiovascular disorders, migraines, and hypertension have been associated with persistent distress, with medical care professionals estimating that nearly 70% of doctor visits are directly related to ongoing stress. 

Septic shock (as well as these other consequences) is a serious condition that is indirectly related to accumulating stress. How that occurs works like this: Stress is an everyday experience that suppresses our immune systems. Why does stress buildup occur? Often times, in attempting to get on with necessary functioning, victims of trauma, suppress the experience(s) and related emotions into their subconscious where they leak out in the process of living. 

The capacity to handle building consequences of stress seems to be limited. And unless we work hard to develop lifestyles that allow us to vent emotions associated with building stress, we become both emotionally and physically putrefied which leads first to impacting our normal functioning and on to death.

The idea that our mental/emotional state and our physical state being separated is, fortunately, being recognized as an archaic notion and scientists are finally coming to realize that there is no such division. The mind/body is a single entity with a clearly defined feedback loop. What affects us emotionally, affects us physically and vice versa.

Hindsight is 20/20.

Looking in the rear-view mirror appears to be advantageous to looking ahead. The past tells you from where you’ve come, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you where you’re going. It may, however, enable you to see a vector pointing forward. But what if that backward view says, you’re on the wrong road and heading for an abyss? Robert Frost best conveyed this dilemma in his poem The Road Not Taken.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
And be one traveler, long I stood,
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay,
In leaves, no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Frost’s poetic journey into the unknown could be seen as foolhardy unless that vector was fraught with doubts about your life and where it suggested you were going next. That was certainly true in my case. As I looked back over 40 years, I could see abundant evidence that I was on the wrong path and had come to the inescapable conclusion that something was seriously wrong. But what? At that critical juncture—the dividing of ways forward, I felt without value and was in a state of existential crisis. When every indicator says to continue with fear and tribulation, leaping into the unknown isn’t as foolhardy as it might otherwise seem.

Without a clue, I was a ripe candidate for what I later learned was called the Southern School of Chan (sudden enlightenment)—The way began by Shenhui, a disciple of Zen Master Huineng back in China during the 7th century CE and developed into what is now Rinzai Zen. As I look back, taking the right fork in the road, seems providential, and maybe even coincidental. At that time, I didn’t even know about the roots of Rinzai or how it was different from Soto. It has taken me almost that long to become educated about that leap. All I knew then was what lay behind me was self-destructive, and unless I found a better path forward, my goose was cooked.

As it turned out, my teacher was the blend of both Soto and Rinzai, and his dharma name was Eido (the combination of Eisai/Yōsai Zenji and Dōgen Zenji)—The two Zen masters responsible for fostering Soto and Rinzai Zen in Japan. I can say, without any hesitation, that under his guidance, my life was transformed, and I came to experience my complete worth. 

It took me the first 40 to reach the point of sensing utter worthlessness, an instance to realize transformation, and the next 40 to mature. If there was ever proof of dependent arising, I would be it. 

In the 8th century CE, an Indian Buddhist philosopher by the name of Śhāntideva said that to be able to deny something, we first have to know what it is we’re denying. The logic of that statement is peerless. He went on to say, 

“Without contacting the entity that is imputed, you will not apprehend the absence of the entity.” The value of first knowing vacillating despair made it possible to see the firmness of fulfillment.

During the years following our meeting, Eido Roshi fell into disrepute for sexual misconduct. I can’t condone what he did in that respect, but I will be forever grateful for what he did for me. The founder of the Rinzai Zen (Lin Chi) used the idiom “True Man of no rank” because, within our ineffable, transcendent sphere, there is no conditional right nor wrong. Eido lived, as he taught—on two levels at the same time. The level that erred is the same level we all endure. That level is flawed, but Eido’s “True Man of no rank” was without blemish. And this is true for us all.

It is not up to me or anyone to judge and condemn his actions. The Buddha said, “Do not be the judge of people; do not make assumptions about others. A person is destroyed by holding judgments about others.”  Sage advise we should all take to heart.

Eido Roshi died February 18, 2018, at Shōgen-ji, Minokamo, in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and will be buried at Dai Bosatsu Zendo (where we met so many years ago, and the place of my transformation) on Tuesday, April 24, 2081. Gassho Eido!

Bitterness and Betterness

A friend sent me the meme to the right. I thought about the message and then, in honest reflection, realized something of worth: To move to Betterness without going through Bitterness is not only disingenuous but more than likely impossible. 

We are, after all, humans and rarely react to adversity gladly. That reaction takes some pretty advanced transformation and few indeed are able to get to that 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.”

In point of fact, it is precisely the process of anguish that compels transformation. This is a point we often overlook because we think suffering is something we can avoid if we stand on the sidelines while the suffering train leaves the station. No, there is great wisdom inherent in suffering because of this:

“Every suffering is a seed because suffering impels us to seek wisdom.”⎯Bodhidharma

Betterness is the residue of bitterness and we can’t get to betterness by avoiding the bitter pill of suffering. And even once we arrive at a better way, the memory of what led to bitterness remains a compelling force, unless of course, we enjoy suffering.

Thoughts on Self Nature.

Over the years, having read, studied, and experienced the voice of enlightened people and considering my own, I have attempted to capture, with words, the essential nature of humanity and the opposite: Our corrupted nature. 

The latter has produced an eternity of evil and destruction globally, while the former has countered evil with goodness. I have personally experienced the transformation of self-destructive thoughts, words, and deeds into genuine benevolence. I have likewise witnessed the attempt to feign piety that clearly stood as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. People of the world seem to know that transparent evil is undesirable, and consequently, they try to conceal the heart of darkness with a camouflage of pretended allure. 

This effort, like the opposite of transparency, is affirmed by those who, similarly, play the same game. The pretenders flock together, as do those who choose to reveal a purity of heart, having nothing to hide. These two forces oppose one another and speak a different language.

But God would not allow me such relief, but instead brought back to me the more excellent relief of that magnificent young lady in the dawning of adulthood. It was then I found my true nature of completion and realized, contrary to what I had come to believe, that I was the essence of internal love that she alone had seen in me a half-century before. It was unquestionably a miracle and so clearly the act of a loving God that it was unavoidable to not see what had been there all along, but lay hidden beneath that sense of self-hatred. “Then I knew fully, even as I am fully known,” and at last, I came to understand the mature language of the heart that joined my heart with hers around the core of a unified, indwelling presence of God.

It has been my experience that the language of love, compassion, and tenderness is impossible to articulate with words. In contrast, the language of pretense and deception comes in convincing forms more difficult to detect, except to those who, by nature, have passed beyond words and found their true self-nature. To the former, the task is one of mime. To the latter, the charge comes naturally. The communication challenge for humanity is to find a way to bridge that gap to inspire the minds of those still lost, to a higher standard beyond these surrogates of truth, much like a teacher with advanced education and knowledge must employ with children, not yet schooled. 

Having once been an unschooled child, a teacher knows both the language of a child and the language of the heart. The opposite is not valid. It is as the Apostle Paul stated in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, 

“…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.” 

Paul’s words, in essence,  are the same as the words of Meister Eckhart, the German theologian and philosopher who lived during the 15th century: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”

While still a child having little maturity and life experience, lost to the voice of others, I defined myself as incomplete and worthless according to the opinions of those who appeared to hate me, for reasons I failed to understand. The result was I conformed to unworthiness and attempted the impossible of persuading both myself and those who’s voice I valued, that I was worthy of their affection and love. In essence, I did not love myself because I placed more value or their opinions than on my inherent completeness.

It took many years for this self-deception to fully ripen into the unnatural result of pure self-hatred, so thorough that I found no reason to continue living. The only contradiction to this perceived sense of self-hate was the pure, unselfish love that poured out of a magnificent young lady in the dawning of adult life. And that love, where our hearts beat as one, was lost to my own naïve and innocent error, thus driving the stake of self-hatred and associated guilt even deeper. 

The ensuing suffering I then experienced continued up the birth of my daughter, who seemed to come as a gift from God to show me through experience how to recapture selfless love again. For 20 years she, and I grew together within the realm of unconditional love, and when she was gone, I returned once again to the hell of self-hatred left with the whisper of the lost love of both my first love and my daughter. Again, I found no reason to continue living, sought the ultimate release, and readied myself for bodily death.

At long last, I understand the meaning of selfless love. It does not mean to sacrifice and give up what is of value. It means instead to lose the sense of an artificial and perverted self, shaped by the opinions of others and affirmed by my desire to be loved, to cast off the unreal that hid the real. By losing the artificial, I found the truth. And this true self-nature is united as a single purity of heart, not only with my first love and my daughter but with the breadth of humanity. 

True love needs no interpretation or indirect translation thru the medium of words. It is pure, recognizable, and when my eyes finally opened, I knew what I had previously known only in part. Then, at last, I experienced what Eckhart had said, “The eye with which God sees me is the same eye by which I see God.” Or, as the native Indians have said, “Before we can truly understand another person, we must walk a mile in their moccasins. Before we can walk in another person’s moccasins, we must first take off our own.” 

The old self-hatred had to fall away before I could see the new Self-love, and when it did, I came to know that the ideas I had previously held of myself as a false self, alienated from others, unveiled a true Self that united with God and the world. 

Thus selfless love is a love that loses the artificial and is replaced with the real. Selfless love is Self-full love that echoes, in a circular fashion from one heart to another. What goes forth comes from within. Which in itself is already joined with a passion that indwells the heart of another. And when that happens, there is no separation between your true self and the true self of another. That, to me, is the definition of genuine compassion: to experience the love and agony of your beloved, and they of you. You become echoes of each other, and your hearts beat as one.

Surrendering from contrived actions.

Unmoving movement.

The wisdom of the Four Nobel Truths is present in understanding the causal relationship between attachment and suffering. All suffering arises from clinging and resistance. 

Bodhidharma spoke of this relationship in his Discourse on the Twofold Entrance to the Tao. He understood the Tao to be the animating essence of life and death. The Tao was Bodhidharma’s code for the primordial mind that lacks discrimination and opposition. Here is what he said:

“Everyone who has a body is an heir to suffering and a stranger to peace. Having comprehended this point, the wise are detached from all things of the phenomenal world, with their minds free of desires and craving. As the Scripture has it, ‘All sufferings spring from attachment; true joy arises from detachment.’ To know clearly the bliss of detachment is to walk on the path of the Tao. This is ‘the rule of non-attachment.’”

To be non-attached is to experience release—yielding heaviness and receiving lightness, like removing an obstruction from flowing water. Once removed, the water flows naturally and nourishes all things.

A key principle in realizing our oneness with the Tao is wu-wei, or “non-doing.” Wu-wei refers to behavior that arises from a sense of integration with our source, others, and our environment. Wu-wei is not motivated by a sense of separateness, or egotistical motives. It is the action that is spontaneous, effortless, and naturally reflects our connectedness. It is the experience of going with the grain or swimming with the current. 

The contemporary expression, going with the flow, is an excellent expression of this fundamental principle, which in its most basic form refers to behavior occurring in response to the flow of integrated life. Thus to engage wu-wei means to surrender or give oneself over to the ubiquitous, flow of a mind at peace: the birthplace of The Buddha. 

But importantly, it refers to an experience of getting out of the way and surrendering to the movement of something beyond our comprehension. Our body moves but it seems to function without us moving it. In the Platform Sutra, Dajian Huineng (the sixth and last patriarch of Chan) reported on a conversation between two monks regarding the movement of a flag. One said the wind moved the flag. The other said no, it was the flag moving independently of the wind. Huineng said you’re both wrong. It was the mind/Tao that moved. When the primordial mind moves We remain silent and unmoving.

Lao Tzu expressed this yielding as giving up and getting. He expressed wu-wei this way in stanza nineteen of the Tao Te Ching:

“Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,
And it will be a hundred times better for everyone.
Give up kindness, renounce morality,
And men will rediscover filial piety and love.
Give up ingenuity, renounce profit,
And bandits and thieves will disappear.
These three are outward forms alone; they are not sufficient in themselves.
It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one’s true nature,
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire.”

The Deep

The easiest thing in the world is to get swept up in the waves of adversity. During such times it is nearly impossible to keep your cool and not panic. 

Over time it is quite possible to learn how to use these waves like a surfer uses a surfboard. It is unreasonable to think we’ll ever find times without waves—It is the nature of life that they come.

Even during tumultuous times, there is calm and tranquility just a few meters beneath the surface. In fact, waves are just the result of the ocean calm being pulled by external forces and without being connected to the deep there could be no waves. The deep and waves are two aspects of what makes the ocean what it is.

Our human challenge is to find that deep place of calm so that during the storms of life we won’t be swept away.

If it walks like a duck…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Complete Release— Number 1

The first of the Four Noble Truths acknowledges that during every person’s life, they will experience suffering. While this may seem like a negative assessment, it is honest and realistic, neither negative nor positive. By studying the dharma, we come to understand that there is a causal link between suffering and attaching to mortal life. We also learn that by breaking this attachment, suffering is undone, and life is transformed.

The problem is that attachment, of all forms, has another causal link to identity. By misunderstanding who we are, we set off a cascading chain reaction involving ignorance, greed, and anger. When we see ourselves as independent and separate beings, we create further delusions, which reinforces even more. 

The ego is imaginary and fabricated through our thoughts. These thoughts further imagine an imaginer, which only has value and worth by attaching to fleeting life, like a leach sucking blood to survive. Whatever we choose to identify with becomes our basis of joy and sorrow. 

We may imagine that our worth depends upon other temporal entities: another person, a job, status, wealth, or anything conceivable, but nothing of a phenomena nature lasts or conforms to how we wish it to be. We may have once loved a person deeply, but they, and we, temporally change into someone we no longer love, and nobody lives forever. 

When change or death comes, we experience sorrow. But this base delusion (and the presumption of attachment which flows from it) produces greed and possessiveness. Since mortal life is ever-changing, loss inevitably occurs, which then activates anger, creating lousy karma and endless cycles of samsara—greed, anger, and ignorance—all cascading from misidentifying.

This dilemma is nothing new. People have forever wrestled with the same issue before the Buddha and ever since. This is and has been, the battle of two opposing Titans—one the ego (the illusion of identity) vs. the seeming champion, the true SELF. 

Until The Buddha, the SELF appeared to be winning the contest. But this victory turned out to be possible only by the ego committing suicide, which it is extraordinarily reluctant to do. Additionally, any sort of identity (e.g., self or SELF) must have defining properties. So, where is the transforming power to be found?

I began this series on surrender concerning complete release, which I said would be reserved for a later discussion. The time has come, and I want to start the ball rolling with a reflection on thinking. When we think, by definition (defined by dependent origination), we are the thinker. Thinking and a thinker are directly linked. It would be nonsensical to say that thinking comes from nowhere. Thinking and thinkers arise as a single entity, just like a mother is only a mother with a child. These are interdependent entities. One can’t exist without the other.

When there is no thinking, no thinker exists. But when we don’t think we don’t just disappear. Therefore we are not the thinker; otherwise, we would disappear when thinking ceases. It is clear that we/what are independent of both thought and the thinker, which seems to defy the premise of dependent origination. 

Interdependent existence, you’ll recall from an earlier post, are the two legs of a Ladder—the two discriminate aspects of form, one part defining the other (good/bad, in/out, etc.). When we imagine ourselves, there is an image of a self (or SELF), which, when we see clearly, is just a thought. This thought (or idea) is linked to an imaginary self, which we refer to as the thinker who thinks thoughts, but this can’t be true. 

If it were true, then we would disappear when we stop thinking. Logic cancels this connection. So if this imaginary self is the product of thinking, who (or what) is the independent being who jump-starts (originates) the thinking process? A car doesn’t move without a driver (at least not yet). Who’s the driver? 

The answer, as strange as it may seem, takes us to the Wall— Essence. The Heart Sutra says that form is emptiness; emptiness is form. These are the two legs of life that are irrevocably joined together. Two-legged ladders must lean against a wall or fall down. The metaphor works perfectly. It would logically follow that if we are not the imaginary self, then we must be the opposite: the non-imaginary self, which has been known since before the time of The Buddha as the independent who that we indeed are. The independent who thus seems to be essence—the true SELF (with no identifying properties). But don’t jump there quite yet.

Read the following quote carefully from Bodhidharma, the acknowledged father of Zen. He said this about motion: 

“The Buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind is not outside the material body of four elements. Without this mind we can’t move. The body (by itself) has no awareness. Like a plant or stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It’s the mind that moves.” 

Huineng, the sixth patriarch of Ch’an, reached the exact same conclusion upon hearing the Diamond Sutra recited and realized enlightenment. I encourage you to take the time to read, carefully, this text. And when you do, please observe this: “...when a bodhisattva gives rise to the unequaled mind of awakening, he has to give up all ideas.”  

There is an extremely subtle twist to Huineng’s enlightenment that may not register unless we slam on the brakes and reflect. One day Huineng heard two monks arguing about the movement of a flag. One said the wind moved the flag. The other said that the flag moved independently of the wind. Huineng said to the monks that neither the wind nor the flag was moving. Instead, it was the mind that moved. Was Huineng saying that the flag was being controlled by some extraterrestrial force, or that he projected his mind psychically to wave the flag? Hold the question.

In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra — Chapter Five, the Buddha says (when referring to his Adamantine Body, which means having the hardness of a diamond—unchanging), “It is neither action nor fruition (e.g., cause and effect). It is not one made, not one that dies. It is ‘no-mind;’ It is one not countable; It is the All-Wonderful, the One Eternal, and the one not presumable. It is not consciousness and is apart from the mind (e.g., transcendent to both). And yet it does not depart from the mind. It is a mind that is all-equal. It is not an ‘is,’ yet it is what is ‘is.’ There is no going and no coming, and yet it goes and comes.”

Elsewhere in this Sutra, the Buddha spoke of the non-self as the imaginary self, otherwise known as an ego. This non-self is interdependent and is linked to thought, which is vaporous: a mirage, which seems very real. That part fits perfectly within the box of dependent origination. Within this box, the non-self imagines itself using the tool of imagination, which further reinforces the artificial sense of reality. It is the Matrix, which I spoke about earlier. However, this does not explain Bodhidharma’s mind or our question, who’s driving the car? 

What animates our being? Does our being animate itself, like a flag waving in the wind? Bodhidharma says no. Our being, without mind essence, is just like a plant or stone. That would be like a car, which drives itself without a driver.

So with that pregnant issue hanging in mid-air, we’ll take a break here and pick up tomorrow with concluding remarks.