The lens through which we see the world

Ego, by Hsiao-Yen Jones

Bias; vested interests; preconceived ideas; discrimination: All forms of distortion that shape our view of the world and our selves. Birds of a feather flocking together against birds with different feathers, but underneath the feathers, all just birds with no defining labels. What do you have when you get rid of feathers? Birds. What do we have when we get rid of our delusions? The real you and me: all humans, with no defining properties: A true man, without rank.

What we are not ordinarily aware of is that every single person is looking at life through the filter of a fabricated artifact that is continuously distorting our view of the world around us. Beneath the false remains the true, but to get through what lies beneath, we have to plunge through subconscious fears. Most recently, I wrote about this subconscious barrier in a post Dreams and delusions.

We think highly of ourselves and thus look down on others not like us. We reason that our views are right, so others must be wrong. We adore accolades, so we play to the adoring audiences. When seen through this egotistical artifact, we do so unaware of our bias and assume that our rose-colored glasses shade the world. We are the center of us, and the world conforms to our image. Love ourselves: love the world. Hate ourselves: hate the world. 

But first, we must come to know ourselves; The one beneath the lie. Without that awareness, we delude ourselves with thoughts of superiority (the opposite or somewhere in between), believing we wear the clothes of an emperor. Who is this self? Is that the one we are genuinely: The one that is dependent upon the votes of birds like us, who vacillates on the whim and opinions of others; who needs reinforcement to be whole and complete? Or the self, that is already whole, eternal, steady, loved, and loves? The ego needs everything because it is always incomplete and unreal. Our true self is eternally whole, complete, and needs nothing. In the 14th century a mystic by the name of Meister Eckhart said this concerning how one head, stands in comparison to another:

“Humanity in the poorest and most despised human being is just as complete as in the Pope or the Emperor.” And we know what sort of clothing the Emperor wears—none.

Fundamental humanity is not flawed in any way. It is complete already. The flaw is what stands in the form of our human birthright that puts one head above another. The ego is the archenemy of our authentic, united selves, and God. But at the ground level of our humanness, we are equal and good, whether Pope, Emperor, Buddha, or an average person. Remove the enemy, and our unity shows through.

Zen philosophy?

Philosophy is oftentimes regarded as an artificial covering, at best-reflecting approximations. One Webster definition is “...a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means.” Another is “...a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought.” 

To many—especially Westerners—Zen is seen as an esoteric philosophy, with little relevance to everyday life. This view hasn’t changed much since The Buddha walked the earth 2,500 years ago and perhaps for a good reason. Theories about life rarely match reality. They may be useful in limited mapping situations, but it is impossible to develop a theory or philosophy which fits life perfectly.

Theories and philosophies should always be measured against the standard of reality. Knowing something as a bone-embedded fact always wins the day against speculation. The proof of such comparison thus comes down upon how reality is understood. Are our senses to be trusted? Do we see clearly (without bias or distortion)? Do we know what is real? Seeing from within a cloud of obscurity is not the same as a vision on a clear day, and for this reason, the practice of Zen is concerned with clearing away the ego-mind to reveal our untarnished original mind. In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmat spoke about these matters and said...

“To philosophers, the conception of the Tathāgata-womb seems devoid of purity and soiled by these external manifestations. Still, it is not so understood by the Tathāgatas—to them, it is not a proposition of philosophy but an intuitive experience as real as though it was an amalaka fruit held in the palm of their hand.”

The Tathāgata-womb is self-evident. The Sanskrit word used is Tathāgatagarbha, which is rendered as the Buddha womb. The term Tathāgata means—one who has thus gone (Tathā-gata) or one who has thus come (Tathā-agata), the import is one who has transcended the ordinary view of reality. Is this birth-place in some distant place? Zen teaches that it is ubiquitous; there is no coming nor going since it is impossible to be where it is not.

This is, of course, a difficult thing to embrace. When we think of the exemplary and pure nature of a Buddha, and compare this incomparable state to our own, it seems impossible to accept that we too contain this nature (e.g., Buddha-Nature) but that is what Zen teaches. But it is one thing to think such a purity resides in us, as a philosophical consideration and quite another to experience it intuitively. When the latter occurs, all doubt goes away, and you are transformed forever. Then only do you truly know yourself as one who looks into their own heart and finds eternity.

In this sense, Zen is not a philosophy. It is opposed to speculation and philosophy of all kinds. The preeminent focus of Zen is to intuitively experience the purity and clear vision that comes from our very own being. And when that happens, reality is seen in a radically new way.

The trajectory of “Birds of a feather.”

Some time ago, I was listening to a radio broadcast concerned with the future of journalism. While novel and informative, the underlying theme was disturbing regarding where the world is moving from an information perspective. It is news to nobody that journalism, as we’ve known it, is in jeopardy due to the emergence of digital media and social networking groups, such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.

A recent study conducted by The Pew Research Center revealed that 68% of the American Public now get their news from such social media sources even when they don’t trust what they read. Why? Because (1) it is free, and (2) they trust their “flock friends” more than traditional media forms, nearly all of which are going belly up without charging a fee to read digital versions of the news.

This trajectory is a real threat to the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The trend is a threat for two obvious reasons, and one not so obvious. The first obvious threat arises from a simple financial principle: Journalism conducted by unpaid journalists is highly distorted, suspect, and influenced by common coin biases of their selected pod. Good journalists don’t work pro bono. They, like every other professional of any industry, are highly paid or should be. It is next to impossible to compete with quasi-journalists who offer their opinions for free to those who are unwilling to pay for services rendered.

The second reason is related to the first: Distrust of traditional media sources and trust of “Birds of a feather,” in other words, “friends” who cluster together in opposition to other birds with opposing views and beliefs. Anyone who has spent time in social media discovers this growing tendency to cluster into pods of like-minded friends who reject the opinions of other birds that don’t share the group ethos. Those tossed out of one pod join another with an opposing ethos, and this phenomenon is running rampant, dividing our population into tribal groups, none of whom are willing to entertain different perspectives.

The third, not so obvious reason? Alienation. This problem is evolving around the world, making null and void the assurances of our First Amendment. Freedom of Speech is a precious right but means nothing when such freedom evolves into a proliferation of tribal groups who sing harmoniously to choir members ONLY. Any student of history will quickly discover that control of the media is a fundamental aspect leading to totalitarianism and was one of the preliminary measures established by Joseph Goebbels  Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany, and fundamentally not dissimilar to attempts to universally control the message. If this attempt to control what the public needs to hear was limited to the U.S., it would be bad enough but is, unfortunately, happening around the world at present.

This clustering tendency is nothing new and is illustrated within a religious sphere by counting the thousands of religious sects or denominations that have evolved, regardless of religion. All religions have their divides that have occurred by way of this clustering inclination amongst we humans, and results in close-minded, “my way or the highway” dogmatic anchors that define the pod.

The radio broadcast referenced at the beginning of this post presents one person’s solution to the journalistic dilemma: Selling “news” based on the differing ethos’ of different pod groupings. The originator of this solution argues, convincingly, that people will not pay for what they need to hear but will pay for what they want to hear. From one point of view, this makes sense: Who amongst us all is eager to listen to people who are closed-minded to our perspectives and just want to argue their dogmatic point of view? Virtually nobody, which is the driving force undergirding this inclination. THAT is not news. It is entertainment and confirmation bias. 

And the result? That too ought to be apparent: Dogma, religious, or not. Everyone loses when we don’t differentiate between news and entertainment. And without realizing it (the third not so obvious reason) this lack of discernment leads to totalitarianism. Freedom of speech does not ensure freedom when we give way to joining political spheres who sing only their “tweets,” as song-birds of a feather.

The high price of choice: winning battles, losing wars.

My way or the highway?

The boundary line between sleep and wakefulness is anything but clear. Ordinarily, we think we know the difference. When sleeping, sometimes we dream, and it isn’t clear. But when we wake up, we say to ourselves, “Oh, that was just a dream.”  

Dreams can seem very real and sometimes terrifying. Research has shown that between 25% to 50% of people die while asleep. While not conclusive, evidence suggests that little difference exists between such things as heart rate, blood pressure, anxiety states, and stress hormones produced due to wakeful states of stress and sleep states of stress. The body doesn’t distinguish. Our reasoning is that one state (wakeful state of consciousness) is real, while the sleep state is not. 

To fathom the Buddhist understanding of highest, or ultimate reality, it is necessary to come to terms with the basis of differentiation. And when this is explored the conclusion is that the vast majority of the human race is never awake but is instead in a state of perpetual sleep, not knowing the difference between reality and unreality. 

To unlock this mystery, we need to examine this matter of discrimination. Why do we see things as mutually discrete and different? Isn’t it sufficient that they appear that way? Things are different, at least perceptually. We see, smell, taste, feel, hear, and imagine them as being different and mutually discrete. How could it be otherwise? That alone should justify discrimination—shouldn’t it?

According to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, this is seeing only one half of the picture—and not the important half—of reality which is transcendent to perception. There is a state of consciousness, referred to as the highest (or ultimate reality) where all differences do not appear. It is not a state based on normal means of perception but is rather experienced intuitively. It is the root consciousness from which all perception arises. This state is not determined logically, accessed philosophically, or described by words or other symbols. It’s discerned directly—by-passing all conditions which restrict and limit reality. In this sense, it could be said that discrimination both exists and it doesn’t exist.

At the level of conditioned, mutually discrete life, which we routinely enjoy, there is no question that discrimination (e.g., differentiation) exists. Objectively things are perceived to be different, and it is impossible to avoid making judgments and expressing preferences about these objective forms. And from the basis of unconditional, the highest reality, it is equally clear that discrimination does not exist. 

At this level, all objective forms simply don’t exist. So, on the one hand, we perceive differences, make preferences, fight over such differences, and are unavoidably trapped by the choices we make—as a monkey reaching into a jar with a narrow neck to latch onto a piece of food with a closed fist. The only way the monkey can become released is to let go of the food, relax the fist, and withdraw its hand. On the other hand, we can see that there is ultimately only unity where discrimination-based choice is pointless. If there is no difference (and we imagine that there is), we live in a dream world, believing that differences are real, making choices based on that imaginary dream, and paying the karmic price.

While this view of reality may seem strange, it is eminently practical. When we see responsive, feed-back violence occurring around us, we need to take a step out of the fray and notice that no one is winning. That should be our clue to which state of consciousness is prevailing. It doesn’t necessarily mean we can step out of the unreality of our realm of perception and into the ultimate realm, but it will alert us to the price we will pay by continuing to fight battles and lose the ultimate war. 

Each side can justify retributive responsiveness. The question is always, who started it, and how do differences fit with our preconceived convictions—who took the first shot? This line of argument can be (and often is) taken all the way back to the beginning of beginningless time. In The Lanka, the Buddha, correctly points out that in the realm of ultimate reality there is no cause and effect which functions within ordinary, objective life. Cause and effect, like all of ordinary life, is an illusion with roots in our mind. One way leads to a never-ending cycle of winning battles, losing wars, suffering, and the other leads to compassion, harmony, and tranquility. The choice is always before us, and we must accept the benefits and consequences of our choices. Karmic results are unavoidable in the realm of one opposed to another. While asleep, we are all monkeys; trapped by our grasping.

“Vision without execution is hallucination.”—Thomas Edison

Forwards or backward?

Two related issues: Vision and execution. One assumes vision comes first with execution following. There is, however, the opposite notion: First execution then the vision. This is clearly the difference between engineering and reverse engineering. The common coin presumption is that engineering depends on vision, and without that nothing can be created.

What would the other way around look like? It happens all of the time. Someone finds something and wonders, “How was this thing made?” Then begins a disassembly process, piece by piece, until the investigator finds out how the thing was made in the first place. But, you might say, “Yes but someone had to engineer the thing in the first place in order for reverse engineering to take place.” 

True enough, but the one doing the engineering doesn’t necessarily need to be another human being. If that was the case there would be no such thing as the science of physics, biology, or any other area of scientific investigation. Nature is full to overflowing with marvelous things being made, but not by humans.

So why am I pointing out this relationship? And what does this have to do with spirituality (which is the central focus of my writing)? The short and simple answer is because nothing is more concrete than a transforming, spiritual experience whether or not it can be explained, which it can’t. Everything I have been writing about for the past 20+ years is an attempt to do the impossible: To explain an ineffable spiritual experience that utterly transformed my life. An accurate explanation can’t be done, but I try nevertheless. It is akin to dancing around a fire without being consumed.

It took me nearly 30 years of concentrated study beyond that life-changing experience to reverse engineer it, and the best I have ever been able to do is like pointing to the light of the moon. The moon is real, not a hallucination, but it is not my finger either.

The dream of me.

Have you ever found yourself so engrossed in a movie that your emotions reacted to pure fantasy? On one level you know what you are seeing are just images from a camera projected onto a screen. On that level, there is a disconnect between what you know is true and what you imagine is true. Or it may be something you see on TV but the response is the same—disconnect. And likewise the same happens in a dream: The dream seems real and we react as though it were.

As rational people, we know the difference between fantasy and reality (or so we think) and yet here we are getting the two all mixed up. How can that be explained? What we don’t know when we see a movie or watch something on TV, is if any of it is actually real. For all we know it might be a hoax or a mirage. It could be a reality TV show like the Apprentice or some other made-up fantasy. The dream is another story. Yet we only know it is a dream once we wake up and then we say to ourselves, “That was just a dream.” Has it ever occurred to you that you are just waking up from one dream into another dream that we take as real? I have wondered about that very thing and recently listened to a podcast on Radiolab that explained this conundrum. You can listen for yourself by going here. And after listening, if you do, then read this post.

Forever after you’ll think about thinking in a very different way. Perhaps then you’ll realize whatever occurs in your mind is just a story you tell yourself.

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.

“May the flawed prevail over the wicked.”

It may very well be that I’m writing this post for nobody but myself. Previously I participated in various social media sites that helped to spread my words until I learned my personal information had been hacked, and I withdrew. 

Undoubtedly this vastly reduced my readership, but the price just became too high. Consequently, here I sit writing concerning a matter that is important to me, and hopefully, others who may never read these words.

So what’s the burning issue that draws me this morning? The headline gives you a clue, and a part of my message came from columnist Kathleen Parker, writing for the Washington Post—a publication I admire, to which I subscribe—most recently about this issue of something that’s been on my mind for quite some time. Obama expressed the idea more eloquently than I in his speech following Katrina. He said, “Nobody gets to hold the American economy hostage over their own ideological demands.” My rendition of that idea is one of balance: We ought not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If that seems obscure, I’ll put it in different terms: Who amongst us meets the criteria of absolute perfection (except, of course, the hypocrite who lies not only to others but most importantly him or her self)?

Far too often in today’s world, we ignore the majority of good a person does and paint them with a brush of minority flaws. Maybe that’s what sells newspapers: The sensational and lurid, but it ought not to be what defines a person. What lies in a person’s heart and soul should count for more than their errors of execution. What leads us down this path to Hell is the flawed ideology of dogmatic inflexibility and self-righteous denial of our own flaws and the eager rush to judge others with a yardstick that measures only the impossible. When we toss aside the major good and dwell on the minor exceptions, we establish a standard that we will one day regret.

“May the flawed prevail over the wicked.”

The Power of Deception.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Zen of Investing

Image by Wagner T. Cassimiro "Aranha" via Flickr

The word “bias” has a variety of connotations and denotations. The normal understanding is a connotation of prejudice—one head higher than another. We have used this word in a different way to convey the meaning of predisposition which emanates from an impacted point of view—having a closed mind. The source of a definitive stance is always in question. The source may be a rumor, allegiance, indebtedness, a firm belief, or ego-centric vested interests. 

Any of these may tilt bias one way or another. Someone who is unswerving can appear to be a tower of strength and trustworthiness. But this characteristic can backfire when the source of their conviction slides away.

Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom: A tall order which demands a reexamination of bias. Being serene is the result of wise action taken in courage. We all have cloudy crystal balls for seeing the future so risk is always a factor. It is questionable whether there is much serenity on Wall Street nowadays and the connection to unwise action is clearly evident. 

I doubt that my grandmother had Buddhism in mind when she made that needlepoint of the Serenity Prayer but it is the best way to ensure serenity because it strikes the moderate Middle Way between the extremes of biased presumptions—Not permanent nor completely fluid. Perhaps Wall Street needs a Zen of investing.

Our world has always been transient but the speed of transience today is rapidly increasing to the point that the issue of bias and predispositions is coming into question. The downside of this rapid change is the increase in a sense of instability which can go either way: Either to increase clinging or to release it. The upside is that it forces the issue of our premises and demands that we reconsider our bias. What may have worked in the past may no longer work and this can have the positive result of finding alternative solutions (but not facts).

Adversity is normally thought of as something to avoid. But adversity tells us what to fix. It is like the warning light that switches on to tell us that we need to add oil before our engine locks up. And one area that almost always needs to be tuned is our biases, which when linked to the presumption of permanence can be disastrous. 

And in the opposite direction, a presumption of total fluidity can keep us locked into fear and inaction. The ideal is to have the wisdom to know what can be changed and when to act. The rapidly changing ups and downs of the stock market demonstrate the result of greed and fear, the two-sided monster of attachment. 

The Man in the moon

I have a habit each evening of sitting on our deck after dinner, feeling the gentle evening air and watching the phases of the moon. 

Once every month, the moon reaches fullness, and every time it comes, we can see the man in the moon. Oh, I know: there really isn’t a man in the moon, and you likewise know there isn’t. We’re sophisticated people and live in a sophisticated time. Scientific tools and methods have been with us all of our life. So we know what people who lived long ago didn’t know, and chuckle when we think how deluded they were.

Did you know that many “sophisticated people” in earlier times were convinced that there really was a man in the moon? Some people said that the man was banished to the moon for some crime. Christian lore commonly held that he was the man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath and sentenced by God to death by stoning in the book of Numbers. Some Germanic cultures thought he was a man caught stealing from a neighbor’s hedgerow to repair his own. There is even a Roman legend that he was a sheep thief.

We laugh at such silliness, but are we able to laugh at our own absurdity? Now we say things like “Those people who see things differently from us are not authentic (fill in the blank.)” You could use the label of Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, atheist or any other birds of a feather. The question isn’t how we label ourselves. The meaningful question is how we don’t label ourselves, but we do love our labels. We wear them like badges of superiority, distinguishing ourselves from others. The famous Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: “Humanity in the poorest and most despised human being is just as complete as in the Pope or the Emperor.” And we know what sort of clothing the Emperor wore—none.

We need to consider the moon, not if there is a man in it. Nobody was born with a label. Nobody will die with a brand. But in between birth and death, we become inordinately concerned with labels and forget about our own authentic human nature. Fundamentally the moon is the moon. Fundamentally a human is a human. If you want to stick a man in the moon, then we can all have a good laugh. We don’t laugh, however when we stick a label on us. Too bad, because that also is a good joke.

Surrendering from ourselves.

I’ve never met a person who said, “Today I will conduct myself in a negative and self-centered way.” On the contrary, the odds are extremely high that each of us conducts our lives according to certain ideological criteria, whether implicit or explicit. Everyone thinks they are right and others who don’t share their perspectives are thus wrong. The polarity of ideologies has never been more extreme than now and is ensuring our mutual undoing.

To plumb the depths of this, we need to consider the words of Krishnamurti. Do you align yourself with a particular political party? Nowadays it is hard not to. Or in a different vein, do you think of yourself as a man or a woman? Or how about belonging to one religion or another? Lots of variations on the theme of differences but Krishnamurti has a point worth our consideration: 

When we identify ourselves in contrast to others we unknowingly adopt an attitude of unintended opposition and violence. And nobody takes favorably to opposition and will then meet opposition with opposition.

Some time ago I had a friend who had grown up in the Soviet Union and was thus subjected to unspeakable oppression. He detested every idea that might align with socialism and defended his positions with conviction and passion. Many times we engaged in friendly discussions and we both came to the same conclusion: If each of us had grown up with the experiences and influences of the other, we both would have very different points of view. 

In that case he would understand my perspective and I would understand his. Neither of us came into this world with any point of view and when we die our points of view will die with us, but in between birth and death we remain adamant in our convictions. Our views were entirely the result of what we had experienced, not who we were.

Is there any way of circumventing this dilemma, of bypassing such fleeting bias? In our ordinary way of thinking it doesn’t seem possible, but one of the greatest thinkers in human history had a solution, which is not routinely understood, due to translation problems. According to Jesus, two things are required to solve this problem: dying to ourselves and then practicing unconditional love (the kind without discrimination).

The first supporting scriptural reference comes from the book of Matthew: “He who finds his life shall lose it: and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it.”[1] That passage (as many other translations) doesn’t express well in English. The English word here for life, in the original Greek, was psuchē, which has various meanings, the most prominent of which is soul, later to be translated as a psychic image of self, in other words, the ego—our idea of who we are separate and apart from others.

The second reference comes from the book of John: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”[2] Again, there is that word life/psuchē. This is perhaps the most butchered and misconstrued expression in the entire New Testament. The literal meaning, contrary to popular belief, is surrendering your psyche (ideas) for your friends constitutes the greatest love.

The question is simply this: what is the prerequisite to surrendering our ideas in order to express the greatest love? The answer is obvious: Letting go of our ideas about who we think we are. It’s a two-step process: once we become clear that we are not an idea (ego) that is hostile to others we can then release ourselves from the death-knoll of polarized thinking. Only then is it possible to have an open mind and be released from the prison of inflexible dogmas. 

In such a case we can conduct ourselves as the Buddha said at the conclusion of the Kalama Sutra: “… after thorough investigation and reflection, you find to agree with reason and experience, as conducive to the good and benefit of one and all and of the world at large, accept only that as true and shape your life in accordance with it. Do not accept any doctrine from reverence, but first try it as gold is tried by fire.” 

In the end, spiritual insight has a most positive, practical and profound impact on personal and world affairs.

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[1] Matthew 10:39
[2] John 15:13

Coming and going.

“The Master arrives without leaving, sees the light without looking, achieves without doing a thing.”—Lao Tzu: TaoTe Ching

The quote above has special significance to anyone who has unveiled their true nature. And I use the term “unveil” instead of achieving with intent. Indeed our true nature, for all practical purposes, is buried deep within and must be uncovered. It never comes and never leaves. 

Until that moment our sense of self is anything but permanent. It comes and it goes, riding the waves of good times and bad, dangling on a string of judgments. The importance of the principle is of such significance that it represents a pillar among various Buddhist sects in metaphorical terms of guests and hosts. If you Google “Zen, guest and host” you’ll end up with more than 780,000 hits all of which examine the matter from every conceivable direction.

The essence, however, is very simple even though the means of “achieving without doing” can boggle the mind with infinite permutations. In essence “The Master” is your very own mind; the one that sees without looking. The impediment to unveiling this master is a mind that is seen, not the mind that sees. The Buddha taught that our true mind can’t be seen, it can only be experienced through samādhi the awakening of our never-leaving body of truth. While difficult to explain, when awakening occurs there is no turning back. Only then we know what before was only a figment of our imaginations.

When we think of truth we imagine matters in rational terms; the product of our mind that is seen. While this distinction may appear esoteric it is central to genuine awakening—Hard to ascertain but incredibly powerful when experienced. The difference between the two was laid out by Nāgārjuna in his doctrine of two truths:

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

Nāgārjuna taught that “true things” exist fundamentally and can be perceived as such by the senses, while “false things” do not exist as they are perceived. The difference? Truth conceived conventionally keeps ultimate truth concealed. Things appear to our logical mind to contain an independent, self-nature, that is flawed by bias and preconceived ideas, but in his Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā), Nāgārjuna provided a logical defense that all things are empty of such a nature but are instead interdependently related. Even emptiness itself has no inherent, independent self-nature. 

Consequently, what we imagine is a fabrication. While the rational mind of relative truth is necessary to lead us to ultimate truth, so long as we do not let go and see clearly, we will forever be in bondage. It is the experience of awakening to our true nature (not the appearance) that sets us free to enjoy the fruits of the master that never leaves.

To see ourselves truly.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns coined the phrase, “Ahh, to see ourselves as others see us...” and this way of seeing is indeed valuable. However, there is a more valuable way: To see ourselves as we truly are beyond the ordinary lens of perception. What is this strange way?

The Lankavatara was allegedly the sutra most revered by Bodhidharma: the father of Zen. Among the myriad sutras, the Lankavatara lays out the essential challenge inherent in the human dilemma. Here we see how the matter of perception leads us into error. The problem is that the world (including our thoughts) is perceived by-way-of discriminate forms, and we remain oblivious to the one doing the perceiving (ourselves). 

We see shapes and forms configured in different ways before us. We hear sounds tinkling or loud. We smell different aromas, and through this manner of distinguishing differences, we form judgments of like and dislike, clinging to the first and resisting the latter.

This process is essential and can’t be avoided, but unless we become aware—deeply aware—of the indiscriminate perceiver (who is beyond all color and form), we become mesmerized and enslaved by the dance of differentiation, all the while creating havoc for ourselves and others. The sutra says the result of this ignorance are minds which “burn with the fires of greed, anger and folly, finding delight in a world of multitudinous forms, their thoughts obsessed with ideas of birth, growth, and destruction, not well understanding what is meant by existence and non-existence, and being impressed by erroneous discriminations and speculations since beginningless time, fall into the habit of grasping this and that and thereby becoming attached to them.”

This unavoidable process leads to clinging to an evanescent world of objects. And as we cling, we oppose the truth of our unknowing and therefore are trapped in karma born of greed, anger and folly. The accumulation of karma then goes on and we become imprisoned in a cocoon of discrimination and are unable to free ourselves from the rounds of birth and death.

The Buddha said that it is like seeing one’s own image in a mirror and taking the image as real, or seeing the moon reflected on the surface of water and taking it to be the actual moon. To see in this way is dualistic whereas to see truly is a matter of Oneness revealed within innermost consciousness. 

The unavoidable conclusion of seeing beyond the biased lens of perception is all of us are the same at the deepest level, none better or worse. It is all too easy to become trapped by the constant flow of tidal forces and forget that each of us is the master of our very own sea.

Truth, half-truths and the power of delusion.

“You can’t handle the truth.”

Over the years, due to personal experience, I have learned quite a bit about truth-telling and delusion. I knew it first hand, beginning as a child, and in adult life working as an advertising executive on Madison Avenue. The lessons I learned have been an essential education about the motive of driving these matters. It’s a good thing that people employed in the advertising business are not required to answer in the positive the oath required in every court of law in our nation: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” If advertising people were so required, we’d need to build many more prisons to house those who knowingly perjure themselves daily.

The reason I say this with certainty is that the advertising business is designed to deceive others by telling half-truths. The positive is singled out, and the downside is always left out. After working for many years in the business, I reached the point when I could no longer persuade myself that it was okay to deceive people, all for earning a very good living. By then, I had learned that for reasons justified by my parents, I had been lied to as a child. The result was holding some very bad beliefs about myself.

Since that moment of truth (pun intended), I have noticed that people tell lies and half-truths routinely, justified on several flawed notions. One of these notions concerns a lack of confidence in those hearing the truth. The inherent belief is that if they hear the truth, somehow, they will be destroyed or think harshly of the person choosing to withhold the truth. In the movie A Few Good Men, the commanding officer of the Marine Corps base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (Colonel Jessep) is being questioned in court by Navy lawyer Lieutenant Kaffee, concerning the death of one of the men under the Colonel’s charge. Jessep is lying because he doesn’t think anyone can handle the truth. The dialogue goes:

“Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to them.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Col. Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!”

In the end, Jessep is arrested and charged with perjury. This movie is, of course, a fictional portrait of behavior that happens, with seeming justification, on a vast basis, but this is not a limited fiction. 

I am personally aware of a situation where an entire family participated in a fraud, feeding the family head with half-truths. All concerned knew that the head chose to live with the fantasy that the family was perfect and without flaw. None of the family members ever told the truth to the head but instead affirmed the fantasy in order to preserve the desires of the matriarch, and thus receive her blessing. Consequently, the family head refused to listen to anything that undermined her wishes, and other family members chose to endure lives of shame, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy to support her desires.

Often times the motive of feeding another half-truths or lies appears to be well intentioned: to either preserve a belief that isn’t considered to be beneficial (to either the teller or the hearer), but what is the result? The one being protected or lied to is not made stronger but instead made weaker by not being challenged to deal with adversity. And the one telling distortions is forced to try to remember the details of the lie, to tell other supporting lies (or be exposed) and thus endure self-condemnation and shame. 

Knowing whom to trust has always been a dilemma. As far back in recorded history as the time of the Buddha, people have been perplexed by this conundrum. In one particular sutra the people of Kesariya, India asked the Buddha how to ascertain the truth. His famous answer was:

“Now, Kalamas (a clan in Kesariya), don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’—then you should enter and remain in them.”

That’s a tall order in a world dominated by deceit and misdirection. We find ourselves in a predicament of degrading confidence, falling trust and loss of regard for just about everyone, from those close to us as well as public officials of all sorts. However, perhaps this loss might be a good thing since for far too long we have placed our trust in others and lost trust in ourselves.