At the brink.

The recent debacle in Washington brings into sharp focus a fundamental flaw in our way of thinking and thus how we wrestle with problem-solving. We call it “the blame game.” This quagmire precisely illustrates a classic cultural flaw: Republicans blame Democrats. Main Street blames Wall Street. Your neighbor blames you, and you blame your neighbor. Apparently, nobody sees the big picture, which is this:

Wall Street doesn’t exist as an independent entity, separate and apart from you and me (Main Street)—investors who are greedy for a free lunch and believe that there is an independent up, separate, and apart from an inevitable down. Likewise, neither Republicans nor Democrats exist as independent entities. And neighbors only exist because of you and me.

This notion of an absolute right or wrong—one independent dimension in opposition to another—is simply wrong-headed. Unfortunately, this notion is going to bring our culture to its knees unless we wake up soon. This spirit of “me against the world” has never worked and never will work simply because it is not true. No world is separate and apart from “me and you.” We are the world which we are creating together, either in opposition with one another or in the messy struggle to work together for the common good. It may appear as a solid political strategy to set yourself apart from the other guy (or gal), but it creates and perpetuates a myth destroying us all.

For more than 2 millennia, Buddhists worldwide have seen the flaw of this “me against the world” approach as contrary to interdependent origination, which states the truth of our collective unity. There is no such thing as an independent anything—Light and dark arise and disappear together, up and down arise and disappear together, democrats and republicans arise and disappear together, form and emptiness; you and me...the list is endless, and it is a simple truth if only we would put it in motion. Instead, we remain trapped in opposition with anyone and everyone. We remain convinced of absolute righteousness (otherwise called self-righteousness), which only folks like us are privy to, and we likewise remain persuaded that others not-like-us are obviously wrong. Two problems here:

1. The idea of a “self” is just that...An idea. It is not a substantial, real thing. And if it is just an imagined figment, then there is, what? A figment of imaginary righteousness? The answer to that rhetorical question is yes—imaginary.

2. Even if there were a real self (which could be called our Root Consciousness, Buddha Nature or any name you choose—the name is irrelevant), such a reality could not be independent and separate because it is ubiquitous, never-born, never-dies, and not a reality which can be claimed as exclusive by anyone. It is a common, shared-by-everyone reality. We are in this pickle together and can’t escape.

So, where does this leave us? Well, it’s not too difficult to conclude. Either we continue on as we have since the beginning of time chasing the phantom of “me against the world” (and live with the consequences of that pursuit—racial and cultural suicide), or we chart a different course of unity. It would seem that we are at a tipping point, balanced on a precipice between choices. Collectively we will decide, but one thing is clear: Whatever choice we make will result in both benefits and consequences because these also arise together as an interdependent union. To listen to a good talk on the web of causes and effects undergirding our current crisis, click here.

Solomon and a divided nation

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there lived a king of great wisdom. Each day the king would hold court and hear the pleas of his people. One day, two opponents came before him for his adjudication over a matter of extreme importance concerning the state’s child. One of the opponents pleaded with the king to slash to the child’s support to the bone, arguing that the state will flounder and die unless the child is starved. His opponent argued that unless the king waged war on his neighbors and robbed their coffers, there wouldn’t be enough money to continue supporting the child, and it would likewise die. The king saw that to preserve the child of state, he would need to adopt a middle way between these two extremes, reducing the child’s support and avoiding war, which greatly angered both opponents but saved the child.

It ain't my job!

Some years ago, my teacher painted calligraphy for me that said, “A single drop of rain waters 10,000 pines.” While not literally true, it was a metaphor that spoke to this idea that all it takes is one ray of light to cut through the darkness and open up the possibility that other lights will follow. This morning I came across a similar expression: “Everything was impossible until someone did it.” I like that idea, but unfortunately, too often, many essential matters remain impossible because we are waiting for someone else to do what is needed.

Maybe it is just human nature to have this attitude that it ain’t my job and assume that what needs doing is undoubtedly being done by somebody else. But is that assumption correct? It’s been my experience during a reasonably long life that the premise is wrong. The evidence of the fallacy is everywhere around us. I see it with the growing volume of mail asking for donations to help those in need. The lines of people standing in soup kitchens keep growing while wealthy politicians suck the financial life of our nation off for themselves and make decisions to cut off support for the needy. I’ve seen it since childhood when I noticed people going to church and listening intently (or so it seemed) to sermons but then going on with their ordinary lives of selfishness. The earth’s atmosphere keeps getting hotter and hotter, and many people stay in states of denial for the same reason—surely somebody else will solve this problem. Still, the prevailing attitude of, I’m too busy with more important matters remains a dominant force.

I remember a story from childhood about the little red hen who kept asking for help baking her bread, and nobody offered assistance, yet when it came time to eat, everyone wanted a portion. Then, of course, there is the Aesop Fable of the grasshopper and the ants. The grasshopper played away the time of harvest while the ants stored food away for the hard times of winter. Then there is the story of a dog in the manger who wouldn’t eat what was offered but sure as heck didn’t want to share what he saw as “his.” Supposedly Aesop lived roughly 2,600 years ago in ancient Greece. The dog in the manger story appeared in both the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Matthew, so it would appear that human nature hasn’t changed much in a long time.

In the East, it is called karma. Colloquially we have the expression, “What goes around, comes around.” The principle addresses what follows actions (either for the good or bad) and is universal, regardless of time or place. We know the guide yet mostly ignore the wisdom. The question is, why? More than likely, the answer comes from a conflict between continuously changing conditions and priorities stuck in time. When sea changes occur, we all have the choice either clinging to preferences that fall in the grand scheme or adapting.

I’ve written about this latter matter and observed, “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.” You can read about it in my post of Small Steps. Nobody can drink the whole ocean at once, but one sip followed by another, with patience and perseverance, enables us to move mountains.

The point of my post this morning is that our assumptions are, more times than not, merely delusional. What needs to be done to make our world a habitable and desirable place to live for our selves and our loved ones into the future depends on what we do today because collectively, we are creating our tomorrows’ moment by moment. Each day we have the opportunity to create a better world or a worse one. We make either heaven or hell with a single drop of rain, or not. Every positive action, however small it may be, makes a difference. Contrary to the title of this post, it is my job, because there is nobody but me’s of this world to do it.

Talk without action is cheap (and worthless)

Have you ever wondered what Rip Van Winkle must have thought when he awakened after having been asleep for twenty years? Time had moved on. Circumstances had changed. It must have been quite startling, but more than likely after a few days he just went back to sleep again.

We all do that sort of thing. One day we are walking along with our norms, not even aware of anything different and suddenly a Galileo shows up and shocks our norms, and then we go back to sleep again. We adjust to whatever comes our way, before very long these shocking turns of events just blend into our norms again, and we return to our sleepwalk. So we go through these ups and downs only to have them eventually smooth out.

For most of human history, the gap between the norms and the shocks took place every so many thousand of years. Back then (whenever that was) we had the luxury of getting comfortable with our fantasies. Now the gap is getting shorter and shorter to the point that the shocks are more normal than the norms. Makes you wonder about what a norm really is when everything is abnormal. While certainly stimulating it can become a bit tiring, disturbing, and disorienting. For example, the notion of a “bully pulpit” has changed radically since Teddy Roosevelt coined the term. He meant it as an adjective meaning superb or wonderful—A Presidential platform that enabled TR to bring about needed reform of a positive nature. In the 115 years since his term, “bully” is no longer an adjective but has become a literal transitive verb, meaning anything but wonderful.

In commenting on his own failing memory, Mark Twain said, “When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.” Aging memory, like aging anything, can’t be trusted. 

I wonder if I’m alone in my reminiscing about the good old days (that may never have been)? Were they ever all that good? How far back do we have to go to find that whimsical Shangri-La? I suspect that the grass always looks greener in the rearview mirror even though when we were at that past juncture, the rearview greenery still looked more appealing. Nevertheless, we do seem to prefer the past we never had to the present we do have. We’re a curious species.

This tendency to grow accustomed to the normal status quo, however egregious, may be our undoing. It’s very curious how, if we wait long enough, what used to be unacceptable becomes the new acceptable norms. Edmund Burke, an Irish political philosopher, was once regarded as the father of modern conservatism. When you examine what he said in the 18th century, in light of today’s political environment, it’s unlikely he would still be considered as such. Among the many pearls of wisdom Burke expressed are the following:

“There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” And “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” This latter has been recast and expressed as, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The wording has changed but the sentiment is the same.

It has become unavoidably clear that nothing positive happens without courage and a willingness to pay a price for the betterment of all people. Examples of the small few who found it within themselves to stare evil in the face, and regardlessly pay the price, range from modern heroes and heroines such as Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who sacrificed his career as a whistleblower to speak the truth about our current “leader,” or the 17 celebrities who actively work to protect our environment, regardless of political consequences. These are the stars who light the path of goodness that allow us to walk in relative freedom.

There are some who dogmatically cling to the idea that our current misfortunes are the result of past wrongs and we are now reaping the winds of karmic justice. Consequently, they argue, we should accept our growing demise. There is some truth to that observation but there is an alternative perspective I wrote about recently in a post called “In the world: enlightened social responsibility.” In that post, I addressed this issue by posing related questions such as, “What role do we play in this vast drama of life. Do we intercede? Or do we accept things as they are, regardless of how they appear? Do we have a responsibility to fight injustice and evil, or stand apart and watch with detachment the destruction of society?”

After all else, we create our world of tomorrow by actions taken today. We define ourselves, not by what we say, but rather by what we do. There is a single-minded purpose to Dharma Space: to promote the well-being of one and all. It takes courage to first cast aside the delusions of egotism but once we find our deepest nature, we must act from the place of indiscriminate unity, and that too takes a different kind of courage: the kind of willingly sticking out our necks and exposing ourselves to the ax of evil. If we don’t do that then the purpose of enlightenment and being a Bodhisattva stands in question.

Knowing right from wrong?

The essential question.

I originally posted this years ago, but we have short memories so re-posting may not be a bad thing. The current political environment almost demands a review. 

Do you? Know right from wrong? That’s a moral question, not one of legality. As we well know, we have a leader, who might be complying with the letter of the law (and fleecing his sheep to their detriment), yet undermines the intent of the law. 

In a court of law, we are told that not knowing the law is no excuse for breaking one that we may not even know exists. Worse yet is when we do know, but manipulate the system for your own enrichment, at the expense of the sheep. Even when the law is known, it may be consciously broken, allegedly for reasons considered to be valid. And what do we mean by valid? For a higher good that transcends the strict definition of legal compliance? For reasons of making a judgment call that may violate a conscious awareness of our internal criteria, but nevertheless “may” have a desirable outcome? What sort of definition might we hold of “desirable?”

A person may choose to live by the spirit of that law instead of the letter of the law, which of course, presumes the person is aware of whatever difference may exist between the spirit (or intent) and the letter (strict compliance). 

Then we need to consider prescience: the capacity to project into the future, outcomes that will occur as the result of judgments and actions taken previously. Can anyone know the ultimate effects? Obviously not (unless they are an inside trader). Then comes a much deeper question: Is there any benefit to outcomes that turn out to be not what we intended, but rather are what we consider to be wrong? Or might unlawful results lead to further right outcomes? That is the essential question!

Knowing right from wrong is a highly complex moral dilemma that must begin by examining that essential issue. Parents must wrestle with that issue every moment of every day and, most times, end up rolling the dice and hoping that their decisions result is the right things for their children. 

Politicians (at least ones with a conscience—an oxymoron?) are challenged routinely with making choices without thorough consideration or prescience, and more times than not, wrong results come from allegedly right decisions. For whom? Their benefactors? Themselves (at the expense of their constituents)?

Family members likewise are forced by the nature of a constantly changing world to choose between what they believe to be right, but often turn out in wrong ways. Are parents doing their children favors by never allowing them to struggle with the challenges of life to cope as adults? Or by overly protecting them and serving as surrogate moralists, once they have grown to the age of emancipation? 

Do we choose to construct walls between what we want the world to be and what it is? And do we then take the next step of letting our loved ones know that we only want to be fed a constant diet of nice words and deeds, forgetting that by employing their culpability and compliance, it forces them into conscious liars? Do we ever extract our benefit out of the hides of those we recruit, all so that we may live a life of delusion and division between what we wish and what is? And then, do we have the willingness to admit obvious wrongdoing with the forethought that by owning up, our egos will burn with a furious fire that creates in us the discomfort of admitting we used others for our benefit at their expense? 

Does anyone actually embrace what they consider to be wrong, suspecting that there will be a positive outcome? Or isn’t it true that we become strong in places that are broken, and by struggling to overcome our brokenness, we are made stronger yet? Few there are who enjoy being with someone who is always on guard, never vulnerable, and has all the answers. Life breaks us all, vulnerable or not, but beauty can come from brokenness, making us yet more beautiful than before.

It is probably true that few, if any, ever set out to do wrong, knowingly. And it is without any doubt that by facing our deepest fears, we learn to live with fear and make it our greatest friend and teacher.

“Ide-prison-ology”

Rearranging priorities.

It’s time to add a new word to our contemporary vernacular. The addition is a simple adjustment to the word “ideology,” that reflects where our culture has arrived—in a prison of opposition with no legal appeal for release. 

We already have similar words  that approximate this new word, such as “Mexican standoff” or “logjam.” But the essence of this new word is only glancingly similar to those words. What the new word captures, sums up our current state of irreconcilability: a state of cultural and political “my way or the highway” stagnation where nothing gets done. 

The principle of compromise appears to be lost in the ash heap of time, and this state of mind is not limited to any one country. It is a global phenomenon that results in a preoccupation with the insignificant at the expense of the significant.

There is so much confusion occurring at the same time it is nearly impossible to arrange priorities. Even if we could, wait ten minutes and the entire deck gets reshuffled and we simply cease to think of what’s important and what’s not. Instead, we have fallen back into a time when legalism was abhorred by moral giants such as Jesus and The Buddha, both of whom fought to rectify the problem by pointing out what the laws of the time needed as a substratum—the spirit of the law. 

That focus has been lost as well, thus the need to establish this new word by recognizing what ought to be obvious but is not: We have fallen prey to dogmatic, inflexible positions of opposition where nobody but the rich and powerful—who rig the system to their advantage, perhaps by design, to keep us all confused and distracted by what is happening behind the scene with what is happening in front of the scene—too much of insignificance to enable us to notice matters of ultimate importance.

The question is, why is this happening? That’s a hydra-headed challenge but maybe it is simply a matter of too much comfort by the few at the cost of the many. Money and power are two factors not easily shared. Possessiveness is a stickler and the more a person has the more they seem to want. Maybe what we all need to do (and I’d suggest we begin from the top and work our way down) is go and live in places that aren’t so comfortable, where concern for your life is the common coin. There is nothing quite so transforming as your own experience of suffering. When you are starving, a single slice of bread becomes a feast and the ideology of the whole loaf or none at all descends into la-la-land, right where it belongs.

We have become imprisoned into camps of opposing ideas and values with no escape. It is long past time for us to realize such behavior is shooting everyone in the foot. Life always seems to follow the path we noticed in the Marines: Bad stuff flows downstream, never upstream. The tide needs to turn, and soon.

My way or the highway.

If it isn’t patently clear by now, “my way” is the highway to somebody else, who considers “our way” the flip side of “their way.” Wouldn’t it be great if there were an absolute way where there was neither “my way” nor the other way around? This idea of a universally embraced absolute with everyone on the same page is a fool’s paradise. This dilemma has never been more apparent than now, and the factions are growing further and further apart. Why is this division increasing? The Buddha had the answer more than 2,500 years ago, and at the core of the answer lies the thorny matter of how to define oneself. 

The ordinary way is in terms of an ego (e.g., the idea, or image, of who we think we are). From that perspective, the possessive nature of “I” is “mine,” which is of course not “yours.” That’s a problem since mine is clearly different from yours (and the opposite). And never the twain shall meet. That being the case, what is the solution? The extraordinary way of enlightenment where possessiveness disappears since in an enlightened state of mind “I” fuses with “not I,” and the difference between you and me disappears.

From the perspective of “I,” ideologues are the chains that bind us, and dogma becomes the order of the day. Rules, regulations, and laws ensure the walls that divide us. On the other hand, when we become enlightened, dogmas also disappear. Everything is in a state of continuous change and what worked yesterday, does not work today. Conditions change moment by moment and without rules, the unenlightened are disoriented and lost.

However, once a person becomes enlightened, change segues into the wisdom of “expedient means.” Then the challenge shifts from inflexible rules to flexible adaptation, taking into account circumstances as they emerge. To one who has not reached that state of mind, expedient means translate as being dishonest or disingenuous. Since the ego standards of morality are wedded to the rules of that which is measurable and never changes. The very idea of defying objectivity is a poison pill to the unenlightened, and anyone who dances to a different tune is not to be taken seriously or to be trusted. However, according to Chán Master Sheng Yen, “When knowledge and views are established, knowing is the root of ignorance. When knowledge and views do not exist, seeing itself is nirvana.” 

Another Zen Master expressed the difference this way: “Before we understand, we depend on instruction. After we understand, instruction is irrelevant. The dharmas taught by the Tathagata (e.g., The Buddha) sometimes teach existence and sometimes teach non-existence. They are all medicines suited to the illness. There is no single teaching. But in understanding such flexible teachings, if we should become attached to existence or to non-existence, we will be stricken by the illness of dharma-attachment (inflexible truth). Teachings are only teachings. None of them are real.”—Chi-fo (aka Feng-seng). 

In the end, morality is not a one-size-fits-all. Instead, it is governed by that which benefits one and all, except of course those who are clearly wedded to ignorance and work to ensure everyone must be sacrificed on the altar of their ego-enhancement

The New Normal

The best and worst of times.

If a person is born into bondage and is never exposed to anything other than bondage, they won’t know they are in bondage. Instead, they will accept their condition as ordinary. Only one who has become set free will be able to look back into the time when they were imprisoned and know the difference. 

But this escape to emancipation presumes the person desires something better. “Something better” will remain a rational illusion. This hope will never get out of that box unless the person accepts the possibility, however small, that the vision may have an element of worth and be reasonably likely. Having a sense of being normal is a two-edged sword: It may provide a sense of communion with others in the same condition, but it does not hold out a carrot for a better way.

Plato’s Cave (e.g., The Allegory of the Cave) is a story from Book VII in the Greek philosopher masterpiece The Republic, written in 517 BCE. The cave allegory tells of prisoners, chained since childhood, in a position within a cave so they can see nothing except shadows of themselves projected onto the cave wall in front of them. Consequently, the prisoners have no sense of anything other than the shadowy illusions before them and come to think of the shadows as their normal world-view. 

Few escape to learn the truth and when confronted with the difference between reality and falsehood, the few choose their ordinary falsehood—to which they have grown accustomed—over what is real, yet foreign. A key point in the story is that people prefer old norms over new ones, even when the new is real. 

While written 2,537 years ago, this story resonates with the convictions of “fake news” of today and echos the principle of a psychological back-fire effect. Nothing is more powerful than belief, even when such belief is false, which says much about attempting to persuade those away from false convictions. They will harden their convictions in the face of evidence to the contrary. Human nature changes little over the span of time. Tightly held beliefs “Trump” the hand of truth nearly every time.

That is indeed a thorny conundrum, particularly when the very thought of ordinary is becoming abnormal. Such is the case today when everything ordinarily considered to be normal has been turned on its head. One of the few advantages of being old is a perspective that comes with the passage of time and changing circumstances. If you live long enough, you’ll have lived through a range of conditions that provides a frame of reference that is lacking without tenure, and that gives you a memory of the way things could be, but aren’t.

Without expressing a cliche, the times in which we are living are unlike any within my lifetime. And I am not alone in that observation. Our times are an admixture of the best, and the worst, much like Charles Dickens wrote of in his Tale Of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” On the one hand, we are advancing so fast that the technology we create is obsolete as soon as it comes off the line. On the other hand, we seem to be unraveling as a human society even faster.

A while ago, a political commentary appeared in the Huffington Post, that contained the following: “What used to be the lunatic fringe is now called the House of Representatives. And what used to be at least controversial is now the mainstream.” 

In just a flash of yesterdays, has emerged a man as the most powerful leader of the Western World. This would have seemed impossible only a short time ago. No longer. Now an entire political party champions a man who is an acknowledged pathological liar, peddler of vile racism, a misogynist, cheerleader of xenophobic ravings, and sneering trampler of those who disagrees with him, not to mention our most fundamental American values.

The mood of the American public is, to put it in superlative terms, explosive. And, from a particular perspective, understandable when we consider how dysfunctional our cherished government has become. Time after time, our elected officials have danced to a drummer of self-serving greed with little, if any, responsiveness to the wishes of the constituents who elected them. Now we almost expect another week (or day) of “normal” chaos, violence, and behavior that used to be routinely unacceptable. And to add insult to injury, our elected officials are experts at one thing only: Nothing. And in consideration of such a state, it would be delusional to not expect anarchy. The new normal of today has become the abnormal of yesterday. And if it is true (and it is) that our tomorrows are the result of thoughts and actions taken today, it is terrifying what tomorrow will bring.

When is it time to dogmatically reject dogma and exercise intolerance of tolerance?

Allegedly we are a nation based on fixed principles articulated in The Constitution and reinforced by moral beliefs (mostly Christian). Without realizing it, we have become dogmatically oriented, unwilling to yield, or negotiate our unswerving positions, even though many policies are clearly in need of yielding. 

The word dogma (δόγμα) is rooted in ancient Greek and was considered a fixed belief, or set of beliefs, that people were expected to accept without question. The concept was first applied in a religious context and was taken as a given by those who literally took the Bible. However, this framework has invaded our political realm where one can be either conservatively or liberally dogmatic, and if we are to continue as a democratic nation, this must change. 

Closely associated with dogma is the principle of tolerance (the flip side of dogma). Thus these two—dogma and tolerance—frame our liberal notions (and I don’t mean being a liberal). British philosopher and scientist Karl Popper had observed significant flaws in the historical and economic practices of Karl Marx. Yet, the followers of Marx seemed to cling to his theories dogmatically or cobble together new interpretations.

In 1945 Popper published his book The Open Society and Its Enemies, in which he identified the Paradox of tolerance, saying, “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant; if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

Seventy-five years later, his warning is being ignored in our nation and others throughout the world. We are tolerating the intolerant, and it is beyond time to dogmatically reject dogmas. The most insidious of all attachments is when reason becomes dogmatic.

Readiness.

The road MOST traveled.

“The teacher appears when the student is ready.” Everyone has heard that metaphor, but what does it mean? It probably means different things to different people, but perhaps the central meaning concerns alternatives and choices.

It’s human nature to select the choice that entails the least effort and delivers the most bang for the buck. Why pay $100 for something if we can find something that works just as well for $1? But if we pay $100, we expect to get that much worth in return. But what if we don’t get the value we hoped for but instead get far less? And what if we keep spending the same $100 and keep getting shortchanged? After a certain point, we might want to try another tack. Then we’re ready.

The time is ready when we reach the ultimate end of a wrong road to a worse place, that keeps on delivering the ultimate lack of value. It can happen individually or culturally, and these two are not different since cultures are nothing more than grouped individuals. We are collectively and individually approaching a readiness of time. We have tried to attain ultimate value, and it isn’t working. The more we spend, the worse it gets and, it’s time to find out why it’s not working. What is preventing us from, what we all say, is so desperately sought? And what might that goal be? It’s love, happiness, fulfillment, joy, harmony, and peace.

These are the goals we have been seeking (acknowledged or not), and we’ve been traveling the wrong road to get there. The teacher is our natural, divine intelligence; our “true” mind—that doesn’t exist conceptually, yet nevertheless leads to a deeper source of wisdom and compassion that contains all that we’ve been seeking but not finding. The ego is a gatekeeper that denies access to what lies beyond and, consequently, the unknown remains unknown. 

The soul knows because the soul is closer to our central, spiritual core than the ego (which serves as the gatekeeper for “acceptable” dogma). However, without an awareness of a difference between experiencing and fantasizing—The context of our lives, out of which grows everything—we remain like a garden growing only weeds with no flowers. The realm of the soul is the storehouse where we experience what we say we are seeking (e.g., love, happiness, fulfillment, joy, harmony, and peace). It is also the source of adaptive wisdom, so needed in the world today, where we find the answers that help us survive. 

The goal is not “out there” on a path to nowhere. It is “in here” on the path to ourselves. And once we find our source, we realize that the idea we held of “ourselves” was wrong and far too limited in scope and character. When we get beyond that gatekeep, it is like coming home to the place we’ve never left, but previous to that very instant never knew existed.

Eternal frame of mind.

We are facing an unprecedented era of crisis, never seen before.

Not only is there the evident crisis of fighting a global war with an unseen enemy we have labeled COVID-19, but there are other crisis’ roaring along in the background (such as global climate change) while our attention is diverted fighting the virus, with all of its permutations—impact on global economies with the two-edged sword of dying from exposure to the virus or dying from starvation, impact on food supplies, a growing divide among all people, based on placing blame, and the impact on mental/emotional health, et.al.

Conspiracy theories are flaring through social media, dwelling on finding the culprit, punishing them, or those who would simply rather put their heads in the sand and hope it will all just go away. While China may, or may not, be the source of the viral spread, intentionally (which would be total madness) or accidentally, we in the US (with a history going back 243 years, to the signing of the Declaration of Independence) would do well to recognize our comparative national youth. Within recorded history, China dates back 4,000 years, is recognized as one of the four great ancient civilizations of the world, together with ancient Egypt, Babylon, and India. And moreover, it is the only ancient civilization that has continued to this very day. China was one of the cradles of the human race and has gone through countless times of catastrophe. Any group of people that have survived that long probably has something of value to say about “crisis,” and it does.

The Chinese word (written as “危机”) means “crisis” and is made up of two characters: “危” and “机.” 危 means danger, and 机 means chance and opportunity. However, 机 can also mean pivot (a term we hear much today)—a crucial or a watershed moment. Logically, this makes much more sense than looking at a moment of crisis simply as though it were stuck in time. Whether 243, 4,000 years or 200,000 years—the time homo sapiens have been on earth, each and every moment evolves into new, never seen before moments, through good times and bad.

Of course, while in the midst of the “危” (danger) we tend to forget that nature abhors a vacuum, and “机” (opportunities) will follow, as surely as the sun follows the darkness. The question is thus, how to maintain equanimity in the midst of apparent, tangible catastrophes? And this comes down to how we view ourselves, others, and the world around us. If we remain persuaded that life=physical/mortal life, then it follows there most likely won’t be any following opportunities without reverting to the survival of the fittest—dog-eat-dog, kill, or be killed behavior. However, if life is not just tangible, measurable, flesh, bones, or anything else that can be perceived through our senses, but is instead immortal and eternal, then equanimity is much more possible. 

Both Jesus and The Buddha taught that true life is eternal and does not end with bodily death. People put words in the mouth of Jesus (as they did with The Buddha) and texts have been written to support both views. For example, there is the Sutra of Infinite Life and various Christian texts, ranging from Canonical approved ones to others from the Gnostic Gospels (which conflict with each other). The unabashed truth is nobody has ever been able to prove the nature of an afterlife (either for the good or the bad) and I would argue that what we do mortally ought to be the focus, not as a gamble to insure what may or may not happen following our mortal end, but rather because doing good is better than doing bad. So long as we pin our hope on divine justice it undermines our motives to take responsibility in the here-and-now.

Is Buddhist compassion the same as Christian love?

The high bar of excellence.

The answer is, “it depends.” Unfortunately we rarely thoroughly examine colloquialisms, and pretentiousness has become rampant. Duplicity and deceit are so socially acceptable now they are nearly synonymous with contemporary life. 

The terms “compassion” and “love” have become so misused they are now cliches, lacking in true understanding. In some Asian cultures the issue of “face” is of such significance that being two-faced is integral to the culture, causing societal members to be continuously on guard for the potential for saving or losing face. To them, it’s a matter of their reputation, dignity, honor, prestige, and integrity. 

But this preoccupation is not limited to Asian cultures. It is prevalent throughout the world, wherever duplicity is found. The concern stands in conflict with spiritual principles, particularly in matters where surface and social expectations (the face presented to the world) diverge from internal convictions (the internal face). The Buddha said, “The greatest action is not conforming with the world’s ways, the greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances and the greatest effort is not concerned with results.” 

These principles reflect an attitude that transcends social expectations and platitudes concerned with duplicity. To live in duplicity reflects neither genuine Christian love (agape) nor genuine Buddhist compassion, both of which are near mirror reflections of one another. “Compassion is often thought of as akin to pity, but whereas pity may be condescending, compassion springs from a sense of the equality, unity, and interconnectedness of life. Genuine compassion is about empowering others, helping them unlock strength and courage from within their lives in order to overcome their problems.” 

And this human quality arises through true awakening to our inherent nature that fills us with the experience of unity and becomes so powerful as to render duplicity impossible. The highest love agápē (ἀγάπη) is found only in the New Testament and is translated as “unconditional love.” Love that is unconditional is not discriminatory or influenced by changing phenomenal conditions, but is instead steady throughout all conditions. 

The best expression of agápē love is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-12, which says, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes (genuine awakening), the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

These genuine Buddhist and Christian expressions, however, while being the gold standards, are not universally embraced. Just because we know what is the standard, does not guarantee we comply. There are numerous examples in today’s world where hypocrisy, denial, and egotism flourish, most particularly within the sphere of politics. It’s a rare individual who, while lost within the grip of ego delusion, can rise above the influences and temptations of greed, anger, avarice, and possessiveness and “do the right thing.” 

Sadly our interpersonal, social, and political systems have become rife with concern for preserving “face,” currying special favors that align us with power and ignores the high bars of true compassion and love. Probably the best depiction of hypocrisy I have seen was displayed in the television series “The West Wing,” when the president (Martin Sheen) puts a faux-Christian in her place. The example stands in stark contrast to the behavior of true compassion and agápē love characteristic of a bodhisattva, who lives by a vow.

A house of mirrors

Our reflections.

It’s dark, and you can’t see anything. Suddenly the lights are switched on. You’ve never seen the light before, so the glare hurts your eyes. 

Days go by, but gradually your eyes adjust, and what do you see? Everywhere you look, you see people with smiling faces who seem to adore you, and these people are exuding love and tenderness all directed at you. They tickle you. They feed you. They comfort you when you’re sad and play with you, and little by little, you come to believe that you’re exceptional. These people are your parents and friends, and they are your mirrors.

That time is extraordinary, but it doesn’t last. Soon you move on and come in contact with other people. You and they relate to each other in the same way—like mirrors. You reflect them, and they reflect you, and little by little each, and everyone learns how to manipulate their environment to glean the best outcome, the ego dance begins, and our identities take shape.

So long as anyone stays in that house of mirrors, there is no alternative but to experience themselves as a reflection. But this manipulation game is complex and often frustrating, fraught with anxiety, fear, and tension. The players don’t cooperate. They want their way instead of your way. Why are these people not adoring you but instead demanding that you love them? Where are those adoring parents when we need them? Why can’t everyone just get along? Why can’t everyone see things as you do, think as you do, construct the world, as you want? 

And the ego dance begins to come unglued, and you are lost, but what nobody realizes is at that moment of loss; that identity crisis is this is a blessing in disguise. Once that moment of disaster arrives, you are ready for the mirrors to fall away and find your true nature. And then, at last, you become the wholly complete person you’ve always been: The one looking into the mirrors; not the one reflected.

The sea of bliss.

The heart of darkness and light.

Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.

To one trapped in a bondage of the mind, there is a darkness to move beyond that can cloud our sense of being and our capacity to love. The idea of moving beyond seems to imply movement toward a goal: something not present. There is, however, another way to understand this obstruction: The darkness that impedes our capacity to love.  A drop of water, dark or not, taken out of the great sea, is certainly divided from the indiscriminate source but when it returns to the source, it becomes absorbed and can’t be found. It is then lost in the sea of love.

This is an easy example that displays the difference between duality and unification. Bodhidharma illustrated this by speaking of the body of all truth, where everything is One. His commentary on the Lankavatara Sutra teaches there are two aspects of life: The discriminated/perceptible, and the unified/ineffable—bound together in a manner too marvelous to understand. He said: “By tranquility is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realizable only within one’s inmost consciousness…The beginning chapter of this sutra concludes in this way... “In this world whose nature is like a dream, there is place for praise and blame, but in the ultimate Reality of Dharmakaya (our true mind) which is far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise?”

So where is the source of hope and tranquility? Our hope lies imperceptibly beneath impermanence at the heart of decay. And what is that heart? Huang Po (Obaku in Japanese; 9th century China) was particularly lucid in his teaching about this. In the Chün Chou Record, he said:

“To say that the real Dharmakāya of the Buddha resembles the Void is another way of saying that the Dharmakāya is the Void and that the Void is the Dharmakāya ... they are one and the same thing...When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha ... the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning ... this great nirvanic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

This perspective, however, is a bit like looking in a rearview mirror that reflects darkness once you’ve found light. While in the darkness, no light is seen. To go looking for the void beyond darkness takes us into the sea of nondiscrimination where compassion and wisdom define all. And once there, in this eternal void—the source of all, we fuse together with all things and realize that dark and light are just handles defining the seeming division between one thing and another. We are then absorbed by the vast and endless sea of bliss and tranquility. We are in a home we never left.

A little child will lead them

“You say either and I say ither. You say neither and I say nither. Either, ither, Neither, nither. Let’s call the whole thing off.
You like potato and I like potahto. You like tomato and I like tomato. Potato, potahto. Tomato, tomahto. Let's call the whole thing off
But oh, if we call the whole thing off, then we must part. And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart.”

Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong started that song roughly 60 years ago with lyrics of “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off.” There was no way anyone could have known 60 years ago that this song ought to be our current theme song. It would appear the way things are going that we are about to part and it will break our heart and why? 

Over petty differences no more meaningful than “Potato, potahto. Tomato, tomahto.” What began with a chuckle has now turned into really serious turf wars, and the words have changed. Now it isn’t potahto vs. potato. Instead it’s greed vs. need, but fundamentally it’s still about differences.

That’s the challenge of being human: Having differences but always joined in common turf where there is no war. We can be, and are, both but that doesn’t mean we have to chow down on each other. 

Ordinarily wolves like to eat lambs and leopards find goats rather tasty but a long time ago a prophet foresaw a day when,  “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” That guy was the prophet Isaiah and I sure hope his crystal ball was clear because right now it looks like dinner time is just around the corner.

The Matrix—Illusory Mind

Image via Wikipedia

In his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Ch’an Master Sheng-yen said what might seem like a startling thing. He said, “The self (imagined self/ego) creates vexation, and the vexation, in turn, reinforces the sense of self...When there is no vexation, and therefore no self, the mind of discrimination is replaced by the mind of wisdom.”

What’s going on here is a psychic feedback loop. It’s the chicken/egg thing. Vexations and self arise together. Not one and then the next. Both arise together, instantly. Thinkers think thoughts. In this case, the “thinker” is the imagined self who is thinking the thought of a self, which then thinks more thoughts. Feedback loop—one illusion creating another illusion, which creates the next, like one mirror reflecting another. There is no substantial and real “self” inside this holographic illusion. It is a mirage or as stated in the Diamond Sutra: 

“This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world: like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”

All of those notions about our identity obscure any sense of our substantial real self; the union and the integrated aspect of our existence. The Ladder-Wall is the Union. It is not a Ladder or a Wall. It’s a Ladder-Wall: one inseparable thing. Form and Emptiness. Essence and non-essence. 

For thousands of years, people have been attempting and failing to rid themselves of the flesh believing that the flesh was opposed to spirit. Even today certain religious sects engage in practices of flagellation. And within certain schools of Zen, there are advocates, who press to rid themselves of all thoughts, which is a psychic version of flagellation. I’ll be saying more about this thrust in a later blog but for now, I’ll just make a quick comment: nonsense! Essence is indivisible from both flesh and our minds.

As long as we are imprisoned within this holographic feedback loop we are unaware of what is real. We are like Keanu Reeves in the classic 1999 science fiction movie “The Matrix.” The film describes a future in which the world we know is actually the Matrix, a simulated reality created by sentient machines. Only our Matrix is self-created and it has been here forever. We are the sentient machines creating our own simulated reality. When we say to “Think outside the box,” the “box” is illusory mind: the Matrix; the realm of the self creating the self.

Like Keanu Reeves, we need to be de-programmed in order to break the grip of simulation. In Zen that is done by pursuing The Middle Way. Much of the harm done by not following this path is unintentional, but real nevertheless. How could we know inside the feedback loop? 

Unlike Keanu Reeves, we follow this way both with a support group (known as a sangha) and by our self. We don’t have to go to a confessional with a priest. We know (deep down in our moments of quiet honesty, when we can get beyond denial and blame) what we’ve done and whom we’ve infected. We know what judgments we’ve made, both of others and ourselves. It isn’t necessary for us to stand before others and announce, “I’m an alcoholic and I’m always going to be one.” 

This is a prison from which we can escape with commitment, patience, diligence, and perseverance. If we wish to escape we can. It just depends on whether or not we enjoy being “In the Matrix.” Some people don’t seem to care one way or another. The entire process is sort of like taking an inventory of the mess in our houses, collecting the trash, dumping it out, and doing the best we can to not continue creating a mess. Rather than garbage in/garbage out it becomes a virtue in/virtue out: VIVO, which in Latin curiously means living that takes place inside an organism.

That is an extremely foreshortened overview of the process. In point of fact it is a process that never ends. Because we live in a conditioned world, dust accumulates. We wash our clothes and clean our houses because cleanliness is more desirable than filth. The same thing applies to our inner house. Dust accumulates (emotional and psychic dust) and we need to keep it clean. If we bring in trash, due to bad karma, we suffer. If we become attached to fleeting stuff we suffer. If we live in the illusions of life we suffer. And all of that suffering makes us cranky and then we just make more bad karma. It is an inverted way of living, which must be turned upside down and shaken about.

And the truth is, none of this deep honesty is possible so long as we remain trapped in ego la-la land—The Matrix. Mr. or Mrs. or Ms ego is extraordinarily greedy and self-centered. From the perspective of our egos, everyone else is right to be blamed for our misery. Ego is very self-righteous. None of it is our fault. It has nothing to do with our own self-generated karma. Inside this hologram of blame and self-delusion, we experience life in competition and defensiveness. The world is either/or. It is either right or it’s wrong (and always my right and your wrong). This world runs according to hard and fast rules and inflexible boundaries and to deviate from the rigor entails fear, perceived threat, and loss. 

There is never enough insulation in this realm, and to share with others is to diminish our share and thus increase our risk exposure. We build fences of all kinds to keep the bad guys out without realizing that the fences also keep us in. The threat is everywhere and there is a good reason for the concern: Everything is changing. The storms will come and we better make sure our life raft is watertight.

Sound familiar? Who can question the exposures to risk and an unknown future? No one. Risk is a part of life but there is a huge difference between living hunkered down and walking tall. The ego, because it is an illusion, is rightly concerned with risk. It should know better than anyone. The ego is fragile and so too is our fleeting world. The alternative is to accept our wholeness—our integrated beingness, and to practice it moment by moment—a sacred act, not as a concept but as a reality. 

How is that done? This is a realm without multitasking. When we eat, we eat. When we talk, we talk. Whatever we do, we do wholly, in each and every moment, whether we like it or not. We just do it and let the illusions subside. It is a practice of being present with all of the grief, anguish, pain, sorrow and joy. We cry when we cry and laugh when we laugh and we do it with gusto. No illusions or expectations or wishes or overlays. We accept life as an un-gilded lily, without embellishment nor judgments nor any other forms of distortion or fabrication. Life just is. The Buddha called this “thusness”—things as they truly are.

This might all sound like accepting everything as unavoidable, but it is not. When we accept our ego-less interdependence—beyond the Matrix, truly, we must see that we are united with all of life. There is no way to disconnect from the ubiquitous dimension of essence. We are glued to our collective world, like it or not, so unless we like living in a mess then we must do what we can to clean it up and join the living. We are not isolated and independent beings, severed from life. We are life and there is no way to have a life without death. They arise as an undivided partnership. When the world suffers we pay the price because we are members of a common family. When the world rejoices, we rejoice with it. We are not just our brother’s keeper. We are our brothers and our sisters. There is no way to sever the link of essence.

This is not an airy-fairy thing. This is reality, inseparable, indivisible, and integrated and the only way to divide it is in the illusions of our imagination. That is where the danger lies. No, this is not resignation, cynicism, defeatism, or victimization. This is the polar opposite. This is a stance of engagement and responsibility, of doing what can be done but remaining hopeful without attachment to results.

The over-riding message contained in the Diamond Sutra regards the nature of enlightenment and compassion. The Buddha was teaching Subhuti (one of his disciples) that the distinguishing mark of a true Bodhisattva is deep compassion that can only come about without any sense of ego or gain. There is no calculation or contrivance since a true Bodhisattva realizes that there is no difference between himself and others. Jesus said something very similar: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” When we accept our ground-of-being relationship with life, the unavoidable conclusion is that we share common ground. We are in this together.