Danger in paradise.

The fusion of two worlds

Sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote a poem that narrates the journey of the soul from it’s bodily home to its union with God. 

He called the journey “The Dark Night of the Soul,” because darkness represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of union with God. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and fusion with God. The Christian experience assumes a soul separated from God that seeks reunion whereas the Buddhist perspective recognizes no separation. Instead, unification takes place when the conceptual image of a false self is replaced by the actual experience of selfhood.

However, it must be said, that the key Christian scriptural passage that speaks to this matter comes from the 12^th chapter in the Book of John verses 24-25 which says, “Very truly I tell you unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” 

This is the English translation of the Greek, which camouflages the actual meaning of true human life due to translation limitations, and this inaccuracy has lead to widespread misunderstandings. In the Greek, the first two uses of the word life meant soul—a conceptual equivalent of the self, and the latter meant the real self. The Greek word for soul/life was ψυχή better known as psyche, one of two manifestations of the source of life ζωή/zōē, the last Greek term used in this scripture.

How to understand this? When the soul dies the presence of God shines forth. Another word for soul is ego, thus death of the ego unveils the source, which is eternal (no birth/no death and unconditional). That being the case, ζωή is ever-present but something without conditions: thus unseen. ζωή can never be perceived, only experienced. On the other hand, the ego is an unreal image—an illusion of the self, which is clearly evident. Nevertheless illusions have a hard way of immediately subsiding; the memory passes slowly at the same time that the light begins to dawn. The seed grows slowly and remains separate as an idea but when it dies, unity with all things emerges.

Roughly a century following the death of The Buddha, his teachings had moved out of India, along the Silk Road and into the Middle East, arriving during the era of the Greek philosophers. Evidence of his understanding, regarding illusion, can be found in the writings of Plato in an allegory called Plato’s Cave. In this allegory Plato describes a tenable argument involving this fundamental illusion and the resulting consequences on those so deluded. He also addresses the duty and price to be paid by philosophers who attempt to shine the light on truth. In essence, Plato says that coming out of darkness and into the light involves both courage and pain.

Eckhart Tolle speaks to this process as follows: “It (dark night of the soul) is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.  The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.  Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything.” 

Before, normal was egocentric and afterwards the center, begins to fade into a depressive, immature darkness. This is a stage of jeopardy and disorientation when we yearn for retention of our awakening yet can’t seem to grasp and hold onto what is our hearts desire.

The Buddha properly pointed out that to desire anything, even a lusting for enlightenment, is a sure prescription for suffering, and when we think about it, this makes immanent sense. Once true love is awakened, then only do we know for sure what it is. Up to that point, true love remains a product of our imagination; a wishful fantasy. But once we know, then we have a dilemma: what was previously a less than satisfying but acceptable idea, by comparison, now becomes a colorless and shallow experience that lives on as a not yet forgotten memory.

There’s a story is told in the Platform Sutra of a conversation held between Daman Hongren (fifth Chinese Chan patriarch) and Dajian Huineng (sixth Chinese Chan patriarch). Huineng was an illiterate, unschooled commoner who upon hearing the Diamond Cutter Sutra recited, realized enlightenment and subsequently sought out Hongren. When Huineng met the patriarch he was assigned the lowly job of rice-pounder, where he remained for many months before proving his worth to Hongren.

The conversation between the two was thus: Hongren—“A seeker of the path risks his life for the dharma. Should he not do so?” Then he asked, “Is the rice ready?”  Huineng— “Ready long ago, only waiting for the sieve.” Two questions, a single short answer which reveals the nature of enlightenment—both sudden and gradual. Sudden since the awakening happened quickly but fullness required the sifting of life’s sieve. The rice was ready but the lingering, residual chaff must be blown away by the winds of life.

In the words of the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.’ Sometimes when we awaken, we realize that how we have lived and behaved has simply been out of line and nonproductive. It is a painful experience to observe ourselves from a space of neutral honesty and watch as we often go out of integrity to appeal to mental images we have created, and hurt people we love in the process. This observation of the false ‘self’ we have created in our minds is one of the first steps of becoming ‘enlightened’ if you will, and in this observation there is no gaining taking place. There is only the crumbling away of what you are not.’”

It takes many years of continuing adversity before our dawning matures. Once the seed of awakening is planted, the world changes forever, there is no turning back to old ways, yet maturity takes a long time.  But, like Huineng, chaff of the old familiar way remains. It is natural once we awaken into the dawn of truth to retain the whisper of what is now dead yet lingers on in memory. And during this time we are in jeopardy, trapped between two worlds: one dead and gone, the other fresh and naïve, like an infant not yet able to stand alone with the indwelling spirit of eternity beating in our heart.

The fundamental “why” of suffering.

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

The truth about suffering and change.

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

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

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

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

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

“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention (e.g., relative/conditional truth—my addition) and an ultimate (absolute/unconditional—my addition) truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha’s profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.”

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

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

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

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

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

“If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will be able to control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Karma and the Wheel of Life and Death.

Everyone has days when they think to themself, “This really sucks. How did I get myself into this mess?” For no apparent reason, life just seems to take a sharp turn, and we find ourselves in the off-ramp. 

Actually, there is a reason but not one that is readily apparent. The reason is contained in the dharma teaching of the Wheel of Life and Death leading to suffering, which we surely do when such a day hits us. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this wheel has another side called the Wheel of Dharma. One side explains how we got ourselves into this mess. The other side tells us how we can find relief (emancipation). The teaching says that both sides are reflections of karma—bad karma on one side, good karma on the other. Today we’ll look at the bad news, and tomorrow we’ll end on a positive note. 

So how does karma work? Karma spreads much like an indiscriminate virus. It affects everyone, spreads like wildfire, and has nothing to do with hopes, prayers, or anything of a religious nature.  It’s like this: Picture yourself on a dusty road on a sweltering and sweaty day. Every step you take, you’re kicking up dust, which goes airborne where it sticks like mud to your sweaty body and enters your mouth and lungs. In a nutshell, that’s karma: Cause and effect. You kicked up the dust, and you suck it in. No dust, no sucking. Of course, there are other people on that same road, and all of your dust kickings migrates to them as well. So not only do we have an impact on our self, but we impact them also. They don’t like it, and neither do we, but the responsibility lies firmly with us. We did the kicking.

Now the best thing is to not kick up the dust in the first place, or spread a virus. The second best thing is to own up to what we’ve done and make a wrong, right. Avoidance is always the preferred route, but sometimes kicking dust (or catching a virus) is unavoidable, and we make wrong without the intention to do so. There are, of course, some who seem to take sadistic pleasure in doing wrong, but as the saying goes, “What goes around, comes around.” So that’s karma, but now let’s see how we get on this dusty road in the first place. Wouldn’t it be better to walk along a dustless path? That’s tomorrow’s story. Today is about viruses, dust, and grit, and mud in the mouth.

In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha taught about many causal links. The most critical causal link pertains to the dust (my metaphor). Here is how this link plays out. It starts out with branches high up on a tree of misery. It is called The miserly mind, greed, and jealousy, which comes from a trunk of ignorance, which in turn arises from indolence, which comes from inversions of truth (four inversions), which comes from a taproot called doubting mind. These causal links are like a tree. At the bottom is a root that grows upward into branches of bad karma.

So let’s start at the bottom (the taproot), which the Buddha says is doubting mind. This root is easy to understand, given our nature as sensory beings. We trust what we can lay our hands on and question what we can’t. Form is tangible stuff. Emptiness is not. We see a form and think, “that’s it—nothing else.” It takes a leap of faith to go beyond form and accept emptiness. Most of us are remiss in taking that leap since a leap into the unknown is fraught with fear. That’s doubting mind.

Doubting mind morphs into the four truth inversions. What are the four? They are Bliss/Suffering, Eternal/impermanent, Self/non-self, and Pure/impure. These are like four two-sided coins with truth on one side and inversions on the other. Without the leap out of doubting mind, we find our self distorting truth (inverting it). We imagine that everything is impure, egotistical, impermanent, and full of suffering. After all, isn’t that one of the Buddha’s premiere teachings—life is suffering? Yes, it is, but that is just the first of four noble truths, and if we stop there, we miss the pay-off: there is a way off this dusty path. Doubting leaves us stuck with these four inversions. Acting on faith leads us to a better path with no dust (tomorrow).

Okay, let’s move along to the next link in the chain: indolence. There are a couple of definitions of indolence, (1) avoidance, and (2) fear stemming from a lack of confidence. The first definition could apply for a host of reasons. Avoidance is what we might do when we are persuaded of a particular point of view. We know this condition as denial or clinging or close-mindedness. It occurs when we are attached to something and are not open to other possibilities, even when those other possibilities could positively restructure our lives. The second way of considering indolence is fear, with a similar outcome. A lack of confidence can be like an excuse for doing nothing when something needs to be done. Knowledge is not an issue. Doubt-based fear is. Which leads to hesitation and inaction. In either case, indolence keeps us stuck because of doubt. Because of indolence, we stay on that dusty path absolutely convinced that it is the only path, and we are just going to get used to it.

Now we’re moving up the tree and starting to branch out. Next comes ignorance. When we cling to a particular perspective, come Hell or high water, we are subject to ignorance (close-minded). What started with doubt, transformed into avoidance, and that leaves us ignorant. On the other hand, when we leap out in faith, we discover what would otherwise not be possible, but that is tomorrow’s story.

Being close-minded and ignorant makes us cranky and produces a nasty attitude which the Buddha calls a miserly mind, replete with greed and jealousy. Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? When we are persuaded that all is suffering with no way off the dusty path with endless mouths full of mud, we get possessive, greedy, and jealous. Those other folks seem to be getting ahead of us, the storms are coming and we better batten down the hatch. Nobody wants to be around a greedy miser who is defensive, possessive, jealous, and hostile. And guess what? We just defined bad karma and a lot of people we know of.

All of this from that evil tap root spewing up poison and growing a bad tree, which is called the Wheel of Life and Death. And the reason it is called that is because such behavior keeps producing suffering, which causes us to just keep on repeating until we get tired of the misery we create for ourselves and adopt a better way. But that better way violates everything we think we know but might be worth a shot. Who needs dust in the mouth? Tomorrow, a better path—The Wheel of Dharma. Now that we understand the Wheel of Life and Death, the opposite should be easy to explain (but hard to do).

Ego death?

Our mind is an amazing reality that emanates through a brain composed of different cells and neurons which function differently, yet results in a seamless understanding of the world and our selves. 

In a balanced way, our right and left hemispheres function so that we bring together very different modalities to form a balanced worldview, which is both analytical and compassionate. 

Unfortunately, most of us are not balanced due to a host of reasons and tend to be either overly analytic, reliant on symbols, concerned with differences, or overly affectively sensitive stemming from sensed assaults on our egos. For the most part, our left-brain rules the day and this hemisphere is the home of our ego (sense of self).

Our ego-mind perceives the world in a possessive and resistant way, which creates attachments and judgments. If we like (a judgment) something, our ego attaches in a favorable way. If we dislike (a judgment) something, our ego attaches in an unfavorable way. This clinging to conditions results in a brittle, judgmental, and inflexible perspective of our selves, others, and life. Whereas a balanced mind recognizes our interdependent union with all life, our ego-mind denies this and treasures exclusivity and independence.

The three poisons of the mind are manifestations of this out of balance ego exclusivity. As we grow and mature these poisons create strife for our selves and others. We respond to this strife in one of two ways: Blame and denial or learning. The first response just exacerbates the poisons whereas the latter choice moves us to the realization they are rooted in our out of balance ego-mind.

Life, in essence, is structured so that we either awaken or we continue to suffer. If we live long enough, are open-minded, and determined to see things as they truly are, we will eventually come to see the truth. And when this transformation happens, our ego (as the exclusive judge) dies—so to speak. The fact is this sense of self never dies but it is transformed in a balanced way so that we see the world in an enlightened fashion.

This transformation can be facilitated through Zen whereby we learn to quiet the constant chatter that emanates from our ego with its judgments and critiques, which normally overshadow our compassionate nature. This chatter is so loud and relentless, we could easily go through life with very little, if any, understanding of our pure and true nature which makes life worth living. It is unfortunate that few of us follow this path toward breakthrough and remain ignorant of our vast human potential.

Breaking through occurs when our left-brain chatter comes to a halt and we become aware of our always present true nature. This is a matter of subtraction—a sort of shedding—rather than adding or seeking. Lao Tzu put it this way: 

“Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.” And this...“In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less is done until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.”

Little Bear and Lily Pads

The kingdom of magic.

Many years ago I had an experience, which irrevocably changed my life. When it happened I knew it was transforming but I had no idea to what extent, nor did I have any contextual framework into which to fit the occurrence. 

It took many years more before I fully comprehended what had taken place, and the impact on my life. It is hard to speak of the experience in terms, which can be understood, but I’ll give it my best shot since I know how important it is to share what happened⎯not for my benefit but for those who may read this. 

In metaphorical terms, the floor of my bucket collapsed and I fell through Alice’s rabbit hole into a vast and unknown realm. I had lived 40 years by then with no clue that my sense of reality was questionable. It wasn’t what I hoped for but I never thought there was any other possibility. I was living just like everyone else, based on the notion that I knew who I was. I had a name, a career, relationships, and a long history. I functioned in all of the ordinary ways—in short, I had a well-defined identity and I was miserable even though by any conventional measure it appeared as if I were successful. 

I eventually reached a point when I took a serious look at the life I had fashioned and asked myself a hard question: Did I want to spend the rest of my days doing more of the same, and getting the same result? I decided that I didn’t, but by then I had a lot invested in a bad game with no idea what the alternatives might be. In spite of this dilemma I saw that if I was ever going to find the answer, I had better consider again, from the beginning, with the time I had left. So with that realization, I cut loose from my moorings and plunged into foreign waters.

Through a convoluted set of circumstances, I soon found myself living in a Zen monastery, which I first thought of like a halfway house to give me time to solve my mystery and chart a new life path. Little did I know that this choice would open the door to a wholly different realm, which would radically transform how I looked at the world and myself. When I say, “the floor of my bucket collapsed” what I mean is that my floor—the foundation of my life up to that point: my imagined identity; ego—was blocking discovery of my real, true nature. It was like wearing a coat that obscured my naked and real self. 

I had not been at the monastery very long and can’t explain why the collapse happened so soon. I have since read many stories about Zen monks spending years in dedicated practice before experiencing this metamorphous. I don’t know why it happened to me as it did. All I know is that when it happened it felt like I was being flushed down a toilet and when it was over “I” no longer existed. The “me”—identity, which was my floor, died there. And I was transformed from an isolated individual into an integrated sojourner and I joined the world for the first time, spiritually fresh, clean, naked, and raw.

As I look back over what I’ve just written it looks unbelievable and strange. I know that, but I also know—after having lived many years beyond that magical moment—that it is worth the risk of possible scorn to share it. If even a single person believes this story, they will know that it is possible for them to be transformed also. And if that means they will take a similar risk to cast aside what they think is real and discover the same reality that I did, then a good outcome will have resulted. You might be tempted to think this experience made me special. It had the opposite effect. I realized that we are all the same; none any more special than anyone else. In fact, I now realize that this whole wish to be special is a major obstacle to waking up to who we really are.

I am not a Zen master. I did not spend years of dedicated practice to achieve this transformation. There is no reason whatsoever that it should have come when it did, but it did. And if it happened for me it can happen for anyone. What I have learned since that moment of transformation is this new and unknown realm is neither new nor unknown. It is like a story I used to read to my daughter when she was very young—the story of Little Bear, who discovered that he didn’t need to wear a coat since he already had one. We too don’t need the extraneous cloak of an ego. We already have a true nature, which is always there beneath the cloak. I can only tell you that my deepest nature is infinitely finer than the extraneous one.

If you take the time to read Zen literature you’ll find this underlying, true nature called many names—Buddha-Nature, the One Mind, pure consciousness, True man without rank—the names don’t matter. Call it what you choose. Maybe the best name is Lily—the flower of life. The water lily grows on a pad floating on water, rooted in the muck, which is hidden in the deep. In many icons, the Buddha is shown sitting on that pad. What we all would be wise to not do is to gild our lilies, or put coats on bears who already have one.

The Road Less Traveled to Tipperary.

The mortal Tipperary.

“It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Henry James “Harry” Williams wrote that song (heard at this link) back in 1912 and it became popular during the “War to end all wars”—WWI. 

As we know it didn’t end all wars but instead set the stage for the next World War, as all wars do. They never end, the carnage continues, unabated, and we never seem to learn the needed lessons of why wars exist at all.

The greatest war—the one that will end all wars, is an internal war (the ultimate battle) and involves identity and mis-identity: the battle between the ego (the great impostor) and our real, hidden nature that lies dormant awaiting discovery. Many great pieces of literature have been written about this internal battle, not the least of which is The Bhagavad Gita. But we, in the West, remain mostly unaware of such wisdom and thus continue fighting the wrong wars—the mortal ones—that continue forever.

I went through that internal war (as well as an external one—The Vietnam War that damaged me for the rest of my mortal life) and experienced the battle that awakened me to the real, hidden me, but it was a Long Way to Tipperary—that stretched from my ordinary road of seeking fleeting mortal success, hitting the road-bump that brought into question that pursuit, arrived at the critical juncture of choosing to stay on that road to nowhere (with utter familiarity) or going down that other road to fear, trembling, ego confrontation, THE battle, and final victory. 

It wasn’t fun and honestly, there were many times when I asked myself “what the hell have I gotten myself into?” Tipperary, in this case, was finding that internal, hidden treasure. After that, I reached another crossroads and had to choose again, which road I would follow, and which I would thus leave behind. What I never considered when I made the first choice to travel that road less traveled was there were some really bad demons waiting to ambush me down that path,  and facing and regurgitating all of the misery I had buried within. 

But to get to the hidden treasure, by necessity, entailed reaching further, down into the deepest mud of consciousness, where both the demons and the angels co-existed. I had no other choice than the one that led to the ever-increasing internal space of darkness. Consequently, it was a dice-roll with both demons and angels coming along as a package deal, at the same time. And eventually, these splitting paths came out onto a meadow: a point of union, that was bathed in pure, vibrant light. But when that battle first began, I didn't know convergence would ever occur.  Thus the lid on Pandora’s Box was thrown open and the demons attacked with a vengeance.

I came to know, gradually, that the previous pursuit—the ordinary mortal one—was leading me step by step to complete despair and the inescapable conclusion that I had invested 40 years of my life building a castle in the sky. I had a lot of skin in that game and it was extraordinarily hard to fess up to making wrong choices. My ego hated that confession (it never wants to acknowledge error and doubles down with the mantra of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”) and if I had been willing to see clearly earlier I would have come to that juncture sooner. 

But I didn’t but bought into that programmed mantra. After all, a Marine never quits, and sadly most never know when to quit. Sometimes it is better to retreat and fight another day. The question is not to fight (or not) but rather the question is choosing the right war to fight. It’s the same for us all. Which one do we choose? The one that never ends? Or the war that will end all wars and does lead to Tipperary. But, the road to that meadow of light had to go through darkness and into a new world!

Mea culpa

Immortality awaits all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The razors edge.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14

Everyone learns about the easy and the hard way. It is easy to follow in the footsteps of friends, associates, and even family members who take shortcuts and chart a course into lives of luxury that seem to assure minimal risk and maximum comfort. It is likewise hard to choose a path less traveled that is awash with adversity, rejection, and leads through that narrow gate to the fullness of life. While blinded by clouds of uncertainty it is common to rush back through the broad gate to familiar but thin relationships. Charting a path through the unknown is what trailblazers have always accepted; it goes with the territory.

That overview easy to say and difficult to sustain. Max Cleland wrote his now-famous Strong at the Broken Places: The story of extraordinary overcoming that emerged from his tragedy. Cleland served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War and attained the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for valorous action in combat, including during the Battle of Khe Sanh. 

On April 8, 1968, with a month left in his tour, Cleland was ordered to set up a radio relay station on a nearby hill. A helicopter flew him and two soldiers to the treeless top of Hill 471, east of Khe Sanh. When the helicopter landed, Cleland jumped out, followed by the two soldiers. They ducked beneath the rotors and turned to watch the liftoff. Cleland reached down to pick up a grenade he believed had popped off his flak jacket. It exploded and the blast slammed him backward, shredding both legs and one arm. Due to the severity of his injuries, doctors amputated both of Cleland’s legs above the knee and his right forearm. He was 25 years old. That was 48 years ago and I, along with thousands of others who served, have lived with emotional scars that run deep resulting from terrors of war.

What we seem to not understand is that we don’t always choose the narrow path. Often times it is thrust upon us and we have little choice but to struggle to overcome or succumb to the crush of adversity. Dying quickly can be much more attractive than dying inch by inch until there is no more energy or desire left to live. 

The latter may not seem desirable but in truth, the struggle to reach through and beyond the crush is what builds character, empathy, and compassion. No one can pretend to wear another’s clothing of horror and struggle to endure. Each of us must travel this lonely path, whether thrust upon us or not.

It is paradoxical that every parent wants to spare their children hardship and many succeed, yet this often turns out to be a shallow and fruitless accomplishment that leaves young people with a thin illusion of superiority and little compassion or understanding for the plights of the less fortunate. 

How often it seems that people become empathetic only when adversity strikes one of their family members. Then the tables turn suddenly and the plight of others struck in similar fashion registers as a matter that affects them personally. What we have yet to learn is that every human being is someone’s child and they are our child as well. This may not seem evident but no one is an island. We are on earth to learn this vital lesson and more times than not, the path to knowledge runs along the razor’s edge.

Simple complexity.

I’ve been a student of Zen for more than 40 years. During that time I must have read hundreds of Buddhist and Zen books. To be honest nearly all of them were profound yet abstruse. 

Transcendent truths can be perplexing for a number of reasons. Since language is limited and reading is language-centered, this constrains understanding of changing time and cultures. It’s an oil and water conundrum. Additionally, what is considered truth is a variable depending on a host of changing conditions. Mining profound treasures involve a lot of digging and dirt tossing. And after the mining, you still have a problem: How to transmit the gold to others.

Long ago Lao Tzu addressed this problem when he said, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” That is indeed a perplexing communication challenge. As I’ve worked through this challenge I have struggled to distill and shift out the dirt so that I could speak simply of matters that are anything but simple and obvious.

I’ve studied the writing of the great sages and seers to understand their wisdom. Jesus chose to speak in parables. The New Testament is full of his parables. The Buddha chose similar methods. Both were so erudite their own disciples rarely grasped their insight. And while these methods worked with some, the vast majority still didn’t understand. Life’s greatest truths are not so evident. I’m no sage but I use their communications methods since I am persuaded that if I can find ways to share the wealth of my own mining then a lot of people can begin to find their own treasure. 

One of the most valuable communication tools used by The Buddha is known as “Upaya” — expedient means. The principle is simple: Teach people at their level rather than your own. This method is extraordinarily wise. Imagine what would happen in a Kindergarten class if the Ph.D. teacher tried to teach nuclear physics by employing high-level jargon. It doesn’t mean that young people one day won’t be capable of becoming nuclear physicists. But there is a huge difference between knowing something and being an effective teacher. All of us have experienced both and all of us prefer good teachers.

What I have chosen to do is adapt. I use, as much as possible, simple language with graphics and other devices that aid in the learning process so that matters of great profundity can be grasped by people not yet schooled. They know precisely the nature of their own dilemma but they don’t know the nature of the solutions. Transcendent truths provide the solutions they seek. It is my job to speak simply of these truths. All I do is haul water to thirsty horses. The horses decide if they want to drink.

Getting out of jail

Having a clear understanding of a problem is essential to finding a solution. Buddhism may be the best solution to the problem of suffering. But is that the problem or a symptom? Perhaps we need to better understand the root of suffering before accepting it as the problem.

Certainly, illusion is part of the root. An illusion is, of course, something that has no self-containing substance and is fleeting. That is how the four “dharma seals” are defined—All compounded things are impermanent, all emotions are painful, all phenomena are empty, and nirvana is beyond extremes.  More to the point, illusion is the sea in which we swim. We think we live in an objectively substantial world. Still, both the Buddha and modern science say otherwise—That our only ability to discern anything is a matter of images projected in our brain. This nature of illusion is foundational to our existence. Consequently, the root problem must be understood within that all-pervasive context. We are idea people living within the framework of ideas. Or, as the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says, “We solve illusion by employing illusion.” There is no other way.

Then we come to the matter of self-understanding. How did we get here? And where did we come from? That is not a metaphysical set of questions. It infers the emergence of identity and the process of identity formation. And to understand this process is enlightening. All of us begin life in the cocoon of our mother’s womb, where we are a single being and literally attached. At that point, there is no separation between mother and child. There is no such thing as an idea of a separate self since we are not a separate being. Only following mortal birth are we separated, and only then does the process of individuation begin.

Watching a young child begin to grapple with not being one with the mother is an important part of understanding the root problem. Slowly a child becomes self-aware, not as joined physically with mother, but as a separate person with an emerging and isolated identity. At first, this awareness results in stark terror! One moment mother is there, and the next, she is gone. The unavoidable awareness is separation and difference, and then the next step of psychic construction takes place: If not, mother, then who? This moment is the beginning of the idea of self (ego). From that seed grows fear of survival as a separate and isolated individual with a unique but vulnerable identity.

Phenomenally, mutual discretion is the standard. We see others as mutually discrete from us. We see ourselves as separate and apart from them. In our perceived isolation, we are afraid of dying and trapped in a conundrum: We must emerge as independent but are, in fact, linked, if not physically (as previously with mother), then certainly spiritually and mentally. And the result of this conundrum is possessiveness and greed, the rationale being that if we are separate and isolated, then for survival, we must hoard and insure against risk. It quickly becomes a matter of me and mine and self-absorption.

This idea of self—an extension of our ground of illusion—then becomes the mask which hides our truth: That we are not an objective image, but rather a subjective reality that has never been disconnected from anyone or anything. At the imperceptible level of our true nature, we are interdependently connected, but for this awareness to evolve, the image of a separate self (ego) must pass away. 

The death of a self-image is a suffering matter since it seems so real (just like all illusions can). Thus, the solution is to dissolve this phantom and find our true, never-divided self—To release our attachment to an idea and find our substance. And that is what makes Zen nearly magical because it is a process of releasing from illusions but always from within the illusion context. We are not “just” an idea. We are both an idea (phenomena—discernible but unreal) and noumena—real but imperceptible. We will never be released from an ego. It is our imaginary self and a part of who we are, but we can be detached from bondage, which comes from seeing ourselves as its exclusive prisoner. From that understanding comes freedom—That we exist and that we don’t: The Middle Way.