Taste It

Frustration is a unique experience. Nobody likes it. Failure drives us nuts, and we can’t wait to be rid of it. And that acknowledgment is a vital awareness of moving forward down a path that leads to freedom. 

We don’t like it, and we are thus motivated to fix it. What few of us realize is that we are not really free so long as we live with a fundamental delusion: the delusion of thinking we know what is our mind, but in truth, we don’t. The simple task I gave you yesterday was the first step in moving you down the road to genuine freedom. So long as anyone believes they have already arrived at a destination, even if it is the wrong destination of misidentifying themselves as an ego, they will not move, and the result is more suffering.

What is ordinarily considered to be your mind are thoughts, images, and emotions but these are what’s produced by your mind. These three are the effect but not the cause. They have to come from someplace and that place is either your perceptible ego mind (not really your mind) or your real not-to-be found mind. If you want to find the source you need to turn this around and go backward instead of forwards. 

Acquisition is always the result of adding. When we subtract we return to the source where nothing is acquired because it’s already there in that space known as Śūnyatā, where we find nothing but is the source of everything. With nothing added or subtracted the source is complete. And that is why in the Heart Sutra, the Buddha said, Form (every-thing) is Emptiness (no-thing). When you find your true mind you find nothing but from that nothingness comes everything. It’s a profound mystery. 

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said this, “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.” 

While this may seem a paradox, it is the truth, which means that at the core of every single sentient being there is a buddha awaiting to be awakened. Nobody is an image or a thought (ordinarily considered the mind). Instead, you are the source of everything you wish to create. Every single being can create a heaven or a hell once they awaken their true minds. 

Until that point what we mostly create is an ego-centric hell. The other side of us all is this spiritually enlightened mind. It can’t be seen or understood by our thinking mind, but without that, we (the bodily part of us) couldn’t exist at all.

More than likely, before yesterday, you thought you were already at the destination of freedom because you thought you could find your mind. Now, through your own experience, you know you failed the test. I could have told you but, if I had told you, it wouldn’t be your own experience. And with experience comes motivation. 

Now you’ve tasted the bitterness of frustration, and now you’re motivated to solve the mystery. When you do solve it, you’ll discover that all of the time, you were in bondage and didn’t even know. And you will also know what freedom actually feels like for the first time. No longer will you be the slave of your ego. There is no better teacher than your own experience, either for the good or for the bad. Genuine knowledge isn’t abstract and intellectual. It is a real taste in your mouth that you can’t describe but know nevertheless.

A Christmas message.

The name changes. The essence doesn't.

Suppose I said, “The universe is mine or ours.” Clearly, such a statement is delusional since the universe is pretty big, and to suggest that it belongs to you or me is ridiculous. But suppose I shortened the span of space and said, “The earth is mine or ours.” Smaller span but still pretty big and still ridiculous. How far down do we need to go before it stops being ridiculous? Or, for that matter, how much bigger? We could go all the way down to the quantum level or outward to the farthest expanse of space, and the essence of the statement won’t change. 

The word “The” is a definite article: something definite or unconditional. “The universe” is not contingent and isn’t altered by our presence, and isn’t waiting on anyone to possess it. Both “mine” and “ours” are forms of possessive pronouns, and both have the same meaning: To possess something. 

“My self” is different in meaning from “The self.” The first implies possession, and the second is independent, just as “My shirt” is different from “The shirt.” Okay, is it possible for anyone to possess himself or herself? Heck, we can’t even say what “The self” is, so how can it be possessed? In truth, nothing can be possessed since, in our true nature, there is no real self to possess anything.

We have this idea that we can know ourselves but, when we turn our eyeballs around and look within, nobody’s home. Some time ago, I wrote a post after reading Paul Brok’s book “Into the Silent Land.” Broks asks alarming and provocative questions such as “Am I out there or in here?” when he portrays an imaginary man with a transparent skull, watching in a mirror how his own brain functions. He notices, for us all, that the world exists inside the tissue residing between our ears. And when the tissue is carefully examined, no world, no mind, no self, no soul, no perceptual capacities, nor consciousness—nothing but inanimate meat is found. Unable to locate, what we all take for granted, he suggests that we are neither “in here” nor “out there,” maybe somewhere in between the space between the in and the out, and maybe nowhere at all.

It’s a mystifying perspective, yet all of us just continue on down the road without ever truly grasping who it is that’s continuing. Nagarjuna parsed this matter in various ways, but one of my favorites is his poem about walking, which ends this way... “These moving feet reveal a walker but did not start him on his way. There was no walker prior to departure. Who was going where?” There is no walker without walking, just as there is no thinker without thinking.

The Buddha properly pointed out that there is no discernible identity at the core of each of us, and we only begin to fabricate a self-image (ego) once we move and take action. Until then, there is no observable identity. The actions we take define who we are, not the ideologies to which we cling. Of course, what we think is usually followed by action. Without action, either for the good or the bad, we are no one at all. And when we remain still, we have a potential for unlimited either. Then we are silent and can dwell in the infinite space of tranquility, wholeness, peace, and readiness, which lies at the very heart of undifferentiated sentience.

On the other hand, when we imagine ourselves as distinctly unique individuals, we become an incomplete ego with definable differences that must possess and attach to forms to identify. That fabrication must possess and makes things mine. Then the universe, and all therein contained, stops being the universe and becomes my universe. This, however, doesn’t mean movement necessarily equates to being a possessive ego. So long as we remain aware of our genuine indefinable sentient nature and not a fabricated ego, our movement can be nonpossessive. We can continue as nonjudgemental members of indiscriminate humanity. 

What everyone will discover, if pursued, is that we exist and don’t exist at the same time. The “walker” only comes along with walking. The thinker only emerges with thinking, digestion only with eating, and the self with and through living. The question is, what or who sparks the process of all?

There’s a direct link between what we think and what we do. The Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” He then went on to say, “To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”  Jesus likewise pointed out that “the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person.” 

Today there is far too much negative rhetoric and inaction. Likewise, there is far too little positive thought and action in our world. As you open your gifts on Christmas day, think about the greatest of gifts: The gift of giving yourself to make the world a far, far better place. 

Digestion

Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. If that is the case, then my life is worth it because examining is my passion.

Some think of life as one long process of digestion. Stuff gets shoved in one hole, time expires, and processed stuff comes out another hole. Not much thought about where the stuff comes from, how the holes got there in the first place, nor where (if anywhere) it all goes afterward. Actually, it’s not a bad metaphor. It just needs some fine-tuning and some critical thinking. So let’s break it down and do some examining together.

First, the holes: Let’s begin with one of those chicken and egg things. Which came first? Believe me, there is no logical answer by thinking inside the box. Both chickens and eggs are in the box. So what’s outside. Obviously, something beyond poultry. It’s sort of like the mother and child thought. When does a mother become a mother—Before of after a child? If before a child, then it may be a woman, but it’s not a mother. If, after a child, then how can a child be here first? Again, outside the box.

Getting outside is something that Siddhartha (The Buddha) and Nagarjuna (the 14th Patriarch of Buddhism) were really good at. And the reason they were is that they didn’t just think about being outside; they were outside and looked back to the inside. Ever wonder what that must look like—from the outside looking in, versus the ordinary view of being inside and trying to get out? It did and does make a difference when you can see the whole picture instead of a one-sided piece.

So what did they see that might be of use to us wannabees? What they saw and I have been trying to share (somewhat unsuccessfully) is that our view of life is inverted. What we see is what an old friend of mine called “seeing the inside of your own eyeballs.” Our view is severely constrained by the insane notion that the holes (and the stuff that goes in and out) just came into being all by itself, with no links to anything beyond. Our view is obscured because of what advertising folk calls “noise level.” In that business, there is a huge challenge in figuring out how to stand apart from the crowd of others who are also trying to stand out from you. It isn’t an easy task. What we fail to realize is that we are walking-talking noise machines almost all of the time, only the noise is not “out there” it is in here (buzzing brains: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz). We are watching home movies nearly all of the time, and there is nobody home.

The amazing thing is that when we turn down the noise level—it can be done—we don’t just disappear. When our minds quiet down, what can be discovered is that there is some pretty incredible wisdom behind the cacophony, which is just waiting to get a turn. 

I’ll share just one tiny pearl here and reserve others for later: A ladder with one leg. No buyers? What’s so difficult about a ladder with one leg? How about the obvious: It wouldn’t stand. That seems so simple, doesn’t it? Even a three-year-old child can see the obvious problem. Yet we act like such a thing makes sense all the time, only we don’t call it a ladder. We call it “independence”: 

A one-legged ladder that stands by itself against a non-existent wall. Neither makes more sense than the other, so what is the alternative? How about two legs and a wall? Translation: The alternative is interdependence (two legs, at least—actually, there is an infinite number of legs) set against the wall of transcendence (meaning that while the wall is there, we just can’t put defining characteristics around it). If there were no walls, it would just fall down, even with two legs, or more. Before leaving this inaugural blog post, I would ask you to read a closing verse from Nagarjuna:

Like the flame of a lamp
The flow of matter and mind
Neither ends nor never ends.
This would end
If mind and matter failed to flow
From the dying of their past;
It would never end
If mind and matter failed to flow
From a past that never died.
If half this ended and half did not,
I would both end and never end,
Leaving half the grasper
Dead and half undead,
Half the grasped destroyed,
Half undestroyed.

It doesn’t get much better than that.