I love history. Knowing where we came from and how we got here is important. “Real” history—not the fairy-tale version we seem to prefer—teaches us valuable lessons. In particular, understanding the historical path leading to common-coin words and terms is paramount because words and terms are the building blocks of ideologies—the way we think and understanding what unites and divides us.
December 8 is an auspicious day few even know exists, and I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, I’d like to write about another day of which nearly everyone, throughout the world, is aware—December 25, the day Christians (and others) celebrate the birth of Jesus. We know that day as Christmas. But time has erased from our collective memory the origin of the term “Christmas,”—The Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus occurs on December 25. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of recent origin. The earlier term Yule (e.g., Yule-tide) may have derived from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, which referred to the feast of the winter solstice: A purely secular root to what has become a day of giving and receiving gifts on Christmas, supposedly as a celebration of the birth of Jesus.
Since the early 20th century, Christmas has mostly become a secular holiday. In this secular celebration, a mythical figure named Santa Claus plays a pivotal role. For the most part, Christmas is a family holiday, observed by Christians and non-Christians, devoid of Christian elements. And we are now in the midst of “Black Fridays” (plural, since the day, has become an entire series of days), designating the annual rush to purchase the most for the least, in anticipation of getting ready for Santa Claus. “Black Friday” also has a historical path, but I don’t want to overlay one divergence on top of another, or I’d never get to the point. And what is that point? The point is the preference for myth over fact—Fake News or disinformation, making it nearly impossible to know which end is up. We seem to love snake-oil and those who sell it because we are essentially lazy and don’t make an effort to dig beneath the surface and discover what lies within.
There is a method in my madness for this short Christmas diversion, apart from the significance of December 8. The madness part is that I would delay. And the method part explains my reason, which is to illustrate how we (as a human family) have lost our way. As the saying goes: “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This very moment we are on the verge of doing just that—repeating a miserable era that emerged during the decade following 1930. That repetition has much to do with both December 8 and December 25.
Birth—biological birth is different from spiritual birth. In the Christian tradition, spiritual birth happens (or it doesn’t) when aspirants confess their sinful nature and accept the Holy Spirit (supposedly the aspect of a triune God—trinity, promised by Jesus) into their spiritual hearts and souls. Then, those “born again” become a new person, armed with The Spirit of God. The matter of salvation (e.g., being set free from the scourge of “sin”) presupposes being sinful in the first place. Without that presumption, the entire proposition falls into a thousand pieces, and like Humpty-Dumpty, can’t be put back together again: another divergent tale worth pondering, but for another time.
While few know the historical facts of Christmas (December 25), fewer still know the historical facts of Bodhi Day (December 8)—the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha—Siddhartha Gautama (Shakyamuni), experienced enlightenment. According to tradition, Siddhartha had pursued and ultimately gave up years of extremely ascetic practice and resolved to sit under a “peepal tree” until he was free from suffering. Siddhartha sat beneath that tree, meditated until he found the root of suffering, and discovered how to liberate himself from it. That process of giving up asceticism was preceded by giving up what none of us would give up (great wealth) to travel the other path that lead to a dead-end. On the other side of that end lay the opening to ultimate freedom—a goal all humans desire; the mythical pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
When those living in the Western World think of enlightenment, they conjure up “THE Enlightenment,” an era when European politics, philosophy, science, and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the “long 18th century” (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply The Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, France, and Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. Ever since that era, the Western World has been on a path defined by rational thought and hardened ideologies. While Christians remained the largest religious group in the world in 2015, making up nearly a third (31%—2.3. billion) of Earth’s 7.3 billion people, they are fragmented into a myriad of schisms (e.g., denominations) too vast to count, each of which claims to be the sole keepers of the truth.
In the Eastern World, “enlightenment” is a very different matter. The idea of “moksha”—release from the cycle of continuing suffering by attaining a transcendent state of mind, is the gold standard. It is within this state of mind that one realizes unconditional truth. Opposing ideologies are anathema to this sort of enlightenment but is instead oriented toward realizing one’s true nature of unity (non-difference vs. ideological differences). And for that reason celebrating December 8 (Bodhi Day) is relevant to the current crisis of chaos around the world. We are in a meltdown mode because of the “I’m right/you’re wrong” vector of ideologies, which align with rational thinking, taking us further and further away from meltdown solutions.
A friend sent me the meme to the right. I thought about the message and then, in honest reflection, realized something of worth: To move to Betterness without going through Bitterness is not only disingenuous but more than likely impossible.
We are, after all, humans and rarely react to adversity gladly. That reaction takes some pretty advanced transformation and few indeed are able to get to that place without having first experienced disappointment, anguish, and suffering. Nobody I have ever known (including myself) has ever leaped over these preliminary emotions of sadness as though moving from “A” to “Z” by jumping over “B” through “Y.”
In point of fact, it is precisely the process of anguish that compels transformation. This is a point we often overlook because we think suffering is something we can avoid if we stand on the sidelines while the suffering train leaves the station. No, there is great wisdom inherent in suffering because of this:
Betterness is the residue of bitterness and we can’t get to betterness by avoiding the bitter pill of suffering. And even once we arrive at a better way, the memory of what led to bitterness remains a compelling force, unless of course, we enjoy suffering.
“Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball if that’s all there is.”
These words might very well be the mantra for today. They were however, sung by American singer Peggy Lee and an award winner from her album in November 1969. When your life seems surrounded with corruption it is easy to become disillusioned. Peggy Lee’s song was written by the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and based on the existential philosophy expressed at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th-century.
More specifically the writers borrowed the idea from the 1896 Disillusionment written by Thomas Mann who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. Mann was a big fan of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, all of whom, in one way or another saw life as meaningless and were considered either implicit or explicit nihilists.
Without plumbing the depths of consciousness it seems logical that life is indeed meaningless. The words of the song keep changing but the message appears to be the same. Even among mainline Buddhism that message was first resonating with what was known as “The Three marks of existence.” The Buddha was thought to have taught that all beings, conditioned by causes (saṅkhāra) are impermanent (anicca) and suffering (dukkhā) while he said not-self (anattā) characterized all dharmas meaning there is no “I” or “mine” in life.
If that was the end of the matter, Buddhism would more than likely, have lasted about twenty seconds. But fortunately that was not the end of the matter. It took some time for Mahāyana Buddhism to emerge, which told the rest of the story. In Chapter 3 (On Grief) of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra the Buddha taught, about what he called “four perversions.”
He said that the true Self signified the Buddha, the eternal signified the Dharmakaya (the Mind of truth), Bliss signified the lack of dukkhā and Nirvana/the Pure signified the Dharma. He went on to say that to cultivate impermanence, suffering, and non-Self has no real value/meaning. “Whoever has these four kinds of perversion, that person does not know the correct cultivation of dharmas. Having these perverse ideas, their (the lost) minds and vision are distorted.”
When life seems to be characterized by violence, political shark-man-ship, power through money, injustice, a growing wave of corruption, despair, apathy, and hopelessness, it’s easy to wonder, “Is this all there is?” And while we may not yet be able to find our true Selves (which is Sunyata), we don’t need to see life through the lens of a victim. A man who waits for enlightenment before being a balm to others is like waiting for the ocean to warm before taking a bath.
While facing such adversity in the present moment, it may require strength, endurance, and keeping a level head. But of equal importance is the clear understanding that the only way to have better “nows” for tomorrows is by making those betters today. A single match can either ignite a blazing inferno of hatred or light a lamp of love that shines brightness into the darkness. Whatever we do in the never-ending “now” will make our world of tomorrow.
We don’t need to be a Malālah Yūsafzay or an Edward Snowden to make a difference. A single act of kindness in whatever sphere we live turns adversity into joy. A single drop of rain waters 10,000 pines.
