The Warren Buffet axiom of spiritual wholeness.

That is THE question.

“If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes.”—Warren Buffett

While nearly everyone is concerned about money right now, this is not a post about earning more or preserving what you may have. It is instead a post about not earning a living. I begin with that quote from Buffet because it aligns with the flip side of a spiritual principle that has made a difference in my life: 

“If your spiritual experience doesn't last 40 years, don't consider giving it credence for even 40 seconds.”

Of course, that’s only possible in hindsight after having lived an extended mortal life. Longevity comes along with a firm perspective that can only be established by looking backward and noticing two phases: 

• First is the phase of “chasing the white rabbit,” sparked by curiosity, wedded with the conviction that down a magical hole lies what Alice sought.

• The second phase answers Alice’s question of “who in the world am I ?” and despite her twisted journey, she says to the Queen of Hearts, “My name is Alice, so please your Majesty.”

What Alice doesn't learn, but we must, is that while Alice thinks she has affirmed her identity with a name, neither she nor we are a name, not even an identity. Our names may change, we may continue phase-one without realizing we are still on a quest to find ourselves, but no-one needs to go anywhere to find themselves.

But going on a quest is essential to have the experience that it is a trip to nowhere. Until then, we will continue the chase, or simply give up thinking we will ever honestly answer the question of “who in the world am I ?”. And that is where the flip side of Buffet’s investment philosophy comes into play. If we don’t give up, what all of us find is we are far, far beyond an identity, name, or any other means of defining ourselves. We are instead, contrary to the messages of our world, already complete, whole, and full of love. There is nowhere to go and nothing to possess that we don’t have already. That is not a fantasy, nor does it take place in “never-never-land.” Instead, it is real, and it takes place in “ever-ever-land.”   

“All beings by nature are Buddha,

As ice by nature is water.

Apart from water, there is no ice;

Apart from beings, no Buddha.

How sad that people ignore the near

And search for truth afar:

Like someone in the midst of water

Crying out in thirst,

Like a child of a wealthy home

Wandering among the poor.”

Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku’s Song of Zazen

 
As odd as this discovery might seem, our real nature is hidden beneath the one we think we are, as gold is hidden beneath what lies above.

Surrendering from vengeance.

Tit-for-Tat

Quite a while back I wrote of post called, “Surrendering from inflexible positions” and a reader responded with a suggestion that I write about surrendering from vengeance. I didn’t take the advice at the time but given the current state of affairs, with so much at stake, maybe it’s time to track this human tendency through to its logical conclusion. 

I don’t have much wisdom to offer on the topic since the downside seems rather obvious. However, since the dominant forces today seem locked into this pattern of back and forth violence, perhaps the downside isn’t so obvious after all. Antifa and White Supremacy have locked horns with clear political spin. Curiously, Antifa is getting labeled as “radical socialists.” Nothing could be further from the truth, but nowadays political spin outranks truth. 

And then I recently wrote about the findings of Peter Cathcart Wason, the English cognitive psychologist, who discovered that we humans are much more interested in our egoistic desires to protect our preconceived opinions than to seek truth. So maybe vengeance has more to do with covering our vested flanks than anything else. If so, then this post probably won’t succeed in chipping away at that crusty vest. We seem to be slow learners and our collective ignorance leads us all to more suffering.

In one of my books, More Over, I wrote about this idea called kleshas (or afflictions; causes of suffering). The five following kleshas were described by Patanjali at the beginning of Book 2 of the Yoga Sutra (1, 2, 4). So I don’t claim any special knowledge. I just took the time to read because learning about the causes of suffering seemed like a good thing to do. When these kleshas are laid out end-to-end the logic of vengeance can be fathomed.

The first of the kleshas was called ignorance of the true nature of reality (avidya in Sanskrit). However, Patanjali’s perspective here is contrary to Mark Twain’s advice who said: “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” Perhaps so, but thus far evidence is lacking.  Then comes misidentification (asmita), attachment (raga), anger following a loss (dvesha), and finally misunderstanding life and death (abhinivesha). Having identified these five, Patanjali makes it simpler yet by saying that all of these five are contained in the first: ignorance of the true nature of reality. 

As a human species, this simplicity seems to be lost since we proceed to go forward with this tit-for-tat practice of violence (otherwise called vengeance). The downside is rather simple when viewed in terms of one person in a relationship with another. If someone strikes you, the immediate response is to strike back. This response leads to their response to a strike back at you, and this unending pattern leads to where we are today: nowhere. The lure to right all wrongs is magnetic and we gnash our teeth struggling to find wisdom for solutions to raging conflicts around the world. The carnage is unquestionably awful but the essential question is this: How does meeting violence with more violence lead to anything other than more responsive violence? 

According to Patanjali, the entire flawed tendency can be reduced down to the first klesha: a misunderstanding of the true nature of reality. The untrue nature of reality is what we have today (and apparently have had all the way back to a beginningless beginning) and that understanding is that every person on earth, and beyond, views him or her self as purely an individual with no meaningful connection. We have a term that fits the bill for this view. It’s called mutual discretion and is the basis of the entirety of human failings.

Just for the sake of consideration, let’s think about the consequences of this view. If I am mutually discrete from you, then I will do as Patanjali suggests and misidentify myself (and you, and all others) as an image, which we call a self-image (otherwise known as ego). The nature of an image is unreal and the nature of the ego is individual self-preservation. And we have an infinite number of ways of preserving a separate self. The number one way is to attach our sense of identity to stuff we like (power, material possessions, other people, ad infinitum) and bulwark ourselves from stuff we dislike. The problem is that stuff doesn’t stand still. It moves and changes, one moment here, gone the next. And with the demise of what we have clung to (or resisted, which has the nasty tendency to find its way to us anyway) comes a sense of loss or precarious identity, self-worth and power. Then we get royally ticked off, blame others for our pain, and strike back at the perceived source of our suffering, thus vengeance.

So if that is the pattern (and who can deny that it is) then what’s the alternative? Simple: That we are not, at the core,  mutually discrete. Feedback loops define our existence  Instead we are essentially united with everything. That, of course, is easy to say and very difficult to experience. Just saying it is not enough. Unity must be experienced to be of any worth, otherwise, it remains a figment of our imagination. The experience of unity is what goes by the handle of transformation or enlightenment: where the sense of being an individual, separate identity melts into an irrevocable unity with everything. And when that happens the image we previously held of ourselves (self-image) evaporates into thin air.

From that point forward vengeance becomes an impossible matter because we realize that striking another, or destroying our world, is the same as destroying ourselves and we come to understand, in a new way, a commandment offered by Jesus when asked which commandment was the greatest. He answered by saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

There is just one tiny, yet all-important issue here. All of these: God, soul, mind, neighbor, and self are single, never born, never die, united entity. If this is not so, then the commandment falls apart and we are left with mutual discretion, all of us claiming, with self-righteous indignation, that individually each of us is justified in preserving our egocentric identity and never-ending vengeance continues forever. The arms race never ends, nor does the associated cost in blood and money.

Poisonous Children

In Buddhist thought, a poisonous monster lives inside each of us and it has three characteristics—greed, anger, and delusion (or ignorance). The name of this monster is our “precious” ego, the mythical surrogate we all create to identify ourselves. I say precious with tongue in cheek because this is the mother of all sorrow. 

It appears precious until we understand it’s phantom nature. It is who we think we are and we defend it to the death. Different religions refer to ego death as the necessary condition for final liberation—being set free to experience fundamental humanity. Christianity calls this experience being “reborn” (sadly misunderstood) and the mystical arm of Christianity refers to this state as “the dark night of the soul,” the darkness everyone must pass through on the way to freedom. 

The soul is a term, which is often used to describe the ego. When Gautama was enlightened he realized his true nature and came to understand that the ego was not real. He saw it for what it is: an idea rather than something real, and along with his enlightenment, he understood the source of suffering—the idea of ego. If you wanted to reduce Buddhism down to a single statement (which would be a gross devaluation) you could call it the solution for overcoming suffering. I’ll explain:

We have a sight challenge: We can’t see our true, immaculate self. The truth is we can’t see each other either. What I see when I look at you is your outer skin—call it a cloak. And since that is what we can see, we think of a person (including ourselves) as a body, only. But none of us is stupid. We know we are more than just a bag of bones. We know that there is someone inside that bag and we call that inside dimension by a name—“our self.” Unfortunately, this our self is just another cloak, an inside cloak that conceals our true identity. So why don’t we see this identity behind the cloak? The answer is simple (but not so obvious). We don’t see the real us because our true identity can’t be seen, but it’s there in spite of our sight challenge. If it weren’t there we couldn’t see anything because our true self is what’s doing the seeing and it’s called consciousness. Consciousness at its simplest is “awareness or sentience of internal or external existence.”

What can we see? We can see objects. What can’t we see? We can’t see the subjects. Anyone who has studied grammar is taught the difference between an object and a subject. If I write the sentence “I see myself,” the “I” would refer to the subject, and “myself” would be the object. But there is a subtle problem with such a sentence (and a clue). Is it possible for a subject to be an object? Isn’t that sentence illogical? Think about it. Either they are different or they are the same thing with an illusion of difference.

Our real nature is not an object, like a stone—which can’t see. When we objectify anything we devalue it, stripping it of fundamental humanity. We are not only objects. We are not an idea. We are real beings, an incarnate spirit with two dimensions, one part of which can be seen and one part that can’t. These two parts can’t be divided. If our spirit is removed we’ll just be a bag of bones. If our body is removed we’ll be a ghost. We may talk as if they can be divided but such thinking is delusional. And there is an inherent awareness in us all that knows this truth, but it is such a vaporous aspect that it goes beyond our detection. 

It is a conundrum, which produces the three, poisons of greed, anger, and delusion. Why? Because “We”—the real us—wants desperately to be set free and it makes us angry that we can’t find the solution! We are in prison—a prison of our own making—and we can’t find our way out, and the keys to that prison are held by Mr. or Mrs. Ego (the gatekeeper of our prison) who is extremely greedy; who wants to possess and defend; who clings to everything desirable and rebuffs everything deemed as undesirable. Our ego judges with a criterion of objectivity—what it can perceive. If I look good, that is desirable. If I look bad, that is undesirable. If you act well, that is desirable. If you act poorly, that is undesirable. We judge based on our capacity to perceive, not what we can’t perceive.

Since it is impossible to see the real us, we all create a surrogate identity that can be seen. And this surrogate is fabricated (clothed) with a vast wardrobe of ideas, judgments, and points of discrimination. We objectify ourselves and in the process strip ourselves of human dignity. Ego is like a hologram—an image in our mind (a self-image), which we watch with our mind’s eye. We can see this hologram twist and turn, to reach out and be reached at. It is amorphous and in constant motion, subject to both assaults, and adoration.

The ego hates to be assaulted (and become easily offended) and loves to be adored. When we are assaulted we naturally take offense and when we are adored, we love it and gravitate to the one who expresses love. We are yo-yos on the string of life. And you know what ticks us off the most? That we see this manipulation happening and seem powerless to stop it! And that makes us really sad or mad! And then we take the next step: we then learn to hate our self for being so powerless and vulnerable. 

The downward spiral—which in the grand scheme is a very good spiral. Why? Because it hurts so badly and we hate pain. Pain is really our friend. It tells us something is wrong that needs fixing and if we humans are nothing more, we are fixers and very inventive. But what is generally missing is motivation. Suffering supplies motivation.

Suffering is our friend. It is something we experience inside. It is not an outside condition. It happens inside—it is a response (an effect) not a cause. And who causes this response? Our suffering is not caused by another nor experienced by them. It is caused by our response, not by outer circumstances, which can never be altered. And who is behind our responses? Why the keeper of the prison keys—Ego (our surrogate self). Ego is the source of our sorrow; our suffering, and since it is the source, it is there we must turn for a solution. 

Our system is an amazingly delicate instrument with all manner of built-in sensors designed to warn us of impending disaster. When we are being affected by a virus we start to feel poorly and we go to the doctor. When we are not feeling well emotionally we also seek out a doctor. But sadly today’s doctors of emotions either drug us to not feel the pain or reinforce our self-image so that we think better of our ego. These approaches only partially help, but unfortunately, they work to remove our motivation to reach beyond the illusion and find our true substance. Consequently, we never remove the cancerous seed but instead just slap on another band-aid.

Ego is a toxic substance, that produces emotional disease, which is why these children of ego are called the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion are toxic children and the only solution to this poisoning is to vanquish the internal creator-mother—the ego and allow our natural goodness to emerge. The answer is not to bolster our self-image or anesthetize suffering but is rather to vaporize the mother—to see it as the phantom that it is.

Meister Eckhart—Christian Mystic and prophet (circa 1260-1329)—said:

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

Fundamental humanity is not flawed in any way. It is complete already. The flaw is what stands in the way of our human birthright that puts one head above another. At the ground level of our humanity, we are equal and good, whether Pope, Emperor, Buddha, or an average person.

Identity?

The dissolving ego.

The last two posts (Karma and the Wheel of Life and Death and Karma and The Wheel of Dharma) were critical in understanding how we get into on-going trouble and how to get emancipated. Both messages may have seemed arcane and esoteric. I am aware of the difficulty, particularly among Western audiences, when coming to terms with the essential aspects of these messages. For that reason, I employed metaphors of dust and viruses. 

However, the wisdom contained in these two is so important that I want to go to the heart of the teaching, pull out the core, and do a summation, in layman’s terms. What lies at the core of them both is how we understand our human nature. Everyone, in all times and places, develops a sense of who they are, who others are, how we regard our self-understanding, and what this means to our place in the world. The admonition of the Golden Rule:  “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets,” is not incorrect. However, essential to that teaching takes us to the core of not only that teaching, but also to the core of the last two posts. Do we hate ourselves? Love ourselves? Think we are God’s gift to the world? Or perhaps a piece of crap. Whatever self-view we possess determines how we treat others and what we expect from them. Any and all, unenlightened view of ourselves, boils down to one simple principle, and how we understand that principle: Ego.

I could readily quote innumerable passages from exalted Zen Masters that speak to this matter of ego and self-understanding, but not now. If you are interested in that sort of presentation, you can click on the “SEO keyword” ego, located at the bottom of this post, and it will take you to numerous other posts about this matter of a deluded idea of who we are. Today, however, I want to speak in common terms that anyone can understand if they are so inclined. I will take you to the waters, but I can’t make you drink.

So what exactly is an “ego” and how does it make a difference, to ourselves, to others, and to the world. The word, in all languages and traditions, means “I,” not any “I” but the honest, in-the-dark-of-night “I,” when it is still, and nobody is watching. In that darkness, nobody is observing us, there is nobody to impress or be persuaded, and there is just you, in the dark, alone with your own thoughts—which could keep you awake at night. Our egos are a corrupted notion that we all create to identify ourselves. It is formed, shaped, refined, and comes to be essential to everything we say and do. Importantly, the ego is an idea, an image of self (self-image) that depends on many inputs. Those inputs come from family, friends, teachers, significant others—many, many sources, over a long period of time.

In the simplest of terms, it boils down to building an identity out of bricks of clay. And perhaps the most important of those bricks come early in life—how we were treated as children by those in whom we were most vested: those that mattered most—our family and/or the people we trusted and considered significant to our wellbeing. If those treated us kindly, we developed a good sense of ourselves. If they treated us badly, we developed a poor sense of ourselves. And those initial building blocks served as the foundation of what followed, which may, or may not, have reinforced those initial ideas. But even at a young age, what we came to think of ourselves, determined how we behaved and the feed-back we received resulting from that behavior. “As you think, so shall you become.”  That principle is universal, and you can find it presented from many sources.

Let’s take the next step in this progression. Suppose our significant, trusted people, critical to shaping those initial building blocks, treated us kindly. In such a case, our ego-sense becomes attached to those people, and then something terrible happens: They die or go away. What then happens is devastating to our mental/emotional wellbeing: We suffer. On the other hand, consider the opposite—We are treated poorly (and we come to regard ourselves poorly), nevertheless becoming attached to our own, now-ingested opinion, set in motion by those people. Both of these are forms of attachment, and they are both just ideas (images if you prefer). In the first case, we have attached to what we like, and in the other case, we are attached to what we don’t like.

Life is a moving ship on a body of water, that changes with the tides of life. Up and down, the waves move, and our egos bounce like a cork on the surface. There is no stability with that arrangement—only turbulence. What we fail to consider is what lies beneath those changing waves; at the sea bottom where nothing changes. That analogy is not about turbulent water or the bottom of the sea. It concerns identity, changing, or not. At the base depths of our thinking mind is the subconscious mind; way down there where our thoughts are “out of sight/out of mind.” Only they are never out of mind. They have just moved from our conscious/thinking mind into our subconscious mind, but they never leave. In that universal way, we are all trapped; some thinking poorly of themselves and others thinking they are superior to others.

What the quests for our true (not imagined) self entails is plunging, through whatever came before: the entire, cumulative formation of the ego, to the depths of our souls, and experiencing—not thinking—our genuine Self. This pathway is not one of rational thinking but is instead a transforming, intimately personal Spiritual experience. And when I say, “Spiritual,” I do not mean a religious one. I do mean the genuine experience of your very own spirit, that has no clothing, no identity, no “ego,” no anything. You then wake up (e.g., the term “Buddha” means awaken) to an indiscriminate, universal unity with all, that is not an isolated “you” but is the same as everyone else. In that spiritual realm, there is not an iota of difference between you and anyone, regardless of whatever bodily differences, or idea you may hold of yourself. Then you are a true man (or woman) with rank. 

The ego, at that moment, evaporates like the disappearance of mist upon the rising of the sun, and you realize the one doing the quest is one and the same as the one being sought after. And at that moment, that comes like a flash of lightning, your entire understanding changes radically—the self is transformed into Self as a worm is transformed into a butterfly. And then you have returned to a non-identity that never left.

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).

Nagarjuna’s teaching on essence.

The bloom of essence.

There’s an inherent danger in wrongly understanding the two facets of our virtual and non-virtual sides. The non-virtual side is easy to perceive. We are immersed in that side as fish are in the water. And yes, without being aware, there is a virtual side to all of us. 

“Virtual,” in this sense, means almost as described, but not wholly: Not essential. It’s tempting to focus on one side at the exclusion of the other. When The Buddha first passed on the teachings of the real (Atman/our True Self) and the unreal (anatman/our imagined self), this same misunderstanding arose. Orthodox Buddhism denies the existence of Atman/the true Self, claiming that everything is null and void, arguing one side but denying the other, which Nagarjuna nailed as nihilism yet to deny the ego/virtual, results in eternalism. 

This argument is counter to the premise of dependent origination, which is foundational to Buddhism as well as the teachings of The Buddha himself. The obvious point missed in this misunderstanding is that emptiness (the ineffable nature of the Self) is itself empty (non-empty and thus non-dual). Does the true Self exist? Nagarjuna would answer yes and no—the Middle Way. If the essence of Self exists, then nobody, except the true Self, would know without the counterweight of anatman. We only know by way of comparison and our perceptual capacities that adhere to anatman.

In the Western world, we were reared under the rule of law that says that if something is one way, it can’t be another way. The world is either black or white. If it is black, then by definition, it is not white (and the reverse). Nagarjuna—father of Mahāyāna Buddhism destroyed that comfort zone. We want things to be independent, discrete, separate, and tidy. If I am right, then you must be wrong. 

Our entire Western world functions as a subset of that logical premise, established by Aristotle with his Principle of non-contradiction (PNC): The assertion that if something is conditionally “B,” it can’t be “A” at the same time, in the same place. That conditional principle underscores our sense of justice, ethics, legal system, and everything else. It defines the contemporary problems that lead to vast irresponsibility and abuse all the way from interpersonal relations to environmental destruction. The PNC is inconsistent with the interconnectedness of life.

The fact of the matter is that nothing fits with the desire of “is” or “is not.” Mahāyāna Buddhism teaches The Middle Way—that nothing is independent, discrete, and separate. Rather everything arises interdependently. One side (to exist) requires another side. This notion of dependent origination/relativity is the natural manifestation of emptiness (Śūnyatā), which states that nothing contains an intrinsic substance, which is to say that reality exists in two, inseparable dimensions at once, that Nagarjuna labeled Conventional and Sublime or in his teaching on Essence and Non-essence. Importantly he did not say that essence does not exist. Nor did he say that non-essence exists. What he did say is that these two live interdependently. They are mirror images of one another, and neither can exist without the other (much less be fathomed). These are just alternative names we use to represent form and emptiness, which The Heart Sutra says is a single, indivisible reality.

Is there a self (anatman/ego)? A Self (Atman)? These concepts are abstractions and fabrications. The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra directly addresses the question and says, without equivocation, that the Self is just another name for Buddha-dhatu/the true immaculate Self—the only substantial reality. It stretches the definition of a Buddhist to deny Buddha-nature. It also says that self (conceptual/ego) is an illusion—that we all create (a fabrication) to identify our ineffable true nature. 

Modern neurology confirms this intuitive insight revealing that the ego is a sort of hologram which serves the purpose of separating ourselves from others, and this separation is, like the ego concept, which creates it, an illusion. The Sūtra further says that the Tathagata (the Buddha—our true Self-nature) teaches with expedient means by first teaching non-self as a preliminary to teaching the true Self. The logic of that progression is nothing short of brilliant. Until such time as we wrestle with and defeat ego/self, we are not going to come to terms with our essential Self-nature. We will hold on until the death with “Me-ism.”

Science is a marvelous tool but is limited to measurability. Yet no one has ever been able to measure the true mind (much less even find it), which according to numerous Buddhist texts, is the Buddha. We have come a long way over the centuries and can measure things today, not even imagined previously. Does that mean that reality comes and goes according to the capacity of tools? NO! Truth stands alone and is not conditioned by progress, however marvelous.

To read the details of Nagarjuna’s perspective on how essence and non-essence depend upon each other, go to—On Examination of Essence; The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Treatise of the Middle Way).

After all, is said and done, the bottom line is to not be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. Our egos/virtual reality and our True Self/true reality come as a package deal. It is impossible to separate the two (which are One). The important thing is to be continuously aware of the eternally, indwelling spiritual Self of love, and accept with gratitude that our virtual selves originate and function there as a result. 

“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, it is then more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success.” Henry David Thoreau

The lens through which we see the world

Ego, by Hsiao-Yen Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dreams and delusions.

Chuang Tzu's Dream of reality.

The expression, “You are living in a dream world” is understood to mean you are out of touch with reality. I know, as a result of conversations with my friends, that during this pandemic, dreams are becoming more frequent and seemingly real. I, too, have experienced the same thing. This could be the result of being forced into isolation and the resulting anxiety we are all experiencing. What dwells in our subconscious is coming out of the closet, perhaps as the result of limited input.

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, “Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?”

Many people don’t know what the term “Buddha” means. It means “awake,” and within the context of  The Buddha, it meant “awakened one, or enlightened one,” which is not limited to The Buddha, Buddhists, or any other restrictively defined persons. The path The Buddha traveled toward awakening was intimately linked to the practice of Zen—the pathway that encompasses long periods of draining the swamp of the delusions living in our subconscious. Hardly anyone is aware of such delusions for a simple reason: They reside in consciousness at the unconscious level which naturally comes out at night, sometimes in very strange ways that seem very real, like being a butterfly. Only when we come out of a sleep state are we able to realize what we experienced were dreams. And sometimes even then we are not quite sure if they were real or not.

Modern-day psychologist and psychiatrists, for the most part, agree that whatever is rooted in our subconsciousness can, and often does, disrupt our waking lives since we have been programmed by prior experiences and learning (some of which produce biases, preconceived beliefs, and dogma) which then become dominating forces that filter our sense of “what’s real.” All of us are affected by what we can perceive and nobody (ordinarily) can perceive the source of perception that bypasses these powerful, embedded delusions that shape our lives.

Zen provides that avenue, the means, to plunge into the depths of consciousness, through and down to that source. And when you arrive at the source you “wake up” to suchness—things as they are without the delusions that control our lives, most importantly who we are and who we are not (an ego). Only then do we experience, and realize, that pure consciousness is identical in every sentient being. That is the place of ultimate union with everything—a place of unconditional connectivity, liberated from the controlling force of delusions. It doesn’t mean you have necessarily completely drained the swamp. Some obstacles are too deeply rooted and can come out to “play” in destructive ways.

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said: “The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included. It’s like a tree. All of its fruit and flowers, its branches and leaves, depend on its root. If you nourish its root, a tree multiplies. If you cut its root, it dies. Those who understand the mind reach enlightenment with minimal effort. Those who don’t understand the mind practice in vain. Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.”

Understanding that prescription is one thing, experiencing it is another. The prior is an intellectual fabrication—a road map, while the latter is real, no speculation required. The experience of waking up is the ultimate form of clarity, serenity, and hope. Without that, we are all in a prison of the mind and have no clue.

The bird in your hand is the true doctor.

The true doctor.

It is our nature to esteem credentials, accolades, and titles. More times than not you’ll rely on the opinion of a doctor over that of an uneducated man, because the assumption is that a man of letters has earned his stripes and is better educated (e.g., he knows more). 

Mark Twain once said: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”  There’s a lot of subtle wisdom inherent in that statement. Once I had a friend who was studying for her Ph.D., and she asked me, “What do you call a person in the doctorate program who graduates last in the class?” I thought about what that might be and then she told me the answer: Doctor.

Unfortunately, our system of education is lacking. The emphasis is on rational analysis and communications (e.g., reading, writing, number-crunching, critical thinking, and rationality). All of that is fine, but it doesn’t train our trans-rational capacities: the wellspring of all thought and non-thought. Consequently, we have become a very rational, stressed out, fear oriented violent species. We can, and do, justify the most egregious behavior possible and then feel righteous about our words and actions, never realizing we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

Has that disparity ever crossed your mind? It is a puzzle, but shouldn’t be. The problem is simple (yet profound). The problem is, as expressed in the contemporary vernacular: We are not cooking on all cylinders. Translation⎯We’re out of balance and living in a dream world. We are rational, but lacking wisdom. Being educated does not necessarily make us wise, and without wisdom, rational thought, only, leads us all astray and into the conflict between the opposite quagmires of right vs. wrong.

One of the foremost examples of a wise yet uneducated man was the sixth patriarch of Chan (Chinese Zen). Huineng was born into the Lu family in 638 C.E. in Xinzhou (present-day Xinxing County) in Guangdong province, and since his father died when he was young, his family was poor. As a consequence, Huineng had no opportunity to learn to read or write and is said to have remained illiterate his entire life. Nevertheless, Huineng is recognized as one of the wisest Rinzai Zen masters of all time.

That’s the first point. The second is misleading labels. If The Buddha were born into today’s world, he would undoubtedly be called “doctor” (appropriately so). He was, and remains, the most profound doctor of the mind of any time or place. The sort of doctor he would most closely approximate today would be “psychiatrist.” However, modern psychiatrists function within a presumed sphere of science, meaning measurable matter, despite the truth that the true mind can’t be found, much less be measured.

Some years ago, I read a book by neuropsychologist/philosopher Paul Broks. The book was titled, Into the Silent Land. In probing the layers of human physiology and psychology, Broks leads us through a haunting journey. It is hard not to be stunned by reading his dissecting view of what it means to be human. We take so many things for granted. That, which is inanimate “meat,” animates with consciousness, cognition, imagination, feelings, and every other aspect of our condition, and seems to float by as a given. This fundamental mystery is so ingrained into our being that it goes unnoticed, but not by Broks.

He 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 his own brain functioning. 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 ego, 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 the space between the in and the out, and maybe nowhere at all.

Indeed, as so many mystics and seers have noted: The true mind can’t be found, and none of us can study what is beyond measuring and defining. Nevertheless, it is the true mind (which can’t be found) that is the foundation upon which everything is based⎯the source of wisdom, harmony, and the lack of stress. Speaking from intimate personal experience, I can state without equivocation that once you experience your true Self-nature your world will turn over.  And why would that be? Because stress is the result of craving what you have already. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to obtain what lies ever within your hand. So long as we believe we don’t have what we need, we will forever remain anxious, frustrated, disappointed, ill, and full of stress. And that makes us all sick, not to mention very, very tired.

Hitting the bullseye.

Going to the root cause.

In light of the recent explosion of potentially catastrophic events around the world, it’s tempting to be diverted from what is foundationally important, speak reactively and directly to these matters and avoid, what may seem obscure to many. When immediate, critical matters become in-your-face, it is natural to focus purely on such matters and forget about what was that way minutes ago.  

I attempt to remain focused on the foundationally issues 

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said, “The mind is the root from which all things grow if you can understand the mind, everything else is included.” Such a thing seems apparent, but what is ordinarily considered the mind, turns out not to be, It is indeed worth the investment to plunge to that root and if we did (collectively) we wouldn’t be chasing our tails. So I carry on, trying, again and again, to identify and communicate, with as many as I can reach, concerning

I’ve led an eclectic life and been exposed to many different cultures and perspectives. One of my stops along the way was a career in the advertising business. A lot has changed since those days but some of the vital principles have remained guiding forces. There are fundamentally three that count the most: (1) reaching the people with whom you want to communicate, (2) with messages that are considered relevant and compelling by those people, and (3) do it time and time again with a variety of connected messages. Two of those are matters of media (reach and frequency) and the third concerns message.

Back before, and during, the 80s, the advertising business was influenced by the guru of the moment,

Now, due to multiple points of global contact (blogs, podcasts, ebooks, social media in various forms, email, and multi-media such as YouTube), we have entered a new era that enshrines, more than anything else, generating a demonstrable “Like” response. It ain’t what it used to be. 

Presently, more times than not, the message is sometimes bizarre (such as Alex Jones) and other air-headed forms, drives the process and those who are interested can find you through search engines. I know this personally since over the fifteen years I’ve been posting to Dharma Space, the vast majority of my readers have found me, rather than me finding them. After all of these years, roughly 89,000 spiritual seekers have become followers of Dharma Space (a mere pittance compared to hundreds of thousands of “Likes” on a single day from superficial, frivolous material, which is disturbing to me). 

However, I guess I shouldn’t despair but rather follow the wisdom of Mark Twain: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Even though, I’m troubled by having no clue who these seekers are. They say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks but just maybe if I learn a few, I can generate “Likes” for something more profound than bathroom popularity.

Thanks to Google Analytics, I know where Dharma Space readers reside (continent, country, province, and city), how often they visit, how long they stay, their gender, and even the genre of postings to which they are most attracted. However, I also know that only a tiny few ever respond or comment (and I don’t think I’ve ever received a “Like”) so consequently, I am left to guess about many important matters: backgrounds and levels of spiritual maturity; why they are attracted to Dharma Space and to whom they refer Dharma Space posts; how frequently they prefer to receive my messages (some have told me they look forward to them every day while others say they are annoyed when they do) and are my readers' intellectual dilettantes or serious folk? These and many other important bits of knowledge, if I knew about them, could make my communications better and enable me to find and hit hearts of arising empathy and compassion. However, short of such information, I must use my judgments to deliver what I do and hope that a positive force results.

Honestly, I wish I didn’t attract dilettantes for entertainment's sake. If that is the motivation in mulling through Dharma Space articles, people could do a lot better spending their time watching “The Bold and the Beautiful ” or some idiot sharing YouTube videos of their daily hygienic habits.

At times I’ve thought of myself as a sort of Johnny Appleseed planting spiritual seeds, most of which may grow (hopefully) into maturity, unbeknownst to me, long after I’m gone. I write as the spirit moves me or about unfolding life, problems we encounter, and how to deal with them. Lots and lots of different seeds but with one common denominator of the unity of an unconditional, indiscriminate spiritual consciousness, designed to separate us all from the destructive force of an alienated ego and awaken us to our unseen, true nature. But unlike Johnny, I plant not only apple seeds but a variety of seeds with that common spiritual denominator. Sometimes I write short ones like “The Deep,” “Finger pointing at the moon,” or “Today you are you!” Some are whimsical such as “Rushing backward,” “Birds do it,” “Monkey see, monkey do,” and “You.” I share personal matters of my own growth process: “Little Bear and Lily Pads,” “Who the heck am I?” and “Tick, tick, tick.” 

Why am I writing this blog? Because I want my readers to know that regardless of how different we are on the superficial, perceptible level, at heart (where it matters; in the real mind spoken of by