Perception vs. Reality

Seeing you seeing me.

The President’s daughter Ivanka Trump says, “Perception is more important than reality.” Obviously, a distinction is made with that statement. The difference is that perception, alone, is not reality. 

More than likely, every person agrees there is a difference between the two. We know what perception is, but do we know what reality is? It is a nonsensical statement to say the two are different unless we can define both perception and reality. Ordinarily, everyone believes they know what reality is, but when pressed to explain it, hesitation arises, for a good reason. One of the most intelligent scientists to ever live (Albert Einstein) said this: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Could he be right?

Let’s test his hypothesis, and to do so, we must begin by defining some terms, such as what can be perceived and measured. Scientists deal with measurement. If something can be measured, the presumption is that it is real, and the opposite: No measurement=Not real. So far, so good with our test. So what can be measured? Anything objective can be measured. Non-objects can’t.

Given that, let’s return to grammar school and consider the following sentence: “I see me.” That sentence is instructive to our test. The word “I” is the subject, “see” is the verb, and “me” is the object. Now let’s consider the logic and the previous agreement: Any object can be measured and is thus real. 

If the grammar is correct (and it is), then “I” am not real because “I” is a subject, and a subject is different from an object. But wait! “I” am clearly real, and so are you. I am writing, and you are reading, so where is the fly in this ointment?

Now, look at the image at the top-right. There you see a picture of two people looking at each other. The clear conclusion is that every person (or sentient being: dog, cat, iguana, cow…any entity with consciousness, capable of perception) is both an object seen and a subject doing the seeing. Thus, it is an indisputable fact that any and every sentient being is both real and unreal at the same time. If so, can reality and illusion be a package deal: One part objective (and measurable, thus real, in scientific terms) and the other part subjective (and immeasurable, therefore unreal, according to the scientific criteria)?

If we (subjects) are unreal, then nobody can know anything, at all, about anyone else and what we think is real is merely an illusion. 

Einstein is correct. His hypothesis holds up, and this begs the question: How is perception different from reality? And one final point: When we refer to a self-image (ego/image of I), we refer to an unreal object that is seen. So who, or what is the subjective us that is doing the seeing? Obviously, it is the part of us that is allegedly unreal, but it is the only part of us that is real, despite Einstein or rational logic. 

The flip side of this coin is the real subjective aspect of us sees nothing but unreal illusions. Now answer the original question: What’s the difference between perception and reality?

The power of “me,” and the power of “we.”

Flattening the curve.

A dear friend, from my time as a Mad Man on Madison Avenue, sent me the image to the right. I responded by saying, “The power of me must first decrease before the power of we can increase,” and suggested the curve is upside down to allow “me” to bottom-out.

The point of those posts is the same as nearly every post I’ve written: Within us all lives the ineffable, indefinable true nature that unites us—The We. If we don’t discover it on our own, the virus will do it on its’ own by removing the “Me’s.” (not a word, nor in truth, a reality).

Nature is having a field-day with COVID-19 since the virus is indiscriminate, affecting everyone without preference for political affiliation, ideology, measures of intellectual acumen (or not), intuitive capacity, or any other criteria that define and keep us opposed from one another. It doesn’t read. It doesn’t calculate, speculate, or articulate. It does one thing only, supremely well—finds and infects a willing host. It is a traveling guest seeking an immovable host and reminds me of several posts I’ve written previously: “Guests and Hosts,” “Perpetual host; Holy ghost,” and  “Perpetual Motion.”

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.

Thinking Outside The Box.

From time to time, it’s worth recycling some posts. This one, in particular, is such a post since it addresses the underpinnings of how life works, so desperately needed at the current time. All that we do is based on thinking. It happens so naturally we rarely connect the dots. The Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” So today here is a follow-up post about thinking.

From the time of birth all the way to the end, we never stop thinking. We do it while we are awake, and while we’re sleeping, in the form of dreams. Only for brief moments is there a lull in this cerebral activity, and that is both a blessing and a curse. Because we think, we can imagine, and that allows us to create and invent things almost unimaginable. As we invent, others can experience and learn about our inventions and innovate improvements to create entirely new inventions. One creation serves as a building block for the next, and the creative process expands geometrically. There would appear to be no end to our creative capacities. The only obstacle to this process is what blocks clarity that impedes progress.

Thinking is a two-edged sword. Not only does it equip us with problem-solving skills, but it also provides us with the capacity to create problems. Because we think we can’t help thinking about ourselves, and we do this based on the nature of thoughts. A thought is, in simple terms, a mental image, a virtual projection manipulated in our brains. The image is not a real thing. It is an abstraction of something real. We open our eyes, and we see external images. We close our eyes, and we see internal images. What we fail to realize is that all images are actually being registered in our brains. What appears as “out there” is, in truth, nothing more than a virtual projection being registered in our primary visual cortex where it is “seen,” and based on this projection, our brain tells us “out there.”

But this is not the end of the matter. These images are then subjected to cognitive processing and recording in memory.  Some experiences are pleasurable, and others are not. When we experience pleasure, we want to grasp and retain comfort. When it is undesirable, we remember that as well and do our best to avoid such events occurring again. This is a learning process in which we engage to do what we can to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, but we soon learn that such a thing is beyond our control. What brings us pleasure in a moment brings us pain in the next. Phenomenal life is constantly changing.

This fundamental desire to avoid pain and retain pleasure is a trap that ends up creating the opposite of what we seek because we attach our sense of self-worth to moving targets. As the objects of desire come to an end, suffering follows. What we set out to avoid, soon comes our way. And out of this ebb and flow, we develop a sense of ourselves. We wonder about the one doing the thinking and make flawed conclusions. When adversity occurs, we imagine that we brought it upon ourselves—which is right in many cases. When pleasure comes our way, we imagine that we singularly created the conditions that made it possible. Gradually we form an image of ourselves, which we’ve learned to label an ego—a self-image that is no more real than every other abstraction produced by our brains.

All images are projections—the ones we see externally, which we presume is our real world of objects, the ones we see in our mind’s eye, and the images we develop about ourselves. None of it is anything other than abstract images recorded in our brains, not much different than the images projected onto a movie screen. All of it looks real, so we respond as if it were, and that results in significant problems for ourselves and people with whom we share our world. 

Out of this flaw of perception and processing comes certain conclusions. We conclude that we can trust some people and not others. We conclude that to survive and prosper, we must hoard and save for a rainy day. We conclude that greed is good, and we get angry when people draw attention to this flawed conclusion that jeopardizes our egotistical plans. Life then becomes a competition with winners and losers, and things turn out the same way as before. We wanted to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. The result is the opposite because our aggressive lust leads us into isolation, alienation, and jeopardy with the very same people we need to ensure our desires.

Thinking, thinking, thinking: It never stops from birth till death. It is both a blessing and a curse, and we thus create both wondrous inventions and means of destruction. As a result, life balances on a razor’s edge between greatness and evil. That’s life, so what’s Zen?

Long before there was science, of any kind, people were natural scientists and engaged in the scientific method. They wondered. They created hypotheses. They tested these ideas in various ways. They found out through trial and error what worked and what didn’t, and they learned just like scientists do today. Now we have formal sciences, and one of these is neurology: the study of the brain. Zen is the study of the mind and is conducted almost precisely as any science is done —through observation but not with tools. In Zen, the mind uses itself to examine what it produces: the coming and going of thoughts and emotions. When thoughts arise, they are observed as unreal images. When they subside, we are left with silence of what seems to be a definable observer, but in truth is simply consciousness.

We live in a time awash in technology and assume that it is based on electronics. But the principle of technology is much broader. Fundamentally technology means an application of knowledge, especially in a particular area that provides a means of accomplishing a task. Anything from a simple hammer to charting the cosmos properly belongs to the realm of technology.

The common-coin understanding of Zen is wrong. Ordinarily, Zen is considered to be a branch on the tree of Buddhism, but what many people don’t realize is that Zen came first, a long time before there was such a thing as the religion of Buddhism. The original name for Zen was dhyana and is recorded in history as far back as 7,000 years. The Buddha lived around 2,500 years ago and used the mental technology of Zen to experience his enlightenment. Properly speaking, it isn’t Zen Buddhism but rather Buddhist Zen—the mystical form of Buddhism. All orthodox religions have mystical arms, and all of them have meditation as a core principle. 

More than 300 years ago, Voltaire, a famous French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, defined mediation in a way quite similar to Bodhidharma (“Zen is not thinking”). He put it this way: “Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.” While Zen isn’t electronic, it is similar since our brain works by exchanging electrical transmissions, and Zen is the most thoroughgoing technology ever conceived for fathoming the human mind.

Because of scientific advances that have occurred in our time, we know the human brain is the most sophisticated computer ever and is capable of calculation speeds a billion times faster than any machine yet built. Furthermore, it is “dual-core,” computing in parallel mode with entirely different methods. One side works like a serial processor (our left hemisphere), and the other works as a parallel processor (or right hemisphere). On the left side of our brain is the image factory, creating thought images, and on the right side of our brain is the one watching the images. The left creates code, and the right reads the code. The left is very good at analyzing, dissecting, and abstracting while the right interprets and says what it all means. The right side “thinks” in pictures (interpreting the images). The left side talks but doesn’t understand, and the right side understands but doesn’t talk. Together the two sides make a great team, but individually they make bad company.

Zen is the mental technology of using the mind to understand itself. The true mind watches the movement and arising of the code to grasp how the “machine” works. Everything perceived and processed is applied consciousness and is watched. There is a conditional and object-oriented aspect, and there is an unconditional objectless aspect. Both sides of our brain have no exclusive and independent status. Only when they function together are they of much use. It is much like a wheel: the outside moves while the inside is empty and is the axle around which the external wheel moves. Our conscious subjective center is unseen and without form. Our objective nature has form and is seen.

In a metaphorical way, our brain could be considered hardware and our mind software. Software instructs the hardware on how to operate. Together these two are mirror opposites and rely upon the other side. In Buddhist terminology, this relationship is called dependent arising, (alternatively dependent origination) which means they can only exist together. The two sides of our brain are mirror partners. An inside requires an outside. They come and go together. Neither side can exist separately. Everything can only exist in that way.

The entire universe, in infinite configuration and form, is mostly empty. If you delve into quantum physics, you arrive at nothing. If you go to the farthest reaches of space, you arrive at nothing. Before the Big-Bang, there was nothing. Now there is everything. Everything is the same thing as nothing. And this fantastic awareness comes about by merely watching the coming and going of the manifestations of our mind. Through Zen, we learn about both the subjective/empty and the objective/full nature of ourselves. And what we discover through this process of watching and learning is quite amazing. The primary lesson learned is that there is both an image that is not real and a conscious reality that watches the images.

We think in image forms. Thoughts are not real. They are abstractions, coded messages that represent something but are not what’s being described. In our minds-eye, we see a constant flow of images and ordinarily imagine these images are real and, in such a state of mind, go unaware that there is a conscious faculty that watching this flow. That’s what being aware of our thoughts means. There is “one” who is watching, and there is what’s being watched. In truth, this “one” is not a person, but rather a capacity and function.  Neither of these (the watcher or the watched) can exist by itself. It takes both for thinking to occur.

The problem with our world today is that we are predominantly left-brain analyzers and have not been trained to make sense of what’s being analyzed. The imagined self (ego) is self-righteous, self-centered, greedy, possessive, hostile, and angry. The problem with identity is that we assume that there are an objective and independent watcher doing the watching, and we label that watcher as “me”—a self-image (otherwise called an ego). But here is where this must lead. So long as we see an image of ourselves, that image (ego) can’t possibly be the watcher because the watcher can’t see itself. So long as we see any images (self-image included), there is a difference between what is being watched and the watcher.

Education (in a usual sense) trains our language and analytics capacities but ignores the functions that enhance compassion, creativity, and insight. Consequently, we are out of balance aggressors, dominated by our egos and unaware that we are creating an abstract and unreal world that is progressively more and more violent and hostile.

The true “person” has no image dimension because all images are objective, whereas the true person is subjective consciousness. Subject/Object—two halves joined together into a single real person. One part can be seen (an image), and the other part can’t be seen (consciousness watching the image). An image isn’t real. It just looks that way. The consciousness part that is real—unconditionally the same in all sentient beings—is the part that can’t be seen. The entire time of remaining in this image-based realm, restricted by conceptual thought, is, in fact, a reflection of reality: a dream. When we move beyond thinking to the reality of pure consciousness, we wake up into an imageless realm (the root from which all things emanate), that is too incredible to describe.

In the world: enlightened social responsibility.

Covered with the slim of injustice

There appears to be a contradictory challenge in many spiritual pursuits. Picking and choosing often seem like resisting “just” action resulting from self-inflicted karma of the past. And by resisting, we attempt to alleviate our suffering by violating the principle of karmic justice, thus contributing to more bad karma and corresponding suffering. We rarely recognize how such suffering leads to the eradication of the ego and on to a higher level of spiritual life.

On the other hand, there is a temptation to avoid appropriate social responsibility based on the flawed notion that those who suffer deserve to because of their own past karma, and by interdicting this process we merely exacerbate their learning process, sparing them from spiritual advancement.—Side note: My significant other has a problem remembering this word, which means “to worsen.” Instead, she inserts the one word she can remember, that sounds the same but has a different meaning: masturbate, which significantly alters the meaning 😉. Closely aligned with this avoidance comes the matter of discrimination and judgment. We know that to discriminate between good and evil seems to necessarily involve judgment. So how do we walk this razor’s edge between enlightened social responsibility while not tampering with the karmic process leading to a heightened spiritual awareness?

There is a delicate balance between being in the world but not of the world: the fine line of being flawed and not flawed at the same time. To clarify this seeming dilemma, it is perhaps helpful to turn to a couple of ancient stories and a few contemporary examples. 

The first story concerns Huike the second Chán (e.g., the Chinese precursor of Zen) patriarch. He was a scholar in both Buddhist scriptures and classical Chinese texts. Huike met his teacher Bodhidharma (the first patriarch), at Shaolin Temple in 528 CE when he was about 40 years of age. Legend has it that Bodhidharma initially refused to teach Huike who then stood in the snow outside Bodhidharma’s cave all night until the snow reached his waist. In the morning, Bodhidharma asked him why he was still there. Huike replied that he wanted a teacher to “open the gate of the elixir of universal compassion to liberate all beings.” Bodhidharma refused, saying, “How can you hope for true religion with little virtue, little wisdom, a shallow heart, and an arrogant mind? It would just be a waste of effort.” Finally, to prove his resolve, Huike cut off his left arm and presented it to Bodhidharma as a token of his sincerity. He was then accepted as a student, and Bodhidharma changed his name from Shenguang Ji (his secular surname) to Huike, which means “Wisdom and Capacity.” Try to imagine the depth of anguish Huike must have endured before this, that inspired him with such motivation and determination. Can any of us, in honesty, say that we show that sort of resolve?

Huike did not immediately display wisdom but instead struggled to find The Way. It took some years before he found the key that unlocked the gate of the elixir of universal compassion to liberate all beings. On one occasion, Huike said to Bodhidharma, “My mind is anxious. Please pacify it.” Bodhidharma replied, “Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it.” Huike said, “Although I’ve sought it, I cannot find it.” “There,” Bodhidharma replied, “I have pacified your mind.” Upon hearing this, Huike realized enlightenment.

The second story involves ten stages of the gradual-Chán-school (Soto) illustrated by Chinese Chán Master Chino Kukuan, who painted ten pictures illustrating the steps to emancipation. The movement from anguish to freedom has been depicted in many ways since Buddhism began to take shape, but, in essence, the key that unlocked Huike’s gate of the elixir of universal compassion is the same gate in these ten-fold stages. And that key entails a seemingly strange illusion: being liberated from the beginning yet remaining unaware until the true mind realizes it has never been imprisoned in the first place. If we are already whole, then we can’t become whole. Nevertheless, the quest to become whole and emancipated is an ageless and futile proposition because the true mind is what is doing the seeking. Trying to find your true mind is like looking for your eyeglasses while wearing them.

Ten pictures depict the search for an ox, an allegory for the search of our true nature. Although awakening is instantaneous, the practice, which precipitates it, may be experienced as occurring in a series of stages. This process may be understood as gestation and then suddenly birth. The ox-herding pictures are an attempt to aid the progress toward enlightenment by exemplifying certain steps, which begin in darkness and proceed in stages ending in enlightenment and a return to the world (which was never left). However, having gone through suffering associated with being in the bondage of the mind, the return is accompanied by a radically altered view of what is bondage and an appreciation of genuine compassion.

Now we are in the world, and the question becomes, “What role do we play in this vast drama of life?” Do we intercede? Or do we accept things as they are, regardless of how they appear? In our complex world, even attempting to determine how things are is a daunting challenge since all is changing at light speed. Do we have a responsibility to fight injustice and evil, or stand apart and watch with detachment the destruction of society? And to answer this thorny question, we turn to Plato and his allegory of The Cave. 

Plato wrote this allegory as a part of The Republic around 380 BCE. The larger purpose of The Republic concerned Plato’s ideas of justice, as well as the order and character of both a just man and a just city-state. The Cave specifically addressed the effect of education, and the lack of it, on our true nature. The allegory is structured as a dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon. The setting for the story involved people who have been imprisoned in a cave (their own mind), chained in a fixed position so they can’t move, with a fire at their back, thus casting shadows on the cave wall of themselves. They are left to see only their shadows and come to believe they and their shadows are the same thing.

The two, observe this situation while Socrates points out to Plato’s brother the despicable nature of the prisoner’s plight as well as the civil, spiritual, and political obligation by those who see the truth to those remaining in bondage. When the fact is pointed out, the prisoners lash out and excoriate those who wish to free them, claiming that they, instead of their intended deliverers, are right while their liberators are wrong. They would instead rather choose to remain chained and protect their convictions than to be set free. Such people surround us to this day, denying what is crystal clear.

Given this conundrum, Glaucon asks Socrates why the liberators need to endure the slings and arrows of the prisoners but instead just enjoy the truth and let those in bondage remain pleased and in bondage. And it is here that Socrates states his case for a just man and his duty to society. According to Socrates/Plato, a just man is one who has found the truth and rather than “taking the money and running” returns to honor his duty to assist those trapped in their ignorance, which just happens to be the same definition The Buddha offered for a Bodhisattva: a suffering servant (also the name given to Jesus).

The Cave conjures up the antithesis of just men in the contemporary characters of congressional members who do “take the money and run” and of Paul Ryan, who reflects the teachings of Ayn Rand, who saw little need for government. In his eyes, they are “takers,” dependent on the entitlements of government. This view continues to govern the sense of obligation by members of Congress to carry out their responsibility. The view of a just man and his duty to a society held by these gentlemen (and a host of others) was the opposite of the view held by Plato. Just let them eat cake (Qu’ils mangent de la brioche, in French) is their mantra.

So back to the questions: “What role do we play in this vast drama of life.” Do we intercede? Or do we accept things as they are, regardless of how they appear? Do we have a responsibility to fight injustice and evil, or stand apart and watch with detachment the destruction of society? To many, the answer moves along the path of self (ego) preservation and the easy way: the safe way where avoidance of challenges to their tightly held dogmas of destruction reign supreme. To them, there is a clear right and a corresponding clear wrong: “makers” and “takers.”  But there is another way: the way of the Bodhisattva who fights for the rights of those still in bondage, trapped by the shadows of the mind, despite the slights and arrows cast at them. They have seen the light of truth and know it is not theirs to possess. They gladly become suffering servants because they have been in bondage themselves and know in their marrow how ignorance is not bliss. When they see injustice, evil and self-destructive actions taking place, they do intercede and fight for those unable to fight against the tyranny of the mind and covered with the slime imposed on them by those who care only for their profit regardless of harm inflicted on others.

There seems to be a subtle and fine line between liberating people in physical bondage and bondage of the mind. We must fight for those who are physically imprisoned in one way or another, be it oppression of race, gender, sexual orientation, politics, religion, finances, or any other form of unjust discrimination, yet recognize that until people are freed from the bondage of the mind, there will never be ultimate freedom and liberty for all. The mind is everything! We must be in the world but not of the world.  If we, who have endured suffering and found release, don’t help those in need, we too will continue as doomed to a hell we deserve.

What’s real?

Good and Evil.

To say what’s real, by necessity must consider the opposite—What’s not real. Nothing can be understood in isolation. It is only possible to understand one thing when compared to the opposite. Love means nothing in isolation from indifference. Likewise, evil is understood against the comparison of goodness. Not only do reality and unreality define each other, but they are also opposite to each other. Everything has these two dimensions. Up and down can only exist together. They define each other, and the same relationship applies to everything: Black/white, in/out, and seen/unseen. What can be seen has perceptible qualities. The unseen lacks perceptible qualities and thus can’t be seen.

The Buddhist understanding of the relationship between reality and unreality is not different from the Christian understanding. It uses different words but in essence, it is the same. Both the Buddhist view, together with the Christian perspective, provides a more thorough understanding. Consider the following:

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”—2 Corinthians 4:18

Here, The Apostle Paul articulates the two sides of reality and points to how they are different. The seen is temporary but the unseen is eternal. What is eternal has no beginning nor end. However, what is seen has a beginning and an ending and is thus temporary. Where Buddhism differs from Christianity on this matter concerns opposing reality from unreality, or to use the Christian terms the unseen from the seen.

The dogmatic Christian teaching says that these two can be divided but when explored more thoroughly it can be shown that this dogmatic teaching is incorrect. The essential nature of God is love, which imbues the entire creation. The problem is not the reality of God’s love. The problem is one of perception. The love of God can’t be seen. It can only be experienced.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Romans 8: 38-39

We are inclined to differentiate between the physical and the spiritual. The implication of this view is that the physical and the spiritual dimensions are different and can be isolated from each other. The question must be, “how is it possible to extricate what enlivens us from the vehicle that contains life?” Forget about labels. Set aside how precisely spirit and mind are distinctly different and just considers the indivisible nature of spirit and body.

A body with no spirit would be a zombie and a spirit without a body would be a ghost. The Bible teaches that God is the animating aspect of us. Buddhism teaches that it is the universal mind. Neither the mind nor God can be conceptually grasped. They may be the same thing with different labels. Whatever label we choose makes no difference but what does make a difference is the characteristics of what arises from both, which is unconditional love (agape in the case of Christian thought, and compassion in the case of Buddhist thought).

Removing even these labels leaves us with the identical character of both: the inseparable nature of God’s love. The Buddhist explanation is preferable because it deals more directly with the inseparable nature between the spiritual and the physical, the real, and the unreal. In essence, the Buddhist understanding is that what we ordinarily consider real is a mistaken conclusion based on the perceptible nature of form, which can be seen. All forms can be seen. Nothing spiritual can be seen. Form, as Paul says, is temporary, but God’s love is eternal, yet can’t be seen (only experienced).

The Buddhist language uses the dimensions of “form” and “emptiness” in place of “seen” and “unseen” but the meaning is nearly identical. Here is where the majesty and ultimate saving power takes place. The Buddhist perspective says that these two: “form” and “emptiness” are not two. They are one single, indivisible matter, just as up and down are inseparable, just as we are inseparable from God’s love. Nothing can… “separate us from the love of God.”

Emptiness is the mirror opposite from matter just as up is the mirror opposite from down. Emptiness is 100% spiritual yet it can’t be perceived or measured. It is whole and complete. It is like space: everywhere and unseen but contains everything perceptible. Emptiness is neither empty nor changing. Emptiness doesn’t move and has no perceptible characteristics. Emptiness is our spiritual core. It is what makes us conscious, sentient beings. Emptiness is also subject to dependent origination, which means that emptiness is also empty and binds it to form.

Emptiness, albeit unseen is whole, complete, and perfect already, and is the unseen part of you and me. The union can’t be broken just like the up/down union can’t be broken. If we tried to do away with one side, the other side would cease to exist. Sometimes this form/emptiness arrangement goes by the handles of conditional/unconditional. The conditional part is divided between polar opposites and subject to cause and effect. The unconditional part is unified and not subject to anything. Conditions change. Unconditional matters are fixed and these two require each other.

The solution for all of us is to understand three things:

1. When we attach our self-worth to what is seen (but temporary), we are setting ourselves up for eventual heartache because these things pass away.
2. When we identify ourselves with what is spiritually eternal (God’s love) we realize a lasting sense of peace and stability that can’t be shaken.
3. These two—the seen and the unseen, are two parts of the same thing but only one part is absolutely real (the love of God). The other part is relatively real. Reality is relative and absolute, conditional, and unconditional.

Nagarjuna explained this relationship in the following way:

“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate 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.”— The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way), Nagarjuna

We are both the indivisible union of matter and spirit and the task of life is to work to realize the integration of these two but never question the inseparable nature of God’s love. How do we integrate? By being the agent of God’s love, first by accepting ourselves as the channel of divinity and then through action. We are the body of Christ and if Christ remains an intellectual abstraction instead of an indwelling reality, then there is no means of spreading God’s love and we are all doomed to rely solely on what passes away. Either God is real or not and there is an easy way to find out: Let go of ideas and start living a life of giving.

The presence (albeit unseen) is made evident through how we live our lives. It is what we produce, not what we say, that proves our divine nature. “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles?” And how is that evidence understood? “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” We create our own realities by being the agent of spiritual expression, either for good or for evil.

The suchness of Earth Day.

This year Earth Day slipped by without my notice. Perhaps that was because I, like everyone else, was transfixed on COVID-19 and my top-of-mind priorities were thus in flux.

Seeing things as they truly are, without delusions or bias, is a serious challenge to world survival. The Buddha referred to himself as the Tathāgata, which is a derivative of the East Asian term Tathatā: the true basis of reality. Ordinarily, if we think of it at all, we think of spiritual awakening as some sort of magical state of mind. According to the 5th-century Chinese Mahayana scripture entitled Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, the state of suchness/tathatā manifests in the highest wisdom with sublime attributes and is thus the womb of the Buddha.

In the world of today, living in a state of denial represents a threat of massive proportions, not only to those who choose to stay blind but to us all. Putting one’s head in the sand of ignorance does not ensure safety. On the contrary, closing our eyes to the very real consequences of a warming climate accomplishes nothing more than ensuring the ultimate end of a world that enables life. 

On this day (Earth Day) we had an opportunity to do our part to find our voice of courage and speak up to ensure, not only our own survival but the survival of our own progeny, not to mention all sentient beings. What we all need is to recognize that every step of human progress, from the very beginning, has been contingent on having a livable environment. And unless we wake up soon we will find ourselves in an environment so hostile that life will no longer be possible. The signs of this progressing devastation may already be experienced as indicated in this article that reveals everything from growing allergies to ultimate destruction.

The critical nature of genuine self awakening.

When contemplating the myriad problems of today’s world you might come up with a list such as the following:

• The COVID-19 pandemic

• The Middle East debacle

• Unchecked global climate change (warming)

• A growing gap between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else

• Spreading violence

• Hatred and intolerance

• Political gridlock

• Toxic pollution of the environment

• Loss of genuine liberties

• (add your own)

While all of these are problems of enormous concern, there is a core root that underlies and drives them all: a misidentification of who we are individually and collectively. So long as our answer to identity boils down to a vacillating self-image (ego) the natural result is fear, greed, possessiveness, selfishness, isolation, irresponsibility, despair, and a victim mentality that leaves us all heading for a cave of seeming security.

Recently Avram Noam Chomsky observed that “As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism, or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.” While a grim statement that shocks us into states of denial and disbelief, his observations are true.

The question is, what must we all do in order to escape from this inevitable outcome? The answer is not the ostrich method of avoidance, denial, and ignorance. On the contrary what we must all do is transform our self-understanding, from an isolated individual to a connected member of the human race, which was (and remains) the solution to suffering offered by The Buddha more than 2,500 years ago. The solution does not change because the nature of being human does not change. 

At the central core of all of us is an indefinable state of unconditional consciousness that is the same for everyone. The problem is that while this state is the source of all aspects of awareness, itself is not detectable and we are all prone to consider real only things with conditions that can be detected. This is a case of the eye not being aware of the eye. However, in this case, it is the inner eye (URNA) instead of the detectable eye, and as the father of Zen wrote, it is in this state of mind that all discrimination ceases to exist. Out of this indiscriminate state arises sentient discrimination that leads us to the mistaken notion that each of is a dependent ego at odds with every other human, vacillating and contingent on an uncertain world and that “ego idea” then produces the undesirable qualities listed above.

In the recent past, a form of meditation (MBSR) has become prominent in helping many to cease attachment to waves of thinking, many of which are destructive to self and others. While very helpful, it only one of two dimensions outlined by The Buddha in his Eight Fold Path. MBSR rests upon one of these two: right mindfulness (Sanskrit: samyak-smṛti/sammā-sati) and is the essential path to a genuine awakening of our true, indiscriminate nature (who we truly are). The other dimension of mind (right concentration (Sanskrit: samyak-samādhi/sammā-samādhi) is not widely known, but by any other name is Zen/Dhyāna, with a history going back into an unrecorded time, long before The Buddha. 

The two disciplines were intended to be practiced as a combined pair but in today’s world, they have been split apart. MBSR has become quite useful in stilling the mind and helping practitioners to stay present instead of lost in speculation. However, the issue of identity remains an esoteric matter leaving those who practice MBSR only, still holding fast to a perceptible and insecure self-understanding. Importantly it is Zen that produces the desired result of a sense of SELF that is unconditional, whole, perfect, and unshaken. This quality alone delivers the awareness that we are all unified, none better; none diminished in any way. 

As awful as the laundry list of contemporary problems may be, those and unknown others will flourish unless we can experience this state of indiscriminate, undiscovered unity, inherent in us all. 

Our imaginary and real self—understanding both

The tides of transformation.

Before getting too far into my topic, first, let me speak about how we all perceive the physical world within which we live, and our self-understanding that grows from that complex of perceptual dimensions. And I emphasize the word “complex” since, unless we are lacking one or more perceptual capacities—such as Helen Keller, who was lacking both the capacity to see and the capacity to hear, the standard interrelated complex—the Gestalt, depends upon five sensory capabilities, e.g., sight, sound, smelling, feeling, tasting and thinking. And yes, thinking, because it is an internal aspect that emerges from the co-mingling of the other four. 

We perceive, for example, a perfectly ripe peach through sight, smell, feeling, and tasting, and we form an image in our mind of that co-mingled combination and label the Gestalt with a chosen word “peach,” at least in English. In French, it would be “pêche,” or in German “Pfirsich.” The human experience of a sensorily perceived “peach” is universally the same regardless of the word used to describe it. Changing the term does not change the experience. Shakespeare used this premise when he had Juliet utter to her lover Romeo: “Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is not hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;…” Romeo held the idea that, because their names were different, they could not be united.
 

An analogy of how a computer works is a helpful metaphor in understanding. A computer has three, interrelated functions: Input (the data entered to be processed), data processing, and output (something it reports or does). In line with this construction is the idiomatic term “GIGO”—Garbage in, garbage out. In other words, a computer will be limited by what goes in to be processed. And the output will never be any better than the input, thus “GIGO.” That is easy to comprehend in the case of a machine. 

But how about our self-understanding? The same involvements apply. If the mental construction of ourselves (fabricated from our perceived experiences) is garbage, then the thoughts about ourselves will likewise be garbage, and nobody wishes to think of themselves as garbage. All of us have a deeply held desire to be better than garbage—so we construct an imaginary self-image; an ego if you will, which in ancient languages across the entire world meant, and still means, “I.” And when anyone imagines themselves, they further imagine they are separate and apart from other “I’s.” We naturally perceive differences, only. Why? Because everything that can be perceived is different and seemingly incomplete. Nobody can perceive what is non-different (e.g., united and complete).
 

And for the most part, that imaginary construction of our selves is far less than who we are truly. But we are limited (just as a computer is) to our input. It is utterly accurate to say that what is imagined (in any way; self or otherwise) falls short of the truth of ourselves, which can never be perceived, in an ordinary way.
The difference between the imagined and the real is completely opposite in nature, and neither what is imagined nor real can possibly exist separate and apart from the other. 

Just as “up” is opposite from “down,” so too is the imagined opposite from the real. The imagined is constructed, by, and dependent upon, the capacities and limitations of our conditional/ perceptual tools. The real, being opposite in nature, is thus unconditional and can’t be perceived at all. And this is so because the conditional and the unconditional arise (and cease) together; they are in a sense, inseparable “Siamese-twins.” And the problem, universally, is hardly anyone has been blessed by experiencing the unconditional, always-perfect aspect of who they are, genuinely. And out of that, mismatch grows every evil known to mankind.
 

The world population does not have an identity crisis. Instead, we are having a non-identity crisis. And by that, I mean, hardly anyone has ever been blessed with experiencing the other, real side of themselves—the non-imagined, true aspect of our beingness. 

That is the crisis that all of us are presently having, and it is killing us, both figuratively and literally. The perceptual world all around us is changing at light-speed, and we are collectively going through a shedding process. 

What used to work for us, does no longer. We are being forced, by circumstances beyond our individual control, to adapt and change. We are lost and in a state of universal crisis. This is nothing new. It has been advancing upon us for a long time and is now reaching a crescendo. If we are to survive this, we must all learn how to “flatten the imaginary curve,” or we will over-tax the system, and it will crush us, suddenly and destructively.
 

Thus far, I have written a number of books on this tsunamic crisis which I will gladly send to you in PDF format, for no charge. The selections are The Other Side of Midnight—The Fundamental Principle of Polarity, The Non-Identity Crisis—The crisis that endangers our world, Impostor: Living in a world of Alternate-Facts, and More Over—Finding Your Worth Beneath Excess. All you need do is send me an email, with “Request for book” in the subject line and requesting a copy of your choice in the body, and in short order, I will respond with a PDF file copy. My email address is john.joh40@gmail.com.

Lessons from a hurricane—The great paradox.

Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise.

Complacency and apathy are indeed comfortable. These attitudes lull us into the illusion that all is well when the wolf is near our door. Disasters may fall upon others but not us. Just when we think all is well, the storm of change comes upon us. 

We so wanted the security of eternal bliss, but it rushes suddenly away like a hurricane through our fingers, ripping our pleasure apart and leaves us with a devastated spirit. All spiritual traditions address this looming catastrophe, yet we assume it won’t happen to us. In 1 Thessalonians 5, the Apostle Paul wrote,  

“…for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

What is this “day of the Lord?” Many would argue it is the final day of reckoning when we must stand before God and be held accountable for our actions. Judgment seems to be the ultimate form of justice that will at last prevail, or so we’ve been led to believe. However, there is an alternative that is worth considering.

An aspect of being human is to think that our way alone is secure while all others are in jeopardy. There is a psychological term to explain this. It’s called either optimism or normalcy bias and is central to the nature of self-destruction. While in such a state of denial, we justify our choices because of our self-centered sensed need. Destruction is someone else’s problem, but certainly not ours. A viral pandemic will strike others, but not us. Our attitude is governed by a self-understanding that appears to keep us apart from others, secure in our sense of superiority. Today there are many who choose to live in states of denial, and they will discover too late that, contrary to belief, they are not apart. What we choose collectively affects us all, and this is made clear when amid a hurricane that indiscriminately rips everything apart. 

While in such a state of mind, we are sure that, given our sense of self as unique and special, we are above the suffering of others. But all too often, we make choices we are not proud of because we misidentify as someone unworthy, far beneath the unrealistic standards of perfection we set for ourselves. Or we may do the opposite and imagine that we alone are superior. The moment we awaken from our sleep of self-centered ignorance is our personal day of reckoning, our “day of the Lord.” At that very moment, we discover that we are no more special than anyone else, yet they and we are pure of heart. Before that moment, we lived in a state of complacency and delusion, sometimes called normal.

The very first of the Buddha’s Four Nobel Truths explains the nature of suffering, and it has three aspects:

• The obvious suffering of physical and mental illness, growing old, and dying;

• The anxiety or stress of trying to hold onto things that are constantly changing; and,

• A subtle dissatisfaction pervading all forms of life, because all forms are impermanent and constantly changing.

The second of his truths is that the origin of suffering is craving, conditioned by ignorance of the true nature of things (most particularly ourselves). The third truth is that the complete cessation of suffering is possible when we unveil this true nature, but to do that, we must first let go of what we previously thought. And the final truth is the way to this awakening: the Eight Fold Path. What we discover along this path to a higher level of consciousness is the same driving force of suffering that moves us out of ignorance and towards awakening: the first truth. It is both the cause and the compelling force of change. 

“Things are not always as they seem; the first appearance deceives many.”—Phaedrus, circa 15 BCE