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.

Who are we? A view from linguistics.

Who Dat?

Our sense of who and what we are determines how we relate to the world. In a prior post, I stuck a little toe into the great sea of language to illustrate a point of significance regarding the matter of identity. Today I want to further the discussion by beginning with Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (26 November 1857—22 February 1913). He is known as the founding father of semiotics—the study of signs and symbols as elements of communication behavior. 

His concept of the related chain of sign/signifier/signified/referent forms the core of this field of study. In brief, Saussure noted that something signified (an objective thing) is represented with a sign (a coded language form) by a signifier (a person) in terms of references to the thing. For example, the color black (a thing) must have a reference or contrast to something different from black (perhaps the color white) to be signified or detected. Once signified in a differentiated way from the referent, the signifier can then create a sign (the word “black”) to represent what has been signified.

If there is nothing signified, the entire language chain collapses since a sign can’t be established. We can’t create a language form other than to sign what is missing. For example, if there is nothing to be signified the best we can do is to create a sign called no-thing or nothing, to signify the lack of a thing. Since nothing is signified, the validity of a signifier is brought into question. Then we would have a no-signifier. In essence, the principle of signifier and signified must come and go together in matching cases. Nothing signified, no signifier. Something signified, signifier. That awareness is the beginning of language and communications and broadly acknowledged throughout the realm of linguistics.

This chain is quite similar to the Zen chain of causation in the following way: thing, thought, thinker; No-thing, no thought, no thinker. To remove any one of these, causes the chain to collapse. For example, a thinker only has meaning in reference to what a thinker does: thinks. If there is no thinking then the meaning of thinker is meaningless. Remove a thing and there is nothing (no-thing) and thus no thought. The central Zen question concerns the identity of “thinker.” Is a thinker who we imagine our self to be? The ordinary presumption is yes: we are a thinker who thinks thoughts. Rene Descarte established this seeming fact with his now famous, “I think therefore I am.” But this is an impossibility since when we stop thinking we don’t disappear even though the thinker does, thus the real us and a coming-and-going thinker must be two different entities.

What Saussure brought to the realm of language formation, Zen brings to the realm of identity formation. And the conclusion of Zen is that we—the true you and me are independent of a vacillating signifier/sign we call ego. Our true identity is solid and doesn’t move, because while things change, the referent is no change since we are not an objective thing. Instead, we are a subjective non-thing. And how is this awareness established? Through the Zen practice of not thinking which reveals the true, never-leaving you and me. 

The image of us (an objective sign) is meaningless without something signified (an objective thought), thus there is no signifier, which is a central premise of Zen: no-self (at least in an objective sign form). Our true non-sign self arises when there is no thought. We are the one signifying the lack of thought as well as the presence of thought. We see either the presence or the absence of thought and it takes both signified thought in reference to no thought for either to have meaning and this is true of all things, which must have a referent of difference to be signified. In physics, that principle is called relativity, and in Buddhism, it’s called dependent origination.

In the end, the self/no self-referent reveals the interconnected fabric of us. The sign (objective self-image/ego) can be seen to move and gyrate and the real us (no-self) never moves, and this, in turn, reveals a fabricated and discriminate mind (thoughts and emotions) and a real not-to-be-found indiscriminate true mind. The first is based on changing objective conditions/things (and is thus not substantial) and the second is based on the lack of objective things, which is unconditional and therefore substantial. 

Consequently, we are both real unconditionally and not real (based on objective conditions) at the same time. One part is born, grows big (unfortunately too big some times), decays and dies. The other part (the real us) is never born, doesn’t decay and lives forever. Unfortunately, the common-coin self-understanding is just the objective sign/symbol, which we label ego and unless we go to extraordinary means we rarely discover the real person that we are.

The Producer

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”—William Shakespeare.

Once there lived a person of enormous wealth in the land of everywhere: a producer with great ideas for making movies. But he knew that making movies was an involved process, and he would need talented people with different functions to turn his ideas into a film. Since he was very wise, he knew he would need to hire the best talent for each function, give them all clear and adequate direction, equip them with the right tools, empower them with responsibility, and then not micro-manage the filmmaking process. He understood that to micro-manage the production would be futile and could clearly see that he’d need to pay big bucks to hire the best talent. He also knew that making movies was quite an involved process and didn’t want to manage just producing movies since he had many other demanding projects for which to care. He thought about this challenge and decided he first needed to hire a top-flight general manager.

Having given some thought to finding such a person, he realized that what he wanted most in that position was someone cast in his own image. If he could locate the right person, then his life would be much more comfortable because such a manager would be able to anticipate his needs without looking over his shoulder every few minutes. After some trial and error, interviewing various candidates, he found the person he was convinced was just right. Of course, the person didn’t come cheap, but in the long run, he reasoned it would be better to pay the price than to hire the wrong person, fire him when he didn’t work out, lose time and money and then need to start again from scratch.

After extensive contract negotiations, he hired the ideal General Manager. Now the two sat down and talked about the producer’s ideas and the need to find the rest of the crew. He told his new GM that money was no object; hire the best talent and get moving. The GM was excited, and off he went to scout and hire the crew. Let’s see, there was a need for someone to write the screenplay, and that person must have a vivid imagination and wordsmithing skills. An art director to work with the writer would also be needed, a camera crew, an editor, someone to write a musical score, arrange and orchestrate the music, a customer, someone to scout locations, another person to find and cast the actors, a director, and of course someone to put together the work of all those people. Oh, and one more pressing matter—a theater would be needed where the film would be projected onto a screen. Better yet, he wanted a theater enabled by a virtual reality where the viewers could watch, smell, and feel the production.

After what seemed a long time, everyone needed was found, hired, equipped, and given direction by the GM, and finally, the shooting began. From time to time, the wealthy producer would check in and review where the project stood. He watched the dailies and talked with the GM about appropriate adjustments, but this was a delicate matter. People with the skill and expertise of the GM were not terribly comfortable with heavy-handed direction, and they were generally somewhat of a prima donna. So he needed finely crafted people skills to get what he envisioned without alienating the GM.

All went well for a while, but slowly and surely, the GM started to resent the wealthy producer. Of course, he thought the producer was not aware of this developing attitude because the GM was a crafty fellow. The GM had decided to plan a coup d'état, intended to steal the entire production and take all of the glory for himself. He reasoned: Why should I have a boss? I am the one doing the work, so I should make all of the money. Being a wily person, he pulled off the coup. But he didn’t know that the producer knew this all along and intended for the GM to carry off the coup. Why would he allow such a thing? Because he knew that an arrogant GM was like a wild stallion and needed to be broken to be of much long-term usefulness. 

Talent seemed to come along with a big ego, and he knew the project would flop under the exclusive reign of the arrogant GM. And when it did, it would be abundantly clear to everyone (most importantly to the GM) that it flopped because the wealthy producer was no longer running matters behind the scenes. The producer didn’t care if the project failed since his wealth was vast, and he had a whole lineup of better film ideas awaiting production if a trustworthy and proven GM could take charge. 

So the producer allowed the coup to unfold with no resistance. And what was predicted happened: The show flopped, and with anger in his heart and hat in hand, the GM had no choice but to see that he needed the producer after all. Before it wasn’t clear, the GM had a big head and imagined his independent greatness; he had to learn the hard way, by failure. Now the real show could begin. Now the pompous, self-righteous GM had been broken like a wild stallion, and Now the two could make some really great films together. 

Are you wondering why I’ve spun this allegorical tale? The reason is that this story is what happens in our minds. All of us need to know that we are people of great wealth already, tell stories, and make movies. Real wealth is what we think we would buy one day once we have earned enough. So we spend our entire lives working to obtain that distant goal. We chase the rabbit for more, only to discover that there is never enough, and the harder we run, the faster the goal moves away. Then one day, if we’re extraordinarily fortunate, we stop to catch our breath long enough to realize an invaluable truth: the prize is already closer to us than our own breath.

Real wealth is not on the horizon for several reasons. First, there will never be a distant goal. That’s an illusion that shimmers like heat dancing on the pavement as we race across the desert toward the mirage of an imaginary oasis. It only looks real. There is no tomorrow and, thus, no distant goal. There will never be anything other than now. That’s the first reason. The second reason is that we need to think more clearly about the nature of what we seek. What we all desire is to love and be loved, health, emotional and spiritual abundance, a sense of joy and amazement, happiness that arises like effervescent bubbles from our depth, quality relationships, having our basic needs provided, a lack of stress and fear, and a bone-deep knowledge that we are beautiful just as we are. These qualities constitute genuine wealth; they can’t be purchased at any price and will always be here and now because they exist within us all. They are the worth beneath our mistaken notions that more of the stuff that passes away moment-by-moment will ever be enough.

We are all geese who lay golden eggs. Only we don’t know because we get into such a rush chasing that rabbit that we never pause long enough to find our roots. When we stop, we can see this never-eroding treasure buried beneath the race to oblivion by our arrogant egos. We were, and always have been, home, living in a castle of enormous wealth: our mind. That is our true nature, our only true life. Everything else is an illusion, a dance of insanity. Nothing is lacking, and the race to obtain what is already ours is sheer madness.

But then there are those who will read this and say, He just doesn’t get it. If he only knew what I have gone through, he wouldn’t be such a Pollyanna. Indeed, I don’t see what you have gone through, but I do know what I’ve gone through. We all bear the rigors. We all suffer. Everyone experiences terrible tragedies. None of us can escape the consequences of karmic adversity or simple living. 

I’ve had my own tragedies and suffered much to the point of utter despair. I stood at the edge of death several times. First, in war, and later when I saw no reason for hope, I was ready to take my own life, but I was spared. I stepped away, found that producer, and discovered my own treasure within, buried deep down beneath my own corruption. So don’t delude yourself with this idea; this victim excuse that mine is terrible, and others aren’t. Suffering goes with the territory of mortal living. Nobody escapes, and everyone is already wealthy beyond the boundaries of our rational imaginations. That is why the true Self is known as being transcendent. Conceptual vision is not our friend. It is a prison of our rational mind. And the not-to-be-found mind moves us away from fantasy and back to reality. 

The wealthy producer in the story is behind the scenes running the show, but nobody knows he’s there except the GM. The GM is our ego, a self-image—self-righteous, talented, with a big head and of very little worth without being broken. And how does an ego get crushed? By trial and error. Give it enough rope, and it’ll hang itself. Try to force its hand, and it’ll resist. It’s a crafty creature and up to no good until it learns how inadequate it is by itself. We are the real power behind our own throne—the wizard of the Oz we create, and our ego has to learn the hard way that the producer and our ego are an inseparable team. Until that lesson is learned, there is only chaos.

The rest of the crew are our various functions that collaborate to produce what appears to be a seamless rendition of reality. When the film is in the can, and the audience is assembled, the film is projected, but the screen is not out there―it is being projected in the theater of the mind. It is such a stunning movie that it is almost like being in the film. We don’t realize that we are actually in the film we produce. We will never be outside of the movie since the movie is us, only we don’t call it a movie. We call it our relative and the conditional world, which, we imagine, is not us. We are the movie, the crew who produced it, the audience who watches, the GM, and the producer. It is all produced within a virtual realm, which we imagine is the real world. Everything produced is a virtual reality—all conditional and based on causes and effects. Even the unconditional producer is a virtual being. The entire assemblage is an illusion—a story we tell ourselves. This is our mind at work, which can’t be found. 

As the movie (movement) unfolds, our mind comes into being. When the video stops, our mind likewise ceases to exist. Our minds and movies are one and the same thing. The only function of the mind is movement. When the mind moves, the world appears. When the mind stops, the world disappears. Zen masters and sages, even before The Buddha, said this is an accurate rendition, and now the science of neurology confirms it.

Is this just a fantastic allegory? Perhaps an interesting story, but no more? Granted, creative liberties have been taken, but fundamentally the story is an accurate portrayal of the way it is. This is the Dharma of real life. This is what The Buddha saw when he woke up. It may seem strange, incredible, and fantastic, but it is accurate.

So how must we understand this? Awakening can be confirmed only through personal experience.  We—our only substantial and pure nature—are the unchanging and already complete producer who lacks nothing but can’t be seen. Nothing can be added to, nor subtracted from, a perfect mind since the mind is everything (yet nothing). To try to do either (add to or subtract from) is an exercise in utter futility. Nothing is lacking. Everything is already present. Clinging to anything adds nothing to who we truly are. Our true identity is no identity, yet it is secure, and the rush to add to something that is already complete is a fool’s journey. The vector of wholeness does not come through addition. It comes through subtraction, and that is what we must do when we meditate: allow the virtual to vanish into the void, and when it dissolves, we find we’re home, right where we’ve always been. We are Buddhas, waiting to wake up from a virtual dream.

“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.”—Bodhidharma; The Breakthrough Sermon

Little Bear and Lily Pads

The kingdom of magic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Traveling theatre

The masks we wear.

When I was much younger there was no television, only radio and it was referred to as a “theatre of the mind.” Unlike television, where we see visual performances on screens across the room, we saw performances in the imaginary theatre of the mind. 

In some ways, the imagination was more vivid and pictorial than watching images on a TV screen. Ours was an internal screen (actually our screen was the primary visual cortex located at the back of our brain). What none of us realized then with radio, or now with television, was that the ultimate screen remained, located in our brains rather than across the room.

We all look out upon our moving, conditional, changing world and see what we all take to be real. In fact what we are seeing remain images being projected upon that internal screen—our primary visual cortex. Images are all just shadows of what’s real. And out of that projection, we form an idea of who we are; one self-image built upon other images and none of it real. 

Nevertheless, we take it (our egos/self-images) as real and become persuaded, guarded and protective of that fabricated image, feeling insulted and inflamed when the role requires a different sort of performance. Some are fabricated out of harsh experiences and formed into negative self-images (hateful and hated) while others fabricate theirs out of more genteel material and fabricate loving self-images, with every step in between. 

Regardless of harshness, genteel, or anywhere in between, all of the end results are unreal simply because the material is unreal. The base material determines the end result. As the saying goes, “You can’t make filet mignon out of hamburger.” The fundamental point here is that we all take our ideas of whom and what we are far too seriously, never realizing how conditionally unreal we are actually. 

How much better, for everyone if we all recognized this fact and lightened our emotional/mental load and became what we truly are—performers, acting out changing roles. And as performers, we adapt to changing circumstances with changing roles and play the part as circumstances dictate.

And a part of this traveling theatre is the recognition that we are also real observers. So we play the roles, with a chuckle in our hearts, knowing full well that we can perform as the role dictates and at the end of the day leave the roles behind and go home to ourselves. It is important to us all to see conditional life as just a show. We are the players; all different. Conditional life is the stage, and the real us—all the same, are the observers: as different and distinct as snowflakes yet fundamentally just indiscriminate snow. Distinctive snowflakes melt into indistinct snow and that becomes the water of unity.

Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the fairest one of all?

In a mirror, everything is reversed and all that can be seen is a reflection of something. What is right out here is left in there. Reality and an image are reversed and all that can be seen is a reflection of something. We can’t reach into a mirror and pull out anything real, but what we see looks very real. 

What seems incomprehensible is that we have a mirror in us and like any other mirror, everything is a reflection of something real but only discernible as an image.

In our mind’s eye, we see an image of ourselves, and we call that image a “self-image.” It’s a product of our unseen mind. But since this image occurs in our mirror it is reversed and we take it to be real. Our ego is who we imagine our self to be and in our estimation, we are the fairest one of all. But in a mirror what we see as the fairest is reversed. In truth, our ego is our worst enemy. 

Our ego is greedy, vain, vengeful, vindictive, vulnerable, defensive and willing to do anything, however awful to fend off perceived threats. And all the while the real us lies hidden beneath these illusions waiting to be unveiled. 

Our mind is like an iceberg: The visible and tiny tip (ego mind) and what lies at the vast depths of us all is our true, and unseen mind without limits. The real us lies on the other side of that inner mirror and the qualities of the ego are reversed. Whereas our imaginary self is greedy, vain, ignorant, vengeful and possessive, the real us is complete, humble, kind, wise and compassionate, but the real us has no identifying characteristics.

Every means of perception functions internally. There is no such thing as external perception. Perception by every means occurs in our brain and is a reflection, but not the real thing being perceived. In truth, the entire universe exists only as images reflected in our brains. There is no perception of a self, no perception of a being, no perception of a soul and no perception of a person because a perception is only an image, a reflected projection that occurs in our brain. 

We are real and not real at the same time. The images are unreal. Our reality is unseen. The images we see and take to be real are actually just perceptions. The reality upon which these images are based can never be directly accessed, yet we are here. Hermann Hesse, the author of Siddhartha, rightfully stated: 

“There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.” 

We live within the sea of unreality, which we understand as reality and never question this process.

Thoughts on Self Nature.

Over the years, having read, studied, and experienced the voice of enlightened people and considering my own, I have attempted to capture, with words, the essential nature of humanity and the opposite: Our corrupted nature. 

The latter has produced an eternity of evil and destruction globally, while the former has countered evil with goodness. I have personally experienced the transformation of self-destructive thoughts, words, and deeds into genuine benevolence. I have likewise witnessed the attempt to feign piety that clearly stood as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. People of the world seem to know that transparent evil is undesirable, and consequently, they try to conceal the heart of darkness with a camouflage of pretended allure. 

This effort, like the opposite of transparency, is affirmed by those who, similarly, play the same game. The pretenders flock together, as do those who choose to reveal a purity of heart, having nothing to hide. These two forces oppose one another and speak a different language.

But God would not allow me such relief, but instead brought back to me the more excellent relief of that magnificent young lady in the dawning of adulthood. It was then I found my true nature of completion and realized, contrary to what I had come to believe, that I was the essence of internal love that she alone had seen in me a half-century before. It was unquestionably a miracle and so clearly the act of a loving God that it was unavoidable to not see what had been there all along, but lay hidden beneath that sense of self-hatred. “Then I knew fully, even as I am fully known,” and at last, I came to understand the mature language of the heart that joined my heart with hers around the core of a unified, indwelling presence of God.

It has been my experience that the language of love, compassion, and tenderness is impossible to articulate with words. In contrast, the language of pretense and deception comes in convincing forms more difficult to detect, except to those who, by nature, have passed beyond words and found their true self-nature. To the former, the task is one of mime. To the latter, the charge comes naturally. The communication challenge for humanity is to find a way to bridge that gap to inspire the minds of those still lost, to a higher standard beyond these surrogates of truth, much like a teacher with advanced education and knowledge must employ with children, not yet schooled. 

Having once been an unschooled child, a teacher knows both the language of a child and the language of the heart. The opposite is not valid. It is as the Apostle Paul stated in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, 

“…where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 

Paul’s words, in essence,  are the same as the words of Meister Eckhart, the German theologian and philosopher who lived during the 15th century: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”

While still a child having little maturity and life experience, lost to the voice of others, I defined myself as incomplete and worthless according to the opinions of those who appeared to hate me, for reasons I failed to understand. The result was I conformed to unworthiness and attempted the impossible of persuading both myself and those who’s voice I valued, that I was worthy of their affection and love. In essence, I did not love myself because I placed more value or their opinions than on my inherent completeness.

It took many years for this self-deception to fully ripen into the unnatural result of pure self-hatred, so thorough that I found no reason to continue living. The only contradiction to this perceived sense of self-hate was the pure, unselfish love that poured out of a magnificent young lady in the dawning of adult life. And that love, where our hearts beat as one, was lost to my own naïve and innocent error, thus driving the stake of self-hatred and associated guilt even deeper. 

The ensuing suffering I then experienced continued up the birth of my daughter, who seemed to come as a gift from God to show me through experience how to recapture selfless love again. For 20 years she, and I grew together within the realm of unconditional love, and when she was gone, I returned once again to the hell of self-hatred left with the whisper of the lost love of both my first love and my daughter. Again, I found no reason to continue living, sought the ultimate release, and readied myself for bodily death.

At long last, I understand the meaning of selfless love. It does not mean to sacrifice and give up what is of value. It means instead to lose the sense of an artificial and perverted self, shaped by the opinions of others and affirmed by my desire to be loved, to cast off the unreal that hid the real. By losing the artificial, I found the truth. And this true self-nature is united as a single purity of heart, not only with my first love and my daughter but with the breadth of humanity. 

True love needs no interpretation or indirect translation thru the medium of words. It is pure, recognizable, and when my eyes finally opened, I knew what I had previously known only in part. Then, at last, I experienced what Eckhart had said, “The eye with which God sees me is the same eye by which I see God.” Or, as the native Indians have said, “Before we can truly understand another person, we must walk a mile in their moccasins. Before we can walk in another person’s moccasins, we must first take off our own.” 

The old self-hatred had to fall away before I could see the new Self-love, and when it did, I came to know that the ideas I had previously held of myself as a false self, alienated from others, unveiled a true Self that united with God and the world. 

Thus selfless love is a love that loses the artificial and is replaced with the real. Selfless love is Self-full love that echoes, in a circular fashion from one heart to another. What goes forth comes from within. Which in itself is already joined with a passion that indwells the heart of another. And when that happens, there is no separation between your true self and the true self of another. That, to me, is the definition of genuine compassion: to experience the love and agony of your beloved, and they of you. You become echoes of each other, and your hearts beat as one.

The road to an imaginary nowhere.

I recently came across a statement that suggested that a precursor to moving beyond our egos was to first have a good or healthy one. There was something that troubled me about the suggestion that may have appeared worthy until thoroughly examined. 

Good egos/bad egos are both judgments, but to first make such a judgment, it’s necessary to describe the nature of ego and to distinguish it from our true self. In another post (Irrational exuberance and the tradition of silence), I shared what Chán Master Sheng Yen, said (Complete Enlightenment—Zen Comments on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment) about the self/ego. He said:

“… there cannot be a self (e.g., ego) that is free from all obstructions. If there is a sense of self, then there are also obstructions. There cannot be obstructions without a self to create and experience them, because the self is an obstruction.” 

To pick and choose one phenomenal condition in contrast with another and feel righteous about our choice runs the risk of becoming self-righteous. So it is with care and sensitivity that I approach this matter.

In spiritual vernacular, noumenality (in contrast to phenomenality—known by our senses) is known as our true spiritual nature and is understood as the wellspring source of all. Noumenality is neither good nor bad. It is just what it is until contaminated with judgments. Whether we are aware of this nature being universally imbedded in all sentient forms is somewhat beside the point. We have a human history of being unaware of many matters that changed our view of the world, for example, the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. This was, of course, not true despite our belief to the contrary. It is likewise analogous that the world does not revolve around us either.

Noumenality is translated as a-thing-unto-itself of which the senses give no knowledge, but whose bare existence can be intuited from the nature of experience. It is our seed—our jewel of great value. The name we choose to articulate this transcendent seed is arbitrary. Any and every name is as good or bad as the next. No name can adequately define what is transcendent and every name chosen leads us to conceptual error.

I’ve used the following quote so often in my writing I run the risk of over-kill. But it is so insightful that I find it difficult to resist repeating. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is quoted as having said: 

“If those who lead you say unto you: behold, the Kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will be before you. If they say unto you: it is in the sea, then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then shall you be known, and you shall know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty.”

Contrast this teaching with the ordinary understanding—That the Kingdom is in fact in the sky somewhere (e.g., in heaven) or just about any place other than indiscriminately distributed—transcendent to space-time. Here Jesus was saying that the Kingdom is not limited to space-time, not even singularly within or outside. But instead, we find the Kingdom everywhere and then we come to know ourselves as sons of the living Father. He closes this verse by saying if we don’t know who we are then we are indeed poor. We could easily travel for an eternity, trying to find what is always the Kingdom’s spiritual air we breathe. We would be like fish not knowing they swim in the water.

This is a startling teaching, only because it is so radically different from the ordinary dogmatic Christian view. In fact, it is very similar to the Buddhist teaching about enlightenment. That teaching says that our only reality emanates from the body of truth, which is not limited or restricted in any way, and it is the loss of ignorance, which reveals our true nature. 

This body of truth was known as the Dharmakaya (The One Mind—pure, unrestricted, consciousness), equivalent to the Kingdom. Indeed this teaching says the same thing—we are poor because we have not discovered who we are. We are deluded (and poor) because we mistakenly believe that we are a shadow (an ego) of our real self. When we awaken to our true nature then we join the ranks among the Buddhas—The Awakened ones and are recognized for who we truly are: as sons of the living Father.

Meister Eckhart, a German Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic who lived 700 years ago clarified this distinction between God and the idea of God. He said, 

“Man’s last and highest parting occurs when for God’s sake he takes leave of god. St. Paul took leave of god for God’s sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give—together with every idea of god. In parting with these he parted with god for God’s sake and God remained in him as God is in his own nature—not as he is conceived by anyone to be—nor yet as something yet to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is. Then he and God were a unit, that is pure unity. Thus one becomes that real person for who there can be no suffering, any more than the divine essence can suffer.”

My use of this quote underscores the important distinction between ideas and what is represented by ideas, or more aptly, an image, and what is represented by an image. This distinction is as meaningful for expressions of the ineffable as it is to tangible, measurable life. The philosophy of Zen does not require belief as blind faith. It considers this as an obstruction to the discernment of truth. To hold onto ideas, good or bad—however pious or well-intentioned—is considered part of the problem. 

It would seem that Eckhart would have agreed. Any and all givens are pieces of our own self-constructed prison bars, which reflect closed-mindedness and obstruct a-thing-unto-itself.  When we refuse to see what lies clearly before us, we forgo clarity in the interest of obligation and blind allegiance. These are mental anchors responsible for creating friction and emasculating our ability to adapt to changing circumstances, which in the nature of change determines genuine truth and justice.

The goal of Zen is to strip ourselves of illusions so that we can embrace life as it is, not as we decide it should be, and the means prescribed by the father of Zen (Bodhidharma) was simply to not think. Thinking is probably the greatest form of all delusion since is based on perception, which is completely phenomenal (as things appear through our senses).

Dogmatic constraints are gilds that distort life by requiring it to conform to artificially imposed constraints or suffer the consequences of rejection and condemnation, and the most pernicious shoulds are those, which we impose upon ourselves. 

Self-judgments result when we internalize the votes of others or impose judgments upon our selves and make them our own guiding force. In many cases, it takes years to break this cycle of self-judgment and recrimination, which lies at the heart of the manner in which we judge the world. By and large, we see life as a reflection of our own biases. Zen is a process, which can aid us in that endeavor by helping us to experience the contingency and emptiness of our egos and thus strip away the fences we create to set us apart and exalt us from others.

When we succeed in coming to terms with the fragile and fabricated nature of ego construction and dependency, we begin to notice that every other aspect of life is linked to this phantom entity, which drives the process. Pressed through the collapsing floors—dropping mind and body— to the ground of our being, we finally see our true linkage and are forced to accept union with our fellow humans and every other dimension of life. 

The result is deeply rooted compassion and desire to join with the unending ranks of those who have likewise plumbed the depths, survived the trip and found peace. When that occurs we realize that such discriminations and judgments like good and evil are nothing more than prison bars, which obstruct and diminish life and our relation to it.

The perversion of our correct selves into good or bad images degrades both our sense of the world and ourselves. An image of who we are, taken in one extreme direction results in feeling special and exalted compared to others. Taken in the opposite extreme, results in feelings of being worthless and lesser, compared to others.

Regardless, a rotten fish by any other name smells as bad. An ego is by nature a phantom idea or image of our true self and thus called a self-image. An image is a product of our imaginations: an unreal projection and can be nothing other than an image regardless of spin, and its nature is greedy, self-centered, and defensive. 

The perversion of our true noumenal nature is like a cloak masking our immaculate selves or a gild on a lily. It is not only not needed it is destructive. Eckhart reminded us that, 

“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.

Thus a good ego or a bad ego is in truth an oxymoron. If we wait until we have a good idea of self there would be no motivation to be rid of it. Chan Master Sheng-yen once pointed out, 

“Generally, unless a sleeping person is having a nightmare, he or she will not want to wake up. The dreamer prefers to remain in the dream. In the same way, if your daily life is relatively pleasant, you probably won’t care to practice in order to realize that your life is illusory. No one likes to be awakened from nice dreams.” And as one who had years of bad dreams about the despicable person, I thought I was, I can assure you I was very eager to wake up from the nightmare.