On Thanksgiving.

 

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order,

confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, 

a house into a home, 

a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past,

brings peace for today,

and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

—Melody Beattie. I don’t know her or her work, but what she said here is too good not to pass along to you on this day of giving thanks.

Playing the hand we’re dealt.

Two sides: Winning and losing.

Many years ago, my Zen teacher told me: “Once you open your eyes, without bias, you’ll be amazed how many lessons of wisdom life will show you.” Little did I know at the early time just how true his counsel would be.

It is doubtful that any of us are dealt a flawless hand when we enter this mortal world. There are always a few losing cards, even in the best of hands. It isn’t nearly as important what we are dealt with but how we play that hand.

I learned how to play the bridge game even before I met my teacher and played as well as possible. Subsequently, we met; I took a sustained hiatus from the game and came back much later, following his wise counsel. I then began to play again and learned a wise lesson from that game that applies to life in general. That wise lesson was concerned with how to play the game of bridge and the game of life. And the lesson is this: If you are aware of the losing cards (that’s easier once you lose your biases—many people pretend to have no flaws), lose them early in the game—you’ll lose them anyway, so it’s always better to lose early.

The wisdom of losing early has multiple ripple effects across what comes next. One of the most important ripples is when you lose anything, you will empathize with others who also lose (everyone does sooner or later). And armed with that sense of empathy, you will be enabled to lend a hand to others who suffer later in your game. To lose late in the game may teach the same lesson, but you will have less mortal time left to apply the lesson, and the wisdom will be of little value, except to you. Doing good (not just talking good) in this life will then carry on into your next incarnation: Fewer beginning losers next time around.

A related lesson came to me from a member of our bridge club. Dear Gerry often said, “I don’t mind if I lose because when I lose, someone else wins.” She was a kind (yet competitive) player who taught me that losing wasn’t so bad, and that lesson relates to the first. Losing is just the other side of the coin of winning, and if we don’t give up during those losing times, the tide will eventually turn, and you’ll win again. But when you lose, you will know what it feels like and see life with the eyes of compassion and wisdom. And that lesson of never giving up (e.g., perseverance through thick and thin) is very wise as well. Why? Because most players of this game of life will relent first. And then, even if you have a losing hand, you’ll win by default. If the rabbit stops before the finish line—even if he is an inch away—the turtle will first cross. 

When life throws you the ball of losing, consider it a blessing, be grateful, and catch it. There are fewer lessons more important than knowing how to play the cards life deals you.

How to save the world.

It's up to us.

In the Western world, the term “sentient being” is not your every-day word. We think in terms of human beings or other kinds. But sentience is more descriptive since it denotes the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively, not to overlook thinking. Any conscious being is a sentient being, including all creatures capable of sensing and responding to its world.

Unfortunately, being human has caused us to evolve into being human-centric and set aside our connections to other creatures and the environment that enables our existence. We forget (or if you prefer, went unmindful) of the food chain that begins with the tiniest of creatures and goes all the way to the top—us humans. Cutting that chain and destroying the environment within which all sentient beings live is an unfailing prescription for our ultimate disaster. We are well down the road toward that end for a simple reason—unmindfulness of our aggregate interconnectivity with the rest of life. Our priorities are going south fast. While we are distracted with lesser matters, our support systems are not. They are progressing toward ultimate demise due to our negligence. And if we wish to continue as a species, we need to quickly get back to basics.

What is the most basic of all? It is the matter that connects us to all other creatures—THE MIND, the human-mind being one part of that larger whole. If we can get a handle on that, everything else will fall into proper alignment, and we will survive.

If you haven’t yet watched the Netflix documentary (The Social Dilemma), it is high time you did. There is no other informative communication I am aware of that emphasizes the critical importance of finding your anchor within. We are now living in a sea of turbulent manipulation, waging a losing battle with AI machines designed to draw us into a spider web, from which there is no escape. And with no anchor, we will all be swept into a collective nightmare. Our progress as a human society has risen to the point leading to anarchy and ultimate destruction. This excellent film tells you the truth when few others will about just how lost we are and paints a terminal annihilation portrait. It is a must-watch!

Western civilization has taken us a long way toward the “good life,” but it has, at the same time, brought with it our lack of being mindful of the most important of all: THE MIND, that has given us those good things. To make needed corrections takes us to the other side of the earth and the wisdom that has evolved there (and largely ignored here). 

A towering giant of Eastern Wisdom was Bodhidharma—the man credited with starting the movement of understanding THE MIND. This credit (given the long view) has been misplaced since what he “started” goes back many thousands of years preceding his life. The name of that movement has, like everything else, changed, but the codified essence has remained the same. What began as dhyāna (going back in recorded history, and probably earlier) changed into Chan (Chinese Buddhism), eventually into Zen when the movement traveled to Japan and then to the rest of the world.

Zen is not, nor has it ever been, a religion (even though it is known as Zen Buddhism). Instead, it is the most thorough-going exploration of THE MIND ever conceived. Properly named, it should be called “Buddhist Zen” because this was the method employed by The Buddha to realize his Enlightenment (which Westerners mistake for the European form—The Enlightenment that occurred in Europe during the intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries and continues to this day. That form of enlightenment was centered on rational thought. Enlightenment in the East was the opposite: Not thinking—that aspect, common to all sentient beings—intuition, which goes to the core of THE MIND, what we all need to grasp if we wish to survive.

In the West (going back to the Greek philosophers), we consider the mind as thoughts and emotions, never considering that these aspects must originate from somewhere. And that, “somewhere,” is THE MIND, not my mind nor yours. THE MIND is not up for ownership. It can’t be possessed or even found through rational thought since it is the source of what follows—thoughts and emotions. All sentient beings share this mind, along with us humans, and once understood, brings about a radical transformation needed to save us all.

Bodhidharma said this about understanding THE MIND: “If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both. Those who don’t understand, don’t understand understanding. And those who understand, understand not understanding. People capable of true vision know that the mind is empty. They transcend both understanding and not understanding. The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding.”

For Westerners, a translation is needed. Trying to grasp THE MIND with the rational mind is like a fish trying to grasp water, forgetting how to swim, and not even aware of water. Both reality and THE MIND are beyond our limited rational faculties to grasp. What does Bodhidharma mean about “understanding understanding?” He means just that: “Both reality and The Mind are beyond our limited rational faculties to grasp.” True vision must arise from the more fundamental aspect: where the rational faculties originate (where the anchor within resides). And from that aspect, we all have the same untapped potential to realize that nothing—absolutely nothing, can exist apart from the opposite, in this case, “not understanding.” Neither understanding nor not understanding must come from a MIND that is neither.

When we understand that, then only will we have the true vision—a vision that links all sentient beings together as a single unified being—THE MIND that is empty of all either/or. True vision is unified, and it isn’t. It is ultimately unified (realized through intuition) in an empty MIND, and it is divided rationally. Humans are so excessively left-brain, rationally oriented that we are quickly becoming so smart it is killing us to our discredit. Think about that. Better yet, don’t think about it. 

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”—Bodhidharma

Transformation

Buddhism has been around so long that it is hard to recall the locus—the seed from which it grows. But by recalling the condensed teaching of the Buddha, the essence is the very first point: Life (e.g., mortal) is suffering. Everything else about Buddhism is centered around that locus. So whenever we become overwhelmed with the multiplicity of the branches springing from this ancient practice, all we have to do is remember the root: Life is Suffering. This is why Buddhism has such an enduring appeal—Everyone suffers, and nobody wants to. And no more thorough practice has ever been conceived to understand suffering and provide a means for overcoming it than Buddhism. Suffering springs from our mind and begins with how we perceive and understand ourselves and the world we live in. And this is why Buddhism is a full exposition of our minds.

Master Hsuan Hua writes about this matter in the opening section of The Shurangama Sutra. He points out two aspects of our mind: Superficial, but unreal, the other hidden, but real. He says that the hidden part is like an internal gold mine that must be excavated to be valuable. This gold mine is everywhere but not seen. The superficial part is also everywhere but seen, and it is this superficial part that lies at the root of suffering. He says,

“ The Buddha-nature is found within our afflictions. Everyone has afflictions, and everyone has a Buddha-nature. In an ordinary person, it is the afflictions, rather than the Buddha-nature, that are apparent...Genuine wisdom arises out of genuine stupidity. When ice [afflictions] turns to water, there is wisdom; when water (wisdom) freezes into ice, there is stupidity. Afflictions are nothing but stupidity.”

The word stupidity may sound harsh and uncaring, but sometimes stark truth is more effective than placation. The critical point of his statement (and a message of the Sutra) is that there is a crucial relationship between suffering and wisdom. Both of these rest on a fundamental principle of faith—That at the core of our being, there is the supreme good, which is ubiquitous. Unlike other religions where faith is in an external God, in Buddhism, faith concerns a serene commitment in the practice of the Buddha’s teaching and trust in enlightened or highly developed beings, such as Buddhas or bodhisattvas (those aiming to become a Buddha).

Many people get confused with words, especially the word “Buddha-nature.” When the uninformed hear that word, they start thinking about a ghost that they imagine looks like some ancient Indian person. What we believe makes a difference. But instead of the label Buddha-nature, we could call it “Mind-nature” because Buddha means awakened. When we awaken to our right primordial minds, our world is transformed. Buddha-nature is the unseen gold mine that inhabits all of life. Without accepting that core, we are incapable of accessing wisdom, and without understanding, we are all trapped in suffering. The flip side of suffering is bliss, just as the flip side of up is down, but when we are immersed in the down, it is most difficult to “pull ourselves up from the bootstraps” and rise above misery. During those downtimes, it seems that everything is down.

We have all had conversations about the essential nature of people. Some say that we are rotten to the core—that there is no vital good there. Such people have given up on their own human family. This voice is split between those who believe in God and those who don’t. On the one hand, if there is to be any essence of good, it is purely the result of that good coming from an external God. The “non-believers” hold no hope at all—Just rotten to the core. Neither of these voices acknowledges intrinsic worth. To one, the worth is infused; to the other, there is none.

The eternal presence of Buddha-nature (e.g., the pure/not polluted mind of consciousness) is a contrary voice of faith: The recognition of intrinsic, essential worth, present in life. This gold mine, which, when accepted in faith, manifests in wisdom amid affliction and turns ice into water.

Wise choices.

Leaving school behind.

Wise choices—Something we all want to make. The trouble is choices are measured after the fact, not before, and since none of us can know results before causes (or so it seems), making choices always entails risk. If we choose right, then the assumption is that things will go as we predicted, and the report card will read, “Wise choice.”

Today I want to talk about what wisdom means from a Buddhist perspective. If I were writing in Sanskrit (one of the ancient languages used for Buddhist scriptures) and was writing of flawless wisdom I would use the term Prajnaparamita which is a special category of wisdom. It is non-attached wisdom that arises from an enlightened mind. And what is an “enlightened mind?” It is a mind free of attachment, and by attachment I mean being intractable—having a hard-hearted, dug-in, no changing opinion which doesn’t conform to emerging reality. Attachment in short means an unswerving desire to cling to one thing and resist another. Attachment is an ego-based function, the polar opposite of an enlightened mind.

In a metaphorical way our primordial mind (e.g., our true nature) is an empty container. It has no beginning and no ending. Anything can be placed into this container without preference. In its un-contaminated state, our original mind works like a mirror reflecting all points of views, without preference. However, that is not the case with a mind contaminated with an ego, which is our “self-image”—the person we imagine ourselves to be. This image is construed to have definite and intractable points of view, to which the ego clings as a badge of virtue. 

The ego finds it very difficult to contend with no preferences and thinks that people who have no preference are wishy-washy. Look at the word definite and really pay attention to its meaning. “Definite” means decided or with exact and physical limits—intractable. Someone who is definite and unswerving is out of touch with evolving reality which undergoes continuous change. Such a one is immovable and clings to the way they wish things would be and ignores the way they are.

On the one hand we admire such people and think to ourselves, “That is a strong person who doesn’t change course.” And since we lust for stability in a slippery world, we gravitate toward such apparently strong people (e.g., the despots and charlatans of our world). On the other hand, people who change course to reflect evolving circumstances are conversely considered to be disingenuous. Very odd! 

Think about this; since we can’t know the future, we are constantly challenged to take a risky stand on an unending array of unfolding events. And we admire others (and ourselves) for taking up intractable stands and then criticize those who adapt and conform to actual circumstances, rather than imagined ones. Does anyone see the problem here?

Our egos demand being “right” because we equate identity with righteousness. Nobody in their “right mind” (curious expression) wants to consider themselves as wrong. The term “self-righteous” is a pejorative expression—a label, which nobody wants to wear. Everyone understands what this expression implies so we play tricks with our self and pretend that when we take up intractable positions we are somehow simply right without being self-righteous. Very peculiar!

Please understand that from the perspective of prajna —wisdom, “right” means something entirely different. It means expedient means—choices that adapt to evolving circumstances and reflect the moment (the mirror mind, of no discrimination). Choices which change, as life unfolds are wise choices and people who exhibit this capacity ought to be considered wise people—adaptable to changing conditions. 

This is why martial arts such as kendo, taekwondo, and jujutsu are so effective. These arts are based on continuous adaptation to evolving conditions and only work when the mind remains malleable and un-stuck. And the opposite is true: people who don’t conform, but remain intractable should not be admired, but instead be considered with compassion.

Solomon and a divided nation

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there lived a king of great wisdom. Each day the king would hold court and hear the pleas of his people. One day, two opponents came before him for his adjudication over a matter of extreme importance concerning the state’s child. One of the opponents pleaded with the king to slash to the child’s support to the bone, arguing that the state will flounder and die unless the child is starved. His opponent argued that unless the king waged war on his neighbors and robbed their coffers, there wouldn’t be enough money to continue supporting the child, and it would likewise die. The king saw that to preserve the child of state, he would need to adopt a middle way between these two extremes, reducing the child’s support and avoiding war, which greatly angered both opponents but saved the child.

Wisdom of the lotus.

Symbol of enlightened purity.

Unfortunately, most in the West have not been introduced to the depth and breadth of Eastern wisdom. It is more than a little arrogant and presumptuous to imagine that we Westerners are the sole keepers of the world’s great wisdom. One of the most profound of all Eastern sources is the Lotus Sūtra. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to profit from human wisdom, regardless of source. “Wisdom by any other source remains wisdom.”

The Lotus Sūtra is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential of all sutras, or sacred scriptures, of Buddhism. In it, The Buddha discusses the ultimate truth of life. The Sūtra’s key message is that Buddhahood, the supreme state of life, characterized by boundless compassion, wisdom, and courage, is inherent within every person without distinction of gender, ethnicity, social standing, or intellectual ability. Awakening to this inherent wealth changes your life for the better.

Of significance, the name “Lotus Sūtra” is symbolic of how a lotus grows. A lotus emerges from beneath the mud, reaching upward through clouded waters (adversity) to the light above. When the plant reaches the surface, it blossoms into a beautiful flower. 

This is a metaphor for how the human mind is purified. The seeds beneath the mud are symbolic of karmic seeds, buried deep within the subconscious. Liberation (e.g., enlightenment) is how those seeds move from a dormant stage upward into a conscious state that can reach the state of a purified, transformed mind. Many statues and symbols of The Buddha show him sitting or standing on a fully blossomed lotus flower. The lotus represents a wise and spiritually enlightened quality in a person; it represents somebody who carries out their tasks with little concern for any reward and full liberation from attachment.

The Sūtra is a teaching that encourages an active engagement with mundane life and all its challenges. Buddhahood is not an escape from these challenges but an inexhaustible source of positive energy to face and transform the sufferings and contradictions of life to create happiness.

I’m sharing just one example (The Parable of the burning house, following), without editing or redaction. The parable addresses the idea of “expedient means”—an important aspect of Mahayana wisdom as a commentary on the rash of “white lies” currently rampant throughout our political sphere. In this parable, The Buddha is conversing with Shariputra, one of the foremost disciples of the historical Buddha. Shariputra experienced enlightenment and became an arhat while still a young man. It was said he was second only to The Buddha in his ability to teach. He is credited with mastering and codifying The Buddha’s Abhidharma teachings, which became the third “basket” of the Tripitika.

“Shariputra, suppose that in a certain town in a certain country, there was a very rich man. He was far along in years, and his wealth was beyond measure. He had many fields, houses, and menservants. His own house was big and rambling, but it had only one gate. A great many people—a hundred, two hundred, perhaps as many as five hundred—lived in the house. The halls and rooms were old and decaying, the walls crumbling, the pillars rotten at their base, and the beams and rafters crooked and aslant. At that time, a fire suddenly broke out on all sides, spreading through the house’s rooms. The sons of the rich man, ten, twenty perhaps thirty, were inside the house. When the rich man saw the huge flames leaping up on every side, he was greatly alarmed and fearful and thought to himself, I can escape to safety through the flaming gate, but my sons are inside the burning house enjoying themselves and playing games, unaware, unknowing, without alarm or fear. The fire is closing in on them. Suffering and pain threaten them, yet their minds have no sense of loathing or peril, and they do not think of trying to escape!

Shariputra, this rich man thought to himself, I have strength in my body and arms. I can wrap them in a robe or place them on a bench and carry them out of the house. And then again he thought, this house has only one gate, and moreover it is narrow and small. My sons are very young, have no understanding, and love their games, being so engrossed in them that they are likely to be burned in the fire. I must explain to them why I am fearful and alarmed. The house is already in flames, and I must get them out quickly and not let them be burned up in the fire! Having thought in this way, he followed his plan and called to all his sons, saying, ‘You must come out at once!’ But though the father was moved by pity and gave good words of instruction, the sons were absorbed in their games and unwilling to heed them. They had no alarm, no fright, and in the end, no mind to leave the house. Moreover, they did not understand what the fire was, what the house was, and the danger. They merely raced about this way and that in play and looked at their father without heeding him.

At that time, the rich man had this thought: The house is already in flames from this huge fire. If my sons and I do not get out at once, we are certain to be burned. I must now invent some expedient means that will make it possible for the children to escape harm. The father understood his sons and knew what various toys and curious objects each child customarily liked and what would delight them. And so he said to them, ‘The kind of playthings you like are rare and hard to find. If you do not take them when you can, you will surely regret it later. For example, things like these goat-carts, deer-carts, and ox-carts. They are outside the gate now, where you can play with them. So you must come out of this burning house at once. Then whatever ones you want, I will give them all to you!’”

At that time, when the sons heard their father telling them about these rare playthings because such things were just what they had wanted, each felt emboldened in heart and, pushing and shoving one another, they all came wildly dashing out of the burning house. The father subsequently presents each of his sons with a large bejeweled carriage drawn by a pure white ox. When the Buddha asks Shariputra whether the father was guilty of falsehood, he answers.

“No, World-Honored One. This rich man simply made it possible for his sons to escape the peril of fire and preserve their lives. He did not commit a falsehood. Why do I say this? Because if they were able to preserve their lives, then they had already obtained a plaything of sorts. And how much more so when, through an expedient means, they are rescued from that burning house!”

The Buddha explains his father’s similes representing a compassionate Tathāgata who is like “a father to all the world,” and the sons representing humans who are “born into the threefold world, a burning house, rotten, and old.”

“Shariputra, that rich man first used three types of carriages to entice his sons, but later he gave them just the large carriage adorned with jewels, the safest, most comfortable kind of all. Despite this, that rich man was not guilty of falsehood. The Tathagata does the same, and he is without falsehood. First, he preaches the three vehicles to attract and guide living beings, but later, he employs just the Great Vehicle to save them. Why? The Tathagata possesses measureless wisdom, power, freedom from fear, the storehouse of the Dharma. He is capable of giving to all living beings the Dharma of the Great Vehicle. But not all of them are capable of receiving it. Shariputra, for this reason, you should understand that the Buddhas employ the power of expedient means. And because they do so, they make distinctions in the one Buddha vehicle and preach it as three.”

Being able to release oneself from hardened, inflexible rules that bind, and adapt in the interest of saving those in jeopardy, may appear unethical to many. Still, it must be considered who benefits when living by the law’s letter instead of the spirit beneath the law’s intent. Clinging to fixed ideologies can be (and often are) dangerous, even if such ideologies are considered Holy. To do so is like the rich man’s children who would rather play with their toys than save themselves.

Happiness

The secret of happiness.

Rich man, Poor man, Beggarman, Thief, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief—The limerick, reflecting a child’s wondering: What will I be when I grow up? Every child thinks about that question. Every adult continues to wonder. It seems like a game of chance. 

The more important question, the one that is never asked, is not what but how. The “what” presumes the “how,” but it rarely works out the way we imagine. We really ought to think more about the latter and less about the former, since without understanding how “what”  becomes a game of chance.

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” So wrote Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

Every time I contemplate those words, an image pops into my mind of a mule trying to catch the carrot on the end of a stick attached to his head. The faster he goes, the faster the carrot moves away. Everyone wants to be happy, yet the pursuit takes us further and further away. The carrot is never eaten, and the mule starves in his pursuit.

It seems axiomatic that the fruit of whatever work we choose should result in happiness, if not immediately, then certainly after a time of diligence and perseverance. It’s the bargain we make, yet more times than not, the contract goes adrift. Could it be we are looking in the wrong direction? Forwards? Backward? Which way? How about within? And just maybe we need to first answer a more fundamental question of being because until we know who and what we are, we’re all chasing shadows and thinking all the while that happiness is a reward.

The highest wisdom says otherwise. This is what Krishna tells Arjuna in The Bhagavad Gita: 

“You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself—without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind. Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment, and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated only by the desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. When consciousness is unified, however, all vain anxiety is left behind. There is no cause for worry, whether things go well or ill.”

Thich Nhat Hanh ends a talk in The Art of Mindful Living (Sounds True, 1992) with this: “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There is no way to peace; peace is the way. There is no way to enlightenment; enlightenment is the way.”

All right words, yet none of them will take us to happiness until we unveil our essential Selves (Atman). “Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the essential to be the unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential. Those who know the essential to be essential and the unessential to be unessential, dwelling in right thoughts, do arrive at the essential…We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”—The Dhammapada. 

Until such time as we awaken to our essence, our thoughts will be wrong, we’ll dwell on the unessential, happiness will remain a figment of our imaginations, and we’ll continue to chase the carrot.

Dreams of safety and a reality of folly.

Ignorance based fear.

A while ago I came across a greeting card, intended as encouragement, that said, “Don’t let reality get in the way of your dreams.” The implied message was that we should not be discouraged by events that can bring us down. 

There was something that troubled me about the message and started me thinking of ostriches with their heads buried in the sand having dreams that ignore what surrounds them.

In 2018 I reposted a title, The high price of choice: winning battles, losing wars (originally written four years earlier) and in that post, I spoke about our normal way of discerning reality, delusion, and how these relate to dreams. The conclusion of the post was—according to the Buddhist way of understanding reality—the vast majority of humanity imagines a reality in a distorted way that leads us to remain completely unaware of what is the ultimate reality. Consequently, we walk around in a dream state, all the while thinking our perceived world is reality.

Persuading anyone of this view is most difficult. Instead, we prefer fantasy to reality, and this dream state is very often based on fear with a consequence of adopting an attitude of denial, pretense, and unrealistic hopefulness. Our attitudes about COVID-19 is a perfect example. The viral pandemic has gone on far beyond our capacity for tolerance, and consequently many have adopted attitudes of wishful thinking, of the firm persuasion that the risk has passed and we can carry on without concern.

In the Nipata Sutra, there’s a conversation that occurred with the Buddha that said: 

“What is it that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it the most? The Buddha replied: It is ignorance which smothers and it is heedlessness and greed which make the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.” 

Twenty-five hundred years later there remain clear examples of this dilemma.

• It is far easier to ignore advancing devastation of global warming and our contributions that exacerbate the growing threat. It is fear of suffering and losing one’s livelihood, or alienating those attached to vested interests with whom we align ourselves. It is likewise a hunger of desire that produces the willingness to toss caution to the wind and refuse to do our part to flatten the curve of viral spread. The desire for shortsighted greed in maintaining a destructive status quo traps us all in states of fear. 

• It is easier to ignore many aspects of family discord that corrupt one’s spirit and fills us with fear of suffering the loss of expected love that could come from a family, based on openness and acceptance. 

• It is easier to ignore our civic obligation to vote as an expression of our moral convictions than it is to risk having others discover our true values that conflict with theirs, and thus suffer the loss of facile relationships, which we reason are better than none at all. 

• It is easier to maintain a duplicitous relationship of pretense where we risk standing nakedly exposed than it is to risk being discovered and suffer loss from being ourselves.

Dreams built on the sands of ignorance are doomed and ensure our ultimate suffering in many ways, none of which we hope for. The very first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is that we all suffer—none can escape. And the second of these truths is the cause of suffering is attachment (e.g., craving) to the blowing sands of change. If there were only two noble truths then despair is the only possible result. However, The Buddha didn’t stop at two. The third is there’s a solution and the fourth directs us to the Eight Fold Path that leads to experiencing ultimate reality and the discovery of our always loved, and always loving true nature. When we arrive at that place of enlightenment we find that we were living, not just in a dream, but in a horrible nightmare that was, and is, based purely on an expected fear of suffering.

Surrendering from inflexible positions.

Moving mountains.

The Buddha said we all suffer because we attach ourselves to ephemeral things: here today, gone tomorrow. Attachment to inflexible points of view seriously constrains our ease and compassionate responsiveness to life. We all encounter people who are absolutely convinced that their way is the only way of viewing reality regardless of the fit between such views and wise judgments. The zealot is often held in high esteem as a champion of justice whose self-appointed mission is to defend a particular perspective. Human history spills over with the blood of those on opposing sides of impacted positions.

Glaring examples stand out, ranging from the crusades of the 10th and 11th centuries to the blood baths and wholesale slaughter of both Muslims and Hindus when the British set the Indian Sub-Continent free. Examples continue down to the present day in Washington and around the world between opposing factions clinging to self-righteous positions. In the meantime, the people everywhere suffer from no new relief, and the ripple effects of their unwillingness to compromise are felt across the earth. All of this suffering is over alternate and inflexible points of view.

Such examples are easier to see in others than they are within our own ranks. For example, take opposing views within Buddhists’ ranks regarding f0rm and emptiness or self and Self. These disputes have been sustained for centuries within the Buddhist community. One side says there is nothing but form; emptiness is a myth. The opposing side says form and emptiness are the essential partnership upon which dependent origination rests. One side says the self does not exist and can quote scripture to prove their position. The opposing side says yes, the “ego-self” does not exist, but there is a higher Self (another example of dependent origination) and can quote scripture to prove their position. Extremists within all religious conclaves rule the days.

The Buddha’s wisdom says to speculate about nothing yet trust life and the eternal presence of your own enlightened mind. That is a formidable challenge when one feels passions arise. It is not easy to release ourselves from deep convictions, yet suffering occurs if we don’t. Others argue that suffering occurs if we do. Likewise, Jesus said we need to let go of inflexible ideologies. In John’s book, he is quoted as having said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Of course, that statement doesn’t track so well in English and might be one of the all-time greats of misunderstanding and justifying self-immolation. It means (as written in Koine Greek) there is no greater love than to surrender your ideas: a very Zen-like prescription (as written in Greek). Here, the English word, “life,” in Greek, is “psuche,” which means an expression of the mind. If the Washington politicians read Greek (instead of balance sheets and that not very well), we might all be better. The ultimate criterion is this: What position best establishes compassion for all and moves away from egocentricity? It is best to always be clear that we are connected in an interdependent web with all of life where there can be no my way or the highway simply because there is no me without you—the prime example of dependent origination.

Karma and Predestination

Fate vs. Karma

I’m somewhat of a hybrid anomaly. I never consciously intended to become spiritual, yet it happened anyway. Nor did I ever plan to study religions, yet that too occurred. It all began with a seeming mistake that led me into Yoga (Hatha at first), and have discovered how well it worked physically, I decided to explore further and found that Hatha was one of many forms of Yoga, one of which is Dhyāna Yoga (The Seventh Limb of Yoga). It was/is also known as the means of emerging Samādhi (mystical absorption), the aim of all Yogic practices, and the eighth step of the Buddha’s Nobel Eight Fold path toward enlightenment. I later learned that Dhyāna was the ancient Sanskrit name for what we now know as Zen.

And that became the path I followed (the Rinzai form) that changed my life. I never saw it coming. It’s similar to being blindsided by COVID, but with a different outcome. And once I had experienced and reaped the fruit of the path of awakening, I chose to return to school and obtain a degree in divinity as an ordained Christian Minister. This all happened after I had lived a lot of life, much of it challenging and full of suffering.

Fast forward forty-plus years later, and during recent times, I have wondered if all of this was just a fluke of destiny or perhaps a reflection of something unseen, more profound, yet nevertheless real—may be an extension of karma, or maybe even predestination, both of which I had learned through my own experience and in-depth study.

There is something I don’t like about either the idea of my destiny being predetermined or paying the price for my errors. Nevertheless, when I examine my life in hindsight, it is hard to ignore how it could have happened by serendipity or happenstance. So the question I have recently pondered whether there could be any validity to either idea (karma or predestination). Both rankle me, yet both might be true despite my distaste.

Karma makes much sense as cause and effect on a conditional plane. Feedback loops surround us everywhere—from an interpersonal level all the way to nature. It happens in the water cycle, and it happens when we attack someone. And it does not appear to be limited to individuals who seem separate and apart from other people. Still, as chaos theory tells us, the flap of a butterfly’s wings in South America eventually becomes a hurricane moving across the Atlantic from the coast of Africa. We must call that “collective karma”—The impact of everything linked together. What goes around comes around, and it’s hard to ignore the obvious. 

What could be more obvious is how karma continues from mortal life into the next. Once we die (mortally), logically, it is less evident that we carry forward what was incomplete in a previous mortal life. However, much of what I have experienced in this incarnation doesn’t seem possible to have occurred through happenstance. So there is some substance to continuing karma.

Predestination is somewhat akin to karma in that our mortal vector appears as a continuation—a righteous one that stems from the residue of previous mortal incarnations. If you buy into reincarnation, then why would it not make sense that we begin with a residue of unfinished business (e.g., karmic seeds carried forward within the eighth consciousness—Sanskrit, alayavijnana, thus the “pre” of destiny. Buddhist thought affirms that notion, and I can see the wisdom: A sort of do-over-opportunity to advance in our quest toward completion and enlightenment.

I do, however, question the validity of the sort of predestination proposed by John Calvin: Double predestination—the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins. That notion directly contradicts the doctrine of unconditional love in the New Testament unless you see eternal damnation as “tough love.”

The final analysis comes down to belief and dogma, which The Buddha was adamantly opposed to, as expressed in the Kalama Sutra. The people of Kalama asked the Buddha whom to believe out of all the ascetics, sages, venerables, and holy ones who passed through their town like himself. They complained that they were confused by the many contradictions they discovered in what they heard. The Kalama Sutra is the Buddha’s reply.

• “Do not believe anything on mere hearsay.

• Do not believe in traditions merely because they are old and have been handed down for many generations and in many places.

• Do not believe anything on account of rumors or because people talk a great deal about it.

• Do not believe anything because you are shown the written testimony of some sage.

• Do not believe in what you have fancied, thinking because it is extraordinary, it must have been inspired by a god or other wonderful being.

• Do not believe anything merely because the presumption is in favor or because the custom of many years inclines you to take it as true.

• Do not believe anything merely on the authority of your teachers or priests.

• But, whatever, after thorough investigation and reflection, you find to agree with reason and experience as conducive to the good and benefit of one and all and of the world at large, accept only that as true and shape your life in accordance with it.

The same text, said the Buddha, must be applied to his own teachings.

Do not accept any doctrine from reverence, but first, try it as gold tried by fire.”

The Little Red Hen, Redux

According to Wikipedia, The Little Red Hen is an old folk tale, most likely of Russian origin, that was used during the 1880s as a story that offered a transition to less blatant religious and moralistic tales while still emphasizing a clear moral. I have taken the liberty of reframing the tale in order to illustrate the spiritual evolution that raises one from selfishness to awareness of the Higher Self and unity with all. Following is the recast tale.

THE LITTLE RED HEN
Once upon a time, there lived a little red hen. She called all of her spiritual neighbors together and said, “If we plant these seeds, we shall eat the bread of truth. Who will help me plant them?”
“Not I,” said the cow.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Not I,” said the pig.
“Not I,” said the goose.
“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did. 

The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.
“Who will help me reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.
“Not I,” said the duck.
“Out of my religious field,” said the pig.
“I’d lose my affiliation,” said the cow.
“I’d lose my comfort,” said the goose.
“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.

At last, it came time to bake the bread.
“Who will help me bake the bread?” asked the little red hen.
“That would invade my spare time,” said the cow.
“I’d lose my right to quack,” said the duck.
“I’m a dropout and never learned how,” oinked the pig.
“If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,” said the goose.
“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, “No, I shall eat all five loaves.”
“Unfair!” cried the cow.
“Outlier!” screamed the duck.
“I demand an equal share!” yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain.
And they all painted picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

Then the farmer (The True Self) came. He said to the little red hen, “You must not be so greedy.”
“But I earned the bread,” said the little red hen.
“Exactly,” said the farmer. “That is what makes our free will system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he or she wants. But under our exclusive (an impossibility) earthly regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.”

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I am so grateful, for now, I truly understand. When I eat, everyone eats with me. Before I have been the cow, the duck, the goose, and the pig.”

And her neighbors became quite content in her. She continued baking bread because she joined the “game” and got her bread free, which she ate with her Self, who just happened to be her united friends. And all the side-liners smiled. “Fairness” had been established and they came to know themselves, in the Little Red Hen.

Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared...so long as there was free bread that the indiscriminate hen planted, reaped, baked, and ate together with her lazy friends.

So I end my reframed tale with voices of my own: Moo, quack, honk, grunt, and cock-a-doodle-do. I’ve been them all and just perhaps, so too have we all.