Monday, August 10, 2020
Friday, August 7, 2020
“Ide-prison-ology”
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| Rearranging priorities. |
It’s time to add a new word to our contemporary vernacular. The addition is a simple adjustment to the word “ideology,” that reflects where our culture has arrived—in a prison of opposition with no legal appeal for release.
We already have similar words that approximate this new word, such as “Mexican standoff” or “logjam.” But the essence of this new word is only glancingly similar to those words. What the new word captures, sums up our current state of irreconcilability: a state of cultural and political “my way or the highway” stagnation where nothing gets done.
The principle of compromise appears to be lost in the ash heap of time, and this state of mind is not limited to any one country. It is a global phenomenon that results in a preoccupation with the insignificant at the expense of the significant.
There is so much confusion occurring at the same time it is nearly impossible to arrange priorities. Even if we could, wait ten minutes and the entire deck gets reshuffled and we simply cease to think of what’s important and what’s not. Instead, we have fallen back into a time when legalism was abhorred by moral giants such as Jesus and The Buddha, both of whom fought to rectify the problem by pointing out what the laws of the time needed as a substratum—the spirit of the law.
That focus has been lost as well, thus the need to establish this new word by recognizing what ought to be obvious but is not: We have fallen prey to dogmatic, inflexible positions of opposition where nobody but the rich and powerful—who rig the system to their advantage, perhaps by design, to keep us all confused and distracted by what is happening behind the scene with what is happening in front of the scene—too much of insignificance to enable us to notice matters of ultimate importance.
The question is, why is this happening? That’s a hydra-headed challenge but maybe it is simply a matter of too much comfort by the few at the cost of the many. Money and power are two factors not easily shared. Possessiveness is a stickler and the more a person has the more they seem to want. Maybe what we all need to do (and I’d suggest we begin from the top and work our way down) is go and live in places that aren’t so comfortable, where concern for your life is the common coin. There is nothing quite so transforming as your own experience of suffering. When you are starving, a single slice of bread becomes a feast and the ideology of the whole loaf or none at all descends into la-la-land, right where it belongs.
We have become imprisoned into camps of opposing ideas and values with no escape. It is long past time for us to realize such behavior is shooting everyone in the foot. Life always seems to follow the path we noticed in the Marines: Bad stuff flows downstream, never upstream. The tide needs to turn, and soon.
Thursday, August 6, 2020
The isness of IS.
Everyone desires certainty, but it doesn’t come about; the ground beneath our feet is different from what it was yesterday, and consequently, only new solutions will work today. We surely know that in today’s world with COVID-19.
We can’t recycle old solutions, we must create new ones to fit today’s terrain. That makes unquestionable sense so why do we not see the shifting sands? Perhaps we don’t see it because we don’t want to. It is easier to shape life as we want it to be, instead of the way it is. “Suchness” or “thusness” is the desirable way of the heart: Accepting what is vs. what we wish. Desiring what is not, is a fool’s journey since what exists in this present moment is all there can ever be. The clock doesn’t run backward. That, however, does not stop us from engaging in fantasy and wishful thinking.
This sage observation is not singularly a matter of psychology or spirituality but is also a reflection of biological necessity and survival. According to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species,
“…it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives, but the species that survives is the one that is best able to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”
Numerous examples of failed societies can be found⎯from the Vikings in Greenland to the Jews who were deceived in Nazi Germany, believing Hitler would not follow through with his final solution⎯when refusal to adapt and blindness ruled the day. There is no guilt implied here. Often times circumstances shift suddenly and being creatures of habit, we are lulled into states of denial. When people or other species have not adapted, they have perished. This is as much a psychological matter as it is a spiritual one.
We have some psychological blind spots that can be dangerous. Cognitive dissonance is one of these blind spots. So is “herding,” “crowd mentality,” (a significant problem today in social networks), the “boiling frog syndrome,” “denial” and so too bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, and racism⎯bias against accepting what is and desiring what is egocentric, fear-induced and self-serving.
Learning to accept the essential goodness in all things requires releasing ourselves from fear, and then embracing the unity in all. When we see ourselves in others then we can say as Shantideva, the 8th-century Indian Buddhist scholar, said: “When I act for the sake of others, No amazement or conceit arises. Just like feeding myself, I hope for nothing in return.”
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
The suffering of silence.
“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”—Mark Twain
In a post from another blog I spoke about putting legs under our words and titled the post, Talk without action is cheap (and worthless). Satirist Mark Twain apparently agreed with Mr. Einstein, given his quote above. The essence of his words, and mine, concerns accomplishments, or worse; apathy and complacency—the death knells of accomplishment.
Far too often our tendency is based on the flawed notion of, “It ain’t my problem,” with the corresponding notion of making nice and not rocking the boat. We maintain a conspiracy of silence, motivated by an unspoken consensus to not mention or discuss given subjects in order to maintain group solidarity, or fear of political repercussion and social ostracism. “Nice people” avoid controversy and ignore the plights of those, seemingly not like us. In so doing we exhibit the mantra of the assumed elite: A “CEO of Self.”
When you cut through the pomposity, a conspiracy of silence is cowardly dishonest and delusional to the point of refusing to acknowledge our connectivity with the interrelated fabric of life. The complexity of living in today’s world is straining this practice to the breaking point. When does rampant disease become our problem? When does injustice become our problem? When does poverty, or the growing economic polarization become our problem? Bigotry? Racism? Hatred? Environmental catastrophes?
We are now engaged in a political campaign for electing the next POTUS and the choices we make will have an impact for years to come. There are many who vote in unthinking ways, toeing the party line or choose to not vote at all, based on the flawed idea that choosing between lesser evils is still voting for evil. We might want to bear in mind that we should never hold the possible, hostage to the perfect. There are no choices that are perfect this side of enlightenment so we must make better choices, not perfect ones.
Lest anyone doubt the proclivity of our current leader, they should read for themselves how his comments are designed to divide and conquer; to draw the line between two possible nations. One of these continues the cherished tradition upon which our nation was founded. The other is an insult to the principles that undergird that nation. It is becoming increasingly difficult to remain silent, stand on the sideline and do nothing to stop the tyrant who wishes nothing more than to rip apart a nation that stands for justice and liberty for all, to ensure his prosperity at the expense of those for whom he was elected.
In 1925, following World War I (the War to end all wars: What a farce!) T. S. Eliot wrote a poem called The Hollow Men. The poem of 98 lines ends with “probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English.”
Eliot captured the spirit of apathy brilliantly and concluded that the silent conspirators rule the world, not by force, but rather by inaction. He said,
“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.”
“Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is…
Life is…
For Thine is the…
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Haunting words to contemplate.
Monday, August 3, 2020
Post Mueller; Continuing manipulation, or not.
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| Global Interconnectivity. |
As I write this post, 91 days remain until the next US presidential election. We are now living in the post-Mueller era, and some key issues need to be addressed between now and November. It is most likely few even read the Mueller Report, fewer still are those who understood, and the tiniest of all are those who adequately grasped the essentials of what was learned. Nevertheless, global policies have been shaped without the slightest understanding of the implications going forward.
I am in a somewhat unique position to lay out the underpinnings of what has been learned (but not applied). Why? Because I had a career in the advertising business, I have a long history with Zen and am a bit of a tech junkie. While those seemingly disparate pieces appear to be unrelated, they are intimately joined at the hip.
First, let’s consider the essentials of “how” our democratic system was, and continues to be, subverted. And to understand this critical “how” we need to wind the clock backward (further back for the other part) to pre-9/11, during that time, the world was waking up to the fact of global terrorism. At that juncture, we were scrambling to develop means to anticipate probable next strikes, by identifying the who, what, where, and when of terrorist activities.
In those days, the NSA was leading the charge under the “management” of Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA, CIA, and later national security analyst for CNN. Under his steerage was a low-level NSA operative by the name of Bill Binney, who happened to be a brilliant cryptologist and long-time National Security Agency analyst. Binney developed a sophisticated program named ThinThread for gathering data capable of providing clues, in real-time, of potential terrorist threats. See the documentary about this by going here. His method was based on the same technology later employed by Cambridge Analytica to manipulate voters during the 2016 campaign that led to electing Donald Trump POTUS.
In simplistic terms, Binney began with an observation that terrorists used Social Media and other electronic devices (e.g., Cell phones…anything connected to the Internet) to garner sympathy for their cause, recruit such people, frighten many, and communicate with associates in planning, organizing and perpetrating terrorist attacks. Then he went the next step and developed precise “psychographic” personality profiles of those so inclined to malevolence.
Psychographics (vs. demographics) emerged gradually 30+ years previously. It was used by advertising folk (one of whom was me) to identify probable targets (e.g., target marketing) to receive messages to induce potential customers to buy X, Y, or Z, based on the ingrained preconceived idea that unless they did, they were nobody.
Demographics concerns such matters as age, gender, income, education, etc., whereas psychographics concerns what such people actually do (lifestyle choices: what they buy, where they go and when, what their interests are, etc.). The latter is much better in targeting potential customers and was just beginning to emerge when I was in the advertising industry. Back then, it was very crude and rudimentary compared to today.
Now nearly every person on earth participates in Social Media of some sort, such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, or others. And when combined with the capability to do what Binney designed (but was never used by Hayden/NSA): To develop “psychographic” personality profiles, a potent tool for manipulation emerges that can be employed to find weak spots and exploit them to one advantage or another, from sending out instant, tailor-made messages to manipulate the uninformed via email, news feeds, etc.
The Mueller Report pulled back the curtain to reveal how foreign governments can, and do, manipulate voter attitudes by taking advantage of preconceived biases and stoking them into tribal camps of opposition that destroy our freedoms. Few in Congress seemed to understand how this threat (and theft of private, personal data) is used to undermine democracy. Consequently, the manipulation continues, and as Mueller stated, it is being used to this very day, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Freedom is not freedom when our inherent preconceived attitudes and biases are manipulated in ways of which we are not aware of.
Cambridge Analytica, as a company, has been washed away by the tides of rage, time and change, but the methods continue to flourish and will most likely never end. All of the tech giants continue to use the same techniques. It should surprise nobody to observe that every time you do anything on the Internet (just as I am doing this very moment) “big brother” is listening, forming psychographic profiles and developing messages to steer you to physical and virtual spaces (Dharma Space; that also) to fulfill your interests.
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Indra's Net of cosmic consciousness. |
So much for today. Now let’s turn the clock back really, really far to the time of The Avataṃsaka Sūtra, which was written in stages, beginning from at least 500 years following the death of The Buddha. He died approximately 483/400 BCE, or in other words, a very long time ago. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra goes by an alternate handle of Indra’s Net (which simplistically explains the teaching). Imagine a net that encompasses and links together, every sentient being (e.g., humans, dogs, cats, elephants—any conscious being, perhaps even plants). All aspects of consciousness are knit together into a cosmic net.
And why does this make sense? Simply because consciousness is primal, eternal, indiscriminate, unconditional, and is the basis of all life. At that deep and profound level of existence, all is interdependently linked, in a way similar to the technology used today to manipulate us all. The difference here is that, unlike the technology of today, when a person awakens to this level of existence, the tide shifts away from egotistical manipulation for malevolent means to unity, serenity, and the experience of eternal life, right here, right now.
Ah, if only: Politicians and all others would awaken to two truths—one of conditional, intertwined connections of opposition and the other of unconditional unity. What a transformed world it would be to such awakenings!
Saturday, August 1, 2020
Dreams of safety and a reality of folly.
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.
Monday, July 27, 2020
The cost of ignorance.
Some say we come into this world as a blank slate, upon which is
A high cost to pay.
written the moment-by-moment experiences of mortal life. Nature vs. nature is the handle applied to this view. Accordingly, “nature” is the blank slate (with potential unrealized), and “nurture” is what is written, which leads to realizing (or not) that potential.
In Western philosophy, the concept of tabula rasa can be traced back to the works of Aristotle in his treatise De Anima (Περί Ψυχῆς, “On the Soul”). Consequently, given the Western roots, the philosophy continues to this day as an underpinning of Western psychology. This perspective presumes mortal life is a “one-and-done” proposition. One-shot (either for good or not) determines our destiny and where our soul goes following mortal death.
On the other side of the world, however, an alternate perspective arose—karmic seeds—the essence of karma. When karma is dormant, it sleeps in this seed form. When it is latent, it exists as samskaras, embedded beliefs deep in the mind's unconscious zone, and as liminal fantasies encountered in dreams, hypnotic states, and meditation. When it is active, it is present in all seven levels, and we are aware of the force of craving or desire.
Whereas the Western view is a “one-and-done” proposition, the Eastern view is one of transmigration and reincarnation. In this sense, “life” isn’t purely mortal (which passes away—dust to dust) but is rather the “dust” plus immortality, with the soul being the vehicle within which the karmic seeds travel that predetermines unconscious vectors. Rather than “one and done,” this perspective is a “do-over” until we get it right. Thus, perfection is not an impossible, abstract, flawless mortal condition but is instead the end of attainment, stretching over eons.
These two perspectives produce very different senses of possibility. On the one hand, we believe that we are all flawed beings (and thus excessively tolerant of egregious behaviors) in need of divine salvation, or we’re in for a quick trip to a scorching place. The other perspective is one of infinite grace—recognizing that true life evolves as a learning experience that never ends until Nirvana is realized. The understanding of Nirvana is greatly distorted in the West. In simple to grasp terms, the word means the extinguishment of the three poisons—greed, anger, and ignorance associated with experiencing oneself as an ego. It is not some mythical place but rather a state of mind, achievable by realizing a person’s genuine nature hidden deep within the unconscious mind.
By the time I arrived at the seminary and learned about tabula rasa, I had experienced a mind-blowing transformation that was not intellectual but rather intuitive. Then I had the advantage of a comparative frame of reference, and upon further exploration, I came to understand matters of my own mind I would never have come to given my own Western roots.
In seminary, I learned how to read the New Testament in the language originally used, that of Koine Greek: A Greek form no longer used but was used when the Greek Philosophers walked the earth. Obviously, Aristotle knew and used Koine Greek but must not have known the significance of the thorny crux of original sin—that everyone is flawed, in need of divine salvation, going back to the mythical sin of Adam and Eve. His lack of awareness concerning this dogma, of course, makes sense, but only when explored. Aristotle was born in 385 BCE and died 62 years later in 323 BCE. On the other hand, The Christian Bible canons (containing both the Old and New Testaments, wherein the creation myth existed) weren’t completed until the 5th century CE. Consequently, he knew nothing of the original sin's ideology, but he did understand the nature of a completed journey.
And how would I know that? Because of one single word (written in Koine Greek) that had to be one of transmigration instead of “one-and-done.” And the word in question is “perfection,” which, when written in Koine Greek, is teleos meaning “the end result.” Instead of using the word as a foundational principle of salvation, Aristotle saw perfection in a frame of nature, saying: “Nature does nothing in vain.” The philosophy itself suggests that acts are done with a foregone purpose in mind—people do things knowing the result they wish to achieve, and this in turn strongly suggest coming into this world, not as a blank slate but rather with seeds growing to a pre-determined (e.g., karmic seeds) conclusion.
The dogma of genetic flaw—going back to the creation story myth—has created countless tragedies over the vast expanse of time. The hope of ever achieving perfection (as a state of being without flaw in a “one-and-done” lifetime has caused untold billions to reach their end in a state of profound fear), all due to ignorance, the very thing The Buddha pointed out that was the heart of suffering:
“What is that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it the most?’ ‘It is ignorance that smothers,’ the Buddha replied, ‘and it heedlessness and greed, making the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.”
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
You can’t prove a negative.
If you check the colloquial definition of you can’t prove a negative, you will find the following distinction:
Two sides. One Coin.
evidence of absence, or absence of evidence. That, of course, is an understanding based on the ability to discover or measure something, scientifically. The implication is there is something to be discovered, directly. There is, however, another way established by The Buddha in Chapter 22: On Pure Actions in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. This alternative way is called “fathoming.”
Here is the distinction expressed in that chapter: “If Dharma is eternal, one cannot gain it. It is like space. Who can gain it? In worldly life, what originally was not, but is now, is called the non-Eternal. The same with the Way. If the Way can be gained, this is nothing but the non-Eternal. If Dharma is the Eternal, there can be no gaining of anything, no arising, as in the case of the Buddha-Nature, which knows no gaining and no arising.”… “There are two kinds of Way. One is eternal, and the other the non-eternal. Enlightenment, too, is of two kinds. One is eternal, and the other non-eternal.”
Later in the same chapter comes “fathoming.” “There are two kinds of seeing. One is seeing by outer signs, and the other by fathoming…It is like seeing fire from afar, when one sees smoke. Actually, one does not see the fire. Though one does not see it, nothing is false here…Seeing the actions of the body and mouth, we say that we see the mind. The mind is not seen, but this is not false. This is seeing by outer signs…What is seeing by fathoming? We see the flower and the leaf, and we say we see the root. Though we do not see the root, this is not false.”
The actions of mind and body, by necessity, presumes (e.g., requires) the existence of the unseen Mind. Can we prove the existence of “up?” Up cannot be proven directly, but it can indirectly with the existence of “down.” These two are opposite sides of the same coin. Remove one side, and the other side will disappear.
In the same way, proving a negative, by necessity requires a positive. Remove one, and the other disappears. When a positive comes into being, a negative must likewise be present. So can a negative be proven? We may not be able to prove a negative directly, but without a negative, a positive could not exist.
Monday, July 20, 2020
Surrendering from inflexible positions.
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| 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.
Saturday, July 18, 2020
The fundamental “why” of suffering.
Everyone suffers, nobody wants to, and the vast majority of
The truth about suffering and change.
humanity wonders “why.” The short, answer is desire (or craving): We suffer because we crave something (or someone) and so long as we possess or achieve the object(s) of our desire, all is well, but nothing lasts forever, and when that object is no longer ours, we suffer. We attach our identities to many forms, and when those forms of dependency change for the worst, the experience of loss is nearly identical for us. In a very powerful way, we are yo-yo’s on the string of our dependencies, none of which we can control. And the principle reason we build dependent identities in the first place is that (1) we think there is such a thing as a lasting identity, and (2) we surely do not know who and what we are. If we did, then we would have no need to go searching for what we have already. Desire per se is not the problem. Attachment is.
But that’s only a surface answer. We desire many positive things, such as a desire to be free of suffering. We desire to love and to be loved. We desire joy, compassion, kindness, freedom, humility, and other desirable human qualities. Are we not supposed to desires such things? What would life be like without those positive qualities?
So the short answer is not enough since mortal life, albeit fleeting, would be grim without those qualities. To adequately explain the problem of suffering, it is necessary to not only understand the locus of suffering but to experience the opposite, which is joy. The easy part is the explanation. The hard part is the experience. Yet once we experience the two extremes, we must not attempt to trap and retain the experience. To do so would just be attaching ourselves all over again, with the same outcome. Trying to make permanent (and retain it) would then be like wiping excrements from our “arses” and then holding onto the soiled tissue.
One of the most preeminent Buddhist patriarchs (Nāgārjuna) summed up this challenge with what has now become known as The Two Truth Doctrine.
In Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the two truths doctrine explains an overarching transcendent truth (Dharma) of the two aspects that join all things together. The two aspects are dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and emptiness (śūnyatā). And here is the exposition by Nāgārjuna.
“The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention (e.g., relative/conditional truth—my addition) and an ultimate (absolute/unconditional—my addition) truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha’s profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.”
Delving into the essence of this doctrine can be daunting. However, when the dust is blown away, the answer appears in radiant splendor. Relative truth is based on the perception of what we can see, touch, feel, smell, hear, and think. That perception tells us we are all different, distinct and judgmentally, relatively worthy, or not. That seeming truth is the basis of our ordinary sense of self (e.g., ego). And so long as anyone understands themselves, and others, that way, there will be conflicts of dogmatic “rights” vs. tightly entrenched “wrongs.” War (of one form or another) will perpetuate, and suffering will be the outcome.
Critical to this perspective is the two-fold premises of śūnyatā/emptiness and (pratītyasamutpāda)/dependent origination—the combined principle saying that everything can exist only with an opposite dimension, and this truth transcends all changes. This way of understanding human nature, and conduct, is a given and applies to all changes. Consequently, conditional truth exists only because of unconditional truth. The core of this view is consciousness without conditions. While the shell—the container surrounding that core level, is capable of being perceived. The shell is conditionally objective in nature, and everything objective is always changing. Ultimately anything with an objective nature will die. All conditional, material things go through a life-cycle of birth, growth, decline, and death.
To arrive at the core we must break through the outer material shell. Yet it is this central core that destroys that shell of egotism, and thus enables us to experience transcendental existence. Anything that is unconditional is without differentiation, and therefore identical to things that seem different perceptibly. And neither the relative shell nor the unconditional core can exist apart from the other—they are a single, united, composite entity, just as a shell contains a nut-meat.
Consequently, the challenge appears to be illogical. It would seem that the awareness of the unconditional must emerge before we have the equipment required to perform the task. The central problem is, thus, how? The answer is that ultimate truth (that seems locked away and out of touch) must initiate the process of destroying the false object-based ego-fabrication from the inside/out as a baby turtle must peck away the outer encasement to be set free and live.
What appears above is an explanation but not the experience (which alone will set you free from suffering). Zen Master Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki said:
“If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will be able to control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.”
The experience alone will set you free from suffering, and arising simultaneously will be the realization that all of us are absolutely the same at the core. The core of unconditionally, transcendent truth and wisdom are eternally present all of the time, and we go throughout life unaware of our own capacity. As a result, we shape our lives—by unknowing design—to be yo-yo’s with waves of suffering and joy: a package deal that can’t be broken any more than magnets can be torn apart.
The core of pure, unadulterated consciousness just reflects like a mirror. It never dies; it doesn’t make judgments of good and bad; it eradicates the fear of dying since it is eternal, and at that deep level of being, we will know with certainty that there is serenity amid relative disaster. We—our eternal essence—can not die! It is only the outer shell that will die, and then we will be set free from a prison we didn’t know existed—the prison of the mind: The ultimate prison, within which all other forms of bondage exist. The greatest, the supreme task of life is to be set free from that prison. Then we will be transformed and our mind renewed.
But for sure, some may say, yes that may be so but what about the relative suffering of the world? Are we to simply “take the money and run” into seclusion with our new-found wisdom and security? And the answer to that question is the mission of a Bodhisattva—one who has experienced unconditional unity—the experience just depicted and chose to return into the fray to heighten awareness that suffering has a solution.
And what must never be ignored is the value of suffering itself: The motivation that compels us all to seek a solution. Bodhidharma pointed out that we must accept suffering with gratitude since when we experience it, only then are we compelled to reach beyond misery to find the way to bliss and eternal joy. He said,
“Every suffering is a buddha-seed because suffering impels us to seek wisdom. But you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can’t say that suffering is buddhahood.”
It is our natural, mortal tendency to resist what each of us considers the bad and savor only what we understand as the good. Still, the nature of relative life is constant change—here today, gone tomorrow and therein is the dilemma and the solution: We must recognize that nobody wants to awaken from a good dream. We all aspire to steer clear of bad ones.
In conclusion, I’ll share a poem of profound wisdom written by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (or simply Rūmī), the 13th-century poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. It is called The Guest House.
“Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
It is challenging to notice that a door closing, by definition, has another side that is known as a door opening. Closing and opening are the two haves of the same matter of growth. Life and death are to be seen like this. That is transcendent dharma.
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