Talk without action is cheap (and worthless)

Have you ever wondered what Rip Van Winkle must have thought when he awakened after having been asleep for twenty years? Time had moved on. Circumstances had changed. It must have been quite startling, but more than likely after a few days he just went back to sleep again.

We all do that sort of thing. One day we are walking along with our norms, not even aware of anything different and suddenly a Galileo shows up and shocks our norms, and then we go back to sleep again. We adjust to whatever comes our way, before very long these shocking turns of events just blend into our norms again, and we return to our sleepwalk. So we go through these ups and downs only to have them eventually smooth out.

For most of human history, the gap between the norms and the shocks took place every so many thousand of years. Back then (whenever that was) we had the luxury of getting comfortable with our fantasies. Now the gap is getting shorter and shorter to the point that the shocks are more normal than the norms. Makes you wonder about what a norm really is when everything is abnormal. While certainly stimulating it can become a bit tiring, disturbing, and disorienting. For example, the notion of a “bully pulpit” has changed radically since Teddy Roosevelt coined the term. He meant it as an adjective meaning superb or wonderful—A Presidential platform that enabled TR to bring about needed reform of a positive nature. In the 115 years since his term, “bully” is no longer an adjective but has become a literal transitive verb, meaning anything but wonderful.

In commenting on his own failing memory, Mark Twain said, “When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.” Aging memory, like aging anything, can’t be trusted. 

I wonder if I’m alone in my reminiscing about the good old days (that may never have been)? Were they ever all that good? How far back do we have to go to find that whimsical Shangri-La? I suspect that the grass always looks greener in the rearview mirror even though when we were at that past juncture, the rearview greenery still looked more appealing. Nevertheless, we do seem to prefer the past we never had to the present we do have. We’re a curious species.

This tendency to grow accustomed to the normal status quo, however egregious, may be our undoing. It’s very curious how, if we wait long enough, what used to be unacceptable becomes the new acceptable norms. Edmund Burke, an Irish political philosopher, was once regarded as the father of modern conservatism. When you examine what he said in the 18th century, in light of today’s political environment, it’s unlikely he would still be considered as such. Among the many pearls of wisdom Burke expressed are the following:

“There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” And “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” This latter has been recast and expressed as, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The wording has changed but the sentiment is the same.

It has become unavoidably clear that nothing positive happens without courage and a willingness to pay a price for the betterment of all people. Examples of the small few who found it within themselves to stare evil in the face, and regardlessly pay the price, range from modern heroes and heroines such as Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who sacrificed his career as a whistleblower to speak the truth about our current “leader,” or the 17 celebrities who actively work to protect our environment, regardless of political consequences. These are the stars who light the path of goodness that allow us to walk in relative freedom.

There are some who dogmatically cling to the idea that our current misfortunes are the result of past wrongs and we are now reaping the winds of karmic justice. Consequently, they argue, we should accept our growing demise. There is some truth to that observation but there is an alternative perspective I wrote about recently in a post called “In the world: enlightened social responsibility.” In that post, I addressed this issue by posing related questions such as, “What role do we play in this vast drama of life. Do we intercede? Or do we accept things as they are, regardless of how they appear? Do we have a responsibility to fight injustice and evil, or stand apart and watch with detachment the destruction of society?”

After all else, we create our world of tomorrow by actions taken today. We define ourselves, not by what we say, but rather by what we do. There is a single-minded purpose to Dharma Space: to promote the well-being of one and all. It takes courage to first cast aside the delusions of egotism but once we find our deepest nature, we must act from the place of indiscriminate unity, and that too takes a different kind of courage: the kind of willingly sticking out our necks and exposing ourselves to the ax of evil. If we don’t do that then the purpose of enlightenment and being a Bodhisattva stands in question.

The dharma of a duck.

Ducks doing what ducks do.

The 1956 Broadway production of My Fair Lady was the story of Eliza Doolittle, an English Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist so that she can get a better job. 

Higgins makes a bet with his associate Colonel Pickering that he can remake Eliza into a well-born lady, rises to the challenge, but becomes frustrated along the way. He then complains to Pickering: “Women are irrational, that’s all there is to that! Their heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags! They’re nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, maddening and infuriating hags! Pickering, why can’t a woman be more like a man?” and thus echoes the age-old desire to have people become more like they want them to be.

The flip side of this story was depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, relating the story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian—who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew—who runs to overcome prejudice. A critical moment occurs in the film when Eric Liddell losses himself in his running and accidentally misses a church prayer meeting. It was then that his sister Jennie chastises him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to return to the China Mission eventually, he feels divinely inspired when running and that not to run would be to dishonor God, saying: “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

Both of these stories, portray situations of misidentification. In one case, it is Eliza who isn’t satisfied with who she is (and is criticized because she doesn’t fit the bill of how Higgins wants her to be), and the other case, it’s Liddell’s sister who is discontent with how she thinks Liddell ought to behave. Each story addresses the matter of conforming to someone’s standard.

While neither story may seem to have any spiritual connection, these are concerns addressed in both The Bhagavad Gita and the Bible. In The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna (the embodiment of God) tells Arjuna that he (Krishna) is the essence of all beings, and each being must live up to their created nature. And when they reject that nature, they are in effect rejecting God. “By devotion to one’s own particular duty, everyone can attain perfection. By performing one’s own work, one worships the Creator who dwells in every creature. Such worship brings that person to fulfillment. It is better to perform one’s own duties imperfectly than to master the duties of another. By fulfilling the obligations he is born with, a person never comes to grief. No one should abandon duties because he sees defects in them. Every action, every activity, is surrounded by defects as a fire is surrounded by smoke.” In the Gita, “dharma” is used to mean something’s inner nature, which is manifested without an expected outcome. 

In 1st Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul instructs his audience concerning spiritual gifts and says, “There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” Paul continues his teaching by saying, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” The chapter concludes with the notation that when all parts function together the Body of Christ is the result.

Lest anyone think this shoe doesn’t fit and these admonitions don’t apply, ask yourself how many times do you experience having others express a desire that you be more like them (or their notion of how you ought to be), or imposing that same desire on others, wishing them to conform to your image. 

This desire to be someone other than what we were created to be is one of our greatest flaws. It is most unlikely a duck can ever be anything other than a duck. It is the duck’s dharma to be a duck, and it is our dharma to be who and what we are created to be, whether endowed with one gift or something very different. A duck swims, and we function as our inborn, essential dharma dictates, without apology or self-justification. When these dharmas are performed selflessly, it is the same as worshiping the majesty of unique snowflakes with the recognition they are created from fundamental, indiscriminate snow.

While cold, water turns into discriminate snowflakes, and when heated by the warmth of the sun, it returns, once again to the great sea of indiscriminate water. 

Being special.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Not many books on Zen have achieved the notoriety of Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. The message is simple and straightforward, yet the instruction runs counter to our ordinary way of living.

All of us aspire to become an expert, and few indeed are those who think of themselves as a beginner. Our desire for being someone special works against such simplicity. We reason if the solutions of yesterday worked, then why not apply them again today.

The answer to that thought ought to be self-evident in the West, but due to the lack of familiarity with Eastern Wisdom, it has not attained the status it deserves. The reason is that yesterday was, and today is today. Nothing in life is constant, and as circumstances change, the challenges change as well.

Change is inevitable and continuous. There is nothing spiritual or psychological about that. Change becomes a problem when we desire to turn continuous change into an ideology of permanence. When that conversion occurs, it becomes like trying to bulwark the tides with the consequent result of pulverizing us into the sand.

How we manage change in our lives determines the quality of how we experience life and what we create. All of us want goodness and resist adversity. That is a natural way, but neither of these remains permanent. Thus, we have a choice to savor the good and accept the inevitable loss. Facing what is, as a continuous beginner—versus trying to force what we want as an expert—opens up many possibilities that are not available to those who resist and cling.

Knowing right from wrong?

The essential question.

I originally posted this years ago, but we have short memories so re-posting may not be a bad thing. The current political environment almost demands a review. 

Do you? Know right from wrong? That’s a moral question, not one of legality. As we well know, we have a leader, who might be complying with the letter of the law (and fleecing his sheep to their detriment), yet undermines the intent of the law. 

In a court of law, we are told that not knowing the law is no excuse for breaking one that we may not even know exists. Worse yet is when we do know, but manipulate the system for your own enrichment, at the expense of the sheep. Even when the law is known, it may be consciously broken, allegedly for reasons considered to be valid. And what do we mean by valid? For a higher good that transcends the strict definition of legal compliance? For reasons of making a judgment call that may violate a conscious awareness of our internal criteria, but nevertheless “may” have a desirable outcome? What sort of definition might we hold of “desirable?”

A person may choose to live by the spirit of that law instead of the letter of the law, which of course, presumes the person is aware of whatever difference may exist between the spirit (or intent) and the letter (strict compliance). 

Then we need to consider prescience: the capacity to project into the future, outcomes that will occur as the result of judgments and actions taken previously. Can anyone know the ultimate effects? Obviously not (unless they are an inside trader). Then comes a much deeper question: Is there any benefit to outcomes that turn out to be not what we intended, but rather are what we consider to be wrong? Or might unlawful results lead to further right outcomes? That is the essential question!

Knowing right from wrong is a highly complex moral dilemma that must begin by examining that essential issue. Parents must wrestle with that issue every moment of every day and, most times, end up rolling the dice and hoping that their decisions result is the right things for their children. 

Politicians (at least ones with a conscience—an oxymoron?) are challenged routinely with making choices without thorough consideration or prescience, and more times than not, wrong results come from allegedly right decisions. For whom? Their benefactors? Themselves (at the expense of their constituents)?

Family members likewise are forced by the nature of a constantly changing world to choose between what they believe to be right, but often turn out in wrong ways. Are parents doing their children favors by never allowing them to struggle with the challenges of life to cope as adults? Or by overly protecting them and serving as surrogate moralists, once they have grown to the age of emancipation? 

Do we choose to construct walls between what we want the world to be and what it is? And do we then take the next step of letting our loved ones know that we only want to be fed a constant diet of nice words and deeds, forgetting that by employing their culpability and compliance, it forces them into conscious liars? Do we ever extract our benefit out of the hides of those we recruit, all so that we may live a life of delusion and division between what we wish and what is? And then, do we have the willingness to admit obvious wrongdoing with the forethought that by owning up, our egos will burn with a furious fire that creates in us the discomfort of admitting we used others for our benefit at their expense? 

Does anyone actually embrace what they consider to be wrong, suspecting that there will be a positive outcome? Or isn’t it true that we become strong in places that are broken, and by struggling to overcome our brokenness, we are made stronger yet? Few there are who enjoy being with someone who is always on guard, never vulnerable, and has all the answers. Life breaks us all, vulnerable or not, but beauty can come from brokenness, making us yet more beautiful than before.

It is probably true that few, if any, ever set out to do wrong, knowingly. And it is without any doubt that by facing our deepest fears, we learn to live with fear and make it our greatest friend and teacher.

On the journey within.

 

Inside, outside; neither can exist apart from the other. The outside is what most people are concerned with, giving little concern, if any, to the inside. 

Do we grow by manifesting external things? Or is it the inside that gives growth to the outside? Nothing comes without a seed; an embryo that gives rise to what becomes a visible manifestation. Drink a cup of coffee. Is it not contained from the inside? When finished, would we then wash the outside of the cup and not the inside?

Observe a tree. Do we not see the magnificence of the outside, but know it could not be so without growing from a seed beneath the soil? 

Everything observable is seen by the outside with the inside remaining unseen. The seen and the unseen must exist as a single entity. Common sense explains this, and yet we dwell on the seen without the other.

This matter is not limited to one discipline or another. All disciplines (e.g., spiritual and phenomenal—physical and metaphysical alike) can understand this simple truth yet we dwell on “looking good” without acknowledging the seen and unseen come together. We reap what we sow and how we use our time. We may invest years earning accolades and badges of honor to tell the world of our importance. Yet the embryo from where these externals emerge is naked and unformed—A true man without rank or privilege.

One of the greatest of Zen Masters (Master Bassui Tokusho—1327-1387) was lucid in explaining this from the inside essence, and concluded it was the enlightened mind, always present but never seen, that gives rise to all phenomenal things. In one of his sermons he said:

“If you say it is nonexistent, it is clear that it is free to act; if you say it exists, still its form cannot be seen. As it is simply inconceivable, with no way at all to understand, when your ideas are ended and you are helpless, this is good work; at this point, if you don’t give up and your will goes deeper and deeper, and your profound doubt penetrates the very depths and breaks through, there is no doubt that mind itself is enlightened. There is no birth and death to detest, no truth to seek; space is only one’s mind.”

The journey to our depths finds nothing, where there is no birth and no death—There is nothing to find within the emptiness of one’s mind, yet all things come from there.

Gaining and losing.

Much truth here.

“Have you found Jesus? I didn’t know he was lost.”

Okay, so it’s an old joke and more than likely considered sacrilegious by Christians lacking a sense of humor. That likelihood aside, there’s an important point buried in the comedy. And the point? You can’t find what’s never lost, Jesus or anything else. So why does that seem like such a big deal? Simply because of a fundamental belief embedded in our culture that created havoc in my life until I came to my senses. I’ll walk you through the subterfuge, and I’m sure you’ll find your own resonance.

Suppose you’ve been told your entire life that you’re no good, and the reason is that you have been rejected by God. Maybe it took some time, but eventually, you came to believe the lie. And once the idea became a matter of belief, it became cast in stone where it became a plague infecting every relationship you subsequently had, most notably the one you had with yourself. 

And since it was now a sure thing, you began to act as if it were true: That you were no good, and boy did you get confirming feedback, and the belief just became more and more embedded. That vector takes you step-by-step to the big moment of reckoning: suicide. And the reason is really also pretty simple: Rejection by God, and there is nothing you can do about that except take your licks.

And why am I so sure about this? Because I just described my life, except for the last chapter, which is this: You can’t find what’s never been lost. I’ll leave you to try that on for yourself, but here’s a clue: What is absolutely good, can never be conditionally no good.

The bucket rule of politics and economics

There's a hole in our bucket

I taught our daughter economics, at an early age. And my teaching device was an old bucket. I punched a few holes in the bottom of the bucket and then she started pouring in water, which of course ran out the holes. Then I punched in more holes and she again poured in water. This time she had to pour in more water at a faster rate. 

Eventually, I completely removed the bottom of the bucket and she discovered that no amount of water could be used to fill the bucket; it ran out as fast as she could pour it in. Then I said to her, “Water is like money. Unless you balance what you pour in with what comes out the bottom you’ll never succeed in having any money left over.” She understood. Our government never has.

Right now the spigot that regulates the flow is severely restricted, yet the out-flow is at a record high. What used to supply our needs—tax revenues from the middle class—is disappearing at an alarming rate leaving only one source: those with money, to pick up the tab. And this restriction is coinciding with a bucket with ever-growing holes. Republicans are crying foul and claiming class warfare. But I have a simple-minded question: Who pays? It requires lots of water to pour into a bucket with a disappearing bottom. The poor can’t pay. The middle-class is rapidly shrinking, so that leaves only those who can pay, but don’t.

There are presently lots of naysayers who say that the wealthy will just pull up anchor and flee to more favorable shores. Indeed they may and have. Nothing can stop them except only one thing: A sense of public responsibility. For far too long just about everyone, from the wealthy down to the chronically poor, have shed a sense of public responsibility and milked the system for every drop. Now we face a serious emergency and it remains to be seen if anyone, rich or poor, will change course and do the right thing. If not, then our prosperity will end rather quickly.

Presently Congress is in the process of making a bad situation worse by creating policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. They take pride in enhancing the wealth of the prosperous (knowing if they do so they will be rewarded, under the table) while ensuring the death of millions due to mismanagement of a pandemic, people losing their jobs, and getting tossed out on the streets. Does this have anything to do with Zen? I think it does and here’s how: The essence of Zen is to bypass delusion and see clearly—things as they are, not as we wish them to be. Wishful thinking got us all into this mess and now we have lots of holes, not enough water, and are on the verge of disaster. 

Another parallel is the understanding that we are all connected. The super-wealthy may desire exclusive independence, but such a thing is not possible. In a civilized society, we share lots of things: The air we breathe, the water we drink, a common infrastructure that either allows prosperity or sinks us all, a food and money supply, and many other points of intersection. 

The notion that anyone can milk the system and get off scot-free is delusional. Individually and collectively we create karma either for the good or for the bad. We have no choice except to live with what we collectively create. And to continue with an ideological logjam while people are starving is madness. The resources of our nation do not belong to politicians. We supply these resources through our blood, sweat, and tears, and for the people in Washington to withhold what we have contributed is outrageous! We elected these people to represent us, not kill us. It’s 11:59 and unless we collectively wake up, midnight and the nightmares that come along will soon be here.

Physics and Metaphysics

Measuring what can't be measured.

Since the beginning of time, we have wrestled with the same issues. Like an adopted child, we long to find our parents. The problem is every bit as poignant today as it was centuries ago. 

We desire to know who we are, where we came from, and grow weary of fairy tales. We want the truth, not embellished variations. Of course, the problem is so many conflicting messages about truth all coming from many vested points of view. It’s like trying to find the correct diet without realizing that a single diet won’t work for everyone since we are all unique. There are many paths but only one destination.

Before physics, there was metaphysics. Science is all about objective, measurable phenomena and has taken us a long way down the road in answering some basic questions about our beginnings. Still, it will never go all the way since it must work within measurable dimensions by its very construction. Noumenon is beyond measurable matter and can’t be found. No one can measure the mind, much less find it, yet we use the mind continuously. No one can put calipers around essence, yet matter could not exist without it. We are all connected at heart, yet the tie that binds cannot be seen.

For the moment, I would like to demonstrate an irreconcilable conundrum between physics and metaphysics using the tools of science to resolve a metaphysical matter. We all firmly believe in the past, present, and future as time constructs, which we accept as real. Furthermore, we are convinced that we exist in an endless present. The past has gone. The future is not yet, so we are left with the present, by definition.

When we look up into the heavens at night, we see the twinkling of stars. They appear to be real, but when we consider the speed of light, we know that what we are seeing is light, which began the journey to our eyes from each of those stars many thousands of years ago. Some are said to be billions of light-years from us, which means that what we see is something that may no longer exist. Said another way, the stars we see may, in fact, be dead, but we wouldn’t know until billions of years from now. We don’t know what exists in the cosmos now. We see what used to live, proving that you can’t always trust what you see.

That’s fine for distant stars, but how about closer objects: maybe the moon, which is not so remote as a star but still far away. The situation hasn’t changed at all. It just takes the light a shorter time to reach us. And the location is no different when an object is right in front of our faces. We never see what actually exists, only what used to exist even if the time-lapse is very brief (microseconds). The simple truth is that none of us can change what has already occurred. It is finished—already gone like a speeding bullet—by the time we perceive and process with our brains. And that is on a good day.

What about a bad day? A bad day is when we are asleep at the switch; when we are experiencing emotional or mental difficulties (e.g., blinded by filters of bias bigotry, racism, xenophobia, or other forms) that cloud clarity to things as they are—meaning lost in illusion. We don’t even notice what we perceive up there in our buzzing brains. Because we can only recognize something by paying attention to actual reality, which we can’t do when we are day-dreaming, attached to our thinking processes and fixed beliefs. 

We can hope for the absolute best to be awake, accept the fundamental flaws of perception, and move the dial toward an awakened mind—into the metaphysical realm of the nameless. Have a beautiful day. Or is it yesterday?

Perception vs. Reality

Seeing you seeing me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will the real Buddha please stand up?

Sixty-four years ago a television game show began running here in the U.S. The show was called To Tell The Truth and involved three challengers, an announcer and a panel of celebrities. The game began with the announcer asking each of the challengers to state their name and their role.

All three claimed to be the same person but only one was telling the truth. For example, each of the challengers might say, “I’m Willie Sutton and I rob banks.” Then the announcer read aloud a detailed description of the claimed identity. The game proceeded by the panelists asking each of the challengers questions and the challengers answered. The goal of the game was for the panelists to determine both the pretenders and the real person.

After asking a number of questions the announcer said, “Will the real Willie Sutton please stand up?” If the panelists were successful they would have guessed the real person. Often the pretenders proved to be accomplished liars and succeeded in throwing the panelists off track.

I remind you of this because we all play that game ourselves. Only we are both the challengers and the panelist but the goal is the same: To determine our real identity. And just like the game show our ego lies to us, pretending to be who we are truly, and this fellow is a very good liar; so good that we aren’t even aware there is another. And there is another difference: Our true identity (not really an identity) is invisible and doesn’t speak.

Consequently, we’re not even able to ask questions and get answers. In our imaginations, we picture The Buddha as an Indian person in flowing robes with floppy ear lobes who lived 2,500 years ago. And indeed such a person did live. His name was Śākyamuni (“Sage of the Śākyas”) and also known as Siddhārtha Gautama. That person succeeded in the identity game and discovered his true, not to be found non-identity and then came to be known as the Tathāgata which means, paradoxically, both one who has thus gone (tathā-gata) and one who has thus come (tathā-āgata).

In other words, he found out who he was and returned to tell us the truth. So what did he discover? Who was he really? And why does that matter to us? He discovered his own not to be found mind and in so doing he discovered who he was not. And it matters to us because the nature of his true identity is the same for you and me. We have the same mind, which is known as bodhi (the mind of enlightenment). In fact, this same mind is The Buddha, not that ancient person with floppy ear lobes. His true identity, and ours, is the not-to-be found mind. There is no other real Buddha except that non-identity.

We choose names for everything but all names are abstractions rather than the real thing. In the case of a non-identity, what names should be chosen? We could call it any name and each would be as non-good as the next. The Buddha chose the name “mind” but in The Diamond Sutra, he said there is no mind therefore we call it mind. The Apostle Paul called it “The mind of Christ.” We could call it “dog” and in each and every case the name would be an abstraction to represent something that can’t be found, but nevertheless is the source of everything.

The father of Zen (Bodhidharma) said this: “The Buddha is the mind. There is no Buddha except the mind; no mind but the Buddha.” The term Buddha actually means to awaken, and what a Buddha awakens to is their complete, true non-self. When that occurs, desire (the culprit that sets the engine of suffering in motion) goes away, and the reason is actually quite simple. Desire is the flip side of fulfillment.

Only someone who experiences himself or herself being un-fulfilled, desires. The experience of completion destroys desire. The ego can never experience completion because it is never fulfilled. However, the real person we are is always fulfilled and it is the real person who wakes up and discovers completion. So, as peculiar as that may seem, the real question is, “Why does that matter?”

It matters because the shocking truth means that we are all essentially Buddhas awaiting discovery. We spend our entire lives trying to find ourselves going down one blind alley after another and every time we find nothing substantial. We are all Don Quixote chasing windmills. The only real and lasting part of us is our not-to-be found mind. Only that is substantial. Everything else is just a feather in the wind.