Today you are you!

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

The words above were expressed by Thomas Merton in his book No Man Is an Island. The expression, of course, is meant to apply to another person. But suppose we alter the saying a bit and see how it would then be understood.

The beginning of love is to let ourselves be perfectly who we are, and not to twist to fit an image we hold of ourselves. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves.

The intent of the second expression is to focus attention on the difference between the image we hold of ourselves and who we are, as represented by the image. That intent, of course, presents a formidable challenge to recognize, first, that our true nature is not a reflection. And secondly to accept that we are not what we see but rather the one doing the seeing.

And if this is true for us (as it must be), then it is likewise true for those we love. No one is truly an image, and everyone is truly an unseen seer. The difficulty is that everyone, from the earliest age, right on to the edge of death, is by nature sensorially oriented and everything we sense appears as an image in our brain. That is the universal manner of establishing identity: pure image, a virtual hallucination. Image is everything to the unenlightened, so it should come as no surprise that we have become preeminently concerned with style and very little with substance.

A vast number of people are growing weary of the thin veneer of insubstantial people, of role-playing and pretense, but so long as we remain ignorant of our own identity (which is without form), it is questionable that we will find our way beyond this trap and we will continue to live in fear of being found out and exposed as potential frauds.

Once a person initially loses their ego and awakens to their true identity (which is without form), it is quite disorienting. And it is common to stay, for some time, in a state of pregnant anticipation, awaiting a new image to emerge that replaces the idea of the ego. If the awakening is genuine you can wait until the end of time and never again have a self-image that you believe in. Instead, you will merge, unconditionally, with all sentient beings, and live without an identity.

“Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”

The illusion of difference. The substance of non-difference.

In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha said his Dharma is no Dharma thus it is called the Dharma. The first time I read this Sutra I thought there must be a textual error. If there ever seemed to be a twisted piece of logic this appeared as the prime example. But as I matured I have continued to read this Sutra, which The Buddha called the Perfection of Wisdom. I reasoned if The Buddha called it that, he probably had good reason. And every time I read it the wisdom began to seep into my conscious awareness. The Sutra is one of the most brilliant strokes of insight ever conceived. It shines like a Diamond.

Then one day it all became clear. First let’s understand a few important details. For example the word “Dharma.” That word has a variety of meanings. It can mean truth as in the case of Dharmakaya—truth body. It can mean teaching beyond time/space (e.g., transcendent). In this case a teaching beyond words. Dharma can also mean to grasp or understand something which is eternal, in other words to understand something not conditional or dependent upon anything. And these concepts are related. If something is genuinely true then it isn’t going to flip about from moment to moment, or change from culture to culture but instead will remain the same today, yesterday and tomorrow, wherever it appears. And the condition that makes it a real teaching is that it must be wordless; beyond bias.

This understanding is important in grasping the message of the Perfection of Wisdom. What all of us desire is being able to count on some stability and not be subject to continual chaos. But this desire seems to be at odds with the Three Dharma seals: impermanence, no-self and suffering. So what gives? There are two parts to the Dharma (or so it seems). On the one side is this matter of constant change. And a substantial number of Buddhists have a practice based on letting go; releasing themselves from this ever-eroding flux. And that practice works, to an extent. That’s the mechanical side, the side that is graspable because it is reasonable.

But there is another side that The Buddha addresses in this Diamond Sutra. The conversation, which ensues, is between Subhūti and Gautama. Subhūti asks a question and Gautama answers. Apparently Subhūti was an advanced arhat and was well versed in understanding the principle of emptiness with all of its implications. Subhūti understood that nothing existed as an independent matter and he was schooled in the Three Dharma seals. But Gautama knew that Subhūti needed a final push for him to become enlightened. What was the final frontier?

What Subhūti needed to understand was that emptiness is not emptiness, thus it is called emptiness. Emptiness, along with everything else is empty. It is therefore both real and not real at the same time. It too is dependent but what it is dependent upon is unconditionality. This means that there is a dimension of life that is constantly moving and a dimension that is not and these two aspects are really only one single thing, non-thing. In truth (which is not truth, but called truth) duality is an illusion that only exists conceptually. 

In our minds we see objective configurations, which we call thoughts. These thoughts are illusive in nature. But our real mind does not move. It is silent and unseen. The same is true of our perceptible world: it moves. Things are different and not different, at the same time, thus the illusion of difference and the substance of non-difference. 

But the ultimate question must be, Why does this matter? The answer is that duality is, and has always been, the driving force that leads to inevitable conflict and suffering. The illusion of difference is what causes suffering in the first place. And it doesn’t matter whether this illusion is internal (our thoughts) or external (our perceptible world). If any of it is perceptible, it is not real, in spite of the fact that illusions appear to be real. Only our silent, unconditional, unseen mind, (that never changes) is substantial and real. And this mind is our universal connection with all life. In truth all people are united in this mind where discrimination doesn’t exist.

When we approach life from an either/or perspective it seems like the two are separate and irreconcilable. Wrong is wrong, and right is right. But this is not any more true than imagining that we can separate up from down. Right and wrong are glued together as a single indivisible package just as up and down are. It is impossible to divide these two sides since they are not actually two. It is like two sides of a roof on a house. We can see the outside but not the underneath side, or the reverse, but never is it possible to keep them as separate and divided entities. It matters because it shows us all that living with the illusion of separateness and independence creates unending strife. And who needs that, particularly today?

The teaching of the Buddha, contained in this Diamond Sutra, is exceedingly deep and profound yet it is the secret to harmonious living. Here Gautama is teaching us, beyond time, space, and culture, that all of life is united and emanates from our mind, which by the way is The Buddha but not The Buddha thus we call it The Buddha!

Ostrichs and boiling frogs.

Let’s be honest: most of us prefer delusion to reality. Why? It takes less thoughtful consideration, and we assume it allows us to avoid confrontation (a state of discomfort). Also, we have been programmed to believe that we must be nice, even in the face of disaster. Goodness conquers evil, which is more than likely true in the long run, primarily when we collectively act in the interest of all. However, an indisputable point must be made: There are no examples when any form of civilization has perpetuated endlessly. None.

What exactly do I mean by “delusion?” Simply put, the avoidance of facing facts, some of which really need to be met. If we don’t, the seeds of past states of avoidance grow into dominating controls. Evil acts left unaddressed result in evil extended. Evil men left alone result in building conditions of “wolf slavery” as wolves in sheep clothing.

It’s a good thing for the world that we have a continuing supply of young people. Once we become old, the tendency is to become a part of the problem by sinking into states of comfortable apathy and closing out reality by putting our heads in the sand. There is a coined phrase that describes this tendency. It’s called the normalcy bias and refers to a mental state people enter when facing disasters. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of bad things occurring and its possible effects. The key to this mental state is the delusive thought that risk is minimal, and there is no need to take action. After all, no serious consequences have occurred in the past, so what makes us think this will change in the future? And furthermore, surly someone (other than us) must be taking care of business.

Plato, Edmund Burke, Leo Tolstoy, John Stuart Mill, and, undoubtedly, many others have spoken about how evil develops and grows. All of them said in various ways, All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is those good men do nothing. However, we good men and women unintentionally fall prey to furthering our own undoing by assuming that frogs won’t die when placed in gradually heated water, the increments being too small to measure. In today’s world, evil men have grown quite clever at hiding their actions or promoting their activities as somehow good for us.

Isn’t this supposed to be a blog that promotes good triumphing over evil by meeting evil with goodness, by offering the other cheek when struck? Yes, it is, but it is also about discerning, wise actions. It must be pointed out that no intelligent person ever sponsored stupidity. Jesus ran the moneychangers out of the temple, and Bodhidharma is credited with developing Shaolin martial arts.

The moneychangers of today look somewhat different than during the day of Jesus. Now they wear thousand dollar suits,  hang out on Wall Street and in Congress. In the days of the Savings and Loan debacle, more than 3,500 corrupt bankers were jailed. However, not a single banker has seen the inside of a jail cell resulting from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (which many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s).

It also invades our seeming tranquility through our food supply. Monsanto has an acknowledged mission to own our food by controlling seeds and the soil where they grow. We can’t see the impact because it grows inside us in increments so small it’s like the heating water that boils the frog. Little by little, we are being poisoned, burned up by conflagrations, or swept away by a growing magnitude of hurricanes and floods. Millions worldwide are broadcasting warnings, yet we pay no heed since we trust the EPA. It is growing increasingly clear that the EPA is owned by Monsanto. Despite tangible evidence of harm, within the past, the EPA has approved an increase in the deadly poison glyphosate here in the US.  And, of course, this same corruption has now become the new norm in Washington.

So what has changed? The normalcy bias reigns supreme, and we have swallowed the propaganda of the spin masters that all will be well if we just ignore scientists, shut up and trust those politicians in the know. This tide must shift, and there is only one way to accomplish the sift: coming out of our apathy and taking action. How? By joining those who are trying to make a difference. I’m not a shill for any specific action group, but there are many available that will save our collective behinds (but only if participation exists).

Get involved, be proactive, and take action, or all of us will pay the price. The essential point of my post today is not about bankers, Monsanto, or jail. It’s about apathy and participating in our own undoing by assuming all will be well if we just don’t rock the boat. However, perhaps we need to check to see if the ship is still seaworthy. If not, we have some choices: Fix the leaks or check our life rafts.

Danger in paradise.

The fusion of two worlds

Sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote a poem that narrates the journey of the soul from it’s bodily home to its union with God. 

He called the journey “The Dark Night of the Soul,” because darkness represents the hardships and difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of union with God. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and fusion with God. The Christian experience assumes a soul separated from God that seeks reunion whereas the Buddhist perspective recognizes no separation. Instead, unification takes place when the conceptual image of a false self is replaced by the actual experience of selfhood.

However, it must be said, that the key Christian scriptural passage that speaks to this matter comes from the 12^th chapter in the Book of John verses 24-25 which says, “Very truly I tell you unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” 

This is the English translation of the Greek, which camouflages the actual meaning of true human life due to translation limitations, and this inaccuracy has lead to widespread misunderstandings. In the Greek, the first two uses of the word life meant soul—a conceptual equivalent of the self, and the latter meant the real self. The Greek word for soul/life was ψυχή better known as psyche, one of two manifestations of the source of life ζωή/zōē, the last Greek term used in this scripture.

How to understand this? When the soul dies the presence of God shines forth. Another word for soul is ego, thus death of the ego unveils the source, which is eternal (no birth/no death and unconditional). That being the case, ζωή is ever-present but something without conditions: thus unseen. ζωή can never be perceived, only experienced. On the other hand, the ego is an unreal image—an illusion of the self, which is clearly evident. Nevertheless illusions have a hard way of immediately subsiding; the memory passes slowly at the same time that the light begins to dawn. The seed grows slowly and remains separate as an idea but when it dies, unity with all things emerges.

Roughly a century following the death of The Buddha, his teachings had moved out of India, along the Silk Road and into the Middle East, arriving during the era of the Greek philosophers. Evidence of his understanding, regarding illusion, can be found in the writings of Plato in an allegory called Plato’s Cave. In this allegory Plato describes a tenable argument involving this fundamental illusion and the resulting consequences on those so deluded. He also addresses the duty and price to be paid by philosophers who attempt to shine the light on truth. In essence, Plato says that coming out of darkness and into the light involves both courage and pain.

Eckhart Tolle speaks to this process as follows: “It (dark night of the soul) is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.  The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.  Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything.” 

Before, normal was egocentric and afterwards the center, begins to fade into a depressive, immature darkness. This is a stage of jeopardy and disorientation when we yearn for retention of our awakening yet can’t seem to grasp and hold onto what is our hearts desire.

The Buddha properly pointed out that to desire anything, even a lusting for enlightenment, is a sure prescription for suffering, and when we think about it, this makes immanent sense. Once true love is awakened, then only do we know for sure what it is. Up to that point, true love remains a product of our imagination; a wishful fantasy. But once we know, then we have a dilemma: what was previously a less than satisfying but acceptable idea, by comparison, now becomes a colorless and shallow experience that lives on as a not yet forgotten memory.

There’s a story is told in the Platform Sutra of a conversation held between Daman Hongren (fifth Chinese Chan patriarch) and Dajian Huineng (sixth Chinese Chan patriarch). Huineng was an illiterate, unschooled commoner who upon hearing the Diamond Cutter Sutra recited, realized enlightenment and subsequently sought out Hongren. When Huineng met the patriarch he was assigned the lowly job of rice-pounder, where he remained for many months before proving his worth to Hongren.

The conversation between the two was thus: Hongren—“A seeker of the path risks his life for the dharma. Should he not do so?” Then he asked, “Is the rice ready?”  Huineng— “Ready long ago, only waiting for the sieve.” Two questions, a single short answer which reveals the nature of enlightenment—both sudden and gradual. Sudden since the awakening happened quickly but fullness required the sifting of life’s sieve. The rice was ready but the lingering, residual chaff must be blown away by the winds of life.

In the words of the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.’ Sometimes when we awaken, we realize that how we have lived and behaved has simply been out of line and nonproductive. It is a painful experience to observe ourselves from a space of neutral honesty and watch as we often go out of integrity to appeal to mental images we have created, and hurt people we love in the process. This observation of the false ‘self’ we have created in our minds is one of the first steps of becoming ‘enlightened’ if you will, and in this observation there is no gaining taking place. There is only the crumbling away of what you are not.’”

It takes many years of continuing adversity before our dawning matures. Once the seed of awakening is planted, the world changes forever, there is no turning back to old ways, yet maturity takes a long time.  But, like Huineng, chaff of the old familiar way remains. It is natural once we awaken into the dawn of truth to retain the whisper of what is now dead yet lingers on in memory. And during this time we are in jeopardy, trapped between two worlds: one dead and gone, the other fresh and naïve, like an infant not yet able to stand alone with the indwelling spirit of eternity beating in our heart.

Paying it Forward.

Let’s push the matter of surrendering to pay-offs a bit further. Surrendering is ordinarily seen as releasing from attachment. When we hold onto something and try to preserve it, we are inviting disappointment and suffering. 

Previously I shared my realization regarding pie. The key that unlocked that door for me was all about pay-offs—expecting a reward without realizing that the reward was “paid-forward.” I really like that idea—paying it forward—since it connotes a pure gift, given in advance without strings attached.

I didn’t say where this pay-off idea first corrupted my thinking but it actually began at home when I was a boy. My mother would say “If you don’t eat your dinner you’re not going to get any pie (dessert).” The message was clear: eating dessert had strings attached. Either I ate my dinner or else no pie. I never considered that early message would linger. But it came to dominate my life and without realizing it I began to arrange everything in the same fashion: investing for the future pay-off, like a carrot on a stick tied to the back of a dumb donkey. Every step I took toward that goal, the pay-off carrot moved away. I didn’t notice in the early years of my Zen life that I was doing the same thing with my practice. The harder I pushed to get the prize of enlightenment the faster it moved away.

I often think I must have been really dense to have not seen this pattern sooner. But I’ve come to appreciate that the pay-off-behavior is endemic in human behavior. We all do the same thing but in different ways. We do it when we imagine what gifts to give at holiday time and think to our self, “should I spend that much money on them? Maybe they will spend less on my gift and then I’ll feel like an idiot.”An artist often does it when they plan their work. All artists wonder about acknowledgment (getting stroked or being rewarded with something more liquid, like hard cash), and often times the conclusion to their wondering shapes their work. 

I have known artists who are so concerned about this issue that they try to figure out what the public will like and what they won’t, and then attempt to create a salable product. And it is a foundational strategy in the advertising business, that I employed as an adman. We do it when we pay someone a compliment and they don’t acknowledge our kindness, and we end up feeling short-changed. It happens widely in business when we invest in the hopes of a future return. And a really bad form of this is when we modify our selves to please everyone and then get really angry and bitter when we discover that everyone else is happy but us. The result is we start to feel taken advantage of. “Suffering is the emotional distress that arises when you become frustrated that things don’t go your way, or upset about life’s injustices, or worried about money or meeting others’ expectations.” 

In short, we all think “Pie in the sky, bye, and bye.” It is sadly one significant way that we create suffering. We set ourselves up for misery by expecting future pay-offs. So what is a better way? We all need to learn to give gifts, with no strings attached. Give yourself just because it feels good. Beyond the sheer acts of no-expectation kindness, our bodies are designed to release the “feel-good” hormone oxytocin by doing warmhearted acts. Additionally, the release of oxytocin stimulates two more hormones— dopamine and serotonin, that reduce anxiety. So the act itself is the reward.

Create works of unencumbered art because of the joy of genuine self-expression. Give that outrageous gift and stop wondering whether or not it will be acknowledged. Share the pure Dharma gladly, freely, and broadly and stop worrying about whether anyone will get it or even acknowledge the contribution. 

It is not our job to be concerned about results and pay-offs. Our job is to share no-strings-attached gifts. To conduct our lives in that fashion is to pay-it-forward and accept the joy of simply feeling good. A single act of kindness infuses the world with gladness. Living this way is about surrendering from pay-offs.

Birds do it.

Here’s your basic Graduate Record Exam question: What event links the following people? The people are (not in any particular order): Max Planck, Cole Porter, James Clerk Maxwell, Mitch McConnell, Gautama Buddha, and Michael Faraday. 

And a second related question is, who was first to discover this point of intersection? Are you ready? You have twenty seconds to answer. Begin. (Sound of a clock ticking. Twenty seconds ends). Put your pencils down.

The correct answer is the principle of polarity. In 1900 Max Planck based his theory of quantum mechanics on polarity. Cole Porter wrote his song, “Let’s fall in love” in 1928, which is based on polarity (between love and the opposite). James Clerk Maxwell is accepted as the father of electromagnetic theory, which is based on the polarity of positive and negative charges. His theory, expressed in a paper titled On Physical Lines of Force was published in 1861. 

Mitch McConnell is the current senator from Kentucky and became famous for his polar opposition to Barack Obama and branded his party as the Party of No vs. Obama’s Yes we can. Gautama Buddha lived 2,500 years ago and discovered the fundamental principle of polarity as the governing force of everything (physical, spiritual or emotional) and expressed his understanding in the Dharma of dependent origination and corollary principle of everything/nothing (emptiness). And finally Michael Faraday, English chemist and physicist, first isolated and identified benzene in 1825, which is likewise based on the chemical equivalent of attracting bonds of polarity.

Polarity is the fundamental principle, as Gautama discovered, of everything. Nothing can exist or be understood without this principle. It governs everything. Think about it: Love/hate, up/down, positive/negative, attraction/opposition, everything/nothing: the whole ball of wax (or not) is organized, held together, understood and energized by polarity. 

Contrast is central to perception and discrimination is being aware of one thing vs. another. Whereas discrimination sees things separately, unification brings them together. Duality and unity are likewise polar forces and bound together through dependent origination. Neither can exist without the other.

And yet, as powerful and ubiquitous as polarity is, it can be the most destructive of all forces. It can divide all people, result in the destruction of entire global systems, be the central ingredient of hostility, in weapons of mass destruction polarity can quite literally blow us all to kingdom come and be the ultimate force of our collective undoing. 

So here is the next GRE question. What is the central force that converts this power into a force of destruction? No time given for answering this question. The answer is something that is not real but is universally accepted as real. It is ego: the imaginary idea we hold of ourselves as being separate and special. Ego is the driving force of destruction: the corruptive force of meism.  It is this mythical force that stands at the center of polarity and keeps the forces of balance apart, and when ego is removed from this central position between opposites, harmony and power for the good of all is the result.

That awareness is the central premise of my second book: The Other Side of Midnight—The fundamental principle of polarity. If properly understood, polarity can be either the most positive, or the most negative force of all. That awareness can save your life, and mine, because if we don’t universally grasp the significance of polarity (and soon) we are all going down the tubes together.
“…birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it, lets fall in love.” 

Seeing clearly.

Today is Sunday, the day in the week when Christians around the world go to church, hoping to hear a sermon of inspiration and goodwill. Therefore, I am offering this post as a sermon that will accomplish those two things: Inspiration and goodwill.

To begin, I would like to address sight and vision. Macular degeneration is a condition that results in a loss of sight in the center of your eye due to damage to the retina. Some sight remains peripherally but is mostly lost looking straight on. There is no known cure for macular degeneration, but there is for degenerative vision.

There are parallels to this physical condition that we know of as such things as bias, preconceived notions, fixed opinions, denial, and unfounded belief systems, all of which emerge from a self-understanding centered on the ego. All of these conditions serve the function of filters blinding us to unfettered clarity; true vision—seeing things as they are, without distortion. These impediments lock us into inflexible ideologies, opposed to, and at odds with, other similarly embedded ideologies. The impediments are clouded windows through which we see and understand the world and ourselves. It’s like being in a cave with two openings: One looking outward and the other looking inward, both of which are clouded and contaminated, obscuring clear vision. One gives us ideas concerning ourselves and the other, ideas concerning the world, and both are shrouded.

The undeniable correction is to remove the impediments and see without filters of distortion (call it spiritual surgery). Within Christian mysticism, the term that captures the principle of this unfettered clarity is “thusness,” which means things as they are. This “thus” means an unveiling of what is present, and thereby also an elementary confirmation, an original principle of truth prior to conceptual differentiation.  

Meister Eckhart, (the 13th-century German Theologian and mystic), used this expression to signify unattached oneness or unity. Such a view of unification, when intuitively experienced, removes the impediments and allows clear seeing.

One of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible is John 15:13, which looks like this in Koine Greek (the ancient form of Greek used to write The New Testament): “μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ,” and is ordinarily translated into English as, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” I’m not employing Greek here to impress you but rather to prove a point. The two highlighted words provide insight into the true meaning of this passage. 

The first highlighted word (ἀγάπην) means universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. There is only one kind of love that is unconditional (e.g., no strings attached), and that kind of love can come only from God. All other forms of love are conditional and contingent upon changing circumstances.

The second highlighted word (ψυχὴν) is the life of a particular form: Life of the psyche, in other words, ideas, thoughts, ideologies, biases—any and all manifestations of the mind. In Koine Greek, there were three different forms of life that depicted the Greek’s different views of life. This form of life (“ψυχὴν”) is the form used here and is the root word of our present understanding of “psychology” or “psychiatry.” The second form of life was “ζοε” (pronounced Zoe—long A sound at the end—and meant the unified, ultimate source of everything. The third life form was “βιος,” the root word underscoring biology—our physical being.  To grasp the significance (as it relates to seeing clearly) it’s necessary to understand John 15:13 in the original language, not the English translation.

Thus, to come up with the correct translation of John 15:13, it is necessary to understand the words first in Koine Greek. Rendered in that way, the passage should be: “Greater love (e.g., unconditional) has no one than this, that one lay down his ‘mind manifestations’ for his friends.” And why might understanding be the highest act of love? Simple: It’s impacted ideologies (dug-in biases) that separate us all from one another and drives us into camps of close-minded hostility: The same quality, that at present, lies at the core of polar oppositions, dividing people everywhere and leading to the political gridlock that paralyzes our current government (and those around the world) where compromise becomes an impossibility. 

Often times, spirituality and contemporary living appear to be at odds. Nothing could be more incorrect. Seeing clearly is essential to human progress, and at the present time, we seem to be stuck in ruts of ideologies of irreconcilable opposition, believing all the while in the flawed principle of “I’m right, and you’re wrong.”

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.