A Christian upgrade.

Unless you’ve recently been asleep at the switch you are without doubt aware of the “ransomware” computer attack that has disabled thousands of Microsoft users. Why did this have such a broad-spread impact? Because PC users never took the time to install the upgrade released by Microsoft. 

The result has effectively rendered users of the Microsoft operating system null and void unless they pay a ransom.
This may seem like an odd lead-in to the topic of a “A Christian upgrade.” So allow me to clarify, and to begin let me ask a simple question. What is the relationship between the Old and New Testaments? Not a particularly difficult brain twister but an important question that has a parallel to the current ransomware crisis.

For those who don’t know, the word “testament” means covenant or contract: Two different religious operating systems; an old one and a new one. To be a genuine Christian means abiding by the standards set forth in the “new one,” but not both at the same time. The old was intended to be replaced by the new, but unfortunately too many never took the time to install the upgrade, and the result, just like with the ransomware attack, has rendered Christians null and void without paying a price.

And what is the price? Faux Christians who clearly do not comply with the standards of the New Testament and end up coming off as a hybrid, blending of “an eye for an eye”/tit-for-tat, vengeance seeking, hostile, and a quasi sometimes-professor of Christ: A really bizarre composite which is neither here nor there, which led Gandhi to say—I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” 

The boredom.

The endless waiting.

It is said that war is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror. It is. I know. I’ve been there and done that. The problem isn’t the terror. It’s the boredom: waiting for a moment you know will come with no idea of when. 

It could come in the next moment or it could come in a thousand moments from now. Consequently, you live in a state of heightened expectation, and only a brief moment of release, that comes with the terror, accompanied by chaos. And then the cycle repeats and repeats endlessly. And it repeats endlessly because wars never end. It too keeps repeating endlessly. 

We haven’t learned a damn thing since we walked out of the caves. One would think there is a difference between war and peace. There isn’t. The conditions might be different but the process is the same: 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror. And once again boredom is the issue, not the terror.

A thousand years ago in my high school algebra classroom, the teacher had placed a banner spanning above the blackboard. And the banner said, “He who perseveres shall attain the expansion.” At the time I thought she meant if we didn’t give up we would expand our minds with the knowledge of algebra. 

It might have been her intention, but I have learned throughout life that perseverance is critical when a goal is in sight. In such a case the waiting, the not giving up; the boredom, ultimately wins the day. It is the price we pay to achieve the expansion, real or imagined, which might as well be the same thing since before something is in hand we never know if indeed there is a difference. So the reaching becomes a compelling force that keeps us all sane, believing that one day there will be a goal that is reached.

We seem to need the payoff. Without a sense that something of value will be attained, all the persevering, the waiting, the not giving up: the boredom, becomes meaningless, and we are like a leaf left floating along on a turbulent sea, toward nowhere.

The real deal.

Over the years that I’ve been poking here and there, examining a host of religious and spiritual paths, I’ve noticed that from the perspective of each and every discipline, the adherents nearly without exception claimed that their chosen discipline alone was the truth at the exclusion of others.

And another unavoidable observation was (and is) that each adherent could quote chapter and verse from their holy texts to support their claims but revealed their ignorance by claiming to likewise know about other disciplines. Apparently, they differed with Mark Twain when he said, “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly, teaches me to suspect my own.”

These observations cast doubt over the entire lot and motivated me to dig deeper into various disciplines to avoid the same error. I may be a fool, but at least I try to keep it to myself. I agree with Mark Twain, who also said, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

I would be the first to admit that I don’t know in depth about all spiritual and/or religious paths, but I do know about mystical paths (particularly Zen and Gnostic Christianity) as well as the orthodox version of Christianity. I can make that statement, without apology, since I have a formal degree in Theology from one of the finest seminaries in the world and have been practicing, as well as studying, Zen for more than 40 years at this late stage in my life.

I must confess that I get a bit testy when someone, after spending at most a few minutes with Google, claims to know what has taken me many years to understand. And what annoys me even more is when a pastor, rabbi, guru, or other religious figures (who should know better) claims knowledge of matters they know nothing about yet makes unfounded claims and leads their “flock” into ignorance, either intentionally or not.

Now let me address what I said I would do some time ago: differentiate Zen from religions (particularly Buddhism) and I must start with an acceptable definition of religion. The broadly accepted definition is: “A communal structure for enabling coherent beliefs focusing on a system of thought which defines the supernatural, the sacred, the divine or of the highest truth.” 

And the key part of that definition that is pertinent to my discussion here is, …a system of thought… While it may seem peculiar to the average person, Zen is the antithesis of …a system of thought… because Zen, by design, is transcendent to thinking, and plunges to the foundation of all thought: the human mind. 

And in that sense it is pointless to have an argument with anyone about this, rooted in thinking. That’s point # 1. Point # 2 is that Zen, as a spiritual discipline, predates The Buddha (responsible for establishing Buddhism's religion ) by many thousands of years. The best estimate, based on solid academic study, is that the earliest record of dhyāna (the Sanskrit name for Zen) is found around 7,000 years ago, whereas the Buddha lived approximately 2,500 years ago. The Buddha employed dhyāna to realize his own enlightenment, and dhyāna remains one of the steps in his Eight Fold Path designed to attain awakening. Thus, pin Zen to Buddhism's tree is very much akin to saying that prayer is exclusive to Christianity and is a branch of that religion's tree.

While it is stimulating and somewhat educational to engage in discussions regarding various spiritual and/or religious paths, the fact is we have no choice except to tell each other lies or partial truths. Words alone are just that: lies or partial truths concerning ineffable matters. That point has been a tenant of Zen virtually since the beginning. Not only is this true of Zen, but it is also true of all religious and spiritual paths. 

Lao Tzu was quite right: “The Way cannot be told. The Name cannot be named. The nameless is the Way of Heaven and Earth. The named is Matrix of the Myriad Creatures. Eliminate desire to find the Way. Embrace desire to know the Creature. The two are identical, but differ in name as they arise. Identical they are called mysterious, mystery on mystery: the gate of many secrets.” 

In the end, none of us has any other choice except to employ illusion to point us to a place beyond illusion. I leave this post with two quotes, one from Mark Twain and the other from Plato. First Twain: “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” And then Plato: “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”  

When I make statements, I know that I am telling partial truths, and I am stupid to argue. It makes both of us more stupid. That’s the real deal and should make us all a bit more humble and less sure that our truth alone is the only one.

The wizard beneath our Oz.

To those familiar with the story of The Wizard of Oz—a wizard nobody had ever seen, controlled the Land of Oz. In a way, this wizard inhabited the entirety of Oz with his unseen presence. 

The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says,“...the intrinsic nature of Complete Enlightenment is devoid of distinct natures, yet all different natures are endowed with this nature, which can accord and give rise to various natures.”

On the surface, this statement sounds arcane. Trying to imagine something which has no nature but is the basis for all nature is puzzling. Whatever that is, so says the sutra, is “intrinsic,” which means belonging to the essential nature of whatever is being contemplated, in this case, “all different natures.” 

The only way this can be understood is that Complete Enlightenment is ubiquitous. It doesn’t come and it doesn’t go since it is ever-present and thus does not depend upon the conditions of space/time. The word “transcendent” comes to mind.

But, so we think, if Complete Enlightenment is devoid of nature, how is it possible to be aware of it? It almost sounds as if we’re talking about something which is both empty and full at the same time—transparent yet concrete; the ground out of which everything grows but is itself invisible. By reading further in this sutra we find this: “Complete Enlightenment is neither exclusively movement nor non-movement. Enlightenment is in the midst of both.”

In other parts of Zen literature, we learn that it is the movement of ideas wafting across our screen of consciousness that constitutes what we call “mind.” And it is thus the goal of zazen to stop this elusive movement and thereby reveal our true nature. It is the nature of our Mind to create images to represent concepts and ideas. But the mind of concepts is an abstraction and the result of rational thought. The true Mind is accessible through intuition (e.g., inner insight), not thoughts. And when challenged to imagine something which is not an idea, we come up short. We can’t imagine enlightenment because in itself it is imageless. Consequently, when we try, we fail. And it is in the midst of that failure that enlightenment is understood.

As convoluted as this sounds, this insight is Complete. If there is nothing to see, then Enlightenment is seen everywhere we look. There is thus nowhere that Enlightenment can’t be found. When we see a tree, we’re seeing the manifestation of Enlightenment. When we see the sunrise, we’re seeing Enlightenment; A dog—Enlightenment; Another person—Enlightenment; Anything/Everything—Enlightenment. All perceptible forms, we find are the eternal manifestation of Complete Enlightenment. And why would that be? Because pure consciousness has no form, yet everything is perceived out of that.

Because we have never seen Complete Enlightenment, as an exclusive and separate entity, we think it must be a mystical matter, perceptible to only a select few and we imagine that this mystical state will be the result of adopting a state of mind which, for most people, is unavailable. This is exceptionally unfortunate!

Hakuin Zenji (circa1689-1796) is famous for his “Song of Zazen” in which he says, “How sad that people ignore the near and search for truth afar: Like someone in the midst of water crying out in thirst; Like a child of a wealthy home, wandering among the poor.”

The clear insight of these teachings is that enlightenment is the fundamental ground of our existence. It is everywhere we look (yet never found). It is our intrinsic true nature, without which we could not exist. You might say, consciousness is the wizard beneath our Oz.

Is there a “Self?”

Fabrication? Or real?

We humans have a big problem: language. We have invented words for everything regardless of whether the thing is ineffable or not. The opposite of a “thing” is “no-thing/nothing.” A thing is perceptible and nothing is not. When the words we employ relate to perceptible matters there is less of a problem, but even then words mean different things to different people. I’ve written previously concerning this dilemma in a post: Does suffering have a positive side? 

All humans imagine they have a unique identity or personality which is, in part, the constituents of a “self.” When we imagine ourselves we draw together composite components, such as how we think others see us, and what we think of ourselves. We dress this ego-self up with variegated clothing of profession, education, relationships, and many other factors we consider important, and end up with an internally perceptible “self-image” (ego). What should be apparent (but remains obscure) is that all images (self-included) are neither real nor the nexus of perception. The logic of this is peerless and we have been educated to know the difference between a perceptible object and an imperceptible subject (the ineffable person we imagine ourselves to be).

In a recent post (Our overturned world) I spoke about the writings of Patañjali who lived in India during the 2nd century BCE. He is credited with being the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. Patañjali wrote about what he called kleshas (afflictions: causes of suffering) and maintained that there are only five of these. According to him, we have what is called ahamkara or “I-maker” (ego). It is a single thought form, the delusional image of an individualized existence. This premise is fully embraced within Zen and is the foundation upon which the conviction of “no-self” is based. 

It is our nature to label everything and in the case of our true, subjective selves, we apply the name of another self (now we have two, both fabricated). There is the perceptible, objective ego/self and an ineffable subjective Self. But we only apply the label of Self due to our inability to articulate or define pure consciousness, otherwise called “The Mind.” In other words, we know the mind is present by virtue of actions.

This matter is conflated due to seemingly conflicting Buddhist teachings. On the one hand, it is standard Buddhist teachings that we have no self (anattā). And on the other hand, there are Buddhist Sūtras that teach a higher Self, such as the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras, (one of which The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra—contrasting these two selves). In Chapter 3 (On Grief) of this Sūtra, the Buddha taught, what he called “four perversions.” He said that the true Self signified the Buddha, the eternal signified the Dharmakāya (the Mind—literally “truth body”), Bliss signified the lack of dukkhā and Nirvana/the Pure, signified the Dharma. He went on to say that to cultivate impermanence, suffering, and non-self has no real meaning and said,

“Whoever has these four kinds of perversion, that person does not know the correct cultivation of dharmas. Having these perverse ideas, their (the lost) minds, and vision are distorted.” He continued, “If impermanence is killed, what there is, is eternal Nirvana. If suffering is killed, one must gain bliss; if the void is killed, one must gain the real. If the non-self is killed, one must gain the True Self, O great King! If impermanence, suffering, the Void, and the non-self are killed, you must be equal to me.” In this same Sūtra, the Buddha said, “Seeing the actions of 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.” 

This is confusing, but after much study, you come to realize that the labels of “Mind” and “Self” are used interchangeably. In any case, (depending on your preferences) neither the Mind nor the Self can be seen, simply because these are arbitrary words for consciousness: the nexus of all perception. In fact, the Self is just another name for Buddha-dhatu/the true immaculate Self—the only substantial, yet unseen reality.

After all else, we must recognize the limitation of words and, as Lao Tzu said, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.” The word “Tao” was the same word the Buddha used for “the Mind/Self.” The clue should be, that a name is not the same as what the name represents. Names are expressions of substance but they are nevertheless mental images intended to point to substance, and in the case of a self, the substance in question if ineffably indefinable. A rose by any other name smells as sweet.

The sea of bliss.

The heart of darkness and light.

Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.

To one trapped in a bondage of the mind, there is a darkness to move beyond that can cloud our sense of being and our capacity to love. The idea of moving beyond seems to imply movement toward a goal: something not present. There is, however, another way to understand this obstruction: The darkness that impedes our capacity to love.  A drop of water, dark or not, taken out of the great sea, is certainly divided from the indiscriminate source but when it returns to the source, it becomes absorbed and can’t be found. It is then lost in the sea of love.

This is an easy example that displays the difference between duality and unification. Bodhidharma illustrated this by speaking of the body of all truth, where everything is One. His commentary on the Lankavatara Sutra teaches there are two aspects of life: The discriminated/perceptible, and the unified/ineffable—bound together in a manner too marvelous to understand. He said: “By tranquility is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realizable only within one’s inmost consciousness…The beginning chapter of this sutra concludes in this way... “In this world whose nature is like a dream, there is place for praise and blame, but in the ultimate Reality of Dharmakaya (our true mind) which is far beyond the senses and the discriminating mind, what is there to praise?”

So where is the source of hope and tranquility? Our hope lies imperceptibly beneath impermanence at the heart of decay. And what is that heart? Huang Po (Obaku in Japanese; 9th century China) was particularly lucid in his teaching about this. In the Chün Chou Record, he said:

“To say that the real Dharmakāya of the Buddha resembles the Void is another way of saying that the Dharmakāya is the Void and that the Void is the Dharmakāya ... they are one and the same thing...When all forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha ... the void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning ... this great nirvanic nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.”

This perspective, however, is a bit like looking in a rearview mirror that reflects darkness once you’ve found light. While in the darkness, no light is seen. To go looking for the void beyond darkness takes us into the sea of nondiscrimination where compassion and wisdom define all. And once there, in this eternal void—the source of all, we fuse together with all things and realize that dark and light are just handles defining the seeming division between one thing and another. We are then absorbed by the vast and endless sea of bliss and tranquility. We are in a home we never left.

Getting to the other side

If I were wishing to cross a river to the other side I would need some means to get there. Maybe I would choose a boat and oars and propel myself across. But before I went to the trouble of obtaining the boat and oars, and expending the effort to cross, perhaps I might consider why I want to cross in the first place. Maybe someone has told me that on the other side it’s a better place than where I stand and I decided that they might be right.

The point is that we do things like moving from point “A” to point “B” for what we consider to be good reasons. We can’t know for sure whether or not our reasons are valid until we make the trip. Then only can we know, because we then have an actual experience of the other side to compare with the opposite shore. We refer to this as “The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.”

But as we all know, oftentimes the grass is not greener and then we have an embarrassing conundrum to deal with. Do we acknowledge this error in judgment, and attempt to come to terms with how we made the error? Or maybe we take another tack and pretend that the other side really is greener (when it is actually not) to justify our actions. Many people are remiss to acknowledge an error, feeling the pain of a diminished ego and humiliation. Rather than take the hit they choose to deny reality and continue to make the same mistake over and over again. Does this sound familiar? It should since we are living in a time when error upon error is being made, with no admission of wrongdoing.

This line of thought is leading to a discussion on crossing the river from “carnage” to a better place and the presumptions we use to support the making. In standard Buddhist practice, the presumption is that we move toward enlightenment by embracing a given set of precepts that we believe will purify our being and thus facilitate an experience we think of as enlightenment. If we have never crossed over we can only guess about the turf on the opposite shore. Maybe it will be greener and maybe not. But how would we know until we actually cross over? Perhaps the presumption is correct—that precepts produce the desired effect. But of equal value is to question the trip and the means to get across.

The Buddha probably wrestled with this predicament and learned through experience that his presumptions were flawed. His own prescription didn’t work. The more important question is a matter of order. Did The Buddha’s enlightenment come following the formula, or did the formula follow his enlightenment? This question is rarely considered but it is “the” question. Is it possible, for anyone—The Buddha included—to manifest ultimate goodness while enslaved within the grip of an ego? Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Or does genuine goodness and the evidence arise together?

The presumption of cause and effect (e.g., karma) leads us to examine in this way—Goodness (cause) and enlightenment (effect) or, enlightenment (cause) and goodness (effect)? One side of the river is a corrupted nature (an ego) which may desire to do good but is lacking the capacity, and on the other side of the river is the well-spring of goodness, but is lacking the arms and legs needed to propel us across. So long as anyone thinks in this divided manner they will never be able to move, much less across the river. Why? Because motion—any motion, and particularly the motion of enlightenment—is not a function of division but of unity.

The Buddha’s enlightenment occurred once he had surrendered from the Gordian Knot—the insolvable quandary which demanded this choice between cause and effect. Should he choose the side of ultimate goodness? Or ultimate depravity? That dilemma still stands as the ultimate challenge and there are no options to solve it today that didn’t exist in the time of The Buddha. The answer today, as then, is let go. It is not now, and will never be, possible to untie this knot by traveling a path other than The Middle Way. 

Goodness and the well-spring of Goodness arise together and disappear together. We are both at the same time, or we are neither. Not cause and effect, but rather cause-effect. We can’t earn goodness from the center of self because self serves self alone. When we exhaust this center, goodness bubbles to the surface naturally. It can’t be forced upward through the filter of ego. That plug is too strong to allow passage. When it is removed the flow begins, and until that happens the only movement which can happen originates from the ego.

And then we discover that enlightenment is not one shore against the other shore. Enlightenment is both shores and the river and all of life. It is not a destination but rather an experience of goodness which flows naturally, but only when the obstacle is removed.

Beyond 911—Over the cliff

It has been 15 years since 911, and it’s time to dust off a previous post that was painful to write and perhaps painful to read. I wrote about the side of a veteran’s life that nobody wanted to hear. We much prefer to bathe in the glory of war and avoid the aftermath. But as one who fought and has an aftermath, I thought it was important to paint the whole portrait.

Similarly, some time ago I wrote a book (The Non-Identity Crisis) that has the following on the dedication page:

“This book is dedicated, not to a person, but rather to an idea: the eradication of war and the end of suffering. In particular what I have to say in this book is dedicated to all who have experienced anguish resulting from the tragedy of 911. I write as a fallen warrior with my own wounds inflicted during a previous conflict—The Vietnam War. True for all warriors of any and ever war, the scars never go away, even the ones that lay buried deep in your mind. We learn mostly from our own suffering and if we wish to not keep repeating it, the only ones who can chart a new course are us.”

In this book I write a lot about what war is really like when we scratch away the veneer of glory. We are living in the aftermath of 911, Osama Bin Laden is now dead, and our actions years later reflect this trauma. Bin Laden is now gone but his legacy is not. There is a message in this book that addresses both our responsive actions and moving beyond the trap. I’d like to share with you a perspective from the book that may not been immediately evident:

“When you kill another, sooner or later their surviving loved ones will come after you. War is the ultimate failure of the human family and if we ever hope to live in peace we are the only ones who can create the conditions for that to happen. What we are doing right now around the world is continuing the legacy of war and thereby guaranteeing future conflicts. What I have to say throughout this book is how to end it. Holding onto the desire for vengeance and justification for killing that emanated from 911 virtually insures our collective downfall. The mantra of ‘Never Forget’ is a banner for that downfall and only appropriate for those who never fought. For those of us who have fought, we must forget and forgive or go insane. What Bin Laden started but couldn’t finish on 911—to bring down our culture—we may do to ourselves due to our attachment to revenge at all cost. Did he anticipate our predictable response? It’s impossible to say, but a fundamental rule of warfare is to know your enemy and goad him into a trap of his own making.”

If we are sincere in wishing to honor the sacrifices of our young men and women who so valiantly offer themselves to defend our way of life, the best way of doing that is to stop the insane path we are presently following, bring our warriors home and pay for their healing and restoring their lives.

Inherent goodness.

You are not made good by your beliefs. You are good already. When you realize your inherent goodness there is no longer a need to believe. Then you know.

The Man in the moon

I have a habit each evening of sitting on our deck after dinner, feeling the gentle evening air and watching the phases of the moon. 

Once every month, the moon reaches fullness, and every time it comes, we can see the man in the moon. Oh, I know: there really isn’t a man in the moon, and you likewise know there isn’t. We’re sophisticated people and live in a sophisticated time. Scientific tools and methods have been with us all of our life. So we know what people who lived long ago didn’t know, and chuckle when we think how deluded they were.

Did you know that many “sophisticated people” in earlier times were convinced that there really was a man in the moon? Some people said that the man was banished to the moon for some crime. Christian lore commonly held that he was the man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath and sentenced by God to death by stoning in the book of Numbers. Some Germanic cultures thought he was a man caught stealing from a neighbor’s hedgerow to repair his own. There is even a Roman legend that he was a sheep thief.

We laugh at such silliness, but are we able to laugh at our own absurdity? Now we say things like “Those people who see things differently from us are not authentic (fill in the blank.)” You could use the label of Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, atheist or any other birds of a feather. The question isn’t how we label ourselves. The meaningful question is how we don’t label ourselves, but we do love our labels. We wear them like badges of superiority, distinguishing ourselves from others. The famous Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: “Humanity in the poorest and most despised human being is just as complete as in the Pope or the Emperor.” And we know what sort of clothing the Emperor wore—none.

We need to consider the moon, not if there is a man in it. Nobody was born with a label. Nobody will die with a brand. But in between birth and death, we become inordinately concerned with labels and forget about our own authentic human nature. Fundamentally the moon is the moon. Fundamentally a human is a human. If you want to stick a man in the moon, then we can all have a good laugh. We don’t laugh, however when we stick a label on us. Too bad, because that also is a good joke.