Wise choices.

Leaving school behind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our upside down world.

If you can, grasp that everything we perceive and process—whether internal or external-results from elusive images projected in our brain. You can then begin to appreciate the incredible miracle represented by the Buddha’s enlightenment. His understanding occurred 2,500 years before tools were developed, which allow us to validate his teachings from a neurological perspective. While the language used that long ago may seem arcane to us today, by transcending these barriers of time and culture, we can understand the true nature of ourselves and the world in which we have always existed.

Buddhism, by any measure, from the normal western perspective, seems strange only because we have been conditioned to see life in a particular way, which, as it turns out, is upside down. What we regard as “real” is not, and what we regard as not even perceptibly present turns out to be real. And because of this error, our understanding causes us to identify with illusions, which are simple mental projections. Not realizing this, we end up clinging to vapor and then suffering as it slides away. What is the solution?

First, as the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says, we must become aware of what is happening. Without this first step, there is no hope of ever being set free from a never ending dream—a nightmare of suffering that keeps repeating endlessly. When the illusions of our lives begin to break down (which they inevitably do), we are faced with tragedy. We suffer, so we search for relief, which unfortunately may come in further addictions that bring temporary relief but never last. It is like suffering from thirst and drinking salt water, which just makes us thirstier.

If we are fortunate, we discover the Dharma (the truth as revealed by the Buddha) and begin to fathom the source of our dilemma. It may start by taking a class or reading a book. Slowly our eyes become open to what is genuinely real, and our hunger grows. What begins as an intellectual snack holds the potential of becoming a full-blown meal. What fills the belly of one who has savored true awakening won’t do someone else any good. Ideas don’t fill the emptiness in our guts. Only awakening to our true nature can satisfy that craving for substance.

This sutra hits the nail on the head. Of course, the prime motivator is anyone’s own state of mind. As Master Sheng-yen pointed out, “Generally, unless a sleeping person is having a nightmare, he or she will not want to wake up. The dreamer prefers to remain in the dream. In the same way, if your daily life is relatively pleasant, you probably won’t care to practice to realize that your life is illusory. No one likes to be awakened from nice dreams.”

This is a bit like the story of a salesman who came across a man sitting on his front porch smoking a pipe. The salesman noticed a large hole in his house's roof and asked the man why he didn’t fix it. The man responded, “If it ain’t raining, there’s no need, and when it is raining, it’s too late.” The time to awaken is before the rains of suffering arrive.

Spiritual Math

One plus one equals two. Two divided by itself equals one. We learn these fundamental lessons about manipulating numbers early in life. It’s easy so long as it involves abstract numbers, and math doesn’t involve judgments and emotional overtones.

The rules are not subject to interpretation. We all agree on the rules, so we don’t get stressed even though one number is different. We don’t think, “Two is better than one” since two is just the sum of two ones joined together, and it would be impossible for the sum to exist without the union of ones.

That much is straightforward. No debate there. But when we add in the human component, it gets sticky. Now the game changes to “mine are better than yours,” and variations on that theme are unbounded. Differences now rule the day and are arrayed along with gender, politics, spiritual choices, age, sexual orientations, and racial differences (just to name a few prominent divisions).

The factor of difference overrides the factor of similarities, and conflicts flare as we war with one another over how we are better than someone different from us. Perhaps we all need to return to grammar school and learn the math of human relations. 

In today’s world, conflicts have become a dominant force, and these conflicts are all about how one person (or group) is better than another and beneath this issue lays the forgotten issue of unity. A person who chooses to align themself with one political group never stops being human. A person who strives to understand their relationship with their source by choosing one way against another never stops being human. One plus two always come out the same. These different numbers are always the result of the same fundamentals, and so are humans.

Cleaning house.

To people living in the Western World, Zen seems strange and irrelevant. I’ve tried for years to simplify Zen’s teachings that proclaim universal truths taught by The Buddha (e.g., Dharma). I took on this task so that people could understand and profit from The Buddha’s pearls of transcendent wisdom spanning time and place, every day. For the most part, I think this has been a road to nowhere, and my words have fallen on deaf ears. 

I now no longer try to teach the nuances that can obscure the real value: right thinking leading to the right effort. But then I reflect on this matter of frustration and factor in what the Buddha said: “The greatest action is not conforming with the world’s ways, and the greatest effort is not concerned with results.” Nobody can see the future, and in ways beyond our understanding, following the road less traveled can be lonely.

The story of John Chapman (known as Johnny Appleseed) is instructive. John was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of the Mid-Atlantic region of The United States. He became a legend while still alive due to his kind, generous ways, leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. John journeyed alone throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, including the northern counties of present-day West Virginia, planting seeds he knew would mature long after he was gone. He patiently went about his commitment with no concern for results, which he knew would take years to multiply.

Rhetoric without concrete expression is not worth the time of day, but there is presently a mood at work that troubles me greatly, and Zen offers a perspective that may be useful. To one who has studied and practiced Zen for many years, there is an inescapable conclusion which seems odd to the initiate but is true nevertheless—that we are all as different as snowflakes on the outside but fundamentally just indiscriminate snow at heart. We all appear to be uniquely different, but at our core, we are united and one. Ordinarily, all we perceive are differences, and when we are enjoying the good life, we are reluctant to share our wealth with others who appear different.

Some years back, there was a frequent political mantra that emphasized our differences and denigrated our unity and went by the handle of  Makers and Takers’. The implication in that mantra suggested that makers were singularly responsible for their own wellbeing, and takers were leeches who sucked up the life-blood earned by the makers. In his commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, Chan Master Sheng Yen said that nobody having pleasant dreams wants to wake up. Only when they have nightmares are they eager to do so. His observation is that there is a correspondence between the magnitude of both suffering and awakening. 

While in the Marines, we put this in different terms with an idiom that a problem is never significant until it becomes your own. Then only does it seem to be meaningful. Whenever a person experiences anything (painful or otherwise), only then do they consider the merits of ideas opposite of their cherished previously held convictions. The experience might be something life-threatening to themselves or their loved ones, such as being infected with COVID-19 because they were convinced that wearing a mast was unnecessary. That is an example of clinging to political/religious dogma and, consequently, not paying attention to unfolding life. The entirety of Zen concerns the alleviation of suffering. There is no other purpose for this quest than that. And much of suffering arises by clinging to dogma and not exercising wisdom. So some reading this may think to themselves, “I don’t suffer, so Zen isn’t right for me.”

I have two rejoinders to this observation: not yet, and denial. The not yet part is the realization that it is impossible to have mortal life and not suffer because the fundamental nature of conditional life is suffering. The denial part concerns resistance (a form of attachment which creates even more suffering). Nobody wants to suffer, and unfortunately, this motivates many to stay in states of denial. The pain seems too sharp to face, so we stuff it down and try to go on with life. But this can eventually be a significant problem because it isn’t possible to keep suffering locked away forever. 

Sooner or later, the seeds of unresolved trauma we locked away in our subconscious sprout and seep out to corrode our sense of wellbeing. Strangely, this emergence of the subconscious seeds of trauma is like the apple seeds that Johnny planted. PTSD is precisely that: tragedies that couldn’t be resolved have been buried in deep recesses of our mind and sooner or later emerge into the light of day and wreak havoc.

When you learn and practice zazen (a form of yoga, originally labeled dhyana yoga), all of that suppressed mental poison gets released; you clean out the pipes and move on toward wholeness. It isn’t fun to lance that boil, but it beats living with the compacted aftermath of suppressed suffering. Along the way toward restored mental health, there can be wide swings from one depth to the opposite, but this is the necessary result of spiritual house cleaning. 

Zen is not a practice for the faint of heart. It’s only for the most desperate and those who exhibit the necessary courage to go through the anguish required to have a life worth living. And when you arrive at your goal, you realize that you can only alleviate suffering by becoming a servant to all, regardless of distinctions. Why? Because by being a servant to all is the same as serving yourself.

“The greatest action is not conforming with the world’s ways, and the greatest effort is not concerned with results.”

Charting Life.

In school, we all learned how to conduct research and chart the results. Nobody answers questions exactly the same, so some answers chart high, some chart low, and when we plot all of the answers, we can see a picture emerge that tells a story. We can even apply certain formulas to get a more accurate picture by “smoothing” the data and making projections based on what we learn. A good piece of research combined with properly done analysis helps us evaluate conditions and understand our world.

But look at how a chart is arranged. On one axis lies the range of variables being measured, and on the other axis lies a fixed frame of references, such as time or space. If our chart is really sophisticated, it might be a three-dimensional chart to get a more sophisticated picture. But whether two-dimensional or more, there is always a baseline that doesn’t move, so there is a constant by which we can map our work. If the baseline moved, as the data moved, there would be nothing learned.

When you think about it, this is a metaphor for how our mind works, and it must be this way. Otherwise, what we would see would just be a mish-mash of confused data: No picture. So how does this metaphor apply? Our true mind is the unmoving baseline, and moving data is our perceptible world. The variables data move. Our mind remains constant. If either of these were different (e.g., moving mind or constant data), the result would be inconceivable.

Now overlay the Buddha’s teaching on this map, and see what you get. Our unconditional, unmoving mind is joined irrevocably to our conditional and moving world. It is simple yet profound. It’s right there staring us in the face, but what can’t be seen is what doesn’t move. Rabbits learned that lesson eons ago, but we are still trying to figure that out.

Dancing through life

Watching two accomplished ballroom dancers is a delight. They move in graceful, fluid motions almost as a single entity. One leads; the other follows. If there is no cooperation, then harmony is broken with both trying to lead, and the motion is jerky and chaotic. 

If neither leads, there is no motion. If you look at what’s happening in Washington right now, you can see the non-dance of chaos. Whether we move or don’t, dance can only occur if there is a floor to dance on. 

Dancers don’t move through thin air. In a certain sense, we are like those dancers. We move in a relationship with others across the immovable floor of life. Our movements are either fluid, graceful, or chaotic, depending on how we cooperate. It’s a matter of giving and taking. Two gives or two takes end in stalemate. We have invented a saying to express this dance. It is called “What goes around comes around.” We reap what we sow. 

In Buddhism, this is called karma and works the same way. The floor beneath the dance is, of course, the immovable foundation of our life—our mind. If it moved, the dancers would be shaken. But since it is stable, the dance can proceed: One half leading, the other half following. And the dance can only happen with these three things—The immovable floor and the two partners. When all three functions in harmony, the dance of life is a beautiful thing.

Despots and fiddles

Note: I first wrote this post in September of 2011—Nine years ago. While the specifics have changed, the essence has not.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”—Let them eat cake. While scholars no longer attribute this saying to Marie Antoinette, it has nevertheless remained as the prime example of disdain by the aristocracy for people in need. It exists in classic anthologies epitomizing indifference exhibited by those with means for those who suffer. In the same vane is the myth of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, which has come to mean to occupy oneself with unimportant matters and neglect priorities during a crisis.

Both of these are finding relevance in our world today. While people try to regain their footing following natural disasters or struggle to survive following extended unemployment, loss of homes, and virtually any means of support, politicians wax on endlessly concerning themselves more with how many points they can gain by confronting “the opposition” than how many mouths they can feed.

In exactly two months time the appointed Washington “super committee” must propose ways to reduce an out of control Federal deficit. Whatever means they propose must be voted on by Dec. 23. As the situation currently stands these people are no closer to reaching accord than when they were convened a month ago. During that month one of the most devastating hurricanes on record destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands and goes on record as one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation’s history.

FEMA is our first-responder agency for bringing aid to such people as those who were wiped out by Irene or by the devastating EF5 multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri. Every caring American expects our government to provide whatever support is necessary to assist those in need. Instead, FEMA is being held hostage by the radical fringe, lead by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who demands that offsetting budget cuts in other programs must be found before approving new funding for FEMA. Such additional funding in the wake of costly disasters has been the usual procedure in Congress in the past since natural disasters by their very nature cannot be predicted.

On one level Mr. Cantor’s reasoning appears responsible. To go further in debt at the same time that the super committee is trying to come to terms with the future of our nation seems unreasonable. The costs must be born somehow and the source of such funding is perfectly obvious. When infamous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, his answer was immediate and clear: It’s where the money is. So where’s our money? It isn’t in the hands of the disappearing middle class. It isn’t in the hands of the expanding poor and desperate. The money is where it always has been: In the banks. Yet it is precisely the financial institutions of our nation that are now doing everything possible to manipulate the law to ensure that we once again pay for their own mismanagement. 

They were not shy in asking us to bail them out when they teetered on the edge of disaster. We did so and they repaid our generosity by handing out astronomical bonuses to their “senior executives” and then refused to fuel our economic recovery. In the meantime, so we’re told, corporations are flush with fat profits. Why won’t they reinvest? Because there isn’t sufficient demand. And why isn’t there sufficient demand? Because people have no jobs. And why do people have no jobs? Because the people who have money won’t invest it. Does anyone but me see the Catch 22 here?

If Mr. Cantor wants to find the offsets to continue FEMA funding, then he should take a lesson from Willie, go get the money from where it exists and stop his fiddling. Rome is about to burn and we need a lot more than “cake.”

At the brink.

The recent debacle in Washington brings into sharp focus a fundamental flaw in our way of thinking and thus how we wrestle with problem-solving. We call it “the blame game.” This quagmire precisely illustrates a classic cultural flaw: Republicans blame Democrats. Main Street blames Wall Street. Your neighbor blames you, and you blame your neighbor. Apparently, nobody sees the big picture, which is this:

Wall Street doesn’t exist as an independent entity, separate and apart from you and me (Main Street)—investors who are greedy for a free lunch and believe that there is an independent up, separate, and apart from an inevitable down. Likewise, neither Republicans nor Democrats exist as independent entities. And neighbors only exist because of you and me.

This notion of an absolute right or wrong—one independent dimension in opposition to another—is simply wrong-headed. Unfortunately, this notion is going to bring our culture to its knees unless we wake up soon. This spirit of “me against the world” has never worked and never will work simply because it is not true. No world is separate and apart from “me and you.” We are the world which we are creating together, either in opposition with one another or in the messy struggle to work together for the common good. It may appear as a solid political strategy to set yourself apart from the other guy (or gal), but it creates and perpetuates a myth destroying us all.

For more than 2 millennia, Buddhists worldwide have seen the flaw of this “me against the world” approach as contrary to interdependent origination, which states the truth of our collective unity. There is no such thing as an independent anything—Light and dark arise and disappear together, up and down arise and disappear together, democrats and republicans arise and disappear together, form and emptiness; you and me...the list is endless, and it is a simple truth if only we would put it in motion. Instead, we remain trapped in opposition with anyone and everyone. We remain convinced of absolute righteousness (otherwise called self-righteousness), which only folks like us are privy to, and we likewise remain persuaded that others not-like-us are obviously wrong. Two problems here:

1. The idea of a “self” is just that...An idea. It is not a substantial, real thing. And if it is just an imagined figment, then there is, what? A figment of imaginary righteousness? The answer to that rhetorical question is yes—imaginary.

2. Even if there were a real self (which could be called our Root Consciousness, Buddha Nature or any name you choose—the name is irrelevant), such a reality could not be independent and separate because it is ubiquitous, never-born, never-dies, and not a reality which can be claimed as exclusive by anyone. It is a common, shared-by-everyone reality. We are in this pickle together and can’t escape.

So, where does this leave us? Well, it’s not too difficult to conclude. Either we continue on as we have since the beginning of time chasing the phantom of “me against the world” (and live with the consequences of that pursuit—racial and cultural suicide), or we chart a different course of unity. It would seem that we are at a tipping point, balanced on a precipice between choices. Collectively we will decide, but one thing is clear: Whatever choice we make will result in both benefits and consequences because these also arise together as an interdependent union. To listen to a good talk on the web of causes and effects undergirding our current crisis, click here.

Coming and going.

To a person of Zen, words are a mixed blessing. They can lead you astray or open your mind to the music of the muses. One of the greatest mystical poets of all time is Rabindranath Tagore.  Sadly, while he lived, he was little known outside of the Calcutta area and unknown outside of India. 

He and Lao Tzu awaken in me purity of heart unmatched by others. One of Tagor’s resonate themes is opening doors. Here is one facet from his poetic jewel, “Journey Home.”

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

All of us are travelers searching far and wide for what is closer than our own breath, seeking what has never left us. In our mind’s eye, we imagine ourselves’ indwelling presence, which we separate from what that presence witnesses. To Lin-Chi (the father of Rinzai Zen) such people are spiritual dilettantes. He said, 

“Zen students today are totally unaware of truth. They are like foraging goats that pick up whatever they bump into. They do not distinguish between the servant and the master, or between guest and host. People like this enter Zen with distorted minds and are unable to enter effectively into dynamic situations. They may be called true initiates, but actually they are really mundane people. Those who really leave attachments must master real, true perception to distinguish the enlightened from the obsessed, the genuine from the artificial, the unregenerate from the sage. If you can make these discernments, you can be said to have really left dependency. Professionally Buddhist clergy who cannot tell obsession from enlightenment have just left one social group and entered another social group. They cannot really be said to be independent. Now there is an obsession with Buddhism that is mixed in with the real thing. Those with clear eyes cut through both obsession and Buddhism. If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.”

If we listen with open minds, we can hear the connection between Tagore and Lin Chi. There is one who travels and one who is found. The traveler knocks on a billion alien doors and, in the end, returns to find the one who has never moved.  Guests come and go yet the host never leaves. The Buddha lived in India 2,500 years ago. Lao Tzu lived in China at roughly the same time. Lin Chi died in 866 CE, and in 1913 Tagore received the Nobel Prize for literature. 

The lives of these men span an eternity, yet their voices resonate with a familiar echo. After all this time, we are still chasing and becoming attached to the moving rabbit, unable to notice who is doing the chasing. Buddhism has begun to capture the attention of the Western mind, but sadly it still dwells on the bobbing at the expense of the one noticing the bobbing, and as Lin-Chi says, 

“Now, there is an obsession with Buddhism that is mixed in with the real thing. Those with clear eyes cut through both obsession and Buddhism. If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.” 

In our world today, we enshrine the sacred and spit on the ordinary. No wonder in our time we are reaping the poisonous fruit of divisiveness. 

Solomon and a divided nation

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

Mine—No Take

It’s an education to watch young children learning the social skill of sharing (or not). It’s an unnatural skill. The ordinary way is to not share but rather to possess. One of the first words a child learns is “mine,” and another is “no.” 

The other day while waiting in the doctor’s office, I watched an encounter between two small children—one a girl, the other a boy—both younger than 2 years of age, competing to possess toys available in the waiting room.

The boy was there first, having complete reign over the cache of toys. Then the girl arrived, and the challenge began. He noticed the threat to his exclusive possessions and immediately sent out body language which said in effect, “mine, stay away.” She wasn’t hearing this message but instead began to carve out her own share. He responded by taking back what he had lost. She responded, in turn, “no,” “mine”—back and forth it went, with occasional interventions by the parents demanding sharing, which were largely ignored.

As I watched this exchange, I saw their futures as grown-ups still engaged in the same struggle, now being played out in the market place and relationships. “Mine” means “not yours.” It starts early and continues throughout life until we come to see that taken to an extreme, this simply doesn’t work. Then we are motivated to share but always begrudgingly. We don’t like to share, regardless of the social skill compromises we learn. There is a part of each of us that harkens back to our earliest memories of possessiveness and fear of loss.

Underneath the motivation for this behavior lies another human dimension, which also begins to function very early—an imagined, independent self that fuels attachment with actions of clinging and resistance—“Mine,” “No take.” Left unimpeded, this behavior creates unending suffering, and until we go to the heart and address the underlying imagined self, no learned social skill will survive very long. During times of stress, we revert back to early behavior and throw aside learned compromises—fearing a threat to our sense of self and demanding an increase to insulation from jeopardy (monetary and emotional). 

The perceived risk rises, and we hunker down. What is the answer to something so embedded? Risk is endemic to living, and this perception is always at odds with the idea of “mine.”  The tides rise, and they fall. Nothing lasts as “mine” and to depend upon permanence is a prescription for suffering. 

Sooner or later, the little girl or boy will come along and want their share. We’ll be confronted with an unending struggle with no solution except one: Eradicating the mythical and imagined self, which fuels this dynamic. When this eradication occurs, we become aware that beneath independence is interdependence; beneath imagined, there is the real, and beneath the limited fuel, we find an unending supply. Down deep, beneath the everyday struggle, we find bedrock—The One we have always been, has no center called “mine” or “no take.” At this level, there is neither you nor me. Just a unified “us.” 

Every religion of significance cautions about being self-centered, but Buddhism provides a concrete way to vanquish this center. Telling someone “what” to do without saying “how” accomplishes nothing but frustration. This eradication and discovery doesn’t happen by itself. It is the fruit of dedicated and focused practice, which may seem excessive and unnecessary. But the alternative is a life of suffering that comes with “mine” and “no take.” We all have the same opportunity to either live with the myth of an imagined and independent self or free of this pernicious demon and experience liberation.

Incredible

The juxtaposition of where we stand at this point in the human journey is incredible. The extremes are astonishing! 

On the one hand, we are living during a time when it is possible to be connected, almost instantly to anyone, anywhere in the world who has the necessary technology. The Internet, exploration of the cosmos, advances in medical, communications, and scientific technologies—all and more have transformed our physical world in ways far beyond what we could have imagined just a few years ago. If these advances were a measure of human achievement, we would get a grade of A+, but sadly we are failing.

Our ability to find common ground and move forward as a united human race has never been in greater jeopardy. Global communities are coming unglued at once. The Middle East is a burning house (and has been for centuries). So is the Amazon rain forest. So is the entire East Coast of the USA. At this point (which is increasing rapidly), 35+million people are infected with COVID-19, more than 1 million have died and there is no significant global cooperation to deal with this out-of-control disease.  In our nation (and many others around the world) governments have ceased to function and riots are understandably occurring with increasing intensity. And to top it all, our entire physical world is reflecting these extremes: Hotter hots; Colder colds, massive floods, great geographic segments turned into desserts, and melting ice caps.

On the one hand, it has never been better and on the other hand, it has never been worse. Clearly, the problems have nothing to do with what we can do but instead result from what we refuse to do. We fight like snarling animals, fighting over a dead carcass about ideologies, with opposing factions prepared to kill one another and take pride in dying to achieve a one-sided agenda.

We are compromising our collective welfare, due to no loss of intelligent capacity but rather because of mental, emotional, and spiritual poverty. What ought to be perfectly clear—what the nature of the problems are, and thus the solutions, continues to be ignored as we struggle to develop more and more technology while refusing to see what even a small child could see. Take a few moments and watch this, and then reflect on what we are losing. If you don’t get a large lump in your throat when you watch, you’re probably already dead.

The we of you and me.

Previously, I published a book, The Non-Identity Crisis—The crisis that endangers our world. The topic of the book concerns a common mistake that everyone makes: We confuse functions with identity, and since we attach ourselves with these, we create unending hardship for others and ourselves.

Let me illustrate what I’m talking about with a small example. In a day, we perform many different functions. We get out of bed, go to the bathroom, prepare and eat meals, drive to various places, talk with people, assume specific roles, and do other things. While we are walking from our beds, we are performing a function called walking. During that time, we could rightly say that we are a walker. One who walks is a walker. One who prepares food is a preparer, driving/driver, talking/talker, so on and so forth. As our functions change, our sense of being changes accordingly.

This matter is compounded with other forms of more enduring activities that lead to misidentification. Some functions are vacillating and short-lived, such as eating or walking. Sometimes we eat, sometimes we walk, but these functions come and go frequently. However, other aspects are more enduring, such as being a parent, a spouse, or a volunteer. But even these can and do change. And there are other matters that we take on that define us, such as national, economic, political, religious, or ideological identities. All of the preceding can be, and are, combined. And all are changing and morphing. None of it stands still, but we do. That much is clearly evident and doesn’t require further explanation. So what’s the issue?

The issue is one of attaching our sense of being and worth to moving targets. If we ever took the time to truly understand ourselves (at the fundamental level), everything would be okay. We don’t, however, take the time to understand ourselves at this bedrock level. Instead, we understand ourselves based on these changing dimensions of mis-identity, and we suffer and create trouble because of this error. 

For example, we may consider ourselves (by way of illustration) as a prosperous American Republican, Christian, spouse, and parent. That is a complex combining, and each part of that combination changes. When we identify with each component (or the complex combination), we feel like our beingness is defined and vulnerable to attack. And then, we take the next step and defend these forms of identity against others who represent themselves differently.

Prosperity is then opposed to the disadvantaged; American is opposed to non-American; Democrat against Republican; Christian against non-Christian, etc. It is quite right that we flock together with birds of a feather to attack and get rid of birds with different feathers. If you wanted to articulate and characterize the core problem we are facing at this point in time, worldwide, it would emanate from this tendency to mis-identify and create forms of hostility against others not like us. This tendency makes it nearly impossible to break the logjam of dysfunction in Washington and worldwide, and that tendency is jeopardizing our mutual welfare.

What’s the solution? Actually, it isn’t that difficult to figure out, but it is challenging to solve. The answer is to take the time to find out who we are, at that fundamental level, because when we do that, we discover that we are one joint human family. Each of us adopts different ways of living. Each of us thinks other thoughts. Each of us performs a nearly infinite breadth of different functions, but none of that is who we are. Who we are is a matter of being, not doing.

So let’s spend some time examining this matter of beingness. Who and what are we? One part of us is clearly changing flesh, bones, related physical stuff, and if you haven’t noticed, all of that is in a continuous state of replication.

The rate of DNA replication for humans is about 50 nucleotides per second per replication fork (a Y-shaped part of a chromosome that is the site for DNA strand separation and then duplication). The physical aspect of us comprises trillions of chromosomes, and each and every one of them is continually being lost and replaced. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who that wrinkly old guy is and where the young, handsome fellow went. The answer is that we are all sloughing off trillions of cells each and every moment of our lives. There is nothing of our physical being that is permanent, and one day that part of us will go the way of all flesh. But that’s okay because that is not who we are.

The other part of this identity matter is enduring, permanent, and invisible. It is never born and can’t die, but since it is hidden, we can’t detect it through ordinary sensory means. For sure, what we are not is an idea or image. Thoughts flit about like fireflies, but there must be one who is watching these ideas. Thinking doesn’t happen independently from a thinker, but as previously pointed out, thought is just a function: something we do, not who we are. This thing we call ego is an idea, otherwise known as a self-image. It’s a fabricated construction that has been bouncing around forever and is recorded in the literature as far back as 3,500 years ago in India and in ancient Greece. 

Freud co-opted the term as a part of his mapping of the psyche. The Greeks understood it in various ways ranging from the soul to a sense of self. The Buddha understood it as an unreal obstruction that was the source of suffering that blocked access to our true self, and if we’re honest, we can see that egotism is the source of much corruption and greed. The ego is a divisive manifestation that emerges from identifying with functions that leads to alienation and hostility against other not-like-us birds.

So we are neither purely physical nor ideas. We are something much more fundamental that doesn’t change. And what we discover when we thoroughly consider the matter is that this non-identifiable being, which is each of us, is precisely the same. That is our point of commonality, and that is the only thing we have in common. All of us are as unique and different as snowflakes, and all of us are fundamentally just snow.

Kill the sucker!

From time to time, I’ve written about the related matters of dogma, close-mindedness, delusion, and bias. My observations ordinarily struck a general tone, but in light of the current presidential debates, I want to draw attention to how this psychology works specifically. I’ll use the hackneyed cliché of being dug in to illustrate the point. 

That expression (dug in) creates a visual image that is instructive. Imagine a person who is persuaded that something of value lies buried beneath the surface. They are so convinced they begin digging a hole to find it. As they explore, others come along who want the same treasure and become cheerleaders of their digging. The more they dig, the more energy they expend, and the deeper the hole becomes. While they are exploring, a non-cheerleader comes along who has discovered the treasure being sought in another location and goes to share their discovery with the digger and their supporters. By this time, the hole is quite deep, and the digger has so invested themself in the ideology that their spot alone contains the treasure that they are not open to the discovery, and the same is true of the cheerleaders. What do they do in response? Kill the messenger.

Why are they not able or willing to stop digging and accept the truth? Because they have a vested interest in being right. The truth is sacrificed on the altar of egotism driven by self-righteousness, and to them, this is far more valuable than the sought-for treasure. Such people are blinded by that desire and see only what reinforces their dug-in positions. And this same psychology infects the cheerleaders because they, too, have a surrogate vested interest.

Groupthink is the handle given to this form of delusion. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints. 

Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University, did the original research of this phenomenon. Still, long before Janis, the constructive elements were observed by The Buddha and recorded in the Sutta Nipāta. He was asked a question, 

“What is that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it the most”? And he answered, “It is ignorance which smothers,” The Buddha replied, “and it heedlessness and greed which make the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.” And what, you may ask, is being feared that brings about the pain of suffering? It is “the ego,” the artificial idea we humans have of ourselves that suffers greatly when being proven wrong.

Apparently, groupthink has a very long history but remains alive and well right into current-day politics. It is quite surprising to see (why should we be surprised?) entire audiences (cheerleaders) give standing ovations to digger Trump, who is proving himself as a practiced charlatan, able with jujitsu skill, to kill the messenger rather than address a message that threatens to reveal his empty hole.

Some of the people some of the time…

The Republican Party has changed much since “Honest Abe.”

Recently there has been a resurgence of awareness about our 16th President of the United States—probably since lying has become a dystopian mark of normality within the party. Lincoln is famous for many things, among them this quote: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” That quote seems particularly poignant at this juncture in time.

But maybe we could tweak it to make a perfect fit. Then it would read, “Some people can fool themselves all of the time, and all people can fool themselves some of the time, but no person can fool themselves all of the time.”

Lincoln’s way puts the blame on politicians and the second tweak puts the blame where it belongs: on ourselves. In the end none of us can escape the consequences of our choices. We truly create our own Heaven or Hell. That’s the first truth and the second is this: what goes around, comes around. Sooner or later all of us get a ride in the hot seat and when we sit in that chair it’s too late to blame someone else.

Nirvāna

What does life look like when you awaken? It looks exactly the same, but in another way, everything has changed, only it hasn’t. I suppose that sounds abstruse, but actually, it isn’t. Our natural mind is pure and unconditional. It is always with us yet beyond detection. It is the source of everything but has no nature at all. It is like a mirror that reflects whatever passes before it but in itself contains nothing.

Today during our meditation group, a helicopter flew overhead. As it approached, the sound gradually came in contact with our ears; the sound grew stronger and then faded as it moved on. Without thinking about where the helicopter came from and where it went, the sound was just sound and left no tracks. The conditions changed, but our mind didn’t—it remained silent, aware, pure as a mirror, and reflecting the sound.

Upon awakening, we become aware of awareness itself: The mirror. Until that point, we are consumed with making something out of the sounds and other forms of perception and thus never wake up to our unconditional mind. Nirvāna is the state of being free from suffering and is understood as “blowing out”—referring in the Buddhist context, to the blowing away the smoke of greed, hatred, and delusion. It is a state of soteriological release.

“Soteriological release” means (in essence) salvation, but not in the ordinary way of understanding. In The Diamond Sutra (verse 25), The Buddha said:

“There are in fact no sentient beings for the Tathagata to liberate. If there were sentient beings liberated by the Tathagata, it would mean that the Tathagata holds the notions of a self, a person, a sentient being, or a life span. Subhuti, when the Tathagata says ‘I’, there is actually no ‘I’. Yet ordinary beings think there is a real ‘I’. Subhuti, the Tathagata says that ordinary beings are in fact not ordinary beings. Therefore they are called ordinary beings.”

When first read, I didn’t understand, but upon further reflection, I did see the wisdom. The Buddha (e.g., Tathagata) was telling us that we ordinary humans hold onto the idea there is such a thing as a “self.”—separate, distinct and unique from all others, and to retain this notion is what leads us away from Nirvāna and into the land of never-ending suffering. This idea of personality is what we must lose to be free—be saved (liberated), not being saved by God for inherent sin.

Our conditional mind and unconditional mind are often portrayed as the difference between smoke and fire. We can see the smoke of thoughts, which emanate from the fire of mind. When thoughts are blown out, the smoke goes away and we lose that mind that deceives us, thus producing the idea of a conditional, distinct personality and find our true mind where we are One with all. 

That no-mind state is what is known as Nirvāna: our natural mind, which has always been present. The mirror never comes or goes. Without it perception would be impossible. The mind moves and it doesn’t and everything is just a reflection of the way things are.