Silent Musings

An interesting phenomenon that I’ve been noticing a lot lately is the degree to which we (pre)tend to live in a dream world, rather than be content to live in reality. Although it would seem much simpler to live, to be, interacting directly and solely with the reality that surrounds us, it is a rare event in most of our lives to live as such, stripped of our fantasies and interpretations. Although in fact we do live in contact with reality (how could we not?), we also find ourselves more principally concerned with our notions of what is, rather than with what actually is. And if you happen to believe or disbelieve what I’m saying, then notice that you’re caught up in the mind’s workings right now.

Our conceptions of reality are not as accurate as we would like to think. We tend to believe that our thoughts about the world are reality. For just one example, take a close look for a moment at how we relate to the news and other media. Many hours of our days and much of our intellectual and emotional energies are spent interacting with the stories we are told. Stories, people! What do we really know? That’s right … a big, fat, Nothing. In fact, not even that.

One possible definition of meditation is the state of awareness that is in direct contact with reality as it is. Ironically, the state of meditation always exists. However, apperception of the meditative state is rare, because it tends to be covered up by the activities of the mind - perception, conception, volition, and so forth. We all love our fantasies. For some of us, we especially love the thoughts that tell us we are successful at meditation.

The fantasies and other activities of the mind often stem from the processes of desire. The problem is, as Buddha taught us several centuries ago, desire is the root of all suffering. So then we should eliminate desire, right? That might make sense if it weren’t a desire itself (the desire to end suffering). In this case, you only cause yourself more problems if you “fight fire with fire”, so to speak. There is no strategy that will lead to success. One of the fortunate properties of desire is that it tends to wane on its own, without any input from us. On the other hand, desire also tends to show up seemingly out of nowhere, especially when we think we’ve transcended it. It’s no wonder meditation practice doesn’t seem to take us anywhere!

By the way, where should it take us? Will you continue to chase your dreams, or be content to be nowhere other than where you are. It all sounds very simple. Indeed, much too simple for the lot of us.

The Lord Buddha said, “Subhuti, here a bodhisattva, a great being, thinks, ‘I should lead countless beings to nirvana. I should lead innumerable beings to nirvana. But no-one exists who can be led to nirvana by anyone.’ And still, he leads those sentient beings to nirvana. Yet there is no being who is led to nirvana, nor is anybody led to nirvana by anyone.”

- The Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita)

It seems like forever has passed since I last wrote something. A big taboo for blog writers, so they say, you might lose your readers along the way. Well, it doesn’t much matter, because I don’t have many readers, nor do I much care about growing or maintaining such numbers. The truth is that although I might often have something of value to share, I’m not always in a state of mind to be able to do so easily. Some would call it a phase. I would call it a human being.

There is something I once heard about Truth, that to find it is easy and free, but once you do, it will cost you everything. This is why so few are serious and honest with themselves regarding their spiritual journeys. It’s an excruciating process to let go of everything. In fact, I don’t recommend it at all. In our typical American fashion, we think maybe we can achieve such a feat in a weekend or two. Or, if we have to work especially hard, maybe six months. It does occasionally occur in flashes that we totally let go, but it oh-so-rarely lasts more than a few minutes or hours or days. You’re probably better off if you never have that flash. Then at least you live without the illusion of a quick fix.

Awakening isn’t a fix for that something missing. If anything, it’s quite the opposite. It’s the elimination of the process by which “missing” occurs as “something”. And for most of us, that’s just about everywhere in life. The unraveling of this process will destroy everything you think you know, and everything you think you are. Thus, you ought to avoid the Truth unless you are certain that you absolutely no longer have a choice. And even then you should avoid it anyway. Because, by the time you realize this is the way it’s going to be, it’s too late to turn back.

Here is just one of many possible examples. The ongoing energetic unfolding that occurs with an awakened chakra system makes very specific demands about which foods are and are not acceptable to the body. It’s not so bad in the first few years, but over time, the increase in dietary restrictions can seem quite onerous. You do have a choice - you can continue to eat those forbidden foods and feel lousy, or you can let them go. The problem, if you view it as such, is that the more you let go, the more demanding your body becomes. And then you don’t have a choice about going back to those foods you think you might miss one day. Say goodbye to pizza and beer forever, except that the smell of your friends enjoying it will be many times more clear and distinct to your olfactory lobes.

There is no telling exactly what changes spiritual awakening will bring. Every being is beautifully unique and precious. Thus, there are no contracts, other than the fact that you have signed everything over to the unfolding Mystery. Good luck with that!

So you might see now why failing to write a blog posting for more than a month can seem rather a trivial affair. Why I write at all is some mysterious combination of desiring to share what I’ve encountered, and the spontaneous unfolding of creative expression. I can’t explain, I can only write. And wish you the best, whatever your choices may be.

This type of responsibility is not something we count on when we imagine awakening. We think that awakening will be a get out of jail free card. Initially we have a relationship with the spiritual freedom of awakening that is infantile. We think that freedom is a personal thing; that it is about feeling extraordinarily good and free. But freedom is much more nuanced than that. It is not a personal thing; it is not an acquisition for us.

As we become more conscious, we begin to see that there are consequences. There are consequences to everything, and they get bigger and bigger the more we behave in ways that are not in harmony with what we know is true. This is actually a wonderful thing. It is what I call fierce grace. It is not a soft grace; it is not the kind of grace that is beautiful and uplifting. But it is a grace nonetheles. We know that when we act from what is not true, we will only be causing ourselves pain. That knowing is a grace.

-Adyashanti, from The End of Your World

I read a comment somewhere recently that got me to thinking about the comparative process of the human mind. Does the mind do anything else other than compare? If it does, I wouldn’t know.

For several years throughout this spiritual journey we call life, I harbored significant amounts of concern over the quality of my state of being. Was I taking the right steps toward enlightenment? Was my consciousness “high” on the human scale. Would I make a notable difference to others? Today, such concerns just seem so ridiculous. The only thing that is obviously clear is that “I” am made of the same dirt as everyone and everything else. Ashes to ashes.

Paradoxically it seems, unless we are blessed with the grace to be born and raised without such discriminating concerns, we must all go through various forms of self assessment and notions of improvement. I can’t think of a single culture that doesn’t have this motivation as a core principle. And yet, where does it all lead?

A wise man I know once said that in a million billion years when the cockroaches rule the earth, and the day comes to recognize significant occurrences throughout the universe, your name and mine won’t be mentioned. And yet I assert that the folly of seeking to be more, better, or best is even more acute than accounts of history can demonstrate. If you don’t believe me, take a look right now. What brings you joy? Where and when does freedom arise? Who are you? Don’t settle for answers other than your own; reject (or at least suspect) mine or anyone else’s. If you examine these questions deeply enough, you’ll see something beneath the shiny cultural veneer. Or perhaps you already have.

You may still think that “higher” beings exist, that somehow they have mastered life in ways you can only imagine. Swami Rama supposedly could meditate so deeply that his breathing would stop for several minutes at a time, and his heartbeat would go as low as 10-15 per minute. Even if I could ever achieve such yogic feats, I certainly could never dunk a basketball like Michael Jordan. Too bad, because I hear the pay is pretty good.

Do such comparisons really amount to anything more than machinations of the monkey mind? Does our relative ordinariness make us any less beautiful, important, or unique? I don’t think so. And truthfully, it doesn’t even matter what I think. In any case, Swami Rama is dead now, and Michael Jordan is well into his retirement, and I seriously doubt the cockroaches will be calling their names on reckoning day either.

For those of us who have enrolled ourselves in the process of spiritual cultivation there is an inevitable result that few ever imagined at the beginning of the quest. Failure. Boldfaced, with a capital F. After all, when we think of cultivating our authentic selves, we are inclined to see spirits growing and blossoming into beautifully enlightened beings, wonderful sights for the sore eyes of our humanity. We certainly don’t envision a painstaking process of withering and dying, of burning up the vestiges of our forsaken selves.

Life can be a cruel teacher. She entices us with grand visions, and occasional flashes of luminous brilliance. In those flashes we imagine that there is some sustainable state of pure knowing and loving being. We imagine ourselves as that being. Conceptually, we may even believe that this is true, and yet somehow this vision remains tantalizingly out of reach. So we seek the correct path toward a permanent merger into our birthright. We may even find at times that we think we’re there. But then it’s snatched away again ever so torturously. What are we to do? Many of us wander this landscape for years and years.

Failure is not easy to take, especially not for the precocious such as we are. It is a total devastation of the constructs of our collective mind. It may not sound like much, but in fact, it’s everything. Our entire world collapses into death, moment after moment, ad infinitum. We must learn to let go of everything. Over and over again, until we are no longer capable of holding on. Completely adrift, we may find ourselves washed upon the shore of a strange new land. It is only here that we find real freedom. Not the concept of liberation that we’ve been pursuing all these years, but rather the complete willingness to die over and over again. To embrace the fullness of our failure, not identifying with it or anything else. Knowing nothing.

Worry not about the path that you are taking. The Beloved will destroy you eventually.

The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,
they’re given wings.

-Rumi

When I observe the world and its characters, it seems everyone is after something. Even those who seem to have moved beyond the superficial goals of the common culture are still in pursuit. Contributing, creating, expressing, manifesting … becoming. Seeking. Call it by any name you want, it ultimately begins and ends with the same conclusion. This isn’t it.

Eventually, we may come to realize the bankruptcy of our ways and begin to question the need for seeking altogether. We conclude that seeking would best be dropped, and thus we make silent vows to ourselves to let go, and may even fool ourselves into thinking we’ve succeeded. But sooner or later we realize our folly. We notice ourselves grasping at our goal, seeking non-seeking. What a cosmic joke this movement becomes!

All the while, a curious thing happens beneath the surface. Some kind of mysterious physical manifestation takes root, and begins to burn the seeker away through a process of internal combustion. This slow death is paradoxically painful, agonizing, and frustrating, as well as blissful and beautiful. Right down the the last cell of the body. Many have tried putting the experience into words, but it cannot possibly be explained. Each surrender seems so final, and yet the barely detectable remnants of the seeker remain, maintaining some identification of the me in all of this, the continuity holding it all together.

More and more, the fatigue of failure and holding on begin to wear us down, to erode us ever so slowly, like a rock at the bottom of a flowing river. One day, finally we give up, realizing that we are helplessly and hopelessly lost.

Now what?!?

This is where the real mystery begins …

I’ve looked under chairs
I’ve looked under tables
I’ve tried to find the key
To fifty million fables

They call me The Seeker
I’ve been searching low and high
I won’t get to get what I’m after
Till the day I die

-Pete Townshend