Silent Musings

Where do I start? Well, as my friend Walt is fond of saying, “Start at the beginning, proceed to the end, and then stop.” Fair enough. Unfortunately, this story has no beginning, nor any end for that matter. But nonetheless, there is a certain beauty to its timeliness that cannot be denied, no matter when it occurs. Perhaps I should just start from the middle.

Much of the time, I ride the train to work, the L.A. Metro Rail Gold Line to be exact. And as you might imagine, or perhaps have seen firsthand, the insides of those light rail trains are not designed to be particularly attractive from an aesthetic viewpoint. Lately however, I have found the nondescript floors of the train to be more than satisfying to the eye, in fact, to the entirety of Being. As I stare at the Blackberry/iPhone/iPod carrying crowd deeply engaged with their fantasy worlds, I choose the floor, the walls, the windows … the whole train as my venue. As I take it all in, I find myself laughing silently, the kind of laugh that also wants to cry, the kind of laugh where the floor laughs back at me. I am on a train after all. Might as well be where I am.

Some years ago I experienced a series of awakenings, which spurred me to explore the world of self realization with a fervor rarely expressed in search of Truth. Back then it seemed every spare minute I could find was dedicated to the pursuit of that something that I couldn’t quite identify, and in my foolishness I was certain that I would know it when I found it. Meditation practice occupied several hours a day as a regular habit. After some years, my passion softened somewhat, and single-mindedness naturally expanded into a more whole-life encompassing view. With a delicate subtlety, love, compassion, and beauty turned the game around, and gradually I became aware of their seeking me. Day by day, almost imperceptibly, I surrendered to their pursuit. And as I shared a laugh with the floor of the train one morning last week, I realized that I had given up completely.

The world of spiritual cultivation is filled with overt and covert promises of becoming supernatural. And in our fantasies, we envision ourselves expanding beyond the perceived boundaries of the Cosmos, being One with All of It. Even if we’ve experienced such expansions in meditative absorption, it’s not enough, we must find them again. We’ve even invented a whole vocabulary to describe these images - samadhi, kundalini awakening, opening the third eye, … blah, blah, blah. I’ve got a secret for you - it’s all a big Fantasy. Sorry, but we spiritual seekers are not any different than our fellow rail commuters, desperately clinging to their gadgets so that they don’t have to deal directly with the fact that they are on a train.

Surrender means giving up the pursuit and accepting, done to the bone, that you’ll never get anything from meditation or any other spiritual practice, other than being right here exactly where you already are. Mundane, of the world, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. If you actually give up, and aren’t just fantasizing about surrender, you may find a profound beauty in the simplicity of the floor beneath your feet. And perhaps you will find yourself laughing/crying, as the floor laughs back at you for the foolishness of all those years of seeking.

It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. This means stepping out of ego’s constant desire for a higher, more spiritual, more transcendental version of knowledge, religion, virtue, judgment, comfort, or whatever it is that the particular ego is seeking. One must step out of spiritual materialism. If we do not step out of spiritual materialism, if we in fact practice it, then we may eventually find ourselves possessed of a huge collection of spiritual paths. We may feel these spiritual collections to be very precious. We have studied so much. We may have studied Western philosophy or Oriental philosophy, practiced yoga, or perhaps have studied under dozens of great masters. We have achieved and we have learned. We believe that we have accumulated a hoard of knowledge. And yet, having gone through all this, there is still something to give up. It is extremely mysterious! How could this happen? Impossible! But unfortunately it is so. Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in doing so, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure, as “spiritual” people. -Chögyam Trungpa, from Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

The title pretty much says it all. Lately it seems I’ve been on a long, strange trip, and the more certain I am that I’m headed in the right direction, the more it seems that the path disappears and leaves me without any reference points. The only certainty is that the Heart remains, Still, and yet so full of Fire and Tears.

As I look at the world around me, I see people living in a dream, and inexorably I realize that I am the Dreamer. The only apparent reality comes in the form of indescribable expressions of beauty that I see, hear, taste, touch, and feel from every direction. A Union with the Mystery, with the Divine. I don’t know if I know, or if I don’t know, of if there is even such a thing as knowledge. Certainty herself flees me as quickly as she appears, as does her constant companion uncertainty.

One thing I can say, is that this dream world is so beautifully full of shit. We think that we have discovered a special secret, that if we can produce some mystical state and Merge with the Universe, that we’ll finally Arrive. Whether it’s in samadhi, kensho, satori, a kundalini rising, the perfect tantric lover, a sudden flash of insight, the fire of deep devotion, finding Jesus as your Savior, or whatever. There are a million descriptions of the Divine. All so, so exquisite… and all bullshit. Life doesn’t mean anything. Nor does Enlightenment. There isn’t even any such thing. Life simply is what it is. Spendidly so.

Go and spend some time with your Lover. Or walk in Nature. Or just Listen. Feel the bittersweet pangs of the Heart as she wails in the suffering of Division. Life will show you what Is. Where and when if not Here and Now? The Laughter will show you the Way. I recommend you leave behind all the crap you know. It isn’t as easy as it sounds, but you can do it.

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
and that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.

-Hafiz

Among all topics written about extensively in scriptures, books and articles in the realm of spirituality, desire may be the one that is written about in the most damaging fashion. The conventional wisdom seems to point to the elimination of desire as an important and fundamental step on the spiritual path. To be fair, not all sources actually say this, but they are often interpreted as such nonetheless. For example, to say that all suffering is a result of desire is not to say that we should eliminate desire, or even suffering for that matter. It may actually be true that all suffering results from desire, but it may be equally true that all life results from desire. Have you ever really examined this?

Rather than simply accepting what others have said, I’ve spent many years examining desire from as many angles as possible. For example, I maintained a completely celibate lifestyle for close to two years in my examination of the relationship between desire and sexuality. It was quite an eye opening experience. I won’t bother going into the details of relating what I concluded, if anything, because there really isn’t any value to be found in conclusions. If you are curious enough, perhaps you’ll just try it out. Or not. In any case, it just illustrates how far I was willing to go to discover my actual relationship with desire. I continue in that discovery every moment. Fuck the myths. Really.

Now I’m not asserting that all desires are healthy, nor am I saying that one wouldn’t benefit from the elimination of some forms of desire. However, in my experience, the falling away of unhealthy desires occurs as naturally as breathing itself, if one allows it. And I am asserting that forced attempts to eliminate perceived unwanted desires can be very damaging to the well being of a human life.

Last weekend I was feeling the effects of American life in a heavy way, and concluded that I needed to get away from the rat-race for a bit. So my girlfriend and I got in the car and drove out to Angeles National Forest, which is really more of a burnt out desert on hills than a forest such as one would find in the eastern U.S.

We hiked down into a canyon and sat and meditated for a bit. Slowly but surely, the presence of life made itself into my awareness in a deep and touching way. Although fires had clearly consumed many of the trees that surrounded us, there was life in them nonetheless. Life was everywhere and in everything. Life … Death … Breath … Desire … Beauty … Love … all Present. Whatever headache had accompanied me into the forest dissolved into this deepest desire to inhale the breath of life. As we hiked back up the canyon wall to go home, I could see the breath of life hovering in the canyon air, with movement everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. I lingered on the precious edge of weeping for the entire walk back.

There is nothing anyone can say that will convince me that such experiences of desire ought to be eliminated from my life. I’ve been accused many times of being detached, but hey, I’m still alive. My teacher is fond of saying that the only real need for human beings is the movement toward ecstasy. How could such volition exist without desire? Sorry, but I have to agree with the teacher on this one.

But don’t take my word for it. Get interested enough to find out for yourself. Fuck the myths … mine, the Buddha’s, or anyone else’s.

When there is a total understanding of need, the outward and the inner, then desire is not torture. Then it has a quite different meaning, a significance far beyond the content of thought and it goes beyond feeling, with its emotions, myths and illusions. With the total understanding of need, not the mere quantity or the quality of it, desire then is a flame and not a torture. Without this flame life itself is lost. It is this flame that burns away the pettiness of its object, the frontiers, the fences that have been imposed upon it. Then call it by whatever name you will, love, death, beauty. Then it is there without an end. - J. Krishnamurti

Lately I’ve been feeling a lot of internal letting go, especially of certain long held views and mental habits. It’s difficult to explain this process, because it is not something that occurs through effort, and those habits are not necessarily ones that I have some intention to purge. In fact, I wonder a lot what will become of me as they go, as the one I call “me” is very much defined by them. Not in the sense of such definitions as “I am a scientist”, or “I like chocolate ice cream”, but rather at a much more fundamental level than this.

For example, I find myself beginning to question the importance of desire at all levels. Do I need to accomplish anything? Feel any pleasure? What would be the point? It all seems so shallow in comparison to living the Truth. At the same time, it is equally unimportant that this process should end up in any particular place. Desire could have a place here and now, even intensely so, or it could not. No agenda, no agent.

I don’t know what the Truth is, but I know what it isn’t. It isn’t pre-planned or known by anyone. It is a living organism, the unfolding cosmos, revealed only in its immediate existence and action.

When the saints speak of purification, I believe they are speaking of such a process of moving in the immediacy of the Truth. A living that is not determined by any particular habitual pattern, but rather by communion with what is. The notion of trying to eliminate sin or negativity only introduces entanglement. Somewhat like trying to tell God how to design a tree or a bumblebee.

I see beauty in everything, even in the infinite depths of attachment. Desire exists in every energetic movement of consciousness, and yet Shakti she is also completely unbound and unknowable. The deepest form of paradox. Such is the nature of her radiant splendor. With profound acceptance comes this purification of which I make such a feeble attempt to describe.

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

- Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

It seems I’m always talking with people about the nature of the conditioned mind. It’s ironic to call the mind “conditioned” when there is no such thing as an unconditioned mind. The whole function of the mind is conditioning. It’s a pattern recognition machine, capable of “relating” only to the past and future. It has absolutely nothing to do with the present, and hence nothing to do with reality as it is. It is also only capable of recycling old thoughts. That’s right, every thought is an old thought. These, too.

It’s very useful if you want to earn a college degree or have a job to help you pay for groceries. Especially if you don’t have friends or family that can help you find the grocery store.

Lately I’ve been noticing the extent to which all of that we call “experience” is shaped by the conditioning of our minds. Here’s an example that illustrates a point of view not often considered. Are you psychic, or do you know someone who is? We tend to think of this sort of thing as a special gift or power. But really isn’t it simply conditioning like everything else? That’s right, just another view of the Universe. Not actually all that different than being a neo-con, an anti-war protester, a scientist, or believing in the Easter Bunny.

And here is the trouble with views. Every view creates division, this and that, and as a result either fear or pleasure, or both. That’s right, and your local neighborhood spiritual bookstore will have a thousand tomes calling this duality. The notion of the existence of an ego is simply a view as well. A view that asserts a self that is separate from objects and other selves. Many people will try to convince you of the paramount importance of destroying the ego. Sorry, but that’s just another view. How can you destroy what doesn’t even exist in reality? And I won’t even get into the paradox of destruction here. In the process of solving one perceived problem, you’re creating yet another. You could call this the problem with problems.

Fear, fear, fear. You have no idea how much it runs your life. Pretty much our whole culture is defined by it. Everything you know creates fear. Often subtle and unnoticeable, but only because it is unexamined. Fear is like shit that doesn’t stink any more after you sit with it long enough. And how do we usually deal with fear when we can perceive it? We try to eliminate it by understanding it. Yeah, like that will work.

So now that I’ve attempted to destroy all semblance of hope in your life, I suppose you would like me to offer a view that will free you of the bonds of the conditioned mind. Well, if I had any sense, I would just stop writing right now, but being a crazy human and all, I’ll keep the bullshit flowing just a little bit longer. In truth, I have no idea what to say, other than to find out for yourself. Directly, by interacting with what is. There is no truth about fear or the conditioning of the mind. Those are just concepts, views, having absolutely nothing to do with the present, and hence nothing to do with reality as it is.

Hey, didn’t I already say that?

Insight is not an act of remembrance, the continuation of memory. Insight is like a flash of light. You see with absolute clarity, all the complications, the consequences, the intricacies. Then this very insight is action, complete. In that there are no regrets, no looking back, no sense of being weighed down, no discrimination. This is pure, clear insight - perception without any shadow of doubt. Most of us begin with certainty and as we grow older the certainty changes to uncertainty and we die with uncertainty. But if one begins with uncertainty, doubting, questioning, asking demanding, with real doubt about man’s behaviour, about all the religious rituals and their images and their symbols, then out of that doubt comes the clarity of certainty. - J. Krishnamurti