Transcendent Notions
One of our abiding difficulties is the very way in which notions
of the transcendent are fixed in our language. Even the word "transcendent"
implies a "going UP". Etymologically, "transcendent" breaks down into
"trans" meaning to "cross over" & "ascend" meaning "to go up"
or "to go higher". One sometimes hears people refer to death as "crossing
over". The Ancient Romans believed that when a person died, they were
carried over the River Styx, which separates the world of the living
from the world of the dead, by Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld.
After Christianity became established in Rome, the afterlife was expressed
in terms of "going up" - going up to Heaven. These ideas persist in
our present culture; persisting out of sentiment, wishful thinking.
Modern science has developed sufficiently for us to rule out for
certain the presence of any "Golden Gates" out in space, or any fiery
ones down in the bowels of the Earth, yet I was staggered to meet
a Christian Minister at an interfaith conference recently who stated
that he categorically believed there WAS an "Angel Gabriel", & that
this angel was - LITERALLY - going to blow his horn at the End of
Days, & that all those human beings who have ever lived & died are
going to RISE AGAIN to new life. Here & now, we will experience these
risen dead, walking among us. My immediate thought upon hearing this
was: "How on Earth are we going to house them all?" Apart from the
population problem they would pose, what about the impact on the world's
food supply? Would The Risen have the right to vote? Are any excluded,
or are we likely to see the return of Stalin, Hitler, Mao-Zedong,
Pol Pot, Attila the Hun & many other tyrants, once more roaming the
planet looking for victims to burn?
Enough - it all gets too silly - here we are, faced with catastrophic
problems more critical & challenging than at any other time in human
history, & we're still debating fairy-stories. Any of us over fifty
have lived long enough to have discerned tangible changes in our environment.
I have been interested to recall environmental lectures I attended
at college many years ago, & to be able to confirm, through my own
direct experience, many of the lecturers' forecasts: increases in
hurricane activity, flash-flooding, wildcat fires, erosion of sea,
lake & pond life. Wander up & down a few beaches & observe how things
have changed.
In England, where I was born, there is a seaside resort called Brighton.
It's on the channel coast, with Le Havre in France just across the
water. The public authorities these days advise anybody playing with
pebbles on the beach to ensure that they wash their hands thoroughly
afterwards. Tourists crossing the channel from France are warned NOT
to bathe in the sea. This is how far the environment has deteriorated
in just one area of the British Isles. All these new measures, due
entirely to the insidious onward creep of pollution - mean nothing
to people. The old just programme earlier environmental experience
out of their minds; the young - well, they grew up with the current
situation. I am 57 years old now; when I was a child, beaches were
littered with the carcasses of dead fish, & seaweed lay in high banks
everywhere on the sand & at the water's edge. Every rock pool left
by the outgoing tide was like a miniature aquarium, such a wide variety
of sea-life was to be found in them. I have explored beaches in the
subsequent years, & things have changed dramatically - the banks of
seaweed have been replaced with mountains of plastic, far fewer rock
pools contain ANY appreciable life, & fish-carcasses are a rarity.
In the face of these facts, even now, there are otherwise intelligent
people believing in Gabriel's Horn, the Devil as a LITERAL being complete
with horns, red suit & toasting fork, & a Heaven we are all going
to wake up in after we have died.
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Still About Heaven
It's a source of wonderment to me that in the opening months of
the 21st century, ideas about "Heaven" as some geographical place,
however abstract, still exist. Children are still taught such concepts
& adults, many of them - still carry these simplistic images with
them all through their lives. Heaven, Hell & purgatory are still presented
as "places we go after we die" rather than being considered as states
of mind or levels of consciousness that are experienced whilst we
live. Heaven, Hell & Purgatory ARE capable of being described as geographical
places if one accepts that human beings are capable of turning their
immediate environs into places reflecting these qualities.
Death-Camps & The Gulag are vivid examples of geographical "hells".
To anyone struggling to survive under a despotic regime, the Western
world may well be perceived as "Heaven" - although there are plenty
of people living in Western slums & suffering social & racial abuse
who might not agree with them. Although we seem to have no problems
pointing to examples of "Hell" in this world, it seems well nigh impossible
to point to equally clear examples of "Heaven". A ancient monastery,
perched high in a mountain fastness somewhere, populated by silent
& weatherbeaten old monks might strike the occasional visitor as a
good example of a "Heaven-like" place on Earth, & whilst it may be
true that that those monks are striving to live a more "heavenly"
existence, individually & collectively they are still subject to ill-will,
jealousy, hatred, bickering - they are still capable of being cruel
to each other - & often are. It's almost as if one will find more
examples of the "perfection of hatred" in the world than one will
of love. It seems easier, by & large, to be negative toward each other;
positivity demands SO MUCH MORE of us, & seems so much more illusive
& hard-won.
The Buddha taught that life itself is suffering. This realisation
is termed: The First Noble Truth. He wasn't suggesting that in the
light of this truth the situation is hopeless & therefore we may as
well give up, resign ourselves to misery - but he DID suggest that
given the apparent all-pervasive nature of this suffering, the sooner
we recognise the fact & start dealing with it positively, the sooner
we will be free of it. "Heaven" is NOT a place we will go to after
we die - it is the freedom from suffering that we should be striving
for HERE, whilst we are still alive. Our striving will have a positive
impact upon the lives of others, too - in that way, we can spread
"Heaven" around. Given our human imperfections, it's easy to hurt
people - given those same imperfections, it is more challenging &
more liberating to help them.
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It Will Change
If it can be said that enlightenment is a question of "living in
the NOW" then in one sense, that's something we already do; "I'm happy
- I will always be so". "I'm sad - I will never be happy again". This
is a kind of "nowness" but it is flawed, carrying a great inaccuracy
along with it. This sense of nowness is weakened by ignorance, that
does not allow for change. The fact that change occurs is inevitable,
but our true understanding of it is not.
There is nothing "inevitable" about clear understanding. Apparently
clarity has to be cultivated - practised - & this is the sole reason
why "spiritual practice" exists. Attaching strongly to the "I-identity"
leads us into static states of mind - no fluidity, therefore no lucidity.
Everything that is happening is happening now, & for all time. We
never experience our moods in the light of change yet it's precisely
that knowledge, our AWARENESS of that light, that constitutes practice.
In the early years of the Second World War, Mr. Winston Churchill
told the British people: "I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil,
tears & sweat!" Spiritual practice doesn't have to seem THAT desperate,
but we should be in no doubt that we ARE waging a kind of inner "war".
In the Anguttara Nikaya Sutra, The Buddha is attributed with making
this statement: "Warriors - warriors we call ourselves - we fight
for splendid virtue, for high endeavour, for sublime wisdom. Therefore,
we call ourselves warriors!"
As I have said already, we should not allow these sentiments to
drive us into a state of desperation, but we should be crystal-clear
in our understanding that practice will involve no "quick fixes".
The process requires that we accept each emerging situation for what
it is, & no more; in our seeking, we should seek nothing.
If we allow ourselves to become too despondent or too elated, then
we're going to miss or fail to appreciate that "now" quality. The
"now" is just as it is, it carries no extra quality with it. "Extra
qualities" proceed from a belief in the permanence of a given state
of mind; in such an understanding, we are failing to live in the light
of change. The Buddha taught the principle of impermanence not to
drive us into a state of resignation, but to lead us to a greater
understanding of the infinite possibilities of things. A king once
asked his court jeweler to create an ornament that would sustain the
king when he felt depressed, & yet would sober him when he got carried
away with joy. The jeweler went away, & came back after a month with
a beautiful ring. On the inside of the band, the jeweler had inscribed:
IT WILL CHANGE.
Likewise with ancient Roman warriors. When riding in their chariots
in victory parades, hidden in the bottom of the chariot, unseen by
the cheering crowds was a slave. When he noticed that his master was
becoming too elated by the adulation of the crowd, he would strike
the warrior's leg & shout: "Remember! - thou art but a man!"
In both examples, the principle is the same - always leave a "door
open" in ANY situation - the door swings on the hinges of change.
We might feel depressed now, but we will be elevated later; we might
feel like a god now, but in a changing moment we will be all too human
again.
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Don't Get Better
So many Buddha statues, so many thankas. So many florid words wrapped
up in ancient scriptures, themselves wrapped up in florid cloth. So
many old men, wrapped up in a variety of colourful robes. With all
this "wrapping-up", it's small wonder that few of us ever manage to
relate all these cosmic trappings to the struggles of our day-to-day
lives. Through a dense fog of incense smoke, sitting in dimly-lit
temple halls & hearing the endless chanting of incomprehensible mantras,
we struggle to see the usefulness buried in so much theatrical hoop-la.
The ecstatic ravings of some old Tibetan yogi, who spent years sitting
naked in a cave in the Himalayas, become enshrined in sacred texts
that are passed down from hand to hand over the next 1,000 years.
500 years after that, those same ravings now appear, translated into
English, between the bright covers of a paperback book. The book MIGHT
evince some fancied "awe" for the teachings, but of how much REAL
USE are such things? Do these academic works succeed in speaking to
most of us DIRECTLY?
The Buddha's teachings, in the first instance, were always about
practice, yet it's inevitable that Buddhism should have developed
into an academic discipline - the formation of the monastic system
brought together many different people, all of whom were constrained
to study to the maximum level of their own capacity. Those capacities
varied from person to person, & so "standard" & "advanced" concepts
evolved. It meant that a brilliant Buddhist scholar was not necessarily
"enlightened" by virtue of the depth of his study, any more than a
monk who was only a gardener may not emerge as one of Buddhism's greatest
teachers simply because he was totally illiterate
Practice in Buddhist teachings has never depended upon booklearning
or any form of literary skills, but upon our willingness to look into
our own immediate human situation & observe objectively what we find
there. Much of what we find won't please us, & this is why we have
to maintain a healthy level of objectivity. The fundamental tool we
employ in the process of this enquiry is meditation. We don't come
to meditation practice as perfect human beings, neither are we "more
perfect" simply because we've embarked upon such a practice. The practice
of perfection is just that - the PRACTICE of perfection. Ironically,
if our practice is authentic, it is so by virtue of springing from
the ground of our IMperfection, a fact that is eventually realised
through objective observation.
Does that mean, therefore, that there is no need to read books,
that all we have to do is sit there, & gradually everything will fall
into place? No. Just dreaming up ideas for ourselves won't work; Buddhism
is grounded in sound basic teachings, & without an equally sound grasp
of the same, we won't understand what it is we're trying to do, or
where we are heading. Sound basic teachings, & sound basic understanding
- that's quite adequate for informed practice, there's no need to
be a Nagarjuna or a Shantideva, which is why a functional intellect
is considered worthwhile.
In the Tibetan tradition, there's a famous quip that runs: "Reading
is only the tiger's tail". This is an interesting statement. The tail
of a tiger may not be its eyes, its teeth, its claws - but nevertheless
it plays its part in keeping the tiger alive. The tail provides a
subtle sense of balance, which is true of all cats. Furthermore, the
tail is PART of the tiger, so if the tiger is to be complete & whole,
it MUST possess a tail. So for us; in study we strike the balance
between the physical & mental aspects of practice. The balance is
achieved when we cease to harbour any "idea" about our practice, &
certainly ceasing to imagine we are "better" people for pursuing it.
Overlaying our experience with ANY notion of "betterment" or superiority,
however subtle, simply COMPOUNDS our problems, rather than assisting
in identifying them more accurately. In both sitting & study, don't
get better - just get on with it.
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I Want Everything Jack's Got!
"I want everything Jack's got!" This is a feeling that visits many,
many people, & more often than they are prepared to admit. My question
to them would be this: "Do you actually want to BE Jack, with all
his money, or do you want to be YOURSELF, but with all the money that
Jack's got?" The answer, of course, is ALWAYS that they want to be
themselves, but with all Jack's money or with as much as Jack's got.
They have no desire to actually BE Jack, because actually, Jack's
a jerk - & that's the whole point: "Why has a jerk like Jack got all
this money when I, a regular, decent, unjerk-like person is so broke
all the time?" Jack is the one with all the money precisely because
he IS Jack - if he was YOU, then he'd be as poor as you are. Why is
Jack's money so desired in the first place? Because with the sort
of cash Jack's got, all the bills would be paid, that mortgage could
be kissed goodbye, the kids would be at a better school, there would
be a better car parked out front of a better house…
If we feel like this, then it's because there's something about our
situation right now that we're not happy with. Maybe, if we were REALLY
honest, then we would admit that it's not "situations" that make us
unhappy, but OURSELVES. There's something about US that disturbs us,
makes us restless, dissatisfied. After all, do we tend to think about
Jack & his money when Jack's not around? - Or is it only when he's
THERE - right in front of us, in all his jerky glory? Is it that?
- or is it that Jack, by just standing there, reminds us of what jerks
WE are?
We see the way Jack is treated by others, & it makes us feel sick.
Why should people be fawning over him & listening so intently to all
his egotistic, ill-informed twaddle just because he's so stinking
rich? Don't people REALISE what a stiff Jack is? Are people REALLY
prepared to ignore all the stupid, crass, cruel & thoughtless things
Jack has done over the years, & goes ON doing, just because he's got
that big roll in the bank & is always sitting behind the wheel of
something new & shiny with some new, shiny thing sitting beside him?
Given the way the world is, this is PRECISELY why Jack is so feted
everywhere he goes; people are usually assessed by the number of dollars
they've got in the bank. Goodness - don't we know THAT yet? Are we
still allowing ourselves to fret over so common a piece of knowledge?
We like to imagine we are so much wiser than a jerk like Jack, so
much more aware of how materialistic the world is - so why do we get
so angry?
If we are genuinely happy with ourselves, INSIDE - never mind about
money, houses, fancy restaurants - but just US, inside - if we were
GENUINELY happy with ourselves, just as we are - nothing else would
matter - would it? We know that such a solution IS possible, because
every one of us has met at least ONE person in our lives who seemed
genuinely happy just to BE, who seemed genuinely undisturbed by the
greater wealth & social position of others. We found ourselves envying
THAT person too: "Oh! - I wish I could be like that! If only I could
be so balanced, so undisturbed!"
This is a truly pathetic situation to be in, isn't it? So jealous
of Jack because he's so rich & has got more than enough of everything,
yet so jealous of Jill because although she's so poor, also seems
to have more than enough of everything. WE are the ones who are manifesting
REAL poverty. What's all this self-punishment about anyway? Standing
in envy of others is just a way of turning our backs on the inner
conflicts that torment us whenever such people appear before us. We
haven't got a clue who WE are, & yet we condemn ourselves without
examination, without trial, afraid to review the evidence & ignoring
the potential for our own riches if we do. We prefer to stand in the
cold - looking in through other people's windows - wishing, wishing,
wishing.
Why put ourselves repeatedly in this position? Why spend our lives
"wishing for something" - whether it be the riches of someone else's
possessions or the peace of their mind - when we could have EVERYTHING?
You want everything? - Then find yourself. Whoever you feel yourself
to be right now, that's EXACTLY who you would be in any OTHER situation.
Whether you were physically someone else, or someWHERE else, your
bank account bulging with someone else's money, it would make no difference.
You would still be the same person you are right now, torturing yourself
with a lot of thoughts that have no bearing on the immediate situation.
Wishing to be other than we are is so FUTILE. Such a waste of precious
time.
Stop blinding yourself with HOPE! Stop spending so much time out
on the streets because going home means that you have to face that
crumby room. Start LIVING in that room! We don't change our room by
hanging out in the streets pretending we don't live there! Perhaps,
right now, we hate ourselves. We are sick of this person who seems
to have missed so many opportunities in life, has been so slow off
the mark. The reason we don't like being in our room alone is because
we start THINKING. We daren't do that - better to keep moving around.
The problem with such attitudes is that they constantly feed this
restless, tortured mind with more restlessness. More restlessness
means more pain & confusion. It's up to us. We DO have that much choice,
& if we are prepared to choose examining ourselves over constantly
watching others, we have already taken one small step into freedom.
