The following text was adapted from a talk given by Ven. Nigel
Edmonds at Mercy Center, Burlingame, California, on June 30, 2000.
Ven. Nigel:
What does it mean to be a "dual practitioner"? Is there really such
a thing? Let's assume for a moment that every single person sitting
in this room considers themselves to be following a "dual practice".
If I were to ask each person in turn to define that term, I'm fairly
certain I would come up with a wide variance in interpretation. So
there's no set pattern, no dogma, nothing we can all subscribe to.
In Christianity, "being a Christian" is defined by accepting the doctrine
that: "Christ Jesus is risen from the dead". Christians are called
"The Easter People", the Resurrection defines their faith. This faith
in the Resurrection is supported by a further act of faith - faith
in the Parousia, the Second Coming. All Christians accept this, no
matter what denomination they are. All Buddhists have similar agreements
about what is commonly accepted. All Buddhists ascribe to The Four
Noble Truths, to The Noble Eightfold Path & so on. There are differing
interpretations, different schools, but these central doctrines define
what it means to be a Buddhist. So, do we have any common agreements
as "dual practitioners"?
This term "dual practice" seems to have acquired some form of common
definition in the comparatively short period in which it's been current,
& I suggest it's to do with a number of spiritual practitioners who,
by virtue of having been born in the West are either of Christian
or Jewish backgrounds, yet have also come into contact with spiritual
teachings from other traditions, principally from the East. This contact
has helped them develop a "box of tools" which have served to bring
fresh insight into what their own "home faith" may or not mean to
them. I speak in this case specifically of the impact that Buddhism
has had upon such people. Perhaps one of the most important aspects
of Buddhist teachings is its "inclusivity". I would suggest that to
truly engage in the inclusive nature of Buddhist practice is to understand
that despite whether or not we have decided to abandon Christianity
as a spiritual practice in favour of Buddhism, we will, nevertheless,
remain CULTURAL Christians.
There are certain things about ourselves that we simply cannot change.
We can't change the colour of our skin. We can't change the social
situations in which we were raised. We certainly can't do anything
about the fact that most of us were born in the Western hemisphere.
We have been influenced by the conditionings of Christian or Jewish
education & upbringing, & that's IN us, it's part of us. When we respond
to things, we respond to things out of the historicity of our upbringing
and our cultural conditioning. We can't do anything to change that,
& we must begin to understand that it's foolish to suppose we can.
I can remember years ago when I first came into contact with Tibetan
Buddhism, everybody, all the Westerners, were walking around dressed
in all forms of Tibetan apparel, were attempting to comport themselves
as Tibetans do, speaking in that soft, lilting way of the Tibetans,
spinning prayer-wheels, eating nothing but mo-mos & tsampa - what
on Earth FOR? Dressing up in all manner of strange costumes & upsetting
our stomachs with unfamiliar foods won't bring us an inch nearer to
comprehending Buddhist teachings. In fact, such theatricals hold us
up, waste time, it's all extra stuff we will have to dismantle later.
I don't think it's possible to reach any position of attainment
in an Eastern spiritual practice if we're dragging along behind us
a sort of wheelbarrow that's filled with cultural denial. That denial
may well be bound up with trauma experienced in our lives as Christians
or Jews. You know - "One day in church, when I was ten, the priest
felt me up, & ever since then I've been a Hindu." In other words,
a recoil from some traumatic experience in our faith-of-culture that
has raised confusions about our spiritual situation. Such negative
experiences often prompt us to seek the truth elsewhere, away from
all that disillusionment. I would go as far as to say that if we've
ever had a traumatic marital experience, a marriage that was initially
solemnised in a church, that too might affect our attitude towards
Christianity. In our effort to ascribe blame, we blame the church.
After all, that's where the marriage began in the first place, so
perhaps it's the church's fault: " It's the church that's guilty for
my wrecked life, my messed-up marriage!"
For those of us who have embraced a Buddhist practice, the teachings
are very specific about how ready we must be to confront ourselves
as we ARE; not as we wish we were NOT, not as we which we WERE, but
simply as we find ourselves - in every moment. Not in every day and
every week, but in every moment. To discover the art of being ourselves
even when we don't have time to invent the "self" that's going to
be acceptable to us. By that I mean those moments of off-guardedness
when all the nasty stuff's up on the table & we don't have time to
hide it before someone else sees it. We have to have a feeling about
that, some understanding of how that's always going to be part of
our situation. We needn't be helpless; what we can do is to grow longer
arms, develop the capacity to embrace more.
For many of us, it seems, there have been these dual influences
in our spiritual careers. We reach a point in life where having had
some experience of spiritual practice, tasted some of its insights
and some of its disappointments, its pains & joys, all this information,
all this history of effort starts to render down to something that
we FEEL. Perhaps we've reached the point where we've understood something
about this historical "spiritual-denial game" that we play. Maybe
we've begun to realise that it's relevant to understand what it means
to be a good Jew or a good Christian, or whoever else we were BEFORE
we had some exposure to Eastern ideas.
This situation brings up questions for us, always. Constant questions,
arising all the time. "Who are we?" - "Where are we?" The "who are
we?" questions & the "where are we?" questions manifest in our experience
in many different ways. Tremendous outbursts of anger bring with them
a certain blindness, leading to an experience where the anger subsides
& we regain our "sight". When we do, we find ourselves looking at
a battlefield - smoking craters and dead bodies everywhere. Tears
running down the walls. We come back to this, & we say: "where am
I?" "what happened?" "Who did this? - it wasn't ME!" We deny the unacceptable,
all that bitter fruit that we are forced to eat after anger, & we
always do, all of us. We're always left sifting over the ashes. These
are the times when the "who are we" & "where are we" questions are
most relevant.
The question: "who are we?" includes considerations of our spiritual
practice & we might be asking ourselves questions about what it is
that we're actually trying to DO. We can look at various formal religions
that might give us ideas about the purposes of spiritual life, yet
WE are the ones who must ultimately discover what is true for US.
Our truth, our authenticity, has to rest on the questions we ask ourselves
and the answers we find for those questions.
So, how about spiritual practice? - I facetiously entitled this
retreat: "Are we wholly holy?" It's very facetious, I know, but I'm
also being quite serious about it. Are we "wholly"? - as in a bodily
form, a mental collection of things?, & is that "body/mental collection"
whole? - This whole thing we call ourselves, our whole being, is that
whole being "holy"? Is holiness something wholesome? Are we striving
to be "wholly holy"? Is that what it is? I mean- is there something
that we lack, something we've got to find & put into place? Is it
something like that?
What IS "holiness", anyway? We hear this word - heard it all our
lives. But what do we REALLY think "holy" means? What does it mean
to "be holy"? Are we striving for holiness? even if we say: "Huh!
I'm not interested in holy, I'm just a small person, a humble person,
I'm not concerned with holiness!" Perhaps what it really is for us
is something that we're WHOLLY involved with. And we're back to that
again. Something wholly involved.
So what is "holy"? Well, we can consult books that have said something
about holiness. One of them might be: "The Catechism of the Catholic
Church". That's one book that talks about "holy". What does The Catechism
have to say? The Catechism contains several pieces that relate to
holiness. I've pulled out one that I think might be pertinent to this
situation. It states: "The way of perfection passes by way of the
Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.
Spiritual progress entails the ascesis & mortification that gradually
lead to living in the peace and joy of the beatitudes." The Catechism
quotes Gregory of Nyssa, who was one of the Egyptian desert fathers.
St. Gregory states: "He who climbs never stops going from beginning
to beginning through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring
what he already knows." That's very beautiful, isn't it? I'm reminded
of a statement the child-angel makes in Scorsese's "Last temptation
Of Christ" when she says: "This is the way the Saviour comes - gradually,
from embrace to embrace" From embrace to embrace, through embraces
that have no end. This idea that if we climb, if we are FULLY AWARE
in the practice of climbing, then we are always beginning. St. Gregory
of Nyssa says that these beginnings are endless, that we go from beginning
to beginning to beginning, THROUGH beginnings that have no end. Endless,
eternal.
Eternity. What do we think eternity is? Do we think eternity's something
that goes on and on and on and on? Or is eternity really something
that goes in & in & in & in? - If a beginning only leads to a beginning,
then are we "going somewhere", or are we more deeply right where we
ARE? St.Gregory gives us an answer at the end, of course. He says
he never stops desiring what he already knows. In the Zen tradition,
they say: "He may travel many, many miles and never leave his home."
There's something about this beginning-less beginning, or endless
beginning - that we've got to catch. We've got to try and understand
exactly what that phrase is pointing at. In everything that we experience,
we are completely fixed in the idea that we go from point A to point
Z. That's the form our ideas tend to take. We think in this way because
we were brought up in this way . When we're children, our parents
appear God-like. So do school-teachers, priests, rabbis, any authority
figure. In our formative years, we are totally convinced of the trust
we can have in what is revealed to us by adults. One of the things
that's "revealed" to us is a lineal understanding of life. We are
taught that there's a beginning to things, a middle, & an end. We
are taught that if we undertake a task of some sort, then we will
see a result. We are encouraged to believe that we are able to stand
somewhere where we can observe our lives, that we are able to order
them according to our will, that we will be a disembodied witness
to our own life. We're encouraged to think like that.
Such a teaching brings problems. Unexpected conflicts bring us early
experiences of suffering, & we become confused. Our confusion impells
us to reach out & grab something, anything, that might end the pain.
That's when we tend to reinforce the endorsements we've been given
at an early age of how things are, & that tendency starts right where
we are, at ANY stage in our life. Even a baby of two hours old has
an hour's history of conditioning to reach back to in times of confusion.
That's how we were taught, & so that's how we WANT things to be. We
want what we were told to be true, because trying to deal with our
pain & conflict in any other way just gets too tricky. The religiously
orthodox become very vociferous in times of great change. Any shift
in social consciousness, any development of tolerance or a greater
sense of inclusion, will evince howls of protest from the voices of
fundamentalists. In terms of what we accept about the dogma of our
social conditioning, we are all fundamentalists. Any change, any conflict,
& we will be yelling in outrage. There are things we cling to, like
the drowning cling to bits of wood in the sea. There are things that
we really don't feel we can let go of, things we really don't want
to see change.
I've read you one statement on holiness that the Catholic Church
included in its Catechism, now let's see what the Buddhists have to
say about holiness. In this case, we will refer to the Dharmapada.
So we ask the Dharmapada: "what's holiness"? The Dharmapada replies:
"He who is free from obsessions, eating simply, clear-headed and focused
on liberation, like a migrating bird, leaves no trace or track in
the sky". Nothing in the sky is left to show where the bird has been,
nothing to show where the bird is going. Each beat of its wings is
a beginning.
We're obsessed with our conviction that what we have been taught
& what we have lived by in our lives is true & unmovable & ultimately
valid. We dare, sometimes, in unusual moments of confidence, to walk
on the other side of this spectrum, but it gets scary, and we jump
back. Whilst taking this "road lesser travelled" it's okay if all
we encounter are insects on the ground, or little furry dogs scampering
about, but if a tiger jumps out on us, we'll jump back, we'll find
a way off that path just as soon as possible & return to the old road
with great relief. "Phew!! - That was lucky, I almost got eaten there!!"
Suffering brings pain with it, but it also brings clues. Sooner
or later, with Grace, we begin to comprehend, even if only vaguely,
that the old methodology just isn't working any more. We take a tentative
step on the "untravelled path" out of desperation as much as anything
else, yet ironically, we embark upon this new journey with as little
skill as we applied to the old one. Our situation, like the bird in
the air, will never change in that respect. We're just here, & if
that presence is one of unskillfullness, then that's what it is, &
that's how it will be, no matter what "form" we try to give it. What
would sometimes appear to be so easy or necessary or so appropriate
becomes really difficult to do, so there's a dilemma for us. These
two great works I have referred to have offered us a tiny clue as
to what holiness might be, or at least, what it might entail, yet
something remains intangible. The books don't offer us a cut-and-dried
idea that we can just take on. There's no pair of shoes that we can
just put on and walk the streets in. We're being asked to consider
what might be real from a position that is unfamiliar.
This retreat focuses on two great masters: The Lord Buddha, & Christ
Jesus. For a Christian, cultivating holiness has its summation in
the extent to which the practioner is capable of living a Christ-centred
life; or in the words of Thomas a Kempis, to "imitate" him. This is
not to suggest a method whereby we just "copy" or play out a neurotic
role, like some deluded patient in a mental institution who's convinced
he's Napoleon. The central task of the Christian is that of manifesting
Christ in the world. In terms of holiness, it's a question of developing
the responsibility of BEING Christ, that the Christ-nature & the human
nature are one. That becomes our central task in Christian practice,
to manifest Christ in the world through ourselves. So somehow this
Christ nature arises in our human nature. This is the Christian responsibility
- being Christ in the world.
From a Buddhist perspective, the approach is one of returning to
our true nature. In the Zen tradition it is said: "To return to that
nature which existed before your mother & father were born". If the
"true nature" spoken of in the Buddhist context is one of absolute
clarity & naturalness, of spontaneous compassion & precise behaviour,
then we speak of "Buddha nature". So, for the Buddhist, too, there
is a sense of transformation, of emerging as Buddha in the world.
Nations try to be separate things, separate themselves; they are
willing to defend that separation to the death. It's never really
worked, has it? Millions upon millions of people have died. Miles
upon miles of land have been bombed and polluted through the centuries.
All this destruction - to achieve WHAT? To perpetuate the idea that,
apart from perfunctory efforts to include other nations in our plans,
our responsibility begins and ends with our own national interest.
We say: "That's where we are, that's how it is, & our national interest
has to be established before we can do anything else." Well, that's
always been the attitude, the approach, & human history has borne
witness to its consistent failure.
As with nations, so with individuals. We centre our responsibility
upon ourselves & our needs. We like the idea of having some responsibility
towards other people, but we don't really understand how being responsible
for ourselves cannot avoid being responsible for others, too. To be
fully Christian is to take on the business of being Christ as a responsibility.
To be fully Buddhist is to manifest that Buddha nature which is of
the same quality of responsibility.
So who is it who's actually going to carry out this task, shoulder
this responsibility for being either Christ or Buddha in the world?
Once again, the "who are we?" question arises. "It's my responsibility
to be Christlike, but who am I? How seriously can I take that proposition?
How serious can I BE about that? How certain am I, how confident am
I in my view of myself? Do I know who I am?" If I have any doubts,
I must deal with them - those doubts MUST be dealt with first. Strangely
enough, engaging those doubts IS to embark upon authentic practice,
there's no separation. We might say: "I get it - I have to deal with
my doubts before I can get on with the business of being Christ or
Buddha in the world!" We tend to make a distinction between the "me"
that's full of doubts, full of unskillful behaviour, & the "me that
I will become once the rubbish is out of the way". The "me that I
will become" is the "me" that we suppose will be Christlike, Buddhalike.
At that stage, we still don't understand. To truly engage with the
"Great Doubt" IS to manifest Buddha-nature, IS to imitate Christ.
Open the Gospels, they are a depiction of Jesus' struggle with Christ-nature.
Open The Mahjima-Nikaya, the Digha-Nikaya - Siddartha Gautama also
struggled.
Unfortunately, this struggle will NOT lead to any reward that "I"
will receive. In the Anglican prayer-book it says: "To labour & to
seek no reward other than to do Thy will, Oh Lord" What do I mean,
when I say that "I" will receive no reward for my efforts? I mean
there is no separation, neither between myself & others, nor between
whom I AM & who I will BE once I have "woken up". In the Buddhsit
scriptures, there are curious incidents where Gautama, after his enlightenment,
has to keep reminding people that they can no longer call him "Gautama"
- that there's no longer a "Gautama", only The Buddha. It sounds a
little pompous when read in print, but what the scriptures are attempting
to indicate is that this "waking up" has no witnesses. We won't see
ourselves attaining Buddha-nature or entering into unity with Christ-consciousness.
Gautama wasn't able to say to himself: "This is amazing! - I'm becoming
Buddha! - Wow!" No-one else saw it happen, either. Gautama was alone,
ignored by the world. By the time he was sitting under that tree in
Gaya, he'd reached a dead-end. The same for Jesus; according to the
scriptures, he was certainly NOT having a good time in the garden
at Gethsemani, nor did he think that hanging on that cross was so
glorious either. Gautama resolves to sit in that one spot, under that
tree, & either achieve liberation, or die. Jesus, having likewise
reached the end of all his hope, offers his spirit back to God; either
Christ will rise, or Jesus will die.
Both The Buddha & Christ Jesus experienced struggles throughout
their lives of practice; monumental struggles at the end, just prior
to enlightenment. In both cases, those final struggles included great
fear. "Gautama" & "Jesus" were dying, you see, & they KNEW it. There
was something they both had to finally & forever let go of if Buddha
& Christ were to enter the world. We are faced with the same task,
& will experience the same dilemmas. "Dying to ourselves" is an oft-used
phrase, & has become something of a cliché in these times, yet it
still sums up perfectly the central focus of spiritual practice &
the final battle we will have to win. If we don't win that final battle
of the self, then we die. By "dying" I mean that we return, once more,
to the confusion & delusion that is the source of all our suffering.
We do this many times already of course; spiritual practice isn't
really about much else, & making that discovery can be extremely disappointing.
Finding ourselves alone under the tree, we become afraid. Finding
ourselves alone in the garden, we become afraid. Afraid to REALLY
die; we love ourselves too much.
We prefer the struggles in our practice that have always been attractive
& exciting. Feeling "the call" & giving up our job & going off into
the wilderness in search of a monastery or a Dharma centre is intensely
exciting - we feel ourselves to be living the real path. Short of
money, having seriously damaged our future prospects by giving up
our employment, snatching cheap meals from roadside cafes along the
way, we're certain we are following the asceticism of Gautama & Jesus.
Things become even more interesting & uplifting when we finally find
some religious establishment to hang-out in. Now we have the daily
consolation of BEING SEEN to be struggling with our "practice". Others
see us, we see ourselves, the building is full of religious artworks,
there's a shrine-room or a chapel we can space-out in. We are sure
that we have "found our true home".
It's not true. Even when our practice is ridden with delusion &
false paths, there will be moments, flashes, when something authentic
occurs. Call it "Grace" or "spontaneous insight" whatever description
suits, but the fact is that when a REAL seed is ready to pop, then
it pops, whether we are ready for it or not, whether we want it to
or not. Such occurrences can actually be very inconvenient. They can
entail the collapse of something that we have been building our lives
upon, & if we are residing in a centre or a monastery when we experience
such an insight, then our view of our life up to that moment can become
seriously disturbed. We now experience a new dilemma; we're beginning
to see that perhaps we HAVEN'T found the ultimate path after all,
that things aren't as cosy as we supposed them to be. We become uncomfortable,
afraid. We don't realise it, but we have just experienced a "Gaya
moment" or a "Gethsemani moment". Briefly, we saw through a hole in
the veil, & all we saw was loneliness, disappointment, all we felt
was fear. We leap back from the hole, we run from the dark, we desperately
start searching for that warm, cosy place that we were in before this
awful experience occurred. Backwards & forwards, backwards & forwards
- we can remain stuck in that trap for years.
It's surprising what we seek to find comfort in. Why do battered
wives constantly return to the abusive husband? Desperately mistreated
dogs will hang around the same household. Why? One of the saddest
situations I've ever encountered where wife-abuse is concerned is
when women have said to me that they have felt RESPONSIBLE, that there
is a responsibility towards the situation that they don't feel they
can ignore. "I can't help feeling that I'm somehow to blame - I'm
sure if I make a greater effort with him, he'll change eventually".
When victim-wives are getting beaten black & blue by some drunkard
of a husband, still there's something in there that says "I must deserve
this! There's something I'm not doing! If I stay around long enough
and find the key, perhaps I can unlock the door that will stop this
abuse"
It's extraordinary what we perceive our responsibility to be. However
mistaken, we will be prepared to push that conviction to the point
of death. Many women have. Am I blaming? No. It's just an indication
of the extent to which one view, one way of addressing a situation
can totally steal the show, can leave no room, even for the possibility
that there MIGHT be a different way to approach something; we provide
ourselves with zero space in which to do that. Our actions flow from
these well-worn premises & we are incapable of addressing our situation
from a fresh perspective. We fail, consistently, to address our dilemmas
in terms of whatever challenge they may contain. We fail because we're
afraid. Stepping out of the box requires courage - even that realisation
terrifies us. We're being asked to take a leap into the dark. We don't
like to do that. Our actions have an invested quality about them.
We behave conditionally. Our actions have to be validated by "something
else" otherwise we doubt the validity of the actions. To "act out
of nothing" means to act "outside of self", selflessly. The whole
proposition is just too frightening. Better to crawl back into our
hole, better to go back to what we know best.
Buddhism, particularly, has a lot to say about action. The Noble
Eightfold Path could be called a "path of action". Right Action is
one of these steps along the path - the fourth, in a list of eight
such steps, though I urge you NOT to mistake such a path for a "10-step
programme" or anything like that. Action is movement, the things that
we feel impelled to do, or actions that might occur blindly. The First
Noble Truth: "All life is suffering" suggests that our mundane, delusive
actions are conditioned by suffering. Life can't be divorced from
action, for action is the very nature of life. For as long as life
subsists, action will be present. It's suggested, therefore, that
our life of action and thought is pervaded by suffering, is coloured
by it, which sounds rather sad and pessimistic. Yet the presence of
this suffering is also a hopeful sign, an encouraging aspect of our
existence. Why? - As strange as it seems, it is through suffering
that we "wake up". Suffering grounds us. In moments of intense suffering
we are stripped bare; all our old support-systems fail. The force
of suffering is capable of impelling us beyond our cherished views
& ideations, which is why The Buddha considered suffering to be the
First Noble Truth.
The awakened experience is cradled in the experience of suffering,
yet there is a distinction between "false" suffering & "true" suffering.
As I said earlier in this talk, I might choose to throw over my current
life situation, quit my job, default on my mortgage, just abandon
everything in favour of some "great quest" that has popped up in my
mind. I might decide to surrender my whole life, put my whole existence
at the disposal of some perceived "guru" or saviour. Whatever experiences
of suffering flow from such actions, they will be felt to be "better"
than my old frustrations back there in my apartment. These sufferings
will seem inspiring, intoxicating; they will convince me that I have,
finally, "found the path". The fact that I'm my own audience to this
situation & that there might be something suspect about the whole
process may never dawn on me, & if it does, then I will banish such
unsettling thoughts from my mind. There was something very boring,
very uninspiring about living my life in my apartment, going to work,
paying the mortgage, the electric bill & so on. I never had time to
go on all these great retreats that others seemed to find time for.
I tried to follow something of a spiritual life in the midst of all
this, but it was so unsatisfactory, so meaningless, so unreal. So
I decide to dump it all, go somewhere else & start again, go somewhere
"holy" where I can be a new, holy person. We can go on playing these
games until the day we die.
The truth is that we rejected the genuine situation, one that had
flowed from authentic actions in our lives because we were dissatisfied
with the details; living in an apartment, holding down a nine-to-five
job, just being an "ordinary" person wasn't exciting or inspiring
enough for us. Our yearning to "get into the action", to be a part
of this great spiritual movement that we supposed was going on all
around us impelled us into actions that have actually robbed us of
an authentic experience of life. True, wherever we go, we will not
avoid suffering, but as I said before, even suffering has many aspects.
If my experience of suffering springs from a natural situation, one
in which I must face each day & accept its difficulties & its joys
as I find them, then my suffering will contain this subtle "authentic"
quality that I have been talking about. Such suffering has arisen
in the midst of a genuinely-lived life, one hidden from the world,
yet so much a part of it. The lives of the Saints contain many instances
of personal struggle & suffering that never went beyond the ordinary,
were contained very much within the hidden life of the individual
themselves. It's true that many saints are famous for miracles, for
having had visions, for all sorts of wonderful things, but these are
NOT the reasons why they have been canonised as saints. Saints have
been distinguished by their capacity to live the ordinary life, &
to live it heroically.
We're in for this suffering until we really figure out what it's
about, what's pushing it up from underneath. We're not going to do
that if we keep running every time things get lonely or desolate.
Every time we run, we're actually manifesting more of the same thing,
locking ourselves ever tighter to the wheel. We can't get off the
wheel by simply manufacturing an imagined escape. It's all-pervasive,
it's the First Noble Truth. We might have to hear that many, many
times before we have the capacity to say : "Okay, I give in. I am
going to accept this because I have run out of any other way of getting
around it. All right, all right, all right. Enough! all right, I'll
give this a chance." Right Action; that kind of "giving up" draws
us a little closer, perhaps a first step along the Noble Eightfold
Path.
The expression "Right Action" should not lead us to suppose that
there is a right action as opposed to a wrong one. The word "right"
here implies appropriateness, action that now occurs in a greater
light of wisdom, knowledge & experience. Without a flowering of insight
in the course of action, suffering remains as the only prompter, &
as actions always give rise to results, those results will be conditioned
by the suffering that gave rise to them. Actions bear fruit always.
We cannot take any action without it affecting everything. You've
probably all heard the chaos-science principle: "A butterfly flaps
its wings on Big Sur & there's a snowstorm in Siberia" The very smallest
actions that we perform have an effect on the whole of the universe.
I move a piece of paper from the left side of my table to the right,
& as a result, the entire universal order of things has been changed
completely. The universe didn't contain a piece of paper that was
on the right side of my table a moment ago. Now it does. It's different,
totally! The whole world was based on a different set of rules before
I did that.
Going back to what St.Gregory of Nyssa said about this idea of endless
beginnings - we're always beginning. Taken from one perspective, "endless
beginnings" can denote the world of Samsara, the constant round of
delusion & suffering; yet from another position, the full realisation
of the implications of "always beginning" is also Nirvana. Things
in themselves do not change, nothing "becomes" something else. We
can't stop being what we are, & we are what we are in each moment,
each beginning. Samsara? Nirvana? One is the other, either state arises
as it will, for nothing in the substance of either is different. It's
all very confusing! There's no way we can stop action. We can't become
jelly, a sort of amoeba, just sitting in the bottom of a bucket. That's
not going to happen. We are what we are. We act as we act. We can
become very weary of the fact that everything we do contains fruit
which, when it ripens, contains knowledge of a wider picture afterwards.
If it was possible, we would like to see the wider view BEFORE we
take action. We don't like fouling-up; it upsets us to be constantly
appreciating the stupidity of some of our actions AFTER the event:
"Why did I do that? Why am I so stupid!" "Why didn't I see that before?"
"Why did I have to do this really dumb thing before I realized how
really dumb I've been?" Am I that blind?
All this hurts so much, & things can become very desperate. We so
wish we could avoid our pains, our mistakes, we so wish we could see
into the future & avoid the pitfalls that loom before us. At the extreme
end of such emotions, we start running off to fortune tellers. We
desperately want to know the future: "Read my hand!" Suddenly, we're
taking fortune-tellers seriously. Why? Why are we obsessed with the
future? Why do fortune tellers make a living? Because we want to know
what's going to happen. Why do we want to know what's going to happen?
- Because we don't want to get caught again, that's why. We want to
have the big picture in front of us BEFORE we go into it. Then we
won't screw up. Then we won't be left with that awful experience we
always have: "Why did I do that?" If we could, we would wave a magic
wand. Wave our magic wand - ting-a-ling-a-ling - & everything would
be back how it was before we messed-up. Then we could do it again,
properly, knowing what's going to happen. Groundhog day, you know,
do it again! Go over the whole thing again. We can't. We can't.
Understanding action is to understand that when we perform an action,
it's done. It's done. The results are what they are & we have to experience
them as they are. We can't retrieve time. We can't turn the clock
back. We have to stay with things as they are. As if that situation
isn't enough, it gets worse. It gets more compounded. Because now
we begin to realise that if we're in endless situations where we are
always losing out, if we find ourselves always regretting what it
is that we've done, we begin to feel that what's wrong here is that
we're not " being the right person" in these situations. So we start
trying to re-invent ourselves, develop that "special person" who won't
mess up, who will be VERY careful around themselves & other people.
They will weigh up every situation, listen carefully to everything
that's said to them before they give a correct, wise, "skillful" answer.
In the Christian tradition, this strategy is known as "quietism" &
it's considered to be one of the major obstacles to authentic spiritual
growth. Quietism however, can be found in any spiritual tradition,
it's a classic error. We believe there's an advantage in inventing
ourselves in every situation we find ourselves in. My poor old mother,
who is dead now, God rest her soul - used to be a source of endless
amusement to my sister and I because she would adopt a "special voice"
when answering the phone. She had a 'telephone' voice. She really
did. She'd pick up the phone: "Hello!" & there would be this funny
voice! Why did she do that? She did it because she needed to act-out
the role of being the person who is not intimidated by telephones,
she believed that in order to deal with the situation effectively,
she had to become the person who was capable of doing so.
There is therefore this constant parade of "selfs", different "people"
that we constantly invent to meet each stuation that arises. The personality
we manufacture is momentary. I say "momentary" because even in each
perceived situation there is moment-by-moment change. Nothing is static.
We have a desire, a yearning for stasis, & that yearning in the face
of constant change is a source of great suffering for us. Trying to
keep up with each moment as a "self" that will deal with it effectively
takes up all our time; we are pre-occupied with roles, & as a result
we never learn who we really are. We can live our whole lives lost
to ourselves, & often do, over countless lifetimes. How then, does
that change? How do we relinquish the game-playing & attain authenticity?
Is it REALLY possible to to free ourselves from the endless personality-games
& establish constancy, to be truly & consistently ourselves in every
situation?
We certainly won't achieve this freedom by trying to be somebody
else, the "person who is free of multiple-personality games" for that
is simply another variation of the same game! Authenticity is only
attained through the constant repetition of those actions & responses
that form the ground of our suffering. Such a proposition sounds ludicrous
of course, illogical. Yet there is no other way. Any attempt to wriggle
out of the dilemma is just another game, another role. The paradox
is that if we REALLY wish to wake up, become truly aware, then we
have to wake up in the midst of our delusions, become fully aware
of the games we play. There's no way we can do that consciously, deliberately.
The karmic fruit ripens constantly - we are stuck with it, & we must
be patient. The third Great perfection in Buddhism is "Kshanti" or
patience, forbearance. In old English, the word "suffer" was used
to denote patience. In the Gospel of St. Mark, Jesus the Christ says:
"Suffer the little children to come unto me & forbid them not: for
of such is the Kingdom of God" Suffer the children - be patient, allow
the children to BE. Suffering is patience - patience also carries
with it an aspect of suffering. The same could be said of our delusive
role-playing - to treat the presence of the problem with patience,
to allow it to be present, & as we do with children, watch over, but
don't interfere with things. It's not so easy to do that, which is
why "Kshanti" is described as a "Perfection".
If we are to awaken, then we must INCLUDE these failings, these
false responses. We must wear out the old games, like shoes. It will
be insufficient simply to gain insight into the mechanics of the process.
We must have that initial insight, of course, but this is to "awaken
to the possibility of awakening" it's not yet the immediate, spontaneous
awakened experience. "Awakening to awakening" might be likened to
climbing to the top of a mountain & seeing a palace way off in the
distance, sitting atop another peak. It's a beautiful palace, made
of gold & crystal, a breathtaking sight. We KNOW the palace is there,
we can see it. To actually ENTER the palace, however, requires that
we come down from the mountain we're standing on & start a journey.
Passing through low valleys, the palace remains out of sight. Once
in a while, we gain high ground & catch a glimpse again, which is
very encouraging. Most of the journey, however, will be taken with
the palace unseen. In the meantime, everything on the path has to
be dealt with - crossing fast-flowing rivers, avoiding highwaymen,
struggling through dense forests, fighting dragons in caves. All these
situations are very real, critical & dealing with them involves us
totally.
We can be easily led away from what it is that we have understood
- the sight of the palace that compelled us to undertake this journey
in the first place. This is what I meant when I said that having an
insight into the mechanics of awakening is, in itself, not enough.
We can become so involved with dealing with the rivers & the dragons
that we forget the original motive, which was to reach the palace.
Perhaps we just get tired of the whole thing anyway, meet someone
attractive, fall in love, build a little hut in a clearing by the
river, settle down. The intial insight is not enough. We have to live-out
everything, to the bitter end. We fall again & again, yet the seed
of insight is now with us, we HAVE seen the palace. Like moving the
piece of paper from one side of the desk to the other - a seemingly
small, insignificant action, & yet the whole universe changes. We
have this intial insight, & in that context everything changes.
How does intitial insight manifest itself? Through our growing awareness
of the repetitious, tedious, nonsensical nature of our present existence
& our modes of behaviour. This awareness creeps up on us, like a thief
in the night. How is initial insight experienced? - Through suffering.
The fact that initial insight should be born in the midst of suffering
is subtle, unexpected. Curiously, our authentic experience of this
insight may well come as a crashing disappointment, & for this reason,
we may well not recognise it. We entertained ourselves for a long
time with the hope, the belief that spiritual practice would inevitably
lead to higher & higher levels of freedom, yet as we proceed, if the
practice has truly engaged, then we are likely to experience deeper
& deeper levels of despair. Locating our delusions & waking up from
our dreams is a painful experience; they have been our companions
for a long time. We yearned for the "wider view", we wished so fervently
that we could see into the future in order that we wouldn't make the
same old mistakes all over again, we became exasperated with the way
in which all our old survival strategies failed us. We have, now,
almost in spite of ourselves, arrived at the point of intial insight
& things look pretty bleak. We wanted the wider view? Well - now we've
got it. For the first time, we experience true insight into the delusions
we have lived our lives by, the unskillful nature of our relationships
with others, the sheer waste & stupidity of it all, & comprehending
that in the cold light of day hurts.
These are genuinely painful experiences. It's difficult to understand
why it is that suffering is the ground upon which realisation stands;
it didn't say anything about all this in the books that we read so
avidly. There is an old story about Shunryu Suzuki-roshi: one day,
he noticed that a particular student was spending an inordinate amount
of time meditating. Every time Suzuki saw this young man, he seemed
to be sitting on his butt staring at the wall. Suzuki asked him: "Why
do you spend so much of your time meditating?" The student answered:
"to gain enlightenment!" Suzuki looked at him: "to gain enlightenment?
- What would you want to do that for? - when you get it, you might
not like it!" The story is probably apochryphal, but it makes a sound
point. Catholics have a similar expression: "Be careful what you pray
for, you must just get it!" To gain insight into ourselves is to gain
insight into the nature of our suffering, what has remained, as it
were, hidden behind the false perceptions, the mistaken realities.
Rather than affirming any big idea we had about who we were, we instead
become acutely aware of whom we are NOT. This is a humbling, painful
experience. We spent so long waiting for the "Big Moment", waiting
for that lightning-flash in which we would see the face of God, or
the moment when Buddha-Mind would burst forth - the unfolding of the
thousand-petalled lotus, with us sitting there, right in the middle
if it. We played endless games, constantly watching ourselves out
of the corner of our eye, checking, making sure. Then we would mess-up,
& have to begin the process all over again, & all the while, our suspicions
& our doubts would lurk in the shadows unassuaged. Then, something
snapped. Just like that, we suddenly ran out of string, came to the
end, & that was that. We can't invent it, it just happens. We give
up looking, we give up checking on ourselves, we give up hoping, we
just - give up.
